74 DART'
Well-Known Member
Matt are you planning to finish this car completely before you get back to your 67? I know it’s a few years till yours son is ready to drive. Just curious. Great build by the way. You do very quality work!
67/68/69 cuda dilemma
- Thread starter moparmat2000
- Start date
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moparmat2000
Well-Known Member
Thanks for the kudos on the work. You know, I really dont know what I am going to do. My main concern at this point is getting the body and structure to where it's a good starting point for a decent build, maybe shoot the underside with undercoat after the metal work is done, and bolt in the suspension and brakes. Then pile the boxes of parts inside and wheel it into my other garage for the time being.
moparmat2000
Well-Known Member
Going to order new rear springs from General Spring. They use a larger 5/8" front eye bolt. Easy solution. Buy new grade 5 bolts and stove nuts in the correct larger size, and use a unibit on a drill press to punch out the smaller 9/16" holes one size over to 5/8". The OEM hanger bolt on the left of the first pic was grade 5 with a coarse thread, and a stove nut, so a thicker grade 5 should be just fine.
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moparmat2000
Well-Known Member
Next week the kids go on spring break. I volunteered to take vacation and stay home to "watch them". So my evil plan to get some quality time with my son working on the cuda is right on schedule (insert evil laugh here). Ever the constant thinker, I have been preparing for this. I rounded up a bucket blaster, a gravity feed spot blaster, and a blasting hood from china freight. I also have some heavy duty rubber gloves, a tyvek bunny suit, tarps and my respirator. Need to get 2-3 bags of crushed glass media from the local Benjamin Moore paint dealer.
Sonny and I been slowly working on stripping the remainder of the parts off the firewall. The ole bag n tag of everything as well. Will prob pull the hood and front fenders back off to sand blast the firewall on both sides as well as the cowl sides, rockers, door jambs, inside the roof etc. If the blaster and my sand recovery method with plastic tarps works well, I guess we will get it all stripped next week and into a thin wash coat of 2K epoxy primer.
For now I have been knocking the heavy undercoat and rust scale off everything I can get to. Been using these twisted wire wheel cups. To say these things are brutally badass is an understatement. I wiped out one that I had been using on other stuff, and finished it off scouring surface rust and undercoating. Just bought 2 more from china freight. Word to the wise, use a respirator, and a good set of safety goggles as these things make a bunch of dust you prob dont want to breathe, and little wires shoot off them you probably dont want in your eyes.
I got some action pix. Showed him what to do and stepped back for pix. So far we removed the gas pedal, heater box, steering column, and dash frame. We still have to remove the brake pedal assembly, LH vent box, parking brake handle, and misc parts. Anyhoo without further ado heres pix.
Sonny and I been slowly working on stripping the remainder of the parts off the firewall. The ole bag n tag of everything as well. Will prob pull the hood and front fenders back off to sand blast the firewall on both sides as well as the cowl sides, rockers, door jambs, inside the roof etc. If the blaster and my sand recovery method with plastic tarps works well, I guess we will get it all stripped next week and into a thin wash coat of 2K epoxy primer.
For now I have been knocking the heavy undercoat and rust scale off everything I can get to. Been using these twisted wire wheel cups. To say these things are brutally badass is an understatement. I wiped out one that I had been using on other stuff, and finished it off scouring surface rust and undercoating. Just bought 2 more from china freight. Word to the wise, use a respirator, and a good set of safety goggles as these things make a bunch of dust you prob dont want to breathe, and little wires shoot off them you probably dont want in your eyes.
I got some action pix. Showed him what to do and stepped back for pix. So far we removed the gas pedal, heater box, steering column, and dash frame. We still have to remove the brake pedal assembly, LH vent box, parking brake handle, and misc parts. Anyhoo without further ado heres pix.
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IMFURYS
IMFURYS
Awesome Matt, just like your apprentice. Just think by the time he's driving, he's going to want to do Hellcat/Demon drivetrain swaps, and probably be showing you what he needs done, lol. It is good to see pics of my little buddy having fun and not stuck in the house with some kind of electronics, like a lot are now days.
moparmat2000
Well-Known Member
Heres the latest. A belated thank you to Cosgig for getting me the wiper motor reinforcement assembly off a "truk lagoon" rusty 69 barracuda he was scrapping. It even came with hardware that I cleaned up. I removed it from the chunk of sheetmetal it came with and sandblasted it, then epoxy primered it with old aircraft primer. I removed our old one that looks like Ricky Racer took bolt cutters to, then pop riveted a plate over the hole. It's just test fit right now since I need to clean up the metal on the other side, and primer both mating surfaces with weld thru primer, and do a little firewall massaging of small dents nearby. If changing out the firewall wasnt such a ***** I would just be installing a new one.
