roadrunnerman
Well-Known Member
I'm curious to see how the headlight surrounds turned out and what you did to them.
Bringing it back to factory specs
- Thread starter resq302
- Start date
resq302
Well-Known Member
So far, I have just stripped the one down and left the other still as the factory did it for reference. I have been working on trying to get the grille finished (man is that a pain in the butt!) and having some issues with that not coming out perfectly like I want it too. Hopefully I will be able to get to it this week sometime. My spare time has been minimal lately due to everyone in the family being sick (myself included) but trying to at least make some minimal progress each day on it.
resq302
Well-Known Member
So after being sick for quite a few days (strep and virus getting bounced around between my kids and wife) I finally got a chance to get back to Dad's yesterday and get some work started back on the car. I gotta say, its a great feeling to be doing some progress on the car! I also got a surprise when I came home from my Dad's. The stuff from the plater's arrived! Great day all around!
Here are some finished pics of the grille! I am glad this is done as this was probably the most difficult grille I have ever had to do. LOTS of masking as there are 4 different colors to paint.
Headlight buckets and hardware installed also!
Hood latch and release reinstalled after being refinished/restored.
Horns were blasted and repainted. (flash seems to have washed out the shine on the paint, more glossy in real life)
Date coding on horns: (faint stamping) 24th week of 1968 and 35th week of 1968 (vehicle SPO date of 10/3/68)
After the lower blacked out orgnaisol paint was nice and dry (worked out well with my illness for allowing a good dry), Dad and I applied the reflective pin stripe. If you are wondering what the wet area under the car is, we washed the black area to make sure there was no dust or overspray residue left on the black so we got a good adhering of the pin stripe.
This seemed like a nice shot for a screen saver!
As I said earlier, we got the plated parts back yesterday so I reassembled the electrical parts back into their housings for the starter relay and horn relay. From what my plater told me, he is 1 of about 6 people that he is aware of who can legally do Cadmium Cyanide, per EPA regulations. This is the company who did our products and they turned out great! http://www.oldschoolplating.com/plating-services
Starter relay dated 37th week of 1968.
Horn relay dated 261st day of 1968.
Wiper motor restoration. (I hope Jules the Wiperman would be proud!) Wires cleaned up and re-wrapped in the dry wrap tape. Armature and brushes cleaned up. Barrel housing and screws that held the magnets to the barrel all replated in correct plating. Red Glyptal sealant applied where it was originally.
Thats all for now till I at least get the carburetor reassembled and the brake booster assembled.
Here are some finished pics of the grille! I am glad this is done as this was probably the most difficult grille I have ever had to do. LOTS of masking as there are 4 different colors to paint.
Headlight buckets and hardware installed also!
Hood latch and release reinstalled after being refinished/restored.
Horns were blasted and repainted. (flash seems to have washed out the shine on the paint, more glossy in real life)
Date coding on horns: (faint stamping) 24th week of 1968 and 35th week of 1968 (vehicle SPO date of 10/3/68)
After the lower blacked out orgnaisol paint was nice and dry (worked out well with my illness for allowing a good dry), Dad and I applied the reflective pin stripe. If you are wondering what the wet area under the car is, we washed the black area to make sure there was no dust or overspray residue left on the black so we got a good adhering of the pin stripe.
This seemed like a nice shot for a screen saver!
As I said earlier, we got the plated parts back yesterday so I reassembled the electrical parts back into their housings for the starter relay and horn relay. From what my plater told me, he is 1 of about 6 people that he is aware of who can legally do Cadmium Cyanide, per EPA regulations. This is the company who did our products and they turned out great! http://www.oldschoolplating.com/plating-services
Starter relay dated 37th week of 1968.
Horn relay dated 261st day of 1968.
Wiper motor restoration. (I hope Jules the Wiperman would be proud!) Wires cleaned up and re-wrapped in the dry wrap tape. Armature and brushes cleaned up. Barrel housing and screws that held the magnets to the barrel all replated in correct plating. Red Glyptal sealant applied where it was originally.
Thats all for now till I at least get the carburetor reassembled and the brake booster assembled.
usaroadrunner
Well-Known Member
amazing, just amazing. im glad your taking care of this GEM.
resq302
Well-Known Member
thanks. I am definitely doing everything that I can to make this car back to the way it would have left the factory.
