1972 Duster Project - Back From The Pasture

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sireland67 said:
Putting a flange on the panel is the easiest way to do them.
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Yea, especially here in dry Colorado. Not too worried about moisture between the panels.
Plus I don't have the patience for butt welds these days. I'm impressed by the guys that do, do it.
I was lucky to control myself as to not warp them as the way it was. Those are big fields to deal with.
 
John_Lemon said:
Yea, especially here in dry Colorado. Not too worried about moisture between the panels.
Plus I don't have the patience for butt welds these days. I'm impressed by the guys that do, do it.
I was lucky to control myself as to not warp them as the way it was. Those are big fields to deal with.
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Our 72 needed some patches too and I wanted to have more experience welding. I have come to the same conclusion, I dislike butt welding and could never image doing a complete quarter panel!
 
Jim Kueneman said:
Our 72 needed some patches too and I wanted to have more experience welding. I have come to the same conclusion, I dislike butt welding and could never image doing a complete quarter panel!
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No $hit. I would probably burn a hole on every weld then have to pile a turd to fill the hole, hence over heating the panel and warping the crap out of it.
 
I glued the panels on my duster and welded the pinch welds.
No warpage.
 
John_Lemon said:
I looked into that but chickened out. How is it working out? Do you have pics?
Allot of stuff on late model cars is glued in these days.
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I did not document what I done, just took a couple of pictures on my phone.
Just flanged, used cleco's like you did, after it was fitted to the car.
Pulled the panel off, cleaned to bare metal, applied a bead of 3M panel adhesive, shoved the cleco's back in.
After it sit overnight, welded the pinch welds.
Its holding up fine, I have no worries of it falling off.
 
sireland67 said:
I did not document what I done, just took a couple of pictures on my phone.
Just flanged, used cleco's like you did, after it was fitted to the car.
Pulled the panel off, cleaned to bare metal, applied a bead of 3M panel adhesive, shoved the cleco's back in.
After it sit overnight, welded the pinch welds.
Its holding up fine, I have no worries of it falling off.
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Yea I'm sure it won't fall off and it sure was allot less labor than I just went through. How long has it been on the car? Any signs of cracking or anything?
 
Got the quarters blocked through 220 and the trunk jamb shot this weekend.
On to bed lining the trunk this week.
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Got the hood pins in, D-Door glass and trim in, and the trunk finished.
I know several will curse me for Raptor lining the trunk but it was the best solution for this project.
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I can tell you that the bed-liner will never look clean as it is now.
It is about impossible to clean.
 
So true.
I had the whole inside of the body tub sanded and ready to paint body color.
1948 Willy’s CJ-2A.
About an hr before I was going to shoot the paint, the wife said, you will flip out the first time one of the grandkids puts a scratch in it.
I agreed, and sanded it with 80 grit and bed-lined it.

Worst mistake ever it always looks dirty, there is no way to clean the dust out of the rough surface.

I should have just shot it body color and delt with the scratches.
 
they used to have trunk mats to dress up the trunk area, and keep the scuffs down to a minimum. So bed lining is really unnecessary.
I tend to agree that body color looks better. When I see something like the bedliner in a trunk, my first suspicion is what kind of rust damage are they trying to hide.
 
mygasser said:
can't you paint the bed liner over in bodycolour while it's still clean?
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That is a thought. However I wonder how it will bond after a couple of days curing now. No question there is plenty of tooth there. We will put a mat in it.

It got dusty just crawling in and out it over the weekend re-assembling things just from the dust on our cloths. A little blast with air cleaned it right up. We'll see what happens. I suppose one could pull a plug and use a little water and stiff brush to scrub it up if the dirt bugs you. It's a trunk.

Since the whole motif is black and blue, Jr and I like the look.
As for hiding rust, one look under the car will answer that question.
 
Would you be willing to share how much $money you've spent so far? For those of us looking to get into a project like this. Or are you not keeping track and just enjoying the process with your son?
 
cawcislo said:
Would you be willing to share how much $money you've spent so far? For those of us looking to get into a project like this. Or are you not keeping track and just enjoying the process with your son?
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At the end of the day after paint, graphics, etc. we'll be roughly $10,000 in, with us doing all the labor.
We're not really keeping close track and yes we are really enjoying the time together even though tempers have flared now and then during the process.
This is pretty much the last year I have with him before he launches into the big pond. He is my youngest.
Neither of us will ever forget it.
 
