67/68/69 cuda dilemma

[moparmat2000]

Had some stubborn spots here. You can see the dark patches where the rust is still clinging on for dear life. I just ran out of time yesterday. Friday night is date night with the wifey. Cant miss that. So a little more blasting today to rid that, and hit a few other spots i need to get a bit better, then Kirker Duraprime epoxy primer.

 

[Garethw]

What setup are you using for blasting? Assume you’re using glass bead too?

 

[moparmat2000]

crushed glass media. $8 per 80 lb bag. China freight bucket blaster. Looks like this one. About $40. Works pretty good if you can keep the line pressure at about 110 psi. My compressor pump is old, and can maintain 90 continuous. I have to let it pump back up.

 

[Garethw]

Thanks! I’m going to give that a try. I’m ready to blast my engine bay also. You’re progress is looking great!

 

[4mopwr]

Looks good! Keep at it "small steps". As I'm doing with mine.. It is definitely a mess! I did mine in the garage.

 

[moparmat2000]

The last of the blasting on the body shell will be outer sides of framerails, and outer sides of inner fenders, sides of the cowl, rockers, and door jambs. Will likely do one side at a time, and prime. I cant imagine doing any blasting inside my shop. Stuff like the hood inner structure, fender jamb, and jambs on the doors wont be so bad as this stuff I can do outside as individual pieces as well.

 

[moparmat2000]

Today turned out nice again. No rain. I did my final sand blasting and going over that RH inner fender again. Mixed up a pint of Kirker epoxy primer, and hit it. It's not real thick as there will be bodywork that needs to be done in there, followed by sanding primer. I just wanted to seal the bare metal with a thin coat of epoxy to prevent flash rust.

 

[Garethw]

Dude this looks great! I just read through all 30+ pages of this thread. I’m a fan. Keep it rolling.

 

[moparmat2000]

Thanks man!!! Its hard to believe its come this far. At least now it looks like less of a roach from the front lol. More sandblasting to come. I cant wait till I'm done with that. It is pretty fast and very thorough for sure, but what an effing mess to do. I do plan on dropping the K frame and steering column back out before the engine compartment gets final paint. I just need it in place to push it in and out for sand blasting for now.

 

[Garethw]

I feel ya, been doing rust and sheet metal work for a couple years. Only now seeing some light. Keep at it. Inspiring work.

 

[moparmat2000]

Getting the lead out. No not Led Zeppelin, though I like them too. Blasting the sides down to the rockers and door jambs next. Best time to sandblast any corrosion off thats under the quarter skins since I am changing those as well. Melting the lead and the seam sealer out to remove any hidden rust. Cutting the bottoms of the quarters off where they overlap the rockers so I can get rid of any hidden corrosion. I like beef jerky. But rust jerky ummm no thank you. You can see the foot from the tasmanian devil painted on the side of the car. When it was a drag car in the 1980s it was called "Tazmanian"

 

[moparmat2000]

More rust jerky from the left hand side. Back sections of the rockers are pitted, but solid. I will re assess them after sandblasting as to weather or not I will need to cut n patch them. That will be determined on weather or not I end up with holes. But then again, I may still patch them anyways lol.

What makes quick an easy work with spot welds is my method. There are many ways to do this, but this is how I do it. I use a home made chisel splitter with a razor sharp .063" thick stainless blade. I use ball rotary files to weaken the welds on the side I am discarding, than hammer the splitter in there to cut the welds.

 

[moparmat2000]

I am using goodmark skins. I couldent justify $600 plus per side for AMD skins just to hack the tops off. Now if AMD made half skins for coupes and verts I'd spring for the extra $300 or so each, but they dont plan on it, so I'm not. I plan on cutting the original skins about 1 to 2 inches below the top of the quarter, and the same for the front, and likely at the taillight depending on how that end fits. I have a harbor freight panel flanger. I will flange the original skins to fit the repop ones in at the top and sides, then make stock seams at the bottoms and wheel openings.

 

[Garethw]

I’ve done a few repairs that way also. That pneumatic flanger / hole puncher works great.

 

[moparmat2000]

RH side is ready for the roll out and blast it. I will put the RH side up on jack stands, remove the front wheel, and UCA attach tarp to underside and blast it. I also took a look at the rear quarter pieces I got from the Cu'daver I cut up, and shortened them a bit. They have only light surface rust. My quarters are rotted with holes in them on these top edges inside the trunk. I will sandblast and reuse the drip rail on the LH side that has my body numbers.

