Bringing it back to factory specs

[ga66mopar]

Most 69 Plymouth's didn't look good in 1975. Someone really took care of that car early on and I would say it must have been owned by a older person. Probably hasn't had many owners.

 

[resq302]

we were told the car has 109,000 miles. From the looks of it and all of the original parts, I'd swear it had 9,000+ when we got it.

 

[resq302]

Headlight buckets all cleaned up and in immaculate original condition! Galvanizing is still excellent.

Trunk gasket getting the "skin" reapplied....

End of the new weatherstripping and will eventually be cut off flush with the skin.

profile of the trunk weather stripping (glue was still wet and had to be pushed back once I took the pic.)

original parts pulled and being sent out to platers

 

[usaroadrunner]

we were told the car has 109,000 miles. From the looks of it and all of the original parts, I'd swear it had 9,000+ when we got it.

if it has 109k on the clock they took care of that car with true mopar pride. beautiful car. looks like your picking up right where the previous owner left off.

 

[resq302]

Yeh, no doubt this car was babied its whole life. I can certainly say that it will be pampered while is in our car, thats for sure!

Also, if you look close at the choke thermostat, it is the original Carter one. There are a lot of markings on it that repros do not have.

 

[resq302]

Grille is out and starting to be restored. Don't pay attention to the blue stripe. Thats just vinyl tape covering up the factory red painted insert.

broken corner which I've heard is pretty typical. Easily fixed though.

 

[Ron 73]

Your ride must have been treated with the highest care seeing all this! This is a gem thats getting polished and cared for even more, you just don't see cars in this shape very often, I cant remember ever seeing a drop-top in this good of shape, restoring, refurbishing what ever this may be called must be a real joy to do!

 

[resq302]

Yes, I can truly say that I am very, VERY lucky to be working on something this original and intact. As nice as my 69 Charger is and my Mom's 70 Challenger convertible is, this will absolutely blow them out of the water when it is done. Although we are not planning on going the OE judging route, I feel the car would do fairly well given all of the original parts that are being restored to the way it left the factory.

 

[resq302]

Not a lot of progress today but was able to fill the pits where the painted areas are and get the tail light bezels masked off so they can be painted after we got them back from the platers. Not really happy with the results that the platers did but supposedly they did these 3 times and had problems with it blistering in areas where there weren't blisters before. We have another set on the car now so hopefully we can get them out or find better cores to be redone.

Platers were nice enough to grind down the bubble areas for us in the areas to be painted.

taped and ready to have the pits filled in before sanding and painting.

 

[Propwash]

Very tedious, detailed work you got going on there. Great Job! Keep it up.

 

[resq302]

Well, got some more work done on the car yesterday and today. Very excited with the progress! Made some interesting discoveries with the car. Found out that the blacked out area was indeed repainted at one point and they never removed the residue from the old stripe that was installed. While sanding it down, I came across a couple pieces of white pin stripe on the edges in between the door and fender and also under where the bumper covers.

So apparently, the third owner of the car must have been mistaken that the red stripe was on the car since day one as he knew the second and first owners. Anyway, here are some pics of the progress. It seems there was a red oxide primer, then dark gray primer, and then the exterior color coat.

Factory run in the black lower panels.

Rad support black out treatment reapplied and the lower black out "organisol" area on the panels painted.

 

[resq302]

Here are some more updates! Front (headlight) wire harness has been cleaned up with lacquer thinner and re-wrapped in the dry wrap tape (no adhesive). There was one small area where the harness branched off in a T shape to go to either side of the headlights. That place had the cloth wrap tape on it which was also replaced. One thing I have noticed when I was cleaning this up...... the plastic / rubber insulation on the wiring is a duller color than the more vibrant colored reproduction harness'. Possibly due to composition of the material back then compared to todays plastics.

If you remember from a previous pic, my Dad had the pot metal tail light bezels rechromed and I had started masking them off for the prep. Well, today I got the black and the textured dark argent painted and I think they turned out fantastic. Certainly not for the faint of heart! Talk about a major pain in the butt! Well worth the hard work in prep though! (what do you think?)

 

[Ron 73]

They turned out super!! The patience you have to do this meticulous work is something! Honestly they look fantastic, Keep up the great work...

 

[resq302]

Thanks Ron but maybe I am being too hard on myself or expecting others to have as high standards as myself as in my opinion, the chrome work turned out just ok. They look great but again, not up to my standard and supposedly the company did it three times to get it this good. Granted, pot metal is not the easiest thing in the world to rechrome so that could have had a lot to do with it.

 

[resq302]

Since my daughter is most likely not going to school tomorrow (presently has a sore throat and 101 fever) I doubt I will be able to get over to my Dad's house to install the headlight hardware and wiring harness like I had planned. The good thing though is I brought the grille and headlight surrounds home to my house so while my daughter is resting, I can be working on that. Here are some pics I took tonight before I started sanding and repainting the grille. These pics helped me understand how the technique in which the different colors were applied. I'll say this.... my 69 charger grille was a piece of cake compared to what this is going to be and the charger grille was no fun project! Pay no attention to the blue vinyl masking tape. I put that over the red insert after I cleaned up the old paint. As it is, the tape started peeling up so it will have to be redone.

So far, it seems the order was:

Satin black painted first, red insert, then the textured dark argent, and then the non textured light argent silver.

 

[resq302]

Well, haven't been able to get some work on the car done at Dad's house since my kids, wife, and myself have all been either fighting the flu or strep throat. Fortunately, I had brought home some parts to my house to work on so at least I am making some progress. Up first is the hood latch assembly (primary latch and release mechanism) which was done in brown zinc.

(pay no attention to the white grease that is messy!) lol

original / unrestored 44 year old headlight surrounds. (soon to be repainted to get the chips out!)

stripped down one so I have one to compare while I restore the other one.

 

[Bruzilla]

Absolutely! I'm still amazed at how original this car is with very little stuff being molested with or changed out. It still has its original starter replay and horn relay too! both have the Chrysler part number and date coding that coincides with the time frame the car was built. How often do you find stuff like this?

That tends to be more common on GTXs than other muscle cars. The GTX was a clone of a GTO, which was based on taking a luxury mid-sized car and giving it better performance. Buyers for GTOs and GTXs tended to be older and more mature drivers who wanted luxury and performance, and these weren't the folks who would be expected to make major changes to their cars.

Road Runners were designed for the youth market and were basically stripped down Fleet/Police cars with lots of performance and no frills, which kept the costs, and more importantly weight, down. This is why it's much harder to find an unmolested Road Runner than a GTX as the younger owners of the Road Runners wasted no time in modifying their cars.

 

[resq302]

Still not feeling 100% but got a little more progress done today.

Red insert in the grille air brushed in.

Wiper motor is almost ready to get back together. Just waiting on the barrel to come back from the platers.

 

[tallhair]

Excellent work and thanks for the updates .. keep it up

 

[resq302]

I can't wait to get the dark textured argent silver applied tomorrow.