Family Tradition

[Propwash]

hey will,you get anything done on the bird?your wife's "honey do" list can't be that big is it?Still looking for that pink "little sister",maybe that will keep her distracted.

Not a whole lot Roger...Been working 70-80 hour weeks, half on the road. Weekend comes along and the wife has me working through the day or two I may have off. Getting kind of burnt out buddy! We need some sort of distraction. Told Congress this weekend I'll be on the lake drowning worms and tipping back some beers on R & R.

As far as the bird, got the rebuilt/new console pretty much put back together, carpet is all in, gotta dye the seatbelts yet then drop in the seats. How about you...how's your bird coming or you out on the road?

 

[roadrunnerman]

out on the road right now,have laptop will travel.got one torsion bar out working on the second one,plus still nursing my shoulder but that is getting better,might be lucky and avoid surgery.will be home next weekend but going to nieces's grad open house on saturday,the car show in farmington,mn. on sunday,visit with grandson on monday evening.might have a chance to do something monday morning.then back on the road tuesday morning.

 

[Propwash]

Well hopefully you can avoid that surgery..Never fun going under the knife.

Sounds like you're just as booked up as me! Enjoy the car show and safe travels back home.

 

[Ron 73]

X-2 roadrunnerman! Surgery makes things rough! Im hoping im not headed there myself!

 

[moparstuart]

thanks brother got mine in the mail today

 

[Propwash]

thanks brother got mine in the mail today

Hey no sweat Stu! Hope you enjoy it. I sure am happy with mine. I take it colored carbon fiber wasn't an option?

 

[Propwash]

I have not had much time at all to work on the bird, but found some time.


Console is assembled and installed. Just have the carpet to glue on and pop on the trim.

Installed a set of Kenwood Excelon 4" speakers in the kick panels. Was a little tricky lining up the right place to cut the holes in the kick panels. Being there isn't much depth to the kick panels, the magnet of the speaker needed to fall in the opening of the hinge pillar where the lower bolts for the door hinge rest. Few measurements here and there, holes cut and the speakers dropped right in.

All the speaker wires, pre-amp out cables, ground and positive feed for the amp are all routed to the trunk area. I'll organize it all a little further down the road. With the two center speakers, two in the kick panels, two in the tray and the small sub that will go in the trunk, a total of 7 speakers will be in the car run off a 1000Watt amp and capacitor. Not looking for a trash can rattling in the trunk type sound, but just want a real crisp clear sound to play my tunes.

A bit stuck guys. Having issues with the new AMD quarter windows. A couple big issues with them. First off, the bottom of the quarter windows has a Z ridge shape at the bottom of it. The AMD window is not exact to the factory. The curve up area in that Z shaped area of the bottom starts to early on the AMD window. Makes the window tilt a bit funny when you set it down on the metal frame the window bolts to.

Second issue, AMD has a little bit different of a side profile curve to it. Curves out more than stock at the bottom, then curves in too far at the top. You can see the strange gap that leaves when the window is brought up in the pic below (between the red arrows).

Here's the issue with this flaw. No matter how hard I try to adjust the window, I cannot for the life of me get the window to seat a little further out when it reaches the top. Right now when you roll it up, it pinches the roof rail seal and tugs at it pretty and eventually pulls it out of place, unless I push out on the window from the inside while rolling up. There is 4 inward/outward adjustments that I've been playing with in every senario along with studying the 14 step Factory service manual procedure for getting these windows adjusted.

I've wasted tons of time with these window adjustments and am pretty pissed about the poor dimensions of these AMD windows. The regulators/frame/hardware never left the car, neither did the roof rails or where the roof rail weatherstrip housing mounts, so obviously the issue lies with the flaws from the wrong shape at the bottom or poor curve...Any tips/ideas would be much appreciated. I put the old beat up factory window in and it lines up fine. If I can somehow get that window to stick outwards at the top another 1/8" I would be fine. I guess worst case senario is look for a decent set of factory glass. I've put up with plenty and plenty of flaws with the AMD metal, unfortunately I can't cut and weld these...lol About ready to though!!! Crappy part is once the windows are adjusted, I would only need 30 minutes to have the rest of the interior completely installed.
.

 

[wingcarenvy]

Man thats frustrating! Have you tried to call AMD to see if they are aware of the problem?

 

[roadrunnerman]

the only thing i can come with will is maybe put a washer or two on the inside between the window guide channel and your interior panel.that might push your window outward a little.Or the other idea was to maybe take a drill and make your holes for your adjusters oblong to give you a forward pitch, but i really don't want to see you do that.I hope somebody will come up with a better idea then mine,i've never had to do that window adjustment b4.

 

[Propwash]

Man thats frustrating! Have you tried to call AMD to see if they are aware of the problem?

Nawww, not yet wing. I'm sure I will though, just so maybe someday they'll address the issue and someone down the road isn't in the same shoes I'm in now. I'm guessing they'll give me the same old "never heard of such a problem", just like they did on the rear bumper indent's on the quarters and aft outer rocker issue. Strangly enough other folks are running into the same issues as well.

I'm pretty sure if my wife hear's "they just don't make things like they use to", i'll end up with a broomstick along side the head..lol





Thanks for the tips Roger...The adjusting points for the window guides have a threaded bolt that turns in/out to pull/push the guides in or out and secure with an outer nut. Problem is when I bottom the front guide top out and it's tight against the interior panel, it still isn't enough to pull on the bottom, thus pushing out up top....Grrrrrrrr. Bring on the rust!!! I much rather would be drilling out spotwelds, and chewing on some rotton metal than playing Erector Set with some foreign glass

 

['69Net]

Can't get some stock glass Will?

