My GY8 '71 Road Runner

[71Beeper]

Awesome work as usual Chad!

 

[ct71rr]

Thank you!

 

[ct71rr]

Wow, June 25th since my last update!! I’ve been trying to get a bunch of projects completed around the house; Paint all trim on house and garage, check, replace frieze board and 2 courses of shingles on back of house, check, paint new shingles, check, replace parging on large section of foundation, check, regrade part of back yard and fix stone wall, check, regrade front yard and install new stone wall...nope. Friggin rain is killing my plans! This is still a work in progress.

Anyway, with the rain this weekend, I decided to work on my Road Runner. I’m in the process of fitting all the panels on the car. Once on, I can make final adjustments and start on the bodywork. This weekend, I blasted the radiator/front header support piece. I have no idea what this part is actually called. As normal for this car, this part was pretty banged up. I was able to straighten it out with some hammer and dolly work. After blasting, I coated the parts with some SPI epoxy.

Support:

Left side is completely dented inward, yay!! Pic doesn’t do it justice:

Blasted:

In Epoxy:

Thanks for looking!

 

[71Beeper]

Chad, I think that term is correct - that its a radiator/front header support piece.
It's best to black them out now than after it's on the car like mine was.
Looking good.

 

[ct71rr]

On to the header panel. There’s some rot in the area where the emblem goes, flange missing from the right side, portion of the front lip is rotted, tear in flange on left side and the usual dings and dents, yay! I began by stripping the paint so I could see what I was dealing with. While doing so, I found the right side of the top panel to have a pretty good oil an going on. The PO “tried” to fix it...with...you guessed it, Bondo...super. After stripping most of the paint, I fixed the oil canned area with a shrinking disc and hammer/dolly. I also straightened what I could and removed several dings. I then made a template off of the “good flange”, created a patch piece and welded it in. I also patched the center area where the emblem goes and welded up the crack on the left side. I’ll have to carefully blast several areas on it as there was rust left under the Bondo that was smeared over the entire panel.

Header panel:

Cracked flange:

Missing flange:

Rot in center area:

The usual dents/dings:

And, of course, Bondo:

Repaired flange:

Patched center section:

Front lip patched:

This area had a pretty good oil can going on but fixed now:

That’s all I had time for today. I’ll have to get the rest of the paint and rust off and then into epoxy.

Thanks for looking!

 

[ct71rr]

Hi all, I was able to get my header panel blasted and in epoxy this weekend. It was raining pretty good so I busted out my fancy indoor blasting tent - Cheap Chinese pop-up canopy from Amazon and went to town. It actually worked out better than expected. Before I blasted, I upgraded my harbor freight portable blaster. This is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. I changed out the original constrictive 3/8” mixing valve and hose to 1/2”. I also changed out the original water filter to a larger water/desiccant combo filter and added a longer hose. What a difference!! It’s like an entirety different machine now!

New mixing valve next to old:

The original is very restrictive:

New filter too:

Header panel blasted, canopy in background:

Epoxied:

That’s all I had time for, thanks for looking!

 

[whayden2003]

Heck yea. Looking good.

 

[2rts]

Very nice work. I went through this whole thread and learned a lot for my project. Very impressive work!

 

[ct71rr]

Thank you. I appreciate it! It’s a lot of work but will be worth it in the end.

 

[ct71rr]

Well, I finally finished the Great Wall of Massachusetts. This was my first attempt at building a dry-stack retaining wall. I wanted to build this for about 12 years but, the town I live in being the unreasonable people they are, would not let me. I live on a scenic road and need to get approval from the Conservation Commission to remove trees on my property near the street. There were about 5 oaks that were pretty much dead, only had about 3 branches each and one was almost hollow. They denied my request because removing the trees would “effect the esthetic” of the road. About 3 months after this hearing, one of the trees fell, knocking the power lines down and blocked my street for about 5 hours. This happened about 10 minutes after I was just walking my dog in that area. Fast forward about 6 years, and the power company & Town deemed the rest of trees dead and had them removed. - Sorry for the off topic rant.

Anyway, this has now freed me up to start working on the RR again. I installed the torque boxes which turned out to be a giant PITA!! They did not fit very well at all. I had to metal work them extensively; rebending, reshaping, hammering, cut pie-slices out of one, trimming, etc. Each one took me about an hour and a half to get to fit decently. I almost said F-it and threw them in the trash. After getting them welded in, I cleaned the welds up a bit. Not perfect, but better than factory (I think).

The Great Wall:

Fitment issues, these are the “good” areas:

Welded in:

Cleaned up:

I forgot to take more pics as I was going. The initial fitment on these was terrible.

Thanks for looking!

 

[71Beeper]

Great job Chad - all you need now is frame connectors.

 

[ct71rr]

I started getting pieces back on for final fitment and bodywork. I started with the hood. My original hood is a mess (of course). It looks like someone attempted to cut a hole for a scoop, probably in the ‘80’s and had second thoughts. Part of one of the braces was lopped off too. And there are numerous bondo worms sticking through to the underside. I purchased a replacement from a member on here, mopar6970, back in 2018. I lucked out, the seller lived in Florida and happened to have a friend that was driving up to New Hampshire. He agreed to deliver the hood to my house for a small fee. This hood is basically mint, with a little surface rust here and there and it’s almost the same color as my car was originally, tawny gold as opposed to gold leaf metallic. I also rough fitted the doors, fenders and header panel. I have many hours of adjusting, banging and swearing ahead of me to get everything lined up. Yea!!

