hemigeno's Daytona restoration - a few more tweaks... again!

[hemigeno]

Im not sure but wasnt that seal material called masticated rubber

Boy, have I received a crash course in rubber manufacturing terminology over the past three months...   

Masticated rubber is a term used in the industry to describe rubber products made with a recycled ground rubber component.  There is a WIDE variety of rubber that falls under this category.  Sorta like walking into Lowe's and looking for "Lumber".

That ThomasNet directory was actually one of the places I found months ago.  I did find a couple of vendors from there who said they could make what I was looking for.  As it turns out, the original material is almost certainly a virgin (not masticated) product with a non-woven fiber embedded in the rubber.  The problem is finding a manufacturer willing to make ANY rubber product with a non-woven fiber, no matter whether it's a masticated or virgin rubber product.  That's where my original source stopped.  He could do masticated or virgin rubber, just not the loose fiber embed.  There's this little problem of the loose fibers contaminating the machinery and the building the machinery is housed in...      

So, the alternative is finding a manufacturer who already makes a similar product - and they do exist.  I made some calls yesterday, and a guy is checking on the availability of some material I have high hopes for.  There is one more name I've been given of a manufacturer that makes mudflaps, and they might be able to help out if this latest material lead doesn't pan out.

440mop, I don't know who Josh's uses as a supplier, but if they use Dale's Cuda Shop the seals will not be exactly like the originals.  Dale's pieces are probably the right shape (I didn't compare them to the originals), but they are way too flexible, seem thicker and do not have any texture to them at all.  They will work, and 99% of folks at your average car show would probably never notice the difference. 

Yeah, I know - I'm too picky...   

[moparstuart]

anymore word on your quest ?    look at this nice dog house 

[hemigeno]

anymore word on your quest ?   

Yesterday at 4:30pm I got the contact information for someone over at FelPro Gaskets.  Someone I know has already talked with this guy from FelPro, and they apparently understand what we are looking for and think they might be able to duplicate the rubber.  I am supposed to cut off a piece of the original rubber seal, and UPS it to him so they can run it through their laboratory.  He seems to think that it might not be asbestos fibers, but they'll know a lot more when they get the material.

More later, after I've had the chance to contact him...

Oh yeah, nice doghouse! 

[PocketThunder]

anymore word on your quest ?    look at this nice dog house 

So that's where the jack is stored..   

[moparstuart]

  you have to use the jack to keep the nosecone open , wing cars go so fast the nose might crumple in . 

[moparstuart]

gene i see that the red daytona vance restored is for sale in the ww news letter , says it was a 98.6 car at carlisle 

[hemigeno]

That is a really, really nice car too.  I think it was officially judged at Carlisle back in the mid-'90s, although it's been displayed the last two years there.  The current owner thought Danny and I were nuts the way we were poring over every little detail on his car.

The sad part is, the judging standards have likely been raised since then due to some awesome concours restorations like Dave Walden's Challenger R/T and HemiCuda before that.  I'd wager that if the former Chris Sauer car (the red one in the WW newsletter classifieds) were judged under today's standards, it might not score even that high.  My car probably won't score where Chris' car would be at today, since his was a 16,000 mile all-original ride - so most of his parts could be cleaned up and refurbished rather than having a ton of pitted/worn parts to replace like mine. 

We'll see.

[moparstuart]

any pictures ? or it

[69_500]

That is a really, really nice car too.  I think it was officially judged at Carlisle back in the mid-'90s, although it's been displayed the last two years there.  The current owner thought Danny and I were nuts the way we were poring over every little detail on his car.

The sad part is, the judging standards have likely been raised since then due to some awesome concours restorations like Dave Walden's Challenger R/T and HemiCuda before that.  I'd wager that if the former Chris Sauer car (the red one in the WW newsletter classifieds) were judged under today's standards, it might not score even that high.  My car probably won't score where Chris' car would be at today, since his was a 16,000 mile all-original ride - so most of his parts could be cleaned up and refurbished rather than having a ton of pitted/worn parts to replace like mine. 

