1968 Plymouth GTX

['68 Coronet R/T]

Went ahead and ground down the welds and removed the remainder of the old sway bar mounts.

Decided to disassemble the disc brake calipers:

The parts number match up to a 1975 Dodge Dart and similar. New pistons and seals are available.
Here's what the piston wells looked like:

I soaked them in de-greaser and cleaned them up. The bores will clean up with a hone. Pistons, banjo bolts and air bleed screws will be reinstalled while media blasting the housings and coating with epoxy.

 

['68 Coronet R/T]

K-Frame and Calipers in epoxy:

Reassembled hood and clamped it together. 3M 4274 Duramix NVH sealer takes 24 hours to cure so hopefully tomorrow I can spot weld it into place.

 

['68 Coronet R/T]

Spot welded the hood together today.

Had a difficult time getting the spot weld setting right. Get one or two perfect 3 second welds and then blow through on the next one. I finally flattened a piece of copper pipe and clamped that behind the weld area to use as a heat sink. It helped a lot.

Ran a DA over the epoxy to show the low spots and problem areas. Black epoxy works great for this since the low spots retain their shine.

Circled the problem areas:

This is my disaster area. Somebody took a body pick and did what I call a "cave and pave" in the center of the hood. I used a body hammer and dolly to flattened the low spots and this produced the high spot you see here. This will be a great spot for me to learn how to use my new shrinking disc and slap hammer while watching the Wray Schelin video that came with them.

 

[JimKueneman]

Your gonna be done before we get the Duster done at this rate!

 

['68 Coronet R/T]

Got the Sway Bar mount brackets from Hotchkiss and checked the fit.
The bolt hole and upper flange fit really nice:

The lower flange has a 1/8" gap and it is the same on both control arms:

Makes me wish I didn't grind off these old welds:

 

['68 Coronet R/T]

Welded the brackets on and prepped for epoxy:

The hood inserts that hold the 440 emblems were done at the same time.

 

['68 Coronet R/T]

Scored a pair of fender mounted turn signals and a padded ashtray front on eBay recently:

Starting the process of removing the roof skin. Decided to leave the drip rails in place and I hope to be able to repair and reinstall the original skin.

 

[JimKueneman]

Where would be be without the internet and eBay in this hobby......

 

['68 Coronet R/T]

Very true. I remember calling salvage yards and then having to drive there and personally look at the part before deciding whether it was worth the effort to pull it.

 

[rakort]

Where would be be without the internet and eBay in this hobby......

digging endlessly through hordes of garbage at swap meets......in 95 degree heat!

 

[JB400]

It makes it easier, but we also miss out on half the fun.

 

['68 Coronet R/T]

I forgot to mention that I got the turn signals and ashtray for less than 1/3 of the price most were listing them for.

 

['68 Coronet R/T]

Looks like the old girl may have had a key job and some point in her life.

 

['68 Coronet R/T]

Stripping the build primer off the paint to see what under there.
The roof appears to have had almost no paint on it at all.

Right quarter panel had some work done.

Here is a common problem I find when restoring cars. Rusted metal under the filler. This is one of the reasons that I apply epoxy primer to bare metal before doing filler work.
I admit sometimes I still slip back to filler on metal and there is nothing seriously wrong with that method however the epoxy will protect the metal and the filler adheres well to the epoxy.

Lower front portion of the quarter panel has more recent damage:

Looks like some brazing done on the left sail panel as well:

Removed the lead from the remaining roof skin seams:

Soon I will be drilling spot welds till my patience runs out.

 

['68 Coronet R/T]

Removing the roof skin is proving to be more difficult than I expected.
The windshield flange went very smoothly using a 5/16" spot well drill.

The Flange areas are easy to separate after drilling by simply inserting a flat blade screw driver or using a steel chisel.

There are a lot of spot welds up the sides of the rear window. I think I counted 23 on the left side. They are spaced a bit farther apart across the top.

The problem areas are the drip rails. There is no room to get a screwdriver or chisel in there to separate the skin from the drip rail.
In this picture I used a 5/16" spot well cutter but found that it left some small portions of welded metal around the perimeter of the holes. Not much but enough to require leverage to break the roof skin free.

Ended up destroying the drip rail in the process of trying to loosen the roof skin. In this case it wasn't a bad thing since it was more rusted than I previously thought.
I am trying a 3/8" spot weld cutter on the other side and will post some pictures when the skin is removed.

 

['68 Coronet R/T]

I should have added that if I was replacing the roof skin instead of trying to save it, a better method would be to use a cut off tool and cut the roof skin about 1" above the drip rail flange. This would allow removal of the skin and then give access to the spot welds so the drip rails could be saved.

 

[69 GTX]

Lots of good work!

 

['68 Coronet R/T]

Thanks.
Got the roof skin off today and it is rusted pretty badly especially along the flange area where its very thin.

The support structure has a couple of heavy rust areas that will need to be cut out and patched.

The majority of the structure is sound and will clean up nice. You see the rust behind the drip rail here:

Looks like a new roof skin and drip rails are in the future. For now media blasting, patching and epoxy.

 

[69 GTX]

Great job.

 

['68 Coronet R/T]

Finally got the passenger's side drip rail off:

This revealed the extent of the rusted metal in the sail panel area:

The driver's side is not as bad but still needs some attention:

I don't know much about the history of this car. It was made in LA, CA so maybe it spent some time near the ocean? That is the only way I can figure it would have this much rust in areas that are normally protected from the elements.