Original hood:


Scoop?

Worm sign!

Replacement:

Not fitted yet:

I can’t remember the last time the car has had the hood, fenders and doors on it. It’s been years!!

Thanks for looking!!

 

[T2R9]

Looking like a car again!!!!

 

[Grabbergreendream]

Looks great!
Chad, I gota say your a busy guy... Not sure how you find the time to accomplish all you do, but props! I see you even created a rock wall/fence in your spare time this fall...
I wish I had your ambition & perseverance to follow through!
Great job on the car in your "other" free time!

 

[ct71rr]

Thanks John! Free time, what’s that?!

 

[ct71rr]

Wow, another month since my last update. Time does fly. I haven’t had much time to work on the road runner - family obligations, holidays, etc. I’ve been sporadically working on getting the gaps done over the past month. Before doing the fitment, I lowered the road runner on braces that I placed about where the wheels would be. I had almost the entire day today to continue work. Yay! I started on the passenger’s side door fitment as I knew this would be the bigger pita from when I installed the quarters. The bottom corner area of the quarter was stamped a little off or something. The gap between the door and quarter was tighter starting near the body line and grew wider toward the bottom. I sliced this area open and tapped the narrower area in and pried the wider area out, closer to the door. I then welded it up. The best I can get is 3/16” gaps.

I then addressed the rocker to door bottom fit. The gap here was wider at the latch side from about the midpoint of the door back toward the latch. I made several tack welds to build up this area then sanded it down. The best I could do on this gap (and driver’s side) is 1/4”.

From what I’ve seen on the internet checking other ‘71’s, it looks, to me anyway, gaps are all over the place. This will be a driver so I’m not too concerned with having gaps that may not be perfect.

Car on braces, rough fitment:

Gap not so good in this area (that’s what she said):

Door/rocker too:

Sliced:

Welded up:

Bottom of door too:

It’s hard to tell the gap sizes in the photos. They look a lot better in person. At least that’s what I keep telling myself!

Thanks for looking!

 

[HawkRod]

Nice work! All this attention to detail will pay off when you get it on the road.

 

[whayden2003]

Wow, another month since my last update. Time does fly. I haven’t had much time to work on the road runner - family obligations, holidays, etc. I’ve been sporadically working on getting the gaps done over the past month. Before doing the fitment, I lowered the road runner on braces that I placed about where the wheels would be. I had almost the entire day today to continue work. Yay! I started on the passenger’s side door fitment as I knew this would be the bigger pita from when I installed the quarters. The bottom corner area of the quarter was stamped a little off or something. The gap between the door and quarter was tighter starting near the body line and grew wider toward the bottom. I sliced this area open and tapped the narrower area in and pried the wider area out, closer to the door. I then welded it up. The best I can get is 3/16” gaps.

I then addressed the rocker to door bottom fit. The gap here was wider at the latch side from about the midpoint of the door back toward the latch. I made several tack welds to build up this area then sanded it down. The best I could do on this gap (and driver’s side) is 1/4”.

From what I’ve seen on the internet checking other ‘71’s, it looks, to me anyway, gaps are all over the place. This will be a driver so I’m not too concerned with having gaps that may not be perfect.

Car on braces, rough fitment:View attachment 1582263

Gap not so good in this area (that’s what she said):
View attachment 1582264
View attachment 1582265

Door/rocker too:
View attachment 1582266
Sliced:
View attachment 1582267

Welded up:
View attachment 1582268

Bottom of door too:
View attachment 1582269

It’s hard to tell the gap sizes in the photos. They look a lot better in person. At least that’s what I keep telling myself!

Thanks for looking!

I like 1/4”gaps. 3/16” always turns into 1/8” after body work. And that is just to tight in my opinion. Tight gaps look good at the car shows. But I’ll take not chipping paint and room for error on my stuff.

 

[ct71rr]

Thank you for the comments!
I made some more progress today. I got the passenger’s door to fender gap set. I had to sand the fender seam back from about the midpoint to the top and add some weld to the bottom of the fender. I still need to weld the seam back up where I sanded it. Up next, the driver’s side. The door to quarter gap is tight, especially at the bottom corner of the door, just like the other side. And the fender will need to be sanded back at the top half, same as the other side. When I was rough fitting this side up, the door to fender gap at the bottom was about 9/16” and the body lines weren’t matching up. After fiddling around with it for several hours, I finally figured out that the bottom of the fender was bent in slightly toward the frame rails. Time for the porta-power (me). I braced both my feet on the frame rail and gave the bottom corner of the fender a good tug. This brought the gap and body lines in line. Yay me!

Passenger’s side all set:

Driver’s side up next. This needs to be ground back a bit:

This gap was huge until I bent it back in line:

Bottom corner will need to be sliced, hammered and welded back up:

Gap at mid to top fixed:

Bottom gap is acceptable:

Thanks for looking!

 

[71Beeper]

Awesome work Chad!