Painters please help! It's home and painted!

[b5blue]

Here are pics of "the puzzle" I am working on now. New AMD trunk gutters with fabbed rear 1/4 tie in steel. I've more patching to do on the tail light surround but wanted to get to the trunk filler and inside of the sail sections. I pulled the rear glass and cut out the worst of the old repairs and rust to start sizing up for the Sherman repair sections I bought years ago.

[b5blue]

Here is a shot of the Sherman parts laid in place. You can see in the previous pics the trunk floor has issues that will just have to wait for $$$$. 

[b5blue]

  Well my leave is approved, starting 12th till 21st of this month so here I go! Now if the weather cooperates, and the HOA don't catch me I just may get somewhere. The plan is to finish patching rust holes with epoxy panel adhesive, body filler and block then re-shoot epoxy primer. Block finer re-shoot primer and start the white topcoat. As The inside of the hood and engine bay have yet to be tackled I'm just going to paint the top of the nose in Eastwood's black Rust Encapsulator kinda like a "Rally" look, that way I can work into getting that whole under hood area into the blue coming later. (I have a bunch left from switching to epoxy primer last year and testing on my Jeep shows it holds up to the sun well.) The key from what you have all said is to get a good coat of topcoat over all the work done so far as I have kept the car covered and out of the sun/rain on my carport. 

[b5blue]

  I broke down and ordered more white to be certain I have enough to just shoot the whole car "pure" white over the "bright white" that is really more like very light gray. The more I looked at the car the more I didn't like leaving the hood area in black just to save a shade of white that was too dark. 
  More Evercoat product came in with old date of manufacture codes last week, stuff from 09 and 10 is way too old to trust anymore! FoxRun is going to try and express more fresh stock Monday to me. This will be 15 cartridges of Quantum 1 and Maxim I received in the last 8 months that were well over a year old.
  To be clear to everyone, Evercoat dates all their products and is very clear that it must not be more than one year from manufacture to be useable! The system is simple, look for a stamp on cans or printed on the label of a cartridge for "LOT A:" the first number is the year and the next one or two digits will be the month. Refuse any product older.  I have found many items for sale on eBay that are out of date and inquired to many vendors about date codes with little help back.
  I'll post pic's if I can of steps taken. Wish me luck the weather looks to be perfect the next 10 days. A huge THANK YOU to all who took the time to try a steer me correctly on this, boy I wish I had more $$ to have gotten deeper into "proper" replacement repairs! (I'm saving 1000's of bucks but hate cutting corners.)

[b5blue]

  More stripping on the tail and cut the bad section of rear lower valance after dropping the bumper. Drilled holes for pass side mirror and test fit, cut out rust on front fender, door and did more filler work. Rain tomorrow so I set up side room to work on trunk lid and some other parts. 

[b5blue]

  Had some setbacks, started Rust Bullet coating, cut rotten section of rear valance and had to "make do" on the Dutchman and inside sail panels. I keep finding "surprises" that Steve "warned" me about in the rear. Later this year I'll be buying a welder and start saving for a pile of AMD.     But for now I do what I can, I ordered valance corners for next weekend to go with the lower valance repairs. (Thanks again Bill!)

[jaak]

Keep chipping away at Neal....you'll get there  Looking good.

Jason

[JB400]

Looks good from where I sit.  Here shortly, I'll be floating in the same boat.  Keep at it

[matrout76]

How do you plan to fix the lower part of the rear valence without removing it completely? 

Which manufacturers parts do you plan to use?

I'm thinking about taking the lower part of mine off on the drivers-side so that i can more easily do a little rust repair to the rear crossmember. 

Thanks!
Matt

[bill440rt]

Keep chipping away, Neal. You'll get there soon. 

[b5blue]

Thanks guys!

How do you plan to fix the lower part of the rear valence without removing it completely? 

Which manufacturers parts do you plan to use?

I'm thinking about taking the lower part of mine off on the drivers-side so that i can more easily do a little rust repair to the rear crossmember. 

Thanks!
Matt

The valance was from Bill in trade, so unknown, the gutters and corners of valance are AMD. The Dutchman and sail panel insides are Shermans' and are fairly a terrible mess. Better by far than starting with a hunk of flat sheet stock and no metal working tools but the Dutchman is no less than 1/4" too narrow side to side and top gutter to trunk gutter. (At least on my cars build.) The sail repairs are a gauge thinner than factory and would require masterful extensive reworking on a truly being "restored Charger". The edges that mate along the seam between them on both parts are not wide enough to allow a good spot weld, I had to use tiny framing screws and leave them installed just to get some kind of mechanical bond to go with the panel bonding adhesive. (I've yet to figure how to attach the trunk hinge assembly's where they should.) 
  Behind the bumper the steel sandwich between the valance, rear support and bottom of the tail light housing along with the bumper reinforcement brackets inside the trunk are all spot weld interconnected in layers and for me it made sense just to cut the lower rotted valance off and replace just that area with new corners. I'm waiting for the corners to figure that mess before anymore cut and prep work. Matt how you could get in there with the way everything is spot welded would be tricky and depend on what your trying to get to and the condition of what you want to re use. (Let me know if you need pics of my mess while it's open.)
  Last night I shot a rat with my laser sighted Crossman that was hanging around, point the dot and squeeze the trigger, instant dead rat. Then this AM I found some damn critter is back marking my Charger with scent squirt again. This has been going on for too long and has me disgusted, traps are being set up. Pics.. 
     

