Gerahead's 71 Dart

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Well . . . . the conclusion on the currently available chemical stripper for removing automotive paint is that they are WORTHLESS! I applied the first coat of stripper and about the only thing it removed was some spray bomb paint on the surface. The quarter extensions have several coats of paint on them (surprise!). So I tried scuffing up the surface and trying the stripper again. That seemed to help a little, but this is an extremely slow process. I have a sunflower wheel that is made up of lots of small diameter "rods" of an abrasive impregnated plastic that I thought that I would try. It is much less aggressive than what I used on the rest of the paint removal project. I was able to reasonably control the pressure on the part and it seemed to work pretty well. All of the compound curves, especially some of the tight curves, still makes it tough to get at all of the surfaces. Following this up with the DA sander leaves a pretty decent surface to work with, but is also hard to get into the tight areas. Then I remembered that many years ago I bought a 2" pneumatic DA! The secret weapon! The disc that was on it was of unknown grit, but seemed to work pretty well. Now if I could just remember where I put the rest of the sanding discs that came with it . . . .
 
Since the predicted rain held off for today, I abandoned the fender extensions for now and started on the fenders. Wow, 4-1/2 hours to do the outside of the passengers' fender and I still have to spot blast a couple of small areas that I couldn't reach with anything else.
An interesting find is that once I got away from the outside facing surfaces of the fender, there was no primer or no sealer under the paint. Just the factory paint laid down right over the bare sheet metal. Even in the front substructure where the headlight buckets mount, no primer! That kinda surprised me. Cost saving decisions I'm sure!
 
Once the passenger door had some epoxy on it, some flaws were more visible. It doesn't look like anything too serious, which is good.
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The fender came pretty clean with no areas requiring rust repair.

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The areas where the headlights go and some of the various depressions in the substructure at the front of the fenders were unreachable with my stripping wheel. You can see where the original white paint is still hanging out.
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I was able to find some very small wire wheels (1-1/4" and 1-1/2") at Northern Tool and they worked really well to get into those small, tight areas. After DA'ing the outer surface, the rain returned so it was back inside to work on the quarter panel extensions. I decided to get after them with elbow grease and 180 grit. After I finished the first one, I decided to try wet sanding them to keep the paper from loading up and that made a huge difference! Lots of stroking and a couple of beers got the rears looking pretty good. Some scrapes and gouges will need some attention, but they are clean!

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The dark spots are low spots where there is still some factory primer lurking. I think that will stay! L8r

Jim
 
After trying several different methods to strip the fender extensions, I decided to try my bead blaster on the last one. I was hesitant to try it because I didn't want to damage them. I have it loaded with glass beads and tried dialing down the pressure to give it a preliminary shot. I worked excellently! I even cranked the pressure back up to speed the process. It probably helps that the beads that have been in there have been there quite a while and are breaking down. It left the surface with a sating finish, but very clean. Hit all the larger flat areas afterward with the DA and hand sanded the more intricate surfaces and it came out perfectly! I wish I had tried this on the first one instead of the last one!

Going through some older pictures, I found a couple from the day that I brought the Dart home. Seems like a lot of energy has been burned on this project and it doesn't look a whole lot different! My camera-shy son was steering when we took it off the trailer when she got home. I don't want to say that I have been at this for a long time, but he is now an almost 15-year law enforcement officer! Time really goes by fast!
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Time to get caught up with the pix of progress. The passenger fender DA'd and degreased.

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The quarter panel extensions and one fender extension

similarly treated and ready for an epoxy shower. An old ironing board makes a great platform for painting smaller items. The height is more comfortable and the grate platform is really handy to hang smaller items on coat hanger hooks.

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This is the last fender extension that was first glass bead blasted and then sanded and ready for epoxy. That's the Comet 1/4 miler in the background.

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The pass fender and end caps in epoxy. There is some cosmetic attention needed to teh quarter caps. The fronts are in pretty good shape.

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I got the driver's fender stripped down tonight, but ran out of time to get it DA'd, degreased and squirted. I'll have to get that done tomorrow I guess. It feels really good to be making visible progress! L8r

Jim

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Fender extension and driver's side fender sanded and covered in a fresh new coat of Omni epoxy. Just have the door jambs, cowl and engine compartment left to do! The fenders will need some minor touch up on the inside, but they are in fantastically good shape for 48 year old sheet metal.
 
I agree. Dings and dents are acceptable and are a fairly easy fix.....frickin' corrosion is the nut buster. Looks like you are getting a good handle on it.
 
