68 Road Runner Project-First Mopar

[BrianS]

Pictures Pictures Pictures

You'd be surprised how often you'll refer back to them.

I agree-I wish I had the luxury of taking pictures as the car was disassembled but instead I am relegated to doing the best I can with a big pile of parts. As I mentioned earlier somebody had totally disassembled the car down to every little screw in the heater box (then lost half the screws). I figure the guy I purchased the car from was really good at taking stuff apart but never being capable of putting anything back together in fact when I think about his 45x120' shop there was exactly 0 out of 6 cars in there complete. Anyway enough sniveling on my part. I have found the thread on here about the Fathers GTX extremely helpful identifying parts and odd enough looking through ebay has helped identify parts I have no idea where they go, for that matter the FBBO for sale pages have helped also. I also have all the usual books and manuals which also help put the puzzle together.

 

[ckessel]

Man, I feel for you. When I lived in Ramona I worked at a shop to do just the older vehicles. My first task was to put a 67 Camaro together that had been apart for over 10 years, been to 3+ other shops, moved around at the car owners place, owner went through a divorce and had to move etc etc. My boss and the car owner figured it would take a month to get it together. This car was an empty shell with only the drivetrain, front suspension and rear suspension in. 10 months later I had it put back together. There was a huge amount of parts missing, parts for other GM cars in the pile, no info on what went where and neither the car owner or my boss wanted to get me needed info for assembly. Some of the parts that were missing, the car owner accused me of stealing. I told him flat out I'm a Mopar guy and GM junk is of no use to me and why would I want GM junk polluting my garage. He was a roid raging Richard Cranium. He finally calmed down "some". As for my boss, I told him either pony up with what I need or it ain't gettin done. Even when I needed small stuff like fasteners, fittings etc I had to go through his "secret stashes" which were just bins of junk. Good thing I got paid by the hour. BTW, I had never taken a GM car apart before so I just had to use the old noggin. Never again will I take something on like that.

 

[BrianS]

Finally getting a run at the body work this week, really nice starting out with a pretty straight car that is already blasted and has 0 rust. Makes it so much nicer. Still hate body work though! Still trying to decide if I am going to shoot it or take it someplace. I have been painting my own cars since I was 17 but I never do it consistently enough to get really good at it. The flip side is I did decide to let a shop do the body work and paint on my GTO and it was a train wreck, 3 1/2 years of body shop hell and three body shops later it is back in the shop being repainted again now due to peeling paint. Even though it is warranty work it is still a pain. I will for sure do all the prep on the RR just would like someone who paints for a living actually squirt the paint on not to mention I am relegated to a garage and don't have a big shop. Who knows maybe I should dust off the old Sata and go for it myself.

 

[ckessel]

If it doesn't turn out good, at least you can bitch yourself out. When I managed a shop down in S.D. county, the main body guy did custom paint work out of his garage. Lots of airbrush/candy/graphics etc for sand and drag cars. His house was accessed by a dirt road. His stuff came out cleaner than the "professional" painters we had at the shop. Makes a big difference if you know what you are doing or clean the ffn booth and do the filter service like you are supposed to. Painter always figured that was not his job to keep the booth clean and serviced. I made him correct all his mistakes. Not the detailers job to do.

 

[blue69runner]

Took mine down to bones also. But needed every thing. Like you the car had a lot striped off it why I don't know just figured it was painted. But found bond O and rust every where. Look's like you have a good platform to start with. Even the small thing's are hard to find. Like the upper front head liner trim was gone. No glove box lid either. Or a lower dash pad. So wish you the best and will be watching your progress. Post pic's often.

 

[BrianS]

Took mine down to bones also. But needed every thing. Like you the car had a lot striped off it why I don't know just figured it was painted. But found bond O and rust every where. Look's like you have a good platform to start with. Even the small thing's are hard to find. Like the upper front head liner trim was gone. No glove box lid either. Or a lower dash pad. So wish you the best and will be watching your progress. Post pic's often.

You know the most frustrating part about the missing parts is that they are random parts. For example today I was going to hang the drivers door loosely just to get it out of the way and I go grab the bag labeled door bolts and guess what.......1/2 the bolts were missing. Then while digging for more bolts I was looking at the bag with the strut hardware and realized one nut was missing. Right now the one that is eating at me is the rear springs, someone disassembled the springs sent them out to get them re-arched and then lost the lower/small leaf. Seriously....now I will have to buy new springs unless I can find a pair of small leaves. I have been fortunate that there are some pretty good sellers here on FBBO and I have found much of what I need along with banging around on ebay. I also did get a little help from Wildcat Auto up in Oregon on some parts and Hoover in Idaho has been a ton of help.

Like most guys I am pretty bad about taking pics but will try to keep them coming!

 

[ckessel]

I wonder if it would be beneficial for you to find a rust bucket junker so you can harvest missing items.

 

[BrianS]

I wonder if it would be beneficial for you to find a rust bucket junker so you can harvest missing items.

I thought about that as well. I could then peddle off the parts I don't need to offset the cost of the parts car. We will see where it goes over the next couple of weeks.

 

[Pistol Pete]

Don't overlook a 4 door either if it's cheap enough. I have a parts car out back that I'm still pulling stuff off of 16 years later.

