Bull's 68 Charger restoration thread

[squeakfinder]

   

    Been burning the midknight oil have we?    That sure looks nice. 
This reminds me, I need to get off my butt and start working on something today..
   

[69*F5*SE]

The Charger's going to look sweet Bull.  I see you added a cross bar to your rollers.  What are you going to apply to the inside of the fender wells etc. before undercoating?  Again, the body looks sweet.     Ted

[Belgium R/T -68]

Nice progres Curtis You will be driving before me.

Per

[bull]

What are you going to apply to the inside of the fender wells etc. before undercoating?    Ted

You probably know this already but that cross bar is there so I have a place for the floor jack and/or cherry picker to be able to get it off and back on the jack stands. Haven't tested it yet but I think it'll work.

As for treating the inner fenders I've been thinking about that and I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do yet. I have a combination of bare metal (a few small areas from scraping), rust, factory primer, paint and residual undercoating from the spots where I used heat to get it off. Here's what I'm thinking right now: wire wheel/brush the loose stuff off and then roll the car outside and power wash the outside of the inner fenders to get all the grime out of the nooks around the UCA suspension brackets. Then push it back inside to dry and coat everything with SEM Rust Seal before scuffing it, priming it and painting it black with a small roller. Or scuff it first and then use the SEM stuff. Then I'll make sure all the holes and nice paint areas are taped off and wheel the car back outside to shoot the undercoating. I'm open to alternative suggestions though.

Nice progres Curtis You will be driving before me.

Per

Well, I'm not going to hold my breath because previous well-laid plans have been shot to hell more times than I like to remember but hopefully next summer it'll be rolling under its own power.

[Belgium R/T -68]

I know what you mean. It's like Neal said to me (b5blue), the last 10% will take 90% of the time. I have brakes and wipers
that doesn't work and a trunklid that doesn't fit, a heatercore that leaks and 100 of small adjustments but I guess that's what they call a project.

Per

[69bronzeT5]

Thanks for including those pictures of the dollies Curtis......I'm about to build some for my Coronet. The pictures you posted are a big help!

[chargergirl]

The car is beautiful.

[bull]

Thanks for including those pictures of the dollies Curtis......I'm about to build some for my Coronet. The pictures you posted are a big help!

You're welcome.

The car is beautiful.

Thanks.

[aone415]

Looking real good Bull 

[bull]

I haven't updated this thread since May so I thought I'd do that today. As usual things took longer than I had hoped and we had kind of a lousy summer weather wise. Spring was very wet (unusually so even for the Northwest) and summer didn't amount to much. Needless to say I wasn't able to wheel the car out and do some of the stuff as often as I'd hoped to do.

After consulting with Brian a few times I settled on Chassis Saver as the magic stuff to coat the inside of the front wheel wells. If you look back at pages 1 and 2 you'll see all the "before" pics and the scraping I did to get the undercoating off everything and that's where I left off. Scraping was just the beginning because I had to go over it all with SEM Solve (basically the same as 3m General Adhesive Remover) to get all the residual goo off the metal. What remained was paint, primer, bare metal and rust, all of which got covered with Chassis Saver. It turned out nice. One paragraph doesn't really do it justice because it was a lot of work. I even had to rent a dehumidifier to scrub the air when I finished it up because it was raining and this stuff is sensitive to humidity.

Be right back to post more. Gotta put the midgets to bed...

[PocketThunder]

Damn that car is looking very very nice!        I remember when you bought it.

After going thru (restoration on) a couple cars myself in the past 15 years i can understand your level of detail but, man arent you wishing you were driving the car by now?   

[bull]

After going thru (restoration on) a couple cars myself in the past 15 years i can understand your level of detail but, man arent you wishing you were driving the car by now?  

Every day. But, I really only want to do this once so I don't know any other way to accomplish that other than to do it thoroughly and correctly. I think things would have moved faster if my foresight was half as good as my hindsight. And if my pockets were deep and full.

Anyway, I always have a bunch of other little projects running alongside the big ones. Mostly it has to do with restoring little bits and pieces. I took a bunch of stuff to a buddy's shop where he's got a real nice media cabinet and I blasted the E-brake mechanism, the throttle mechanism, the rear license plate light, the front license plate bracket and a bunch of fasteners. I also went to the hardware store and auto parts store to get some new fasteners in zinc and stainless. Here's some before/after pics along with some other odds and ends.

I got the power steering pump pulley back (it was MIA for about two weeks thanks to the sandblaster) and got the pump assembled and on the engine. I also got the manifolds ceramic coated and the throttle and E-brake mechanisms were blasted and plated with electroless nickel. The rest of the fasteners were plated with zinc and the painted stuff was done on the days when the sun was shining. I wonder how much faster this project would progress if I lived in Arizona?

[bull]

 

[bull]

 

[bull]

Here's those engine pics...

[tan top]

nice work    look good !! 

[Bob T]

Real nice bull, keep at it 

[6pkrunner]

Excellent job Bull. Looks terrific.

[XS29J8]

Looks like calendar material to me!     Great work Bull!



Steve

[Charger-Bodie]

Its really looking great Curtis! Keep it up.

[lilwendal]

Bull... Really coming along now and looking great!!!!!! Keep the pics coming

[FlatbackFanatic]

Looking great!!!

[super_dave]

Looks awesome...makes me excited now that my car is finally getting close to the stage yours it at....I see I have much work to do!

[twodko]

Bull,

Your car is looking better and better! Its all about details for me too.

That 10% - 90% thingy is dead on.

[RIDELIKEHELL]

Coming together nicely