Thanks HD! This last fender only had a single layer of the original factory paint. It made the removal sooooo much easier!
 
Swinger340Canuc said:
Excellent progress Jim, it’s a big job to do one of these cars the right way and your doing that.
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Thanks Danny,

I want to do this well and right, cuz I want to be proud of the finished product. However, at the same time I have to occasionally remind myself that this is not a concours restoration of something rare. In fact, when I am done, virtually nothing will be like it it was when it left Windsor! Your thread was and continues to be, very valuable source of reference! L8r

Jim
 
gerahead said:
Thanks Danny,

I want to do this well and right, cuz I want to be proud of the finished product. However, at the same time I have to occasionally remind myself that this is not a concours restoration of something rare. In fact, when I am done, virtually nothing will be like it it was when it left Windsor! Your thread was and continues to be, very valuable source of reference! L8r

Jim
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That’s a sensible approach Jim, one has to be a bit practical with most of these cars as to how deep and how “long” your going to spend on restoring them. Mine was probably somewhat unusual since mine was my first car that I’d owned since 79 and had a ton of memories and was a prized possession even before I discovered how rare it was. Because of my experience in the trade and what this car deserved I was going to do a full blown restoration, regardless of cost, so I should share as much as I could with my car community and they use what they find helpful. This is mostly just about a passion for cars and the friends that you make enjoying them and the car is worthless without them to enjoy it with.

Cheers pal,
 
I was outta town last week for work, so I didn't get much done. Before I left though, I did get the driver's side fender and the orphaned quarter extension in a fresh new coat of grey. So tonight I pulled out the power washer to do some dirty work. I blasted out the inside surfaces of the fenders to clear all the crud out to see what kind of work I needed to do on the invisible side. I was pleasantly surprised, I might not have to do too much other than some touch up where the paint has been scarred. All the undercoating looks really good and is well attached. While I had the washer out, i thought it would be a good time to clean some of the schmutz off the real axle housing. That old lube and dirt concoction was bound and determined to stay where it was. I found some treasures under the gunk.
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Some white dot markings at both ends of the tubes, maybe to verify that the u-bolts had been tightened?
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A painted number toward the outside end of the drivers side tube.
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Some of it is hard to make out in the pic, but it looks like G14. Does that make any sense to anyone who might know these markings much better than me?

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The pinkish looking stencil is hard to decipher . . . looks like maybe 129V. Anyone have an idea what this might be? The gear ration tag on the pumpkin sez 2.76. As far as I know, this is the original axle to the car. There was also a yellow swatch underneath the pinion yoke and what looks like a stroke of white on the lower drivers side of the chunk. There is also a yellow daub on the end of the pinion shaft. None of this was visible before I cleaned off all the goo!
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There is also a large A, laying over on its side, in white paint pen on the back side of the diff. I will likely reproduce all of these little gems when I get the axle all cleaned up and ready to go back in. That's it for tonight, I'm beat! L8r

Jim

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Quick Question for you guys who have done this already . . . . the biggest section of the car left to strip is the engine compartment, in and out. I am thinking that the best tool for this job is the wire wheel or cup, cuz of all the irregular surfaces. Is there something that works better? What have you done? I have seen some pix of great results here and that is what I am looking for! Thanks in advance! L8r

Jim
 
Ive had good results with those really tricky small areas using a hand held media blaster. They aren't the best for large areas.. but work in a pinch on the small stuff.
 
Thanks Gearhed73. I used one of these in those tight areas on the fenders in the area where they bolt to the engine compartment aprons and down at the bottom where they bolt to the frame rails. They do work well. Unless I shuffle a bunch of stuff around, I will be doing this inside my garage, so I will certainly want to minimize that mess! I don't have any rust to deal with in this area, so I am thinking that I might switch media to a finer grit to keep from giving myself a dermabrasion procedure! Thanks for the tip! L8r

Jim
 
Wire wheels, cups and brushes chucked up in an air motor works wonders, and dont forget grey/red ro locks on you 90 degree.
 
Gearhed73 said:
Wire wheels, cups and brushes chucked up in an air motor works wonders, and dont forget grey/red ro locks on you 90 degree.
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LOL! Yup, I have 4 different electric offset grinders with different implements attached to them for quick change and 3 pneumatic die grinders and offset grinders for yet some more options! Gonna be buying a couple more today.

