1972 Satellite / GTX RestoMod

[chgr1]

Edited for clarity and added content:
Body work can be a PITA to get right and the products and techniques you use has a direct effect on how good the car looks after its done.
In the first pic are some of the products you might use. I don't recommend the Fastline body filler as it is a really cheap heaver strand , similar to the Bondo brand, product and clogs sanding paper and can leave you with extra work to do.

The Evercoat body filler product is very good, doesn't clog sanding paper and is a light strand filler. It is a more economical product then the Evercoat Rage product. I use the Plastik Honey product to thin down the evercoat product. The Honey makes the filler really smooth and more liquidity for a final skim coat filler, this , along with proper technique in mixing hardener to filler, reduces pin holes. As anyone knows that has done body work before, pin holes are a PITA!
Pin holes are caused by trapped air in the filler as you apply it or mix it. I avoid stirring the filler while mixing. I use an applicator in a swooping almost figure 8 motion (does that make sense) to mix it. And when you mix the hardener into the filler, the combined product will get warm due to the chemical reaction. If you get too much hardener in it, it will get really warm, almost to warm to hold in your hand, this could cause what I call bubbling of the filler due to the heat generated creating more pin holes.

Also The guy I studied under was a master craftsman, Bill Moses. His restorations have won multiple Concours d'elegance shows. His favorite saying when applying body filler was "Don't Play In The Putty". Don't keep working the filler when applying to the car. You get one or at the max two tries to apply it. If you keep working it you will introduce more pin holes and run the risk of it hardening as you work it and you will screw up the application.

The glazing putty is to fill really minor scratches and pin holes in your final work. Glazing putty is not meant to be used as a filler. There are two kinds of glazing putty, a one part as you see in the pic and a two part type that needs a hardener. You apply this type product in extremely thin coats then sand it down. Your almost using this type stuff as a guide coat to see if your work is done right. Keep in mind that you should use a paint sealer as a final primer coat prior to top coating. A primer sealer will seal in all the chemicals from filler and underlying primers, providing a barrier so that when you apply your top coat the reducer and other chemicals in the top coat paint will not attack or react with the other chemicals in body filler or under lying paint.

I once saw a car somebody did that they had used a lot of the red glazing putty as a filler, didn't use a final sealer primer, then top coated the car with white base / clear. You could see red splotches all over the car through the white top coat paint.

In the second pic you can see we are working on filling all the dents in the individual panels. Every panel, door and fender on this car, except the replaced right rear quarter needs a lot of work.
Something you can use to help you get dips and ripples sorted out in body filler is a straight edge. In areas where the filler is level across I draw a long horizontal line on the filler which reminds me "don't sand here", where its high ( your straight edge will seasaw back and forth on high spots) I draw short horizontal lines, Then just hand sand until the short lines disappear, now your level. You may have to sand out short lines multiple times to get all the high spots out.
Where the filler might be low in spots, and the straight edge will show you this as light gaps between the straight edge and the panel, I draw vertical short marks so I know where to add more filler. If you just use your hand to run across filled areas multiple times to find bumps and jumps, if your like me your hand will become numb to the touch and lie to you, a straight edge doesn't lie. If needs be create a cardboard template to ensure you have it straight especially on curved panels or panels with a crown.
All this is easier said than done. I'm not an expert body filler man, but I'm not too bad, it just takes me multiple tries to get it right. Where I get into trouble is along body lines, bend breaks and curvatures, getting them straight.
The biggest problem to fix is big dents right on body lines. In pic 877 you can see I have drawn a line across the body line brake on a door. What helps me is to put a piece of painters tape right across this line I drew, first above the break (bend) and hand sand the lower part right up to the tape line to get the body line break straight. the tape keeps you from sanding off any filler on the top side of the break line creating a curvy wormy body line. Once the bottom is done put a piece of tape on the bottom side of the break and sand the top. Now this will leave you with a straight body line but too sharp of a point on the break. You'll need to use 400 or 600 grit to dull or round the body line break to match the rest of the body line. Like I said all this is easier said than done.

In pic 878 you can see some of the tools I am using. The red sander is a flexible tool I use for round or curve sanding, it can bend to contour to the body. I probably have 10 different hand sanders along with a DA, Straight line air board sander and palm sander.

Like I said all this is easier said than done, and body work is very time consuming.