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moparmat2000
Well-Known Member
And as it stands right now with them discontinuing the fire walls and plenum from AMD I'm gonna have to look at this pretty hard tonight and see how much of a ***** is to change these 2 parts. Because I may just be installing a brand new fire wall and a brand new plenum, Since I reached up in there after taking the air box out and the heater out and it's really crunchy in there. The original Plan was to remove the upper cowl and clean everything out in there. Treat for corrosion, and epoxy primer and paint.
moparmat2000
Well-Known Member
Using the magic wand. I blew about 2 lbs of dirt and crap out of the cowl. Firewall looks like a ***** to change, and I think I will make an attempt to repair it first. I felt up inside the plenum after blowing all the junk out and it seems really solid in there. Cowl panel is still coming off at the very least to clean out and treat any rust in there, and then epoxy primer it all.
moparmat2000
Well-Known Member
Still picking away at it. Got the rest of the metal peeled out where the floor meets the firewall. Welded up extra holes in the firewall that aren't supposed to be there. Also floated out dents in the firewall, and actually started putting metal back on the car. Granted it's just the replacement wiper motor bracket, and the homemade parking brake cable mount bracket, but it's a start. I have a list I have been working off of. Stuff i need to complete. The plan is to sand blast it this week, then epoxy primer the bare metal when I am home with my son on spring break. I want to have everything ready to go. Speaking of wiper motor brackets , I used some fender nuts to bolt it in place to weld it up.
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moparmat2000
Well-Known Member
With a lot of the butchery done to this car. How to repair different issues on it has been a head scratcher to say the least. I have posted a lot of pix in hope that I can help others dealing with similar issues. Every day though it's one more step closer to reassembly of the floors, and wheel houses. After that, the demolition will proceed again. This time however on the dutchman and quarter skins.
Anyways one of the things I need to reverse is the rear shackle hanger tubes that were welded into the framerails. If the welding job was halfway decent I might have left them alone, but just like everything else this guy seemed to touch on this car, the welding job on these was absolute **** too.
By the time I removed the tubes, and cut all the bad weld out of em I had a 1&3/8" hole in each framerail on the inboard sides. I fabbed up some 14 gage filler plates with chamfered edges to get a full weld, and closed em off. Still have to do the same on the outboard sides tomorrow.
Anyways one of the things I need to reverse is the rear shackle hanger tubes that were welded into the framerails. If the welding job was halfway decent I might have left them alone, but just like everything else this guy seemed to touch on this car, the welding job on these was absolute **** too.
By the time I removed the tubes, and cut all the bad weld out of em I had a 1&3/8" hole in each framerail on the inboard sides. I fabbed up some 14 gage filler plates with chamfered edges to get a full weld, and closed em off. Still have to do the same on the outboard sides tomorrow.
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moparmat2000
Well-Known Member
China freight bucket blaster, and some 2K epoxy primer, and the transition pan is almost ready. Sprayed extra on it where the framerails cover it up. Still need to sand and epoxy primer the top side. Concentrated on the rust covered areas the rest was factory black primer.
moparmat2000
Well-Known Member
Took a break from all the cleaning, and grinding. I made 2 RH muffler hangar brackets awhile back off a really rusty original. One for each car. I only had 1 of the stud plate mounting brackets. Needed to make another. Heres the second one. Since I misplaced the original somewhere in the shop, I did this one from memory. The original had a 45° cut off corner to clear the stamping in the floorpan sheetmetal. I wonder how close I got it to an original. Did I nail it ?? I wonder.
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moparmat2000
Well-Known Member
A few years back before the other half of this bracket was available as a repop I made 2 of them. One for each car using a truk lagoon rusty original i pulled off a rusted to **** 68 dart GTS that was in a rollover as an example. The original is a 1 piece stamping. The way it stamped I could only replicate by making it out of 3 pieces and welding it together. Heres pix.