 

[detmatt1]

Hey Prop, I've heard a lot of complaints about the "new" glass. I have also heard that they(AMD) are very aware of the issues and will gladly send you a different piece that will hopefully fit better. If it were me though I would find some oem piece, that shouldn't be hard to find, tinted or not? I have come accross a lot of HDTP glass in my search for tinted post coupe glass, now that is hard to find. I will go out of my way to find oem glass until the point where that is the next thing that I need to finish the car, then maybe I'll order from AMD.

 

[Propwash]

Thanks Buddy....I agree. Need to go stock. I didn't pick up on a whole lot flak about the AMD glass over the airwaves, wish I would have.

I don't know if guys like us are inadvertent R & D field testers for AMD, but sure seems like it and i've yet to see my name on their payroll. I can see working bugs out, but to keep selling product with known issues and have guys like my hurddle through it for hours...well......sucks! I guess in the end it just makes this site even better. Guys like you, Donny, Dave(s), Roger, SGT, ect....ect....ect.....and myself post the stuff and a resolution to the community. So take a positive out of that I guess.

As far as the glass, the car is non-tinted. Anyone have a lead or some for sale would be much appreciated. The old glass is chipped, scuffed and was sanded with the rest of the car during one of it's many paint jobs.

 

[moparstuart]

Thanks Capt. You're right, gives a guy a whole different feeling of what it takes once you're actually doing it yourself. Lotta folks take for granted what it takes to actually do the work



So....Little time today to get stuff done. Project............Con-Solo

Console is pretty rough..New housing should be arriving early next week. Think I counted 11 different cracks in the old one.

Little product review on the spray on "aircraft grade" paint stripper from rustoleum. First time I ever tried it.

Well, I got the old black trim paint off the console lids........After 4 scrape and wipe's!!! Overall, not impressed. The black paint was pretty thin and worn out and this stuff had trouble with it. Aircraft paint would laugh at this stuff. I won't be buying again. Anyways...black paint is off as well as the woodgrain inserts

Masked off for the black..A little hard to tell from the pic, but the metal down in the valleyed down areas had open pore pits and pimpling spread about. Just covering it with a 1K satin trim paint would have looked like garbage. So, I sprayed a light layer of SEM texture before laying the paint down. Buried those flaws really well.

Well, decided to go with a Carbon Fiber Overlay instead of the Woodgrain sticker. The carbon stuff isn't just a vinyl sticker, it's actually a fine adhesive backed layer of carbon fiber made by 3M. I got it from Detroit Muscle Technologies, and just like everything else I got from them in the past, I'm super happy with the product. Love the way it turned out.

Little XXXX Super fine steel wool, console light housings look new again.

Console Trim.......So, why is it so impotant to have a bench buffer when bringing these cars back?

Skip the aftermarket aluminum stuff made in China...Put in the work and you'll have beautiful OEM american metal trim to put back on your car.

More work to be done tomorrow!

Will when you put your carbon fiber on did you put is right down on the lid surface ? or put it back on the thin tin the wood grain was on ?? if you put it right down on the shiny surface did it lay over the holes with no problems ( no shallow divets ) ? and stick to the polished surface ok .

 

[Propwash]

Will when you put your carbon fiber on did you put is right down on the lid surface ? or put it back on the thin tin the wood grain was on ?? if you put it right down on the shiny surface did it lay over the holes with no problems ( no shallow divets ) ? and stick to the polished surface ok .

Stu,

I took off that tin backed woodgrain via the little press clips and the 4 little acorn nuts on the door. I had one area up by the shifter hole I had level down flat with 220 grit. As far as the holes, I put tape on top, filled the holes with evercoat glaze, let it cure and pulled the tape off. Main thing is getting the surface as smooth and flat as possible. The carbon overlay is more rigid and thicker than vinyl so it is a bunch more forgiving than if you were to throw a sticker on, being it doesn't try to settle in every nook and cranny.

For applying the overlay, I misted the covers with windex, layed on the carbon fiber and then squeegeed out the air bubbles/windex with a body filler paddle. I let it sit for a day before handling it. I did have to trim about a 1/64" strip on the inside by the gear selector opening. I probably could have got away with not having to trim and it would have settled right in place, but it was bugging me at the time.

The overlay is stuck to the metal real good. No way is it coming off unless you're specifically trying to get it off.


Best of luck Stu...let me know how it goes and if you have any other questions

 

[moparstuart]

thanks

 

[Propwash]

Found some Glass locally today on craigslist.....Fits just like it should.


Got about 4 hours to work on the bird this weekend.......Slow but sure fella's!!

 

[Ron 73]

Best of luck Will, The bird headed for flight hopefully sooner then you think, Looking good!!

 

[roadrunnerman]

glad you found some stock glass will.hopefully you can get AMD to give you some kind of refund or something for your troubles.that check list should be getting smaller and smaller, right.

 

[Propwash]

Thanks Ron!! One piece at a time my friend. We'll get there.



Roger.....we'll just leave it at; I won't be holding my breath waiting for compensation from AMD. Thus far I haven't been that impressed with their customer support or follow up. Is what it is I guess.