 

[chgr1]

The painting process has begun. In the side profile pic of the deck lid you can see a little of the pearl effect to this paint. Out in the sunlight the metallic effect really pops out with the pearl.

Added Content: In the post above, the reason I am using a red glazing putty is two fold. First it is a contrast to the grey filler color, so acting as a guide coat it will identify problem spots immediately, second if any of the red putty remains, say in scratches, along with a final primer it will not bleed to the top coat and show splotches of red, since we are spraying a dark top coat.

If your top coat is going to be a light color, such as white, you use light colored primer (white) and filler so along with the primer these colors will not bleed through and show through the top coat. For example, if you are painting a white base clear top coat and use a dark grey primer underneath, the final white top coat color will be darker than you may expect. Similarly, if you used a white primer underneath a top Base/Clear red, the resulting red color might be lighter than you expected.

Steve

 

[keepat]

Great job and awseome color!
Pat

 

[chgr1]

Thanks, The paint is UreKem KemBase Urethane Base / Clear, colors Cherry Bomb Pearl and Tahitian Black Pearl.
First time I have sprayed this paint, flows and covers well. I am more used to Sherwin Williams, PPG and DuPont, but the KemBase works very well. Really pops out in the sunlight but not gaudy. Metallic and Pearl in a 2 stage application. In dark light shows very dark red, in sunlight it lightens up brilliantly and the pearl provides for a very nice contrast at different angles.

Steve

 

[chgr1]

Assembly; This project hasn't been this complete and put together I suspect in a long , long time.
In the first place, do yourself a favor, when you disassemble a project take the time to run down to the dollar general store and buy a box of ziplock bags. When you take something apart put the bolts in a bag and label it, such as fender bolts.
Now whether you are going to use new bolts or not, when you look in your fender bolts bag, at least you know what kind and different size bolts are needed to remount the fender.
In our case we are using the old bolts. I took a block of wood, drilled holes in it and stuck the bolts in the holes. Now in the blasting cabinet, a few quick passes and you have cleaned the bolts of old paint and rust. If you want, use a thread chaser to clean up the threads. Now take your nice cleaned bolts, punch a bunch of holes in a cardboard box flap and primer them. And boom-lacka-lacka-boom you have nice new bolts to mount the fender or a door.

Mounting doors and fenders can be a pain to line up. I have a couple of suggestions that might help.
You can see in the pics I have prepainted the door jams and installed the new door hinges and restored original upper inside front fender mounts. You'll see this mount come into play later.
Now I have a door "U" cradle that mounts on top of my floor jack that I can position just about anyway I want to attach the door to the mounts in the fully open position. Now leave the mount bolts in the body and door finger tight. Use cardboard box flap pieces to lay in the bottom of the door jams so things wont get scratched. Now lay a couple of wood paint stick pieces about 3 inches long under or on top of the cardboard. Usually, depending on the vehicle, 2 pieces of paint sticks laid on top of eachother, at the front and rear of the door jam is just about the right height for the door to fit centered in the jam. Close the door very carefully and make sure it sets on the wood pieces in the jam. check your door height alignment to body lines and or door latch and adjust from there, adding or removing paint sticks.
Also check your door front to back alignment, door gap to rear quarter panel and so forth. Also check the door gap on the bottom rocker panel, make sure the door is not out too far.

The door mounts adjust for height, fore and aft and in or out. Most generally the door height and fore and aft adjustment are where the mounts are bolted to the body - the door in or out adjustment is where the mounts are bolted to the door, but not always. Its also possible you will need shims in certain places. You should make note of all this when you taken them off the car during disassembly.
Once your satisfied with the initial alignment tighten the mounting bolts. You may have to tweak it later but you have it really close.
In our case the front fenders are off which makes it easier.
Now be careful of the door latch mechanism. If you get the door closed too far or the door is cocked too much you could jam the door latch and now you cant get the door back open. Been there done that! You could remove the latch mechanism, for now, from the door if you want, chances are it needs to be cleaned of old grease, dirt and crud anyway.
If you remove the latch, make sure you know where the linkage rods go back, and chances are you'll need new rod clips, the old ones will likely break if you mess with them.

Stay tuned for front fender installation

 

[PlagueOfBadgers]

Looking great! I like it!
That is sound advice with bagging and tagging every nut and bolt. I had posted on our page not that long ago that I was very nervous about doing a complete tare down. Someone replyed " get a lot of zip lock bags and Mark everything". We took it a step further, after bagging every nut, bolt, screw good or broken, we zip tied each zip lock bag to that corresponding car part.

