MOPAR JOHNS B5 DAYTONA RESTORATION!!

[Mopar John]

                                      BUMPER BRACKET REINFORCEMENTS
Moving along with the reassembly was the rear bumper bracket reinforcements. They both were in very good shape and didn't take much work. The first picture shows the prep work and one side ready to be reinstalled. The next 2 pictures shows the reinforcements welded back into the Daytona body. The last picture shows the lower bumper jack storage bracket welded back in. Sorry for the long delay in posting!

[Mopar John]

                                                        LEAD REPAIRS!
Now that the trunk area had all the metal work finished it was time to work on the Daytona window plug and quarter panel seams! Along with these areas the windshield posts also had seams. These were originally filled with lead from the factory! First Troy did any grinding and welding that he felt was neccessary. This batch of pictures show those repairs. The first 2 are of the passengers side quarter panel to roof seam. The last 2 pictures show the front windshield posts.

[Mopar John]

                                                OLD TIME CRAFTSMANSHIP!
Now it was time to restore the original leaded seams. Troy sought out an expert in this type of work. He found a retired body man in his area that was willing to come to his shop and help. He not only did some of the lead work but helped Troy learn how to do this work. The first couple of pictures show the expert doing the leaded seams and the last 2 pictures show Troy doing the work. Troy informed me that he learned enough about this that he can do these repairs in house as part of his restoration buisness! I was thankfull that Troy's efforts to duplicate the factory process worked out in this area!

[Mopar John]

                                                         BOTTOMS UP!
  With all the metal work done topside it was time to get to work on the bottom of the Daytona body shell!
The rear portion of the body didn't take a whole lot of work since the trunk floor and trunk floor extensions had already been done. Here are some pictures of that area.

[Mopar John]

  The bottom of the other floor pans needed some attention from surface rust pitting. The frame rails were solid but needed a lot of dent repairs to turn it into a show car. Everywhere a jack was placed or that junkyard forklift picked up the body it made some kind of dent. Truthfully, I am afraid to jack the thing up now! This batch of pictures show some of those repairs taking place. The next step will be to primer the body shell!

[Mopar John]

 I got a little ahead of my self saying that the primering of the body shell would be next. I am back on pictures directly from the disc's that Troy sent me. This first batch is of the trunk bumper bracket braces, the trunk latch support and the bottom of the trunk pan. You have seen these area's previously but these are in better detail!

[Mopar John]

 Next up is pictures of filler work over the metal repairs and where there was rust pitting!

[Mopar John]

More of the filler work!

[Mopar John]

More!

[Mopar John]

Finally the last batch of filler work pictures! Now the next thing up will be the first primer of the Daytona body shell!

[Mopar John]

FINALLY THE PRIMER GOES ON THE BODY SHELL!

[Mopar John]

                             MORE PHOTOS OF THE PRIMERED BODY SHELL!
I posted a lot of pictures yesterday so I divided them up. Today I have a few more batches of the primered body shell. At this point all the metal work was complete. All the factory spot welds were duplicated during this process and show up real well in some of the primer pictures.  ENJOY!

[Mopar John]

                                                         MORE!

[Mopar John]

                          AND HERE IS THE LAST BATCH OF INITIAL PRIMER PICTURES!

[hemi68charger]

Great series of pictures there John............... Between you and Geno, there's a plethora of '69 Charger sheetmetal pictures to reference.......   

Troy

[Mopar John]

Great series of pictures there John............... Between you and Geno, there's a plethora of '69 Charger sheetmetal pictures to reference.......   

Troy

THANKS TROY! The pictures will help others! In some cases a very similar process and others very differant!

[Mopar John]

                                                                MAY 2009!
Several unplanned things happened during May 2009 that would change the course of our Daytona's restoration!
The first thing that happened is I get a call from PAUL JACOBS and he wants to talk with me about going OE with the restoration? I knew he had been in contact with Troy often as a consultant on our Daytona restoration. My first question for him was " IS OUR DAYTONA WORTHY OF OE?". Pauls response was that it was for the following reasons: 1) It was numbers matching engine, trans, original rearend. 2) It had it's original fender tag and broadcast sheet. 3) The body is turning out great! 4) The amount of original parts still on the Daytona such as shocks and tierod with original broke off grease fittings! 5) The large amount of NOS parts I had found. Paul informed me that they had entered a customer car in the Mopar Nationals OE judging every year since 2006. Every year they had won OE gold and got best of show every year also except 2008. Last year was no differant with Steve Fox's 1968 HEMI GTX convertable! If you remember it was Steves Daytona that brought me to Troy and Paul to begin with! My next question was " What do I need to do?" Paul informed me that I would have to find more NOS - original parts and the cost of the restoration would go up with all the detail that would need to be done. I discussed this with Linda and I gave Paul and Troy the OK to take the Daytona OE! For his part Paul offerred his experience and some NOS parts he had stashed. Some items I remember were NOS air filter, oil filter, date coded regulator, radiator cap, engine ground wire, tune up parts, plugs, trans filler tube & stick, oil filler tube and a ton of original hardware.  This asurred me that Paul really wanted this to turn out well! Paul and Troy came up with a plan to get the Daytona done for Talladega 2009 and bring it back early this summer for all the detail work and change out anything reproduction that we found in NOS or perfect original. We would then enter it in the 2010 MOPAR NATIONALS OE judging!  I paid Paul for all his NOS and had him take it over to Troy's shop! While we were talking about the Mopar Nationals and the OE judjing, Paul informed me that they only judge 5 OE cars now and sometimes all 5 don't get done in time! The Judging is tough to make OE gold and they don't allow clones, rebodies or tribute cars! In fact if you are missing the original engine or trans the rest of the car has to be outstanding to make gold!  The best of the OE gold gets the best of show so points are critical!
     The next thing that happened in May 2009 was Doug Schellinger decided to buy the Ramo Stott #7 Superbird original Nichels chassis stock car! At the time I didn't know what he was up to and he sent me a list of NOS Daytona and Superbird parts for sale. I also noticed all his cars that were in his family for a long time were for sale. I sent him an e-mail and asked if everything was ok? He informed me that it was and hints of what he was up to. We'll we all now know what it was and I'm glad it worked out! So from Doug's list I purchased an NOS grille screen, an NOS nose to hood seal and a set of NOS rear window trim! These were all stored many years and very very hard to find in NOS. This did nothing but help the momentum of the new OE restoration goal!
In my next post will be more work on the Daytona body!

[Mopar John]

                                                     MORE FILLER WORK!
When I saw the Daytona body in primer I got all excited and thought that Troy was close to paint! We'll not exactly! The next step was to sand the body shell and fill any areas that needed it. The next 2 batches of pictures show that work being done. The one picture shows filler work where one of the previous owners had the alarm switch in the door post that was welded up.

[Mopar John]

 Here are the rest of the sand and fill work!

[Mopar John]

                                               REAR WINDOW PLUG
  Next up was the filler work over the lead work around the rear window plug! The next 2 batches of pictures show that work being done! ENJOY!

[Mopar John]

 Here are the last 2 pictures.

[Mopar John]

                                                         MORE PRIMER!!
With the filler work around the rear window plug all done and sanded it was time to primer again! The next batch of pictures show the Daytona body in primer again!

[Mopar John]

                                           BLOCK SANDING THE BODY SHELL!
This next batch of pictures will show the body shell after it was block sanded!

[hemi68charger]

Very nice............ Flashback to one particular '68 of mine............   

Troy

[tan top]

some nice work been going on there ! great pictures