 

[BrianS]

Plugging away on the body work. The passenger quarter has been a slight challenge since it was replaced at some time. It appears that the car had some rear end damage at some point way back in the day and a quarter from another car was installed. Since the quarter was brazed on I would assume it was done back when the car was fairly new and it was done by a collision repair shop as an insurance job. Overall pretty good work I am just being **** about it matching the drivers side perfectly. I made a pattern of the drivers side and just kept working the metal on the passenger quarter until it was as close as I could get it to the pattern then floated it out with filler and then blocked 95% of the filler off. My goal is to shoot both quarters with polyester filler/primer tomorrow and block the entire car again. Then the first of next week get it in 2k primer before I leave for Idaho on Friday. Once I get back from Idaho I will do the primer/block/primer/block/primer/block thing until I am satisfied with the final product. All the primers are from SPI and I am still trying to decide if I want to use BC/CC or single stage. The guys at SPI recommended I use 2 stage rather than single stage but I wanted to keep the original looking appearance. I am still weighing all the pro's and con's but I have a feeling it will end up being PPG base or Automotive Art Motobase and SPI clear.

 

[blue69runner]

Your into it now for sure. I used Matrix paint. Which is PPG paint. Three coats of base then added color blender with a micro flake royal blue over the b 5 for pop. Then three coats of clear. Lot of work. I would add fish eye to my color blender. It does not hurt to add it to your clear or base coat even if they say you don't need it.

 

[BrianS]

Your into it now for sure. I used Matrix paint. Which is PPG paint. Three coats of base then added color blender with a micro flake royal blue over the b 5 for pop. Then three coats of clear. Lot of work. I would add fish eye to my color blender. It does not hurt to add it to your clear or base coat even if they say you don't need it. View attachment 1088678

I was just looking at your paint booth, do you have the plans for that thing? I am looking at going the same route and some of the guys on here have done a great job on fabricating home built paint booths. My neighbor has a 68 Cuda to paint and so he was asking if I was interested in going halves on one of those inflatable booths but I kinda think the rest of the neighbors might frown on us painting cars in a inflatable booth in my front yard

 

[ct71rr]

Not to hijack your thread BrianS but I would also like to see your booth plans blue69runner.

 

[BrianS]

Not to hijack your thread BrianS but I would also like to see your booth plans blue69runner.

No worries about hijacking the thread. I was kinda kidding a little about the paint booth plans but a while back I did find a thread on here from a member who put a ton of effort into a killer home made paint booth. Wood framing with plastic walls and filters/ventilation. Way to much effort for a temp booth but very nice. I figure minimal wood framing and 4-6 mil visqueen and a couple of filters. I have a confined space exhaust fan I picked up on CL which should be enough to keep air moving.

 

[BrianS]

I have been thinking about other parts of the car while doing the body work. I have pretty much settled in on a disc brake kit and narrowed it down to Dr Diff or SSBC or maybe even a set from Pirate Jacks. Sunday morning while waiting for my wife to get ready for church I did a quick spin through ebay and saw a set of 73 Cuda spindles with no bids and 2hrs left. Starting bid was $125, I thought what the heck for $125 I would take them but figured at the last second someone would snipe them. I bid $125 and go figure we get home from church and I am the proud owner of a set of Cuda spindles. So now I am going to piece the front disc together and save a few bucks. There is a great thread here on the boards for that exact swap. I also picked up the sliders from a member here on the boards, Dr. Diff has the caliper kits really reasonable so it has all worked out so far.

 

[Speedbird]

If you have to by calipers and rotors anyway get the bigger "Cordoba" rotors and associated calipers. .
Doctor Diff is the source assuming he has them in stock.
Was the cowl top off the car when you got it?
I can't tell from the first pictures but it looks like it.
I always wonder about the inside of the cowls when bodies receive this type of treatment since I've have to pull more than one apart to get to the inside.

 

[BrianS]

If you have to by calipers and rotors anyway get the bigger "Cordoba" rotors and associated calipers. .
Doctor Diff is the source assuming he has them in stock.
Was the cowl top off the car when you got it?
I can't tell from the first pictures but it looks like it.
I always wonder about the inside of the cowls when bodies receive this type of treatment since I've have to pull more than one apart to get to the inside.

The cowel was intact and pretty clean inside.

 

[ckessel]

Where in the PRC are you? Depending on your location, sourcing the remainder of the brake pieces may be just a trip to Pick A Part or similar. At least for caliper mount brackets, caliper cores, spindle hardware etc.

 

[BrianS]

Where in the PRC are you? Depending on your location, sourcing the remainder of the brake pieces may be just a trip to Pick A Part or similar. At least for caliper mount brackets, caliper cores, spindle hardware etc.

Up between Sac and SF. There are a couple of pick a part places up here but Dr Diff has the calipers with pads/hardware for $115. I figure by the time I buy fuel, pay bridge tolls, pay to get in, and then rebuild the calipers and buy pads that $115 is looking good. I can still get it all done real reasonable even buying the rest of the parts new.

BTW-I have a buddy that lives in Los Osos named Jeff C, big time surfer from way back when. He used to have a small teal/white Radon that he just sold and picked up an Anderson Greenough project.

 

[ckessel]

Cool. I'm guessing those are boats?