When it came to the wiring, labeled every plug on both sides.

Thanks to yours and others advice we should have no issues when putting our car back together.

 

[chgr1]

Good advice- anything to help others. Now for installing a front fender. These usually have a lot of adjustments as well, but not only do you have to align to the door, but also the front valance panels upper and or lower (depending on the vehicle) as well as the hood.

Now its my advice to fully mount the front fender before you do any body work or body filler (depending on the vehicle). If the fender flexes when you put all the bolts in and tighten them down, and you have already added body filler - the filler could crack with the flexing of the metal. Then you'll have it all to do over again. With these Satellites and Road Runners the very front of the fender is tied to the front upper valance and the bottom is tied to the lower valance. That lower valance is held to the car body with two bolts in the radiator support and one bolt in each side frame. That centers this panel, now with this car I had to pull the bottoms of the fenders over to mate with the lower valance panel and vice grip it to hold it while I put the 3 bolts in each side. If any body filler had been on the lower parts of the fender it would have cracked for sure. These fenders have been off too long and they warped.

Now make sure you get the fender back aft far enough to get a consistent gap between the door and the fender, but not so close that the door catches on the fender when it opens. Again use your paint stick pieces as gap gauges, this is a good gap to start with. Make sure you get the fender where you want it before tightening any bolts.

Now where the back or aft of the fender meets up with the door there are 4 mounting places and 4 areas of alignment. You can see the pic I have added
Nut 1 is on top of the firewall right out in plane sight and is screwed to a double ended threaded stud.
Nut 2 is inside the fender at the top, way back to the door mounts and is screwed to a double ended threaded stud in the fender.
Nut 3 & 4 are obviously down under the rocker and are usually double ended threaded studs.

Now to raise the fender in area "A" to help match the hood alignment you might need a shim between the fender bracket and the firewall stud. To help align area "B" of the fender to match the height of the door and get a good gap you may have to slip a shim in between the fender and the mounting bracket you saw in the previous post right next to the door mounts. A long needle nose plyers can be used to place the shim.
Now don't forget if you raise the fender to align the height of area "B", area "D" might be off on the body line. Different thicknesses of "U" sims are available to aid in this process.
Keep checking all the body lines and gaps to make sure you get it right. You may have to compromise in some spots to get it to look right all over.
Area "C" and "D" of the fender can be adjusted out and or forward or backward to match the door body line and lower gap by placing shims between the fender bottom and the frame on Nuts 3 and 4. You can use a drift in the lower holes to move the panel forward or backward.
Again use your paint sticks as a gap gauge initially. And if you need to skew the panel a little to help match the profile of the door gap you can place shims under Nut 4 but not under Nut 3. As you tighten the nuts down it will skew or bow the fender out. You are going to have to play with this a little to get all the gaps and body lines to match.

Now on this car special circumstances came up. First On Nut 2, someone had screwed the threaded stud into the fender upside down, screwing the long threaded side of the stud into the fender. I didn't notice this when I installed the fender. When I tightened the nut on the stud inside the fender with my air ratchet, the nut bottomed out on the short threaded side of the stud and it screwed the stud right up and out through the top of the fender. It poked a nice round hole right in the outside top of the fender. If you were around you would have heard me say the 7 dirty words George Carlin could never say on stage!!!!!

So now I had to take all the bolts back out of the fender, lose all the adjustments I had done, remove the fender from the car and unscrew the stud, turn it around and thread the short section into the fender and start all over, plus patch the hole in the top of the fender.

Moral of the story, never take anything for granted, check it all over before you start.

Now second, at some point in this cars life the door had been caught on its trailing edge and forced open, this put a huge crease in the middle of the door where you see the vertical line. Also the front of the door caught the fender and put a huge dent in the fender where you see the other vertical line.

Now I knew this going in and I'll tie this all together in a minute. To pull the huge crease out of the door I used about 25 pins attached in the middle of the crease all the way down to the door bottom with my pin welder, clamped the pins between two pieces of steel, and pulled the crease out a little at a time, got it almost out and body filled the rest. I've got a pic of that somewhere. Also I did not know if this crease had bent the inside of the door a lot or not.