We'll see.

I believe that he thought we were crazy because we spent nearly an hour staring at the jack to his Daytona. It was either that, or the fact that I was on my belly crawling under the car getting pictures of little details. Or the fact that we looked at the one car for probably around 2 1/2 hours on the saturday last year.

I'm not all convinced that the scoring at Carlisle has changed that much since that Daytona was scored. Having looked at it just a few months ago, and seeing what some of the cars scored there this year, I'd say that the Daytona would still be in the mid 90's if it were to be scored today. Now if it went to the Nationals to be judged that would be a whole other ball game.

[hemigeno]

Danny will have to dip into his vast photo archives to get pictures of it.  I had quite a few, but they were wiped out in my hard-drive crash back in April. 

[hemigeno]

I know I'm a little behind schedule in posting pictures showing what's happening with my car...  OK, I'm a lot behind schedule and there hasn't been a whole lot of progress since the flurry of activity leading up to April...

However, I have taken a few pictures along the way and they might be of some use and/or interest to folks, so I'll post them as I took 'em.

This first batch was from a trip in May that I took.  At the time, they had the nosecone on for final fitment/adjustment, and for working out a nagging problem with the headlight door adjustment.  When these pictures were taken, they still had not been able to get the doors to close the way they wanted them.

The fender/nosecone seals you see are the originals, and they're in halfway decent shape.  I am still hopeful that a company that seems to be interested in providing the rubber nosecone & radiator flat rubber seal material can also splice some NOS seal material that I have - this will effectively "create" my own NOS set of fender/nosecone seals.  As a backup plan, we'll go with the original seals.

Lots more pictures to come tonight...

[hemigeno]

More nosecone detail shots

[hemigeno]

In the last two pictures you can see what has become the bane of my existence since April.  The rubber air seals that fasten inside the nosecone which force the air to go through the radiator rather than around it have proven to be a nearly impossible item to address.  The original seals on my car were slightly damaged in the engine fire, but the worse problem came as the car was being disassembled.  The worker who was taking the nose apart literally grabbed the old seals and ripped them off the nose right through the pop rivets.  I nearly threw up when I saw him do that, as I suspected these seals would be difficult to find.  Boy, was I right.  The damage was already done by the time I saw what had happened, so there was no sense in screaming about it - although I sorta felt like it at the time.

The reproduction seals available through Dale's Cuda Shop may be cut to the right shape, but their texture, thickness, stiffness and even the color are so far off that I didn't even consider putting them on.  The seals you see in the picture were actually cut from a pallet pad Vance found at a local machine shop.  They too are far from perfect, and I have no intentions of actually leaving them on the car.  Because the seals were installed with the nosecone, and the nosecone painted while attached to the car, we have no choice but to hold off on painting the car until suitable rubber seal material can be found.

I have driven myself to distraction over the past several months (well, as I've had time to chase down leads anyway) trying to find a manufacturer who can reproduce what we need.  One Mfg. led me down the primrose path for about 3 months, until they finally admitted that they could not make what I needed.  Gee, thanks.

At the moment, I have one manufacturer who thinks they already make a product pretty similar to the original stuff (I sent him a small section cut from my original seal material).  A sample should arrive at the office either this week or next, and we'll take a look at how close it really is at that time.

There is a debate among the people I've consulted on this topic about how hard/stiff the original seal material was when installed back in 1969.  ALL of the rubber guys I've spoken to have said that no matter how carefully you store a rubber product, it gets harder with age.  They all say that the stiff original rubber samples I am sending them were nowhere nearly that hard when they were new.  The question becomes, exactly how stiff was the material?  No one can answer the question definitively, and no two sales reps answer it exactly the same way either.