After being out of town for work 3 of the last 5 weeks, I was able to spend some time back on the project last night. I thought that I might be able to get both the door jamb areas and rocker panels stripped. Apparently I was in some kind of unknown delusional state. I didn't even get one of them completely stripped! I was able to get the passenger side down to bare metal except for the area under the rain gutter on the roof and C-pillar where the weatherstipping attaches. All those bends and folds and corners takes a contortionist to get into. I guess I will be re-thinking how long the engine compartment will take! Party on! L8r

Jim
 
Finally got the door jambs and rockers done! This turned out to be a bigger time commitment than I thought it would. One more area done. Whittling away! L8r

Jim
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Wow, It doesn't seem like I have been away this long. Took a temporary break to get the race car ready for a trip to the track on Labor Day weekend. Came back with more work to do! I have still been toiling away at the removal of prior coatings. I have the inside of the fenders done. Cowl and firewall are done, inside of the roof is done, inside of the core support is done and the inside of the passenger side of the apron is done. I have the outside of the core support, outside of both aprons and the hood hinges to strip and I am done! I knew this was going to be a lot of work, but I had no idea . . . . Not only is it a lot of work, but it is becoming hazardous to my health! Last Friday while using a knotted wire wheel on an offset grinder on the corner of the core support, the wheel caught the edge of the sheet metal. I had a pretty good grip on the grinder, but it till jumped pretty hard toward me. Of course the power switch was locked on and the wheel snagged my shirt and in a blink of an eye, it balled up my shirt around the wheel and shredded it along with a good chunk of my chest. Dooooooooo! Yup, it left a mark! Good thing I am almost done! L8r

Jim
 
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Outside of every spare moment for the last couple of weeks, I put in a long day in the salt mine yesterday on the Dart. With the exception of the areas near where the rotisserie is mounted in the front of the car, every square inch of sheet metal on this body has been stripped and squirted with a couple of solid coats of epoxy. FINALLY! I hereby declare the start of the reconstruction phase of the project. Yaaaay! It has been a long time coming.
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Time to start creating a list of body work items that need to be addressed. I don't know how much I will get done before it is too cold to work in the garage, but I will do what I can and hit it hard again in the Spring. By then, I will be retired and have a lot more time to devote to it! L8r

Jim
 
It sure has been a long time since my last post. I have been plugging away, but pretty mundane stuff. Now that the winter has come and gone, I was able to get back at it. While digging through my storage shed, I found that some of our indigenous rodents had taken up residence in a couple of boxes of parts. First order of business was to eradicate and rebox the parts in plastic tubes. Fortunately the little bastards didn't destroy much; glove box liner and kick panels that I wasn't going to reuse anyway. Grrrr.
Dug out and cleaned up some of the hardware that I will need to hang the sheet metal back on the shell. Some before and after shots of the door latch mechanism and the hood latch and linkage.
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Outside of elbow grease and 0000 steel wool, I found that real low pressure in my blast cabinet with glass beads works really well to clean up plated parts as well as plastic (door latch linkage retainers) and rubber pieces (door and hood bumpers).
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I started on the body work with the doors. The passenger side was in much worse shape than the driver's side. Got the preliminary coats of filler on them and then reprimed.
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I intend to do the finish work with the sheet metal hung on the car. Working by myself without special jigs, this seems like an easier approach. The workstands dance all over the floor while I sand and I just can't get at some areas from the angle I want this way. Doors had small dents, but didn't need much hammer/dolly work to get them pretty nice. I realized pretty quickly that I made the same mistake with the filler that many DIY'ers make with sheet rock mud . . . put it on too heavily! It's a lot easier to put it on than to take it off!! LOL! L8r

Jim
 
I have gotten the roof to quarter seams filled and roughed in. Roof and dutchman filled and roughed in. Cowl dents filled and roughed in.
When I had welded the quarter skins in, I had never really done a good job of finishing the welded seams. As a result, they looked like it was going to take a ton of work to get them looking good. After I gave the seams a little more (ok, a lot!) TLC, I was much more excited about getting after them. I have hung the front sheet metal back onto the shell to make it easier to work on them and to get a look at alignment.
Then it happened! The first layer of duraglass that I put onto the passenger side quarter seam wasn't mixed with enough catalyst. It hardened, but didn't fully cure. I had to scrap all of that crap off, re-sand and then reapply the filler. I have since fired the body tech who mixed the filler, but I won't leave the premises. With the second, new coat cured, the area sanded out pretty well. I am happy with what is left. The driver's side started off in better shape as a base and I didn't fail the chemistry class on that side. With a coat of filler over the duraglass on that side needing sanding, it's looking pretty good.
It is a good that that I am not charging by the hour, I would be out of business! LOL!! L8r

Jim
 
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