Body Building 101- 1968 Charger

[smyythe68]

Ok, what's the address. I will be sending my car soon. You do charity work, right? Lol. Excellent work, I'm very jealous, gives me inspiration though and thank you for posting all the good info and pictures. Keep up the good work and I'll attempt to follow suit. Awesome.

 

[BarrsRestoration]

Thank you for the comments and compliments, guys. It's appreciated. I know that in the whole scheme of body restoration this is pretty condensed, but hopefully explaining my thought process and plan helps someone else in a similar situation.
And to smyythe68, Google me, I'm not hard to locate!:notworthy:

Anyone interested in seeing a 64 Belvedere project? Maybe I could start a thread on that one.

Thanks again for the interest and compliments.

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Good work Steve! Thanks for sharing! Isn't it amazing what can now be done to a car like that with the availability of reproduced body panels??

Hi Rick!
You are right, without new body panels so many of these old cars would not be brought back. We just have to accept some modifications are needed on some pieces and catch those issues early in the builds. Nothing worse than finding out that nice looking painted part you assumed would fit, now needs to be cut up and painted again.
Considering the number of aftermarket panels we had to use on this Charger, I think it went pretty well.

 

[cavemanno1]

Where there is the will there is the way!Great job!Have a car just like that i wanna buy and looking at your work it can be done!

Well done,excellent work!

 

[Quinterogerardo]

Great Job, and Black, awesome! ANYONE have a good body shop here in Los Angeles Area?

 

[BarrsRestoration]

Speaking again of modifying new parts, when both new quarter panels were unpacked I noticed both were stamped with a slight bulge behind the wheel and below the body line. Rather than try and alter the shape off of the car, I waited until they were solidly welded before doing any metal work. To get them to come down I used a sharp awl and body hammer and very lightly tapped in a circular pattern to shrink the surface down. Then I used a metal file to check my progress. I'm sure it took over a thousand strikes to get it down, but by going slow it never oil canned on me and I never had to knock it back out. Eventually it was close enough to finish with a light filler coat.
The filler work was then sprayed with DP epoxy primer and K36 primer. This is also when we finally had our moldings to check for clip hole locations. We checked the fit and hole locations against the measurements taken at the the start of the project. After a series of hand blocking/priming/blocking, it was ready for final primer and a mist coat of green base. The green base serves as a "tracer" or "shadow" coat for the last sanding for paint work. When all of the green has been sanded off with 600 grit, the surface is paint ready.

 

[Superfreak]

Looking good

 

[BarrsRestoration]

Here are some pieces after blasting them clean. Next step is black epoxy and filling imperfections, like rust pitting.

 

[Ron 73]

Looks great and looks like you are doing your share of the blasting!!! One job i kind of like but would hate to do it everyday, but its cool to turn the metal to something your sure of when building! Nice work for sure!!!

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Had to say, the pallets are what i used with my leaf springs and rear end, they make a good home built bench for things like this!

 

[daytona kid]

Nice to see how the pros do it! What kind of primer and or paint is going on the under body stuff, K-frame, etc..?

 

[BarrsRestoration]

Generally all of those type parts get 2 coats of PPG DP90 black epoxy, followed with PPG Deltron single stage 9469 black. It contains a flattening agent, so it gives a little more gloss than the DP, but not high gloss. I don't like to use the light colored epoxies or gray high build on those parts because any nicks or chips from assembly or road exposure look really bad against the black top coat.
Next time I'll post pictures of some parts painted.

 

[BarrsRestoration]

Paint progress

 

[BarrsRestoration]

Here we have gotten color in the engine bay, trunk area and rear body panel, all areas to be masked off and covered when the rest of the car is sprayed. The same with the doors, hood and trunk. All have been finished on the insides and will be covered for exterior spraying that soon followed.

 

[747mopar]

Beautiful work! I feel good seeing you like using the same Epoxy I did (good stuff).

 

[Ron 73]

X 2.. It kind of makes my mouth water, wants to make ya head out and do more then you did for the day lol!!! That is some great work and it sure looks good after a day doing the things that led you to where your at! Enjoy!!! I know it will get better yet as you move forward, Beautiful it is...

 

[Propwash]

Damn that's gonna look sharp all dressed up in silver. Looking forward to seeing her all painted up!

 

[BarrsRestoration]

In base coat

I'll post the rest of the pictures later, don't have time now to load pictures of the finished paint work.

 

[HYRDGOON]

Flawless! amazing!

 

[mopar4don]

Oooooo silver Charger!
Can't wait to see this one done!

 

[BarrsRestoration]

You'll see that it's silver, with a twist.:icon_winkle:

 

[HYRDGOON]

You'll see that it's silver, with a twist.:icon_winkle:

Looking forward to this!!