Run on HeavyFuel (Resto)

[HeavyFuel]

I've been a member of this great site for ½ dozen years or so, and have really appreciated all of the tips, advice and experience that is offered up .  Thank you very much.

This website is like a crutch for me, and using it makes many of the tasks involved with this car infinitely easier to accomplish.

My car was at paint/body for years, and in that time I tried to rebuild/recondition whatever parts that I could for reuse on the car, as I'm shooting for a result that is as close to  factory appearing as possible.

The painted body has been back in my garage since mid July, and I've got 'er put back together enough to warrant posting some progress.  I'll try to post before and after shots as much as possible, as I've enjoyed seeing that type of thing on other pages.

Here we are, starting from scratch, brand new body work and paint.  It took a while to get back from paint, but hopefully it was worth the wait.

The body lines and gaps turned out pretty well.  I had to re-adjust a hood hinge a couple days ago, to get one cowl side to settle in lower to the rubber bumper.  Everything else is pretty good.

[HeavyFuel]

The engine waits patiently for its turn to be installed.  All in due time.

I tried to duplicate the way the factory did things as much as I could.

[HeavyFuel]

A clean slate..... but not for long.

[HeavyFuel]

This paint over the undercoating is one of the several goofs that the painter did.   I'll fix it  with undercoating later.

[JB400]

Wish mine looked that good right now.  What color is that? It looks salmon in the pics.

[HeavyFuel]

The factory undercoating was in pretty good shape, so we scraped/ground off the loose stuff, and filled in those areas, then went over the whole thing for a uniform effect.
Torque boxes and subframe connectors were welded in and ended up looking like they were born with the car.

[HeavyFuel]

The guts got more paint than the factory put down, but that's OK.  A small panel of floor on the driver side needed to be replaced, the repair job is so nice, you can't even tell.

[HeavyFuel]

The factory paint patterns were duplicated for the doors.

[HeavyFuel]

Wish mine looked that good right now.  What color is that? It looks salmon in the pics.

MM1 Bronze

[HeavyFuel]

The trunk ended up with way better coverage of paint than the factory put down.....and no runs.

I learned a lesson when I attached the trunk latch.....do not re-attach things using the old wear marks on the item as gospel.  When I closed the trunk lid, it came a 1/16 from rubbing on the right side, due to the lid shifting over to get into the latch slot.  A small shift of the latch to the left fixed it.  Too easy.

[HeavyFuel]

The left rear quarter had some damage in a previous life, and was replaced with a Chrysler full qtr. The sticker was on the inside before this work was done.  We tried to duplicate the sound deadener/undercoating pattern (we copied the right side) .  It turned out pretty decent.

[HeavyFuel]

The floor center was a little rusty, so a repo center was patched in.  We didn't go with a complete floor, just the lowest part (that has the stamped depressions) was cut out and replaced.  It turned out nice.

[HeavyFuel]

The black panel was put down over the top of the clear.   I don't know how that's going to hold up.  I wanted to do it a different way, but the painter said it would be fine.  We'll see.

[HeavyFuel]

I tried to use as many of the factory original parts from this car as I could.  This is the original rubber bump stop, complete with the original waxy coating still on.

Many parts were media blasted and coated in some fashion.

[HeavyFuel]

The body guy missed a couple of small holes in the wheel well, so I patched them over with some JB Weld putty, and will undercoat over that.  Hopefully that will hold up.

[HeavyFuel]

I tried to reproduce the original colors of components as much as I could.  I messed up on a couple of parts so far, but most are right, I think.

[HeavyFuel]

The shock mount plate under the spring should be natural metal color.....I missed that one.  I'm gonna leave it black, it looks OK....but it does bug me a little.

[HeavyFuel]

more

[HeavyFuel]

Here we are getting a few things put in under the hood.  Pretty much everything is getting gone through before reinstallation, but I'm not going to post each and every thing, naturally.

If the original finish on a part was intact, without rust, I kept the part original, as can be seen in this A/C motor.

The booster was sent away for rebuilding, then mated to a new master cylinder, which was painted up with the lid and retainer on, as the factory did it.

[HeavyFuel]

As mentioned before, torque boxes and subs were added, so it was necessary to cut the fuel lines to get them snaked through.  That was a total pain.  But the location of the line splices will make them not very noticable.

[HeavyFuel]

My dash was in pretty decent shape, and besides a repair job on the bulk connector, just needed a good cleanup.

I obtained good used bulkhead connecter, and transferred all of the connection over.  The usual spots were toasted...the red and black wires that went to and from the ammeter.  I repaired those areas, and will be doing the bypass as described  by Ebooger to lighten the load through the connecter.

[HeavyFuel]

I found some good insulating/sound proofing material from Thermo Tech.  It is really similar to one of the Dynamat products and the price was pretty good.  I will only go as far as shown since my car is pretty stock, and has the undercoating.  I don't want it too quiet!

My heater box was in nice shape....that is the original paint.....but I tore it totally down to replace all the foam/seals, and clean it up.  I also pulled out the A/C components, and fabbed up a fake panel to channel air as the original parts would have.  We'll see how it works.

The dash is pretty nice, will just need good cleaning.  I didn't have to paint the top area behind the pad or anything, and the pads all look good.

[HeavyFuel]

I've  had to contact my local source for a few original parts that I need, like a couple of plugs that live underneath the package tray in the floor.  I busted the originals, when I took them out.

Naturally, my car has it's share of repo parts on it, when good original stuff is just not available.

These shields are original, just sandblasted, POR15 until it gets tacky, then shot with SEM Trim Black. Pretty durable, and not as shiny as the pic shows.  The rubber part at the top is original.   

I'm not gonna want to mess these up with undercoating later, but it's gotta be done.

[HeavyFuel]

The painter didn't shoot much paint on the roof, but then neither did the factory.

[Paul G]

Great job! I am sure you are proud, I would be.