The manufacturing process that determines how hard a rubber product actually becomes after curing depends on how long it is left in the mixing vat prior to being rolled through the dies to flatten it out.  There is a very fine line between letting the material become as hard as we want, and letting it get too hard in the vat so that they actually have to disassemble the equipment and chisel the cured rubber off of the mixing arms, blades and vat sides.  Thoughts of first degree murder cross the minds of every plant worker when that happens, so they don't usually allow the rubber batches to get close enough to the flash point - thereby reducing the possibility of it getting away from them.  All I can do is beg them to make a batch as hard as their manufacturing tolerances allow, and I'll have to live with whatever the result is.  It is almost certain that the new/reproduction material will not be as hard as those cars sporting original seal material, but there is also no consensus on how hard those seals were when they were new either.

What a mess...

[hemigeno]

Here are some shots of the lower valance, a wheelwell shot and one of the fender's topside

[hemigeno]

More shots of the nosecone, hood and fender fitment.  I was trying to show the lengths that they were going to in order for all the margins to fit just right.

[hemigeno]

More margin/fitment shots.  I forgot to mention in the previous thread that they were still trying to massage the left fender's alignment with the nosecone.  No matter how hard you try, these nosecones NEVER fit perfectly.  It's a game of compromise - what are you going to feel comfortable letting go...   

[hemigeno]

More pics

[hemigeno]

Yet more pics...  The last three are of the original seals that we still had.  Several were still intact and undamaged, but there's almost no way to match a reproduction material to the original so perfectly that it wouldn't be noticeable.  So, either they'll all be original stuff (not possible) or all reproductions (my only choice).  If you have your original seals intact or already removed, protect them at all costs!!!

[hemigeno]

Some more inner fender and nosecone mounting bracket (a/k/a "crash bar") detail shots.  You can see yet another section of the rubber seals that I'm looking to reproduce.

Also, I don't remember if I pointed it out in an earlier comment or not, but the regular 1969 bumper brackets were installed after the body paint was sprayed, and before the sound deadener were sprayed on.  The Daytona nosecone crash bars did not cover up the old bracket's footprint exactly, so you can see the outline of the original bumper bracket left by the sound deadener, as well as the body-color paint peeking out from behind the crash bars.  Details, details.

[hemigeno]

More inner fender, and backside-of-the-nosecone shots.  I took the perspective shot from the engine bay just as a reminder of how small those openings are that the air is supposed to go through in order to cool the engine.

[hemigeno]

A nosecone/valance picture, from the inside, a picture of the battery tray (which was a reminder to me to tell Vance that he still hadn't swapped the battery tray out for the correct one yet), and two shots of the latch tray.  Notice the textured black paint on the latch tray?  That's how my car's tray was originally painted - and it's definitely not the only car to receive this treatment.  We chose to go back with the same organosol-type paint, and I'm sure I'll get more than a few people telling me that it is incorrect.

[hemigeno]

Some more pictures of the latch tray and radiator yoke / hood bumper bracing, as well as another lower valance shot.  You can see how they wallowed out the hole for the hood pin mounting location - guess they wanted to have enough room for adjusting it??   

[hemigeno]

Here are some shots of the rocker-to-fender area, and some additional detail shots inside the fenderwell itself

[hemigeno]

Here are some shots of the nosecone Z-braces from the topside.  You can see more of those infernal rubber seals...   

[hemigeno]

The first two shots are of the headlight vacuum actuators.  One popular belief is that the actuators are supposed to be black.  Most NOS parts are indeed black, but the original, assembly-line actuators had a weird phosphate-type coating on them.  Several years ago, I stumbled across a REALLY nice set of take-off actuators from a guy who bought a '69 R/T and immediately took it dragracing.  The actuators were pulled off to save weight, and had been on the shelf for 36-38 years when I bought them - they are absolutely pristine.

You can also see the vacuum lines, which are the original one for this car.  They are in remarkably good shape for their age.  The headlight wiring harness is a NOS regular 1969 Charger set, although it escapes me at the moment if they had to do any modifications to make it work within the nosecone.  The original wiring harness was there, so they did have the original pattern to go by. 

The last picture was one I took because of a question asked this past spring about how the A-pillar mouldings attached.  You can see the holes on the backside of the A-pillar for mounting those.