And your doing it very well, what a great car!
resq302
Well-Known Member
Thanks. All I can do is try and copy what was there originally. We are very fortunate that there is a lot of original, unrestored things on this car that all we need to do is either clean up or get rebuilt to make them perfect.
resq302
Well-Known Member
Forgot to mention the date coding on the wiper motor is also correct. 267th day of 1968. I had also come across a date coding on the front brake drum. H168 ! Granted, I would still want to try and find a paper trail to back it up but that date code breaks down to Aug. 16, 1968, again, in proper time frame with the rest of the date codes in the rest of the car so far. I find it highly unlikey that a car with over 100,000 miles would be able to retain its factory installed brake drums. When we got the car, it still had the original factory H exhaust pipe on the car, ball joints, tie rods, rubber bushings, all original sheet metal, original glass including windshield, original convertible top, weather stripping, and even the factory installed drive train. When we got the car the odometer said something around the high 9000 mark and rolled over to 10,000 mile mark. When we bought the car we were told it had over 100,000 miles. With this recent finding on the brake drum, what is everyone elses opinion? Personally, I'm beginning to lean more and more towards this car being a low mileage car.
Ron 73
Deceased, But not forgotton
Awesome is one word, I didn't even know the grill was painted as is, my bad.. The work and pictures your showing looks like a resto magazine section! It looks as cool as it gets man and hope it all falls in place.. Good to hear your feeling better!!!
resq302
Well-Known Member
Yeh, the grille has 4 different colors. LOTS and LOTS of masking only to get it almost done and have something mess up only to have to strip it all down again. Brake fluid does an amazing job at taking paint off yet not damaging the plastic. (strongly suggest trying a small area first as I have only used this on some kinds of plastics).
Thank you so much for the compliment about how this looks like it should be a resto section for a magazine. I am truly humbled by that as I am not a professional restorer but just a person who takes pride in his work and am driven to be the best at what I can. It took me a while (years ago) to realize that these cars were not "flawless" when they were built originally. So now I still drive myself crazy trying to have some perfect "flawed" vehicles. Lets face it, the factory never had perfectly aligned panels as cars are today. They never worried about removing drips or orange peel totally. Heck, my grandmothers Dodge Aries had a "Reliant" (Plymouth counter part) name badge on the dash. I'm sure if we look hard enough, the cars produced today still have flaws. I remember seeing a Chrysler minivan with the pin stripe tape not lining up from the front fender to the door. LOL So much for quality control!
Thank you so much for the compliment about how this looks like it should be a resto section for a magazine. I am truly humbled by that as I am not a professional restorer but just a person who takes pride in his work and am driven to be the best at what I can. It took me a while (years ago) to realize that these cars were not "flawless" when they were built originally. So now I still drive myself crazy trying to have some perfect "flawed" vehicles. Lets face it, the factory never had perfectly aligned panels as cars are today. They never worried about removing drips or orange peel totally. Heck, my grandmothers Dodge Aries had a "Reliant" (Plymouth counter part) name badge on the dash. I'm sure if we look hard enough, the cars produced today still have flaws. I remember seeing a Chrysler minivan with the pin stripe tape not lining up from the front fender to the door. LOL So much for quality control!
resq302
Well-Known Member
Got a little more work done last night with the parts at my house. I got the power drum brake booster reassembled. With any luck I will be able to get over to my Dad's house tomorrow and get the carburetor back on it (after I reassemble that tonight) and get the car mobile again! I am also hoping to pull the front wheels on the car tomorrow as I found that the front brake drums are possibly the original ones to the car. Date coding of H 16 8 which turns out to be Aug. 16, 1968 right in line with the rest of the stuff on the car date wise. Now, with everything else that was original and on the car, I am really wondering if that 110,000 miles isn't only 10,000 miles as the car only has enough numbers for xx,*** and people assumed it had rolled over 100,000 miles due to the age of the car. My personal feeling would be that these drums would have been worn way past their min. thickness sometime during the mileage if the car indeed does have 110,000 miles. Now it would be more likely to have 10,000 miles since they are still on there. I guess I will know more tomorrow when I get to pull the wheels off the car and hopefully pull the brake drums off. Really, really hoping that there are penta stars on the brake shoes!
Anyway, here are some more pics for your viewing pleasure of the original choke theromostat (made by Carter), the power drum brake booster, and the original (replated) date correct power steering pressure line. I still have to try and reapply the yellow lettering and lines to it to make it exact to the original factory installed appearance.
