1970 Road Runner Restoration
Off The Rotisserie
The time has come in the project to begin putting parts back on the car and I could not be more excited. The car has been removed from the rotisserie and the rear end was temporarily installed. I was not ready to install the K Member and front end so I just installed the support brackets to the front of the car. Here are some shots of the car sitting on it's own weight after 7 months on a rotisserie.
To bring you all up to date on the paint completion progress, we are awaiting the hood and the rear tail panel to be buffed. After that, the hood stripes need to be painted and that should do it. At that point the car needs to be final washed and then I can get my hands on it to start some serious reassembly. I have been getting very anxious to get started and as the time moves closer, it is getting worse.
One thing I was able to do meanwhile, was to install some sound dampening material to the inside of the doors, quarter panels, and headliner. I had not installed sheets of deadener before and it turned out to be quite the adventure. This stuff is super sticky and in hard to reach areas, a real pain in the posterior to get correctly positioned. The worst part is if this stuff sticks to itself, you need to be the Hulk to get it separated. I performed the official "Tap Test" before and after the dampening material was installed and it sure made a quite a difference. Before you could hear a hollow vibrating tone and after, all you heard was a dull thud. I will be applying the deadener to the package tray area and floor once everything is washed down. Here are some pics.
Since I am still waiting to get my car back I decided to spend some time getting the interior pieces refinished. I repainted the dash vents, dash panels, pillar trim panels, dashpad, and kick panels. I would have done the console and bucket seat backs but I ran out of paint. The system I went with is from SEM Products, Inc.
I used Soap #39362 to clean the parts & Vinyl & Plastic Prep #38464 to get anything I missed off and prepare the surface for paint. I then used Sand Free #38363 which helps the adhesion of the paint to the part. You actually spray the Sand Free on and when it is still wet, you apply your first coat of paint. The paint I used was Landau Black #15013 aerosol. The cleaning and prep were messy and a real pain in the posterior, but well worth when I saw how the parts looked after painting.
I bought all the SEM products I used from http://www.sjdiscounttools.com/manufacturers-sem-paints.html and can recommend them for great pricing and fast delivery. I ordered all my stuff on Monday and it arrived on the following Thursday.
I also have been working on the dash
cluster and other miscellaneous dash items so that I can put the entire dash
back together. I put the switches, lens, and dash bezel on the cluster and
mounted it in the dash. Man I have to say, it looked great. I bought
the cluster from an Ebayer more than a year ago. I will not recommend him
as he took advantage of me to the tune of $400. I also removed him from
the Christmas card list based on that fact, I told him he would regret taking my
money.
The
Tic-Toc-Tac is an aftermarket item which has quartz clock internals and the tach
will work with my electronic ignition conversion.
You can see in the photos that I also installed the dashpad, I was lucky that all it needed was refinished. I have seen so many dashpads that looked like they went through a war or were cracked everywhere. One more lucky break for me and I am grateful for that.
Here is a photo of the cool Mopar clock I bought last week. It is 20" in diameter and has a neon tube which lights the "Part/Accessories" lettering. I saw them at Carlisle last year but had no way of bringing it back on the airplane so I had to pass. I found one on the internet and with shipping it cost me $238. The funny thing is that I looked on Ebay and anywhere else I could think of to find one reasonably priced and finally gave up an just ordered this one. Well, today I looked on Ebay for the heck of it and go figure, they have many and a few are cheaper than what I paid. Oh well it usually happens that way.