On the fender I had to straighten the fender inner support that is right behind area "C" & "D" in the picture. Also I had to push out the fender panel to try and get most of the dent out. Now I did not know after fixing some of this damage with these pieces off the car, just how bad this was going to affect fender to door alignment when I reinstalled them. I got the car disassembled so I had never seen it all put together.
See I told you I would tie it all together with the theme of this post.
Its not that bad in the end. The door inside frame didn't get bent out of shape, most of the damage to the door was the outside skin. It took me awhile adding shims here and there to get it really close. The door gap to fender and the alignment is pretty consistent varying maybe 1/16.

You have to also keep in mind that back in the 70's "fit & finish" wasn't the high priority that it is today. It was good for the time but not as scrutinized as it is today. Some of the panels never fit together perfectly from the assembly line. Also when using aftermarket panel replacements that are not especially made to original specifications, the fit & finish of the final assembly wont be perfect.

Found the pic of the door when I was fixing it, looks nasty doesn't it?

I may edit this and add some other thoughts, but its late now.

Happy Thanksgiving To All

Steve Cass

 

[chgr1]

Setting the rear and front spoilers
Mike wanted a specific rear deck spoiler, one that he saw in the "1971 Speedipus Rex" thread. Not exactly the same spoiler in that thread, this one is shorter.
We measured and placed the spoiler then drilled the holes. It ends up being 28 5/8 inches measured down from the leading edge corners of the deck lid and approx. 1 inch (cant remember exactly) in from each side.

Now the new aftermarket spoiler comes with a template to assist you in drilling the holes in the deck lid. Through it away! The template marked positions for the holes are way off from the actual studs mounted in the spoiler. Also the studs molded into the spoiler were not straight, some of them were molded into the spoiler at an angle, this makes it more difficult to drill the holes properly.

We are still in the process of doing body work on the car so we are not especially worried about scratching the deck lid. We had tape covering the studs. If your car is finished use painters tape to cover the deck lid to prevent scratching the paint. Or you can use little rubber vacuum line plug covers to place over the studs to prevent scratching.

We placed the spoiler and held it in place with painters tape initially on each end and one piece of tape in the middle. We placed a tape measure along the side of the deck lid. A little trick you can use when measuring for the correct placement, run your finger down the painters tape making more of the tape stick to the deck lid, this has the affect of physically moving the spoiler up on the deck lid.

Once you get the spoiler leading edge moved up to the correct position on the measuring tape, place another piece of tape across your tape run making a "T". Now draw a small mark across the tape onto the deck lid, this is a quick reference line to make sure the spoiler hasn't moved while you add additional tape to hold it in place.

Since we didn't use the template to mark the positions of the mounting studs, once we had it in place, there is enough room under the spoiler to get a marker in there and mark the positions of the studs on the deck lid.

After you drill the holes in the outside and through to the inside of the deck lid, use some rust encapsulator sprayed into the cap and a small paint brush to coat the drilled holes. This will keep rust from forming.
We used step drill bits on the inside of the deck lid to enlarge the holes enough to get the mounting nuts on the studs. We actually cut off the ends of a couple step drill bits when we enlarged the drilled holes in the inside of the deck lid. This was to keep from enlarging the holes on the outside of the deck lid. I would rather butcher a couple of drill bits then butcher the deck lid of a car.

Since this spoiler is not specifically made for this car, the contour of the spoiler is not exactly the same as the contour of the deck lid. Its close but off a little, you have to be careful not to tighten the nuts down too tight so you don't deform or dimple the deck lid.

The spoiler rear mounting studs are short and will not go all the way through the deck lid. Also the 2 front mounting studs on the outside are also not long enough to go all the way through the inside of the deck lid. You'll have to be a bit creative extending the stud lengths in order to get nuts on them.

Once we permanently mount the spoiler, after painting, we'll use some sealer around the studs to keep water and moisture out.

Also Mike wanted a different front spoiler, also not made specifically for this car, we measured and mounted the front piece, looks pretty good.

 

[chgr1]

As most of you know on deck spoilers, hood bezels, inserts and hood scoops the mounting studs sometimes get broken. The plastic breaks and the mounting stud falls out.
It can be a puzzler how to fix these. You can see in the attached pics what we are faced with and how we fixed it.

Lucky that we had one that was not broken so we made 3 little tubes that fit around the good one to use as a template to fill in the broken ones. I used remnants of 180 sanding paper because it has a pretty stiff consistency and used masking tape to hold it together when pouring in the putty.