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moparmat2000
Well-Known Member
Well I sure wanted to epoxy primer more of this thing at one time, however the areas I had stripped to bare metal were starting to get flash rust in them. I went back over these areas, blew the dust off the metal, and shot what I had cleaned up. Looks good except for the one forward rusty glue covered roof skin panel I need to strip and primer. Nice, clean, bright, and sealed with light grey epoxy. Better than the factory would have done. Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it doesnt need to be in these areas.
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IMFURYS
IMFURYS
Awesome work, as always Matt.
moparmat2000
Well-Known Member
It will be nice to eventually go in the shop and not smell rust dust. Sucks that I have to do all this in that small space. That sanding dust gets everywhere. I try to keep it down and blow it out the door as best as I can.
moparmat2000
Well-Known Member
Finally finished the rest of the grinding on the framerail repair welds today. I had taken a break from it. Quite honestly, after all the grinding and cutting I have recently done. I just didnt want to grind on metal for awhile. I slid the 7.25 back under there so I could roll it onto a large tarp then put the back on jack stands and tent it up with the tarp so I can sandblast the insides and outsides of the rear framerails and underside of the package tray, and epoxy primer it all.
moparmat2000
Well-Known Member
Got some more done. Not any sandblasting though. I am just not ready to deal with that mess yet. So a special thanks to Davescuda for hooking me up with hood templates for the 69 hood mount turn signals. I finally drilled all that up. I have aftermarket signals they dont use the big stamped cup style nut, so I will have to get some body washers to make up the difference. Had I been thinking I would have drilled the mount holes a little smaller. It's all good though. Adapt and overcome.
The hoods inner structure is disbonded from the skin, and I will have to eventually glue the 2 pieces together. I eventually will need to do some minor dent body work on the hood. But for now it's all stripped of the old finish, and the bare metal wiped down with TSP and water then towel dried. I shouldn't have to worry about flash rust on it if I cant get to it for a week or so. and will get a coat of epoxy primer tomorrow afternoon if I have time. Its amazing that it's actually looking much better than what we started with.
The hoods inner structure is disbonded from the skin, and I will have to eventually glue the 2 pieces together. I eventually will need to do some minor dent body work on the hood. But for now it's all stripped of the old finish, and the bare metal wiped down with TSP and water then towel dried. I shouldn't have to worry about flash rust on it if I cant get to it for a week or so. and will get a coat of epoxy primer tomorrow afternoon if I have time. Its amazing that it's actually looking much better than what we started with.
moparmat2000
Well-Known Member
I also ordered a small borescope off evilbay that works off my phone. About $12 shipped, and lighted. Comes with a mirror attachment to see around corners. I am planning on pulling the cowl to fix any corrosion in there, however I want to survey how bad it is in there before I pull the upper cowl off because if its not repairable and I need a lower plenum I'd like to get one now. Its solid as far as poking it from underneath with a screwdriver, but I blew out a lot of junk and rust chips a few weeks back. Nice thing about the borescope is its lighted, and i can snap pix with it on my phone.
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IMFURYS
IMFURYS
Save the pattern, I've got to do the same to my hood. Lookin' good.
moparmat2000
Well-Known Member
Will do Dan. Might make a stainless steel drill template for you to get holes centered, and just send it. I do sheetmetal for a living so I wasnt skeered.
IMFURYS
IMFURYS
That'd be cool, thank you.
After seeing you "manufacture" the car, you should be working for GYC. Tell Mark I said get back to actually showing and telling us about the cars.
moparmat2000
Well-Known Member
Well I dont know about " manufacturing the car, but I do want to only have to do this one time to it. Once it's a decent body in white with the underside undercoated and with a decent suspension and rear axle under it, I will likely stop work on it for awhile, and start back up on my 67 and get it to about the same point to where it's a roller with decent suspension under it. I will probably put the 69 back in the garage next to my mustang at that point and it will sit for awhile. I really want to get back on my 67, but need to make this 69 into something decent first.
I'm over here dreading sanding and painting little things on my car and moparMatt is over here being the Plymouth Assembly Line. 
IMFURYS
IMFURYS
Barracuda: More parts ordered lately (shopping YO now), but no work. Miles driven: 0 (obviously).
Fury: No parts ordered, but small amount of work done. Miles driven: 5 (got some new premium gas too).
I'm on a roll, lol.
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