Choke thermostat
Midland Ross style power drum brake booster
Original power steering pressure line - Dated 270th day of 1968
Anyway, here are some more pics for your viewing pleasure of the original choke theromostat (made by Carter), the power drum brake booster, and the original (replated) date correct power steering pressure line. I still have to try and reapply the yellow lettering and lines to it to make it exact to the original factory installed appearance.
Choke thermostat
Midland Ross style power drum brake booster
Original power steering pressure line - Dated 270th day of 1968
PlumcrazyRR
Well-Known Member
You are doing a great job and everything is looking really good! Really jealous on all those original parts you got there. I have been slowly tracking down original parts for my girl who PO's turned into a frankenstein of parts. Keep up the great work!
resq302
Well-Known Member
I don't know if I should tell you this or not PlumcrazyRR, but other than the #s matching drive train, we had no clue about all of these other original parts. We had some friends of ours up in NH check out the car for us to see if it was as good as the pictures and how mechanically sound it was. To find the car in this considerably original condition is like being a kid on Christmas morning opening up that last present after being somewhat disappointed since he had not gotten the big ticket item of that year, only to find that the present in the last box was that sold out, high demand item that all of his friends (himself included) had been wanting! Yeh, its that kind of cool! lol
PlumcrazyRR
Well-Known Member
I can only imagine. And I agree, it is quite rare to still have as many parts as you have had still original. I would be just as excited as you are!
resq302
Well-Known Member
I wish we could get a complete paper trail to prove the mileage. All I was able to get so far was that this car was sold from Chrysler to Chrysler in Oregon back on 3/17/69.
resq302
Well-Known Member
So I got the carb reassembled last night and installed onto the car today. Didn't have a chance to fire it up and fine tune it (you'll see why later) plus a bunch of other things done today on the car.
Notice the green teflon coating still on the primary throttle shaft! (yes, I know the one bracket is on upside down for the choke pull off, it was since fixed after I installed it on the car)
Also got the trunk weather stripping back on. Man I love the way it looks! Correct yellow adhesive that was on there before was reapplied just as the factory would have done.
Dad got the correct wide pattern sealed beam GE headlights reinstalled. (just have to paint the surrounds and the front end will be done!)
Pulled the pass side wheels off and confirmed the original dated brake drums were still there! Also found the original red paint on the drum faces confirming road wheels from the factory! As an added bonus, found a green inspection mark on the hub snout!
Front drum:
Rear drum: (again, more red paint found under the cast gray paint someone put on)
Date coding of 8J18 !
BUDD (manufacturing company) cast into the drum.
Notice the green teflon coating still on the primary throttle shaft! (yes, I know the one bracket is on upside down for the choke pull off, it was since fixed after I installed it on the car)
Also got the trunk weather stripping back on. Man I love the way it looks! Correct yellow adhesive that was on there before was reapplied just as the factory would have done.
Dad got the correct wide pattern sealed beam GE headlights reinstalled. (just have to paint the surrounds and the front end will be done!)
Pulled the pass side wheels off and confirmed the original dated brake drums were still there! Also found the original red paint on the drum faces confirming road wheels from the factory! As an added bonus, found a green inspection mark on the hub snout!
Front drum:
Rear drum: (again, more red paint found under the cast gray paint someone put on)
Date coding of 8J18 !
BUDD (manufacturing company) cast into the drum.
resq302
Well-Known Member
Phenominal huh? You did see all that excess glue that had globbed out from the weather stripping being pushed down. Guess I am just as bad as a factory worker. :laughing1:
Ron 73
Deceased, But not forgotton
Man you are flying high with this! Everything looks great! Your finding some pretty cool things from the factory, that has to be real inspiring....
resq302
Well-Known Member
Inspiring? Yes! Exciting? Absolutely! I have to say that those of you who have had the privilege to work on or restore a car that has been unmolested, the feeling is indescribable. The chance to touch and see something that has survived 44+ years just as it was done by the factory is unable to be put into words. I just hope that when I am done, I have done the car and Walter P. Chrysler proud! This car has gone from just being a nice driver for shows and cruise nights when Dad had the initial idea to get rid of the el camino to a full blown out resto to something capable of OE standards. I never in a million years would have expected myself to be doing something of this caliber, but as they say, there is a first time for everything and behind every passion is an ability to perform!
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