[JB400]

I see a dead dog in your future.  Sad to hear your having so much fun ( trouble) getting your car back together, but in the end, it'll be worth it.  Keep at it

[b5blue]

  It's not a dog, it's one of  the many stray/owner-less cats, or cats owners allow out to "run the hood" at all hours. (I know that stink,,,it's NOT pee!  )
Thanks all for the encouragement and help/advise. 
  What ever ends up in the trap will go to animal control for them to deal with. The pisser is I really like pets and wish I had one! 

[Dino]

  It's not a dog, it's one of  the many stray/owner-less cats, or cats owners allow out to "run the hood" at all hours. (I know that stink,,,it's NOT pee!  )
Thanks all for the encouragement and help/advise. 
  What ever ends up in the trap will go to animal control for them to deal with. The pisser is I really like pets and wish I had one! 

Thank you for being part of the human race and not killing the cat, it doesn't know it's marking a classic.   

[b5blue]

My neighbor next door to me hates the little yapper (Nugget) behind her but I think Nugget is cute as a button! (Just a misguided high energy 6 mo. old Terrier mix.)    It's not the cat...it's the owner I am not feeling any love for, this has been going on for 2 years now. 

[Dino]

My neighbor next door to me hates the little yapper (Nugget) behind her but I think Nugget is cute as a button! (Just a misguided high energy 6 mo. old Terrier mix.)    It's not the cat...it's the owner I am not feeling any love for, this has been going on for 2 years now. 

Usually the same story with humans, it's not the kid, it's the parent.

I don't have any love for those kind of people either, kitty will be better off with a loving family.   

[b5blue]

Yup I call the Kitty Cops and they take them to Pussy Prison for rehab!   

[Dino]

Yup I call the Kitty Cops and they take them to Pussy Prison for rehab!   

[b5blue]

My rear valance corners came in today, that is the last of the body puzzle pieces....

[b5blue]

  After clearing out more Bondo I found more "paint can metal" bent to shape and tack welded underneath it. With the valance and corners for guides I started cutting. Just below the trunk floor seam I cut off the rusted valance and what was left of the rusty corners looking for metal to tie into. I found not much left to tie the corners to the rear quarter with only a tiny bit of the quarters lip, and that in very poor condition. Also the ends of the cross member support were shot. Here is what I came up with after days of scratching my head. I had 16ga. plates welded to the inside tabs of the corners and 1 1/4 mounting plates mounted @ 90* to the corners' quarter side mounting flanges. They are recessed enough to bury rivet heads in Evercoat Metal-2-Metal and will be panel adhesive bonded to the outside trailing edges of the quarters.
  This is clamped in place for fitment/testing and looks like I'll have a close to correct and strong repair done this weekend. Here are 3 pics, 1 pass side damage, 2 drivers side damage and 3  is a shot of the modified valance corners.   
 

[b5blue]

I ran out of daylight pushing the prep work/painting and test fitting/clamping. I'll post pics of the Chargers rear showing cuts and placement later this weekend. (Boy do I wish I had a welder!  )

[b5blue]

Mock up pics taken with my new Vivitar $14.88 camcorder from Big Lots. 

[b5blue]

Picked up steel rivets to attach the sections in place along with the adhesive.   

[Dino]

Picked up steel rivets to attach the sections in place along with the adhesive.   

What are you going to glue?  I'm okay with skins being bonded with adhesive but anything structural imo should be welded.  If you're using adhesive for that, no matter how strong they may be these days, I would make sure you had a seriously stiffened frame because these suckers flex like crazy under power.  Rivets will definitely help but I have a funny feeling about this, maybe I'm just old school and I do admit I have not been keeping up with autobody products since I left that industry.

No decent welders available on your local CL?

[b5blue]

  Oh no just panels and patches! I'll adhesive and rivet everything you see, the valance to the original steel (Behind the bumper.) and the added corner extensions to the cross member and end of the quarters. Anything structural gets grade 8 bolts and hardware. I used 16 gauge for the extensions to give me beef as the ends of the cross member rusty. The rust issues on my car are all sheet metal body stuff from the crappy rear window Dutchman and trunk gutter repairs. (As seen in my "cut away" shots.) The final fixes (For now.) under the Dutchman will be done (to that tub thing and the back edge of the map shelf lip.) will be done after all this exterior stuff. I did not want to do any repairs that change panel fitment or alignments. (That has been my headache the last 2 months.) 
  On the advise in this topic the whole car went down to bare steel and got epoxy primed with many coats. That uncovered all of the cars issues and changed the plan at the onset from patch and seal to do the best I can to preserve what is still good. (Short of a real tear down restoration.) 18 years ago this April when I got the car my buddy Larry let me use his lift and high powered industrial steam pressure washer. I blasted the crap out of the entire car, even the inside of the gas tank before it was repaired. The entire chassis was striped, cleaned to perfection, evaluated and painted flat black where needed, with the exception of the foot wells on the floorboards the car is solid as a rock. (That effort proved to me the car was worthy of keeping.) I'll need the welder to replace the foot wells and add sub frame connectors and torque boxes later this year.