Interior fully in, JR. drove it all week to school. All systems go. He is pretty stoked with the attention.
We made a quick lap downtown this afternoon and the number of call outs and thumbs up was pretty cool. We'll give him another week or so to play with it then pull it back for disassembly, prep and final paint.
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John_Lemon said:
Interior fully in, JR. drove it all week to school. All systems go. He is pretty stoked with the attention.
We made a quick lap downtown this afternoon and the number of call outs and thumbs up was pretty cool. We'll give him another week or so to play with it then pull it back for disassembly, prep and final paint.
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I can't wait to see it in full color.
One thing I noticed, is that it looks like you have the exhaust tips installed 'correctly'. I'm kinda anal how they should be positioned. They should not stick out too far, and they are supposed to angle up slightly, just like the oem installation. They just don't 'look right' (to me, anyway), unless they look oem. My exhaust guy did mine 'wrong', and it has bugged me ever since.I would have had him fix it, but he owed me some work, and he actually came out of retirement to do it for me.
 
I'll take some pictures with the hood open to show where the hood pins are mounted. The kit is an "Authentic Mopar Restoration" part. All stainless, nice kit from 521 Restorations.

Pretty simple install after a little research here on A Bodies. Interesting enough, the passenger side fender on this car had a dimple located exactly where the pin was supposed to go. We replaced the driver side fender from a donor 73 car and it did not have the dimple. So we simply measured it out to the same location. Basically they are mounted directly in front of the inner hood bumpers dead center in the fender/radiator support. The hood has openings in the inner portion that makes it obvious where the pins should be located. The tricky part was installing the lower nut on the pins as this car did not have the cut outs in the radiator support to make it easy but we overcame that.

We can't wait to see it in full color either Rustycowl. The B5 is allot of fun to shoot. Beautiful color. As for the exhaust tips, we just went with where the mounting holes in the frame told us to go. The exhaust system is a Summit kit we bought for ~$250. The tips are as correct as we could find stainless. As this used to be a single exhaust car, we purchased the correct hanger mounts for both sides and bolted them into the holes on the frame where they were meant to be by design. Again, a little research here on A Bodies went along way. We really didn't have much choice how far they stuck out. That's where physics said they should be.
I do however wish they stuck out just a little further because this old engine is smoking the bumper a bit. :lol:
 
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John_Lemon said:
Sorry for the long dry spell. Between working full time and every spare minute spent working on the Duster (instead of my Roadrunner) I give you you the reader's digest version of what has been done in bullet form. As with any resto project, it's like an onion, the more you peel, the more you find unacceptable. This was to be a blow and go driver project but I have a hard time blowing and going.
  • Tore seats and out found floor pans rusted out (should have looked closer from the underside)
  • Replaced floor pans
  • Got to looking at other parts of the interior we thought we could live with, decided we couldn't, tore them out.
  • Interior totally gutted
  • Painted the top part of the dash B5, decided that the rest of the dash looked like ****
  • Gutted the dash and repainted on the car
  • Went through the wiring top to bottom, replaced, corrected where needed
  • Drivers side fender replaced from donor car (Damn straight, $100)
  • Body work on front half of car complete to 220 blocking
  • Door hinges rebuilt with oversize pin kit
  • Shot the interior (doors, quarter trim etc.)
  • Lemon Jr. decided he liked the B5 so much that he wanted the whole car B5 after masking the doors for for a different exterior color. Damn.
  • Both quarter glass sections removed and rebuilt / cleaned up
  • Dash re-built
  • Jambs sprayed
  • New windshield
  • Engine compartment stripped and painted
  • Engine compartment re-built
  • On to re-assembly of the interior
  • Loving the time with my son. His vocabulary has grown.:lol:
  • We can see the light at the end of the tunnel unless we hit another unforeseen obstacle.
  • I'm sure I skipped over several steps, pics below.
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Love the Colour, you a painter?
are you leaving the dash FLAT BLUE, love it!
 
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