Donny's 1969 GTX

[69R/Tcharger]

holy crap, not much left of that sucker. Good luck on finishing it, can't wait to see it done

 

[Donny]

Thanks 69, me too!

 

[dla4567]

This restoration is the best thing on the internet! Always looking forward to updates. Your an inspiration to us all.Keep up the good work and remember to have fun with it.

 

[Donny]

This restoration is the best thing on the internet! Always looking forward to updates. Your an inspiration to us all.Keep up the good work and remember to have fun with it.

Wow, many thanks!! I just think that many people/places/business' don't do their work justice in terms of displaying their work in pictures, with one exception; Muscle Car Restorations!

 

[426HemiCharger]

Hah! Wow! that thing is almost gone, hope the AMD sheetmetal works out for you well! It should, cause it worked for me and I will swear to the stuff!

 

[Donny]

I was cruising around Craig's List, found a guy selling new surplus USAF tools, and he has a boat load of good high quality drill bits. So, went over with my drill bit size gauge thingymedo to get some 7/64 bits as a pack of 10 is like 14 bucks at LOWE'S. Well, I scored 10 lbs of drill bits, likely 200-300 drill bits of all sizes, especially the small sizes. Let me tell you , 60 bucks for 10 lbs of good stuff is a good deal! No more Harbor Freight garbage, or SEARS' overpriced stuff, and they drill really really good!

 

[Donny]

The outer wheelhouses came in today, apparently AMD ran out of them! Now, time to build a better 'rack' in accordance with the specs I have on that car; measurements of frame rail off the ground, angle, etc. And, then, screw it all together, re-measure it, reset it as needed, tack it all together, remeasure it, then, put down the permanent welds.

Once I get this done, then it's onto the qtr panels' installation.

 

[detmatt1]

Go Donny Go!!
BTW, what do you meen, splitsville?.

 

[Donny]

Divorce bubba.

 

[detmatt1]

Divorce bubba.

Sorry to here that, brother. Been there before and there is nothing fun about it.:sad:

 

[Donny]

Getting ready to screw the entire thing together; new wheelhouses, frame rails, pans, etc. Was thinking since it's all apart, I wonder if I should 'tub' the wheelhouses about 2 inches, bring 'em closer to the frame rails? My thinking is this is a killer mod, not too many do it, well, not too many that have an intact car do it...the ones that are all apart--that's a different story. So, my question is, the stock wheelhouse allows a pretty fat tire as is, how much more can be gleaned with 2" of more wheelhouse? And, even if I don't go insane fat out back, having the extra room is good for clearance? What about leaf spring room, I certainly don't want to interfere with them! I have limited $$ and can't afford the special rear end 4 link thingy, I'd love to, but...$$

 

[dla4567]

You can move the springs into the frame rails for next to nothing. Move the wheel housing into the frame and gain 3". No need for a 4 link.

 

[Donny]

Humm, you are right, it is 3", need to get smarter on the moving leaf springs, seen pics of that being done before/during/after, but, I've never done it myself.

On a slightly related but different note; tomorrow, I'm media blasting some fragile trim, Mercedes wheels, and a plastic headlight bezel for an Infiniti G35 as a test; the customer wants to paint it the color of his car, so, all day I was cleaning my blast bay; cleaning up/out the Plastic mix that has some crushed glass in it to 'etch' the metal, can't do that to this stuff! I'm going to be running some Acrylic thru on these items.

As I said, I cleaned my entire bay out of the existing blasting media. I filled 3x 55 gallon drums and ran the rest up into the hopper thinking it would be just a little bit; nope, it filled it up! So, what to do! It's too expensive to throw it away, so, in comes the GTX for a Sunday morning Media Blast session! I'll just sweep it all up in a pile, then introduce the special blast media when the pot is empty. I'll get about one hour of blasting time, I should get about 1/2 of it to 3/4 of it done, perhaps more!

 

[detmatt1]

Can't wait for pics after its blasted.

 

[Donny]

As promised, here's some more recent pics of the GTX, I started on the underside of the roof, the webbing structure, but, the plastic blasting media I use wasn't stout enough to tear into that rust, so, I'll be adding some PowerBlast into it, that will tear the rust down in seconds! Problem is, that stuff never erodes, it's heavy, and it stays around forever!

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Oh yeah, it's not done at all, I work it in here and there between jobs that PAY! Once I'm done blasting what's left of this car, into self etch primer it goes, then, onto a (yet to be built) rack that is measures IAW factory dimensions for frame geometry/measurements, etc, before I install the rear frame section, then wheelhouses, then pans, then I'll have a near ready to roll chassis sans the qtrs, oh yeah, got to put the roof back on too!

 

[roadrunnerman]

man,donny i can,t believe how far you've got on that in just the short time i've been a member.i'm going to save this thread and all the other(newer) ones you put up for when i get ready to start doing my runner.When i grow up donny, i want to be just like you.:yes::yes:

 

[Donny]

Thanks roadrunnerman, you may be older than I am!! lol. This GTX is by no means going fast, I wish it was faster, I learn so much each step I take on this quest called OCD for the Mopar infected insane Texans!

 

[roadrunnerman]

donny,i,ve owned my RR for over 20 yrs(vitamin c,black vinyl top,hood stripes). it has only been on the street driven twice b4 i parked it.did a quick paint on it when i went to trade school(body and paint(go figure) repair) trust me when i say this,i have learned more from viewing your threads than i did in school.you are not only just showing us your progress you are showing us fortitude on what we should/need to do with our projects if we have the time and funds(when available) to our own.keep up the good work.:grin::grin:

 

[khryslerkid]

This is better than watching one of them thar TV shows,:laughing: and no commercials!
I am in envy Donny:yes:

 

[Donny]

Thanks roadrunnerman and khryslerkid, most people/shops/teachers would have crushed this GTX and sold it as scrap, I almost did myself a few years ago, but, AMD started making more and more panels for this car, and I said (more like challenged myself) that I could indeed 'do it'. So, I jumped in, over my head, but came up for air, and started to make some dents here and there in it. I guess I knew I was committed when after all the rusty and non repairable metal left me with what you see here. However, I have most all the new metal upstairs in my shop sans the qtrs. It will look like a car pretty fast once I start putting it together.