The GTX (1969 Plymouth GTX)

[Rich H.]

De-rusted the bumper brackets in the dