'71 Hits the Paint Booth

[71charger_fan]

The plan, such as it is, is to get it from the paint shop back to the hot rod shop and get the reassembly underway. The engine's been cleaned up and painted and I have all new rubber parts waiting their turn to go back on it.

[Wicked72]

where did you get your new rubbers?

[71charger_fan]

I bought everything Dixie Restoration Parts had to fit my car a few years ago at Carlisle and have pieced together the rest from various sources including Detroit Muscle Technologies.

[71charger_fan]

Finally getting close.

[areibel]

Beautiful! 

[ACUDANUT]

Nice. 

[71charger_fan]

Still running down little (and a few big) things that went missing over the months it was blown apart. At this point, I've pretty much exhausted my in-house supply of spares and have fortunately found everything through the online vendors, the for sale section here, and ebay.

[71charger_fan]

After about 2 years, I finally have a windshield back in it. This is the AMD piece.

[tan top]

 

[71charger_fan]

Good to have it home. Still a bit of troubleshooting to do, but it's nice to have it back in my own garage.

[ACUDANUT]

AMD sells windshields ?  Don't places like safelight carry these ? 

[71charger_fan]

Probably, but I was overseas at the time ordering off the internet and having them shipped to my friend's shop. Picking up an AMD piece was easiest for me at that time.

[Brian L]

Great looking car! Can I ask you your wheel and tire sizes? Getting ready to put some on my 71 and I want to make sure they won't rub. Yours looks like the right setup. Thanks!

[71charger_fan]

Rears are 15x8 with 275/60 and fronts are 15x7 with 255/60. I forget the offsets. I think it was about 4 in the back and 3 3/4 in the front, but can't say for sure.

[Brian L]

  Thanks!

[71charger_fan]

Finally got the Classic Auto Air system charged yesterday. With Carlisle this coming weekend, I didn't want to put it off any longer in case there was going to be troubleshooting involved. There was one refrigerant line connection that had been left loose. After tightening that, the system easily held 30in of vacuum and I was very pleasantly surprised when the compressor kicked on and cool air started coming out of the vents. I do have cool air coming out of the defrost vents when set to A/C. I'm not sure if it's worth the bother of troubleshooting that.

[71charger_fan]

Deciding to switch to the Firecore RTR distributor after the body and paint work was done left me with some extra holes in the firewall.

[71charger_fan]

I got my upper door panels back from Legendary and installed. It was nice to switch out the somewhat ratty green ones I had in there as placeholders.

[71charger_fan]

I used some foam flooring from Harbor Freight and some indoor/outdoor carpet from COSTCO to make a trunk mat. I have patterns for the trunk dress-up panels, but am not sure what material to use to try and reproduce those.

[71charger_fan]

Some more up close photos of the Classic Auto Air system installed in a B-engined '71 B-body.

[Dino]

Wow this all turned out really nice! Getting the A/C working again in my car was one of the best repairs. So nice to have ice cold air on the hot days.   

[71charger_fan]

I've had the car for 30 years. Although it's an original A/C car, until this week, I've never had working A/C.

[71charger_fan]

Once I got the car out in the sun and really got a chance to look at it closely, I realized the paint job wasn't of the quality I paid for. I even got it back with a chip in the quarter panel. I had decided to just live with it. However, my wife told me if I'm really that unhappy with it, I should find the right paint shop and get it done again. So, after a couple of years of looking, I've got the right guy this time. So, I've started stripping it down for another go. Not positive what the new color will be, but I want to erase as much as possible the memories of getting screwed on the current paint so there will definitely be a color change. The paint shop won't be ready for it until probably mid-February, but might as well get started. Why pay them to do simple disassembly?

[NHCharger]

Terry. Sorry to hear about that. Did they try any additional wet sanding and buffing? Or were the problems worse than that?

[71charger_fan]

More wet sanding and buffing would likely fix a couple of the runs, but the uneven pearl on the major color and the blotchy metallic on the stripe are just half-assed and unfixable except through a repaint. I was just going to eat it and live with it but my wife convinced me that if I was that unhappy with it, I should just get it redone.