 

[moparmat2000]

RH side blasted and primered. Got a couple runs by the UCA attach point. Makes it look like factory with runs everywhere lol. Couple spots on rear of rocker would not completely clean up w blaster. I masked them off and primered the rest. I will hit these stubborn spots w naval jelly and then primer. I plan on putting a seam in for the new to me rear quarter top sections, so I only stripped the quarter back to the trunklid, and rear dutchman, as well as about 2" down, and an inch back from the front since I plan on hacking the skin off below the upper belt line and chucking it on the scrap trailer. A arm attach points on frame cleaned up and primered up really good.

 

[moparmat2000]

Heres the gameplan. The black outline is about where the flanged seam will be from the new goodmark quarter skin to the original quarter panel. The red is where I will have to fabricate and add a patch to make up for the quarter skin being short and not having the dogleg that goes under the door. The blue will be where I will seam in the better rear quarter upper sections.

 

[moparmat2000]

Well the LH side is done now too. Glad this is over with. I dreaded doing all this because of the mess. As I stated before, it's very messy but real fast, and real thorough. But at least it's done now. My 67 coupe isnt nearly as rough as the 69 is. It will need much less work in the rust removal and metal replacement department aside from some quarter skins.

LH UCA area with framerail had some spots where the rust wouldent come out with the blaster. I think my glass media was just getting too pulverized to really work effectively by this time. I got in there with an inline air die grinder and some long tapered rotary files and cleaned it out to bare steel. I'd say better than 95% of the corrosion is gone, the rest is sealed in epoxy. This car wont be driven in the rain or bad weather anymore so it should last a long time

Anyhoo, I ran out of light and primered it at night with light from the shop lights and a flashlight. Several bugs committed HariKiri in it. I dont know if it's the light or the smell that draws em in. It's only epoxy primer. It's just to seal the bare metal, so I dont care so much. I mixed up a little too much, so I think I will spray the trunk floor and underside of the new cowl with it today and use it up.

 

[YY1]

Dang.

That's a lot of work.

Did I miss when you got the titles?

 

[Garethw]

Looking good! How much of the blast media are you able to recover with the tarp? I’m thinking of doing this myself. Also considering just paying a mobile blaster to come do it.

 

[moparmat2000]

Depending on the tarp sizes, and other stuff like strategically taped cardboard, you can recover about 85-90% of it. The problem I ran into yesterday was that the really small dust I was recovering tended to clog the intake side of the hopper. There wasnt enough air space between the grains of aggregate to allow it to suck through. I kept thinking it was a clog from rust scale so I spent too much time sifting sand looking for bits of trash. There wasnt any. Once it starts getting really pulverized this bucket blaster refuses to work. I will buy a bag or 2 more for when I have to do body panels. I wont be blasting the flat expanses, just the jamb areas to clean them out.

 

[moparmat2000]

Newest round of pix. Hard to believe it looks this good!! And that's just epoxy primer. Now onto the back end. Time to start back on unFucking the rest of the drag race car butchery.

 

[moparmat2000]

I mixed a little too much primer last night, so I covered it up, and it kept till this morning. I figured I'd use the rest up in the trunk and on the valance. Turned out great.

 

[Garethw]

So jealous. I cannot wait to get my car to this stage!! Been in rusty sheet metal purgatory for a couple years. One day though! Keep it going!

 

[moparmat2000]

So jealous. I cannot wait to get my car to this stage!! Been in rusty sheet metal purgatory for a couple years. One day though! Keep it going!

I bought this one 7 years ago. It sat behind my buddies fence on his property for 4 of those years as I collected up sheetmetal for it. While it sat I developed a game plan and cleared space for it since it seems that everything on it was either damaged, butchered, or rotten He was glad when I came and got it. Not because it was taking up space, but because everybody kept stopping and asking if it was for sale. It was a bit of a pain in the *** for him lol.

A word of advice, dont be quick to giterdun. A lot of times I will get to a point and step back and think about the next thing I need to do. Sometimes I rethink an idea multiple times before I do it, or make changes in the plan as I go. With sheetmetal, make 100% certain it's where you want it before welding. It's much harder to take it apart than it is to stitch it together.