We cleaned the broken mounting locations very good and made sure it had a roughness texture to it so that the new putty would have something to grip to.
Now we used JB Weld for fiberglass / plastics for the putty to fill the tubes and fix the mounts. After it dries overnight we will drill out the hole for the mounting stud and re-tap the threads and insert the studs.

Its very sturdy and molded into the bezel.

Its a good idea to test fit the bezel to make sure it fits through the holes in the hood. If its a little too big you can sand it down a little, but if your tubes are the right size you should be ok. Also when you bolt these to the hood just get them tight, if you really crank down on them you can break them again or deform / dimple the hood. You can also use lock tight on the stud threads to keep them from coming loose, if you worried about them.

Steve

 

[chgr1]

Now how do you secure them to the hood? Well there are special studs and bell nuts available from Year One for this purpose but we came up with our own solution.
After we had repaired the mounting locations we cut some threaded rod which we purchased from a local home improvement store into 1.5 inch pieces to use as studs, then JB welded them in the now repaired locations.
We also repurposed some plastic rollers, also purchased at a local home improvement store, and used a step drill bit to enlarge the holes to fit over the stud mount. Now with some stainless steel washers and nuts we had our repair complete. All that is left now is to final paint them and bolt them on the hood.

Steve

 

[chgr1]

I suppose your wondering what the car looks like now that its painted and why we haven't posted any pics. Well Michael didn't want to see his car until all the body work, paint and assembly was completed, so we haven't posted any pictures to spoil his thrill of finally seeing his car painted after 20 some years.

Well yesterday we finally had Michael over for the reveal and here it is,
If you have been following this thread you have seen all the metal and body work that has been done, his car has come a long way.

 

[chgr1]

Here is some information that might help you secure name plates during assy when we were installing the "GTX" letter plates on the deck lid and rear quarters.
For the deck lid we taped off the correct placement for the plate, 1 inch in from the side and 1 inch up. Marked the locations to drill the holes and used painters tape to mask off the hole locations, drilled the holes and inserted the plate securing grips. There is a close up of the grips and these can be obtained at local auto parts stores and come in various sizes.
Or you can use the self cutting lock nuts, but there are some places were these wont work because you cant get into the back of the panel to use them.

Also when we were installing the rear deck spoiler we used some rust inhibitor to coat the inside of the holes and placed some sealer around the holes so no water can get under the spoiler and into the holes.

"ADDED" The little grips to hold insignia plates are a Dorman HELP product which they call tubular nuts part number 45380.

 

[rrTor-Red]

You need, I think they call them "Bell Nuts" or something to the sort. I have them but no picture at the time. I'd have to look at my vendors list to see where I got them from. This is in your response to reply #70. If you got those fasteners from Year One, they're incorrect. You can get the "Bell Nuts" from R/T specialties but there is a vendor who sells everything as a kit. He deals with 'Cuda parts

 

[chgr1]

You need, I think they call them "Bell Nuts" or something to the sort. I have them but no picture at the time. I'd have to look at my vendors list to see where I got them from. This is in your response to reply #70. If you got those fasteners from Year One, they're incorrect. You can get the "Bell Nuts" from R/T specialties but there is a vendor who sells everything as a kit. He deals with 'Cuda parts

Thanks for the input those looking for the correct attaching hardware will appreciate it. We didn't see the need to use the correct attaching hardware so we just used standard threaded rod for the studs , nuts, washers and some plastic deep washers. Michael , I believe is going to install a underhood blanket anyway so the attaching hardware will probably be covered up.

 

[moparnation74]

Great work so far. Love the paint scheme and colors choices....Will be one sweet X!

 

[chgr1]

Forgot to add pics of the quarter GTX insignia

The car is scheduled to be moved back to Michael's this next week where he will start installing the interior and continue posting to this thread.

Steve

 

[Michael McFadden]

I think I have picked out the wheels I want. 18" on the back and 17's on the front.. What do you think??

 

[chgr1]

I think I have picked out the wheels I want. 18" on the back and 17's on the front.. What do you think??

View attachment 408511

Looks good Mike

 

[showard]

I think I have picked out the wheels I want. 18" on the back and 17's on the front.. What do you think??

View attachment 408511

I like them.

 

[Michael McFadden]

Time to reassemble the giant jig-saw puzzle!! I have ordered new door and quarter glass, some butyl 70mm sound deadener for the doors, Weatherstripping, new hardware/clips and power regulators for my windows and lower panels. (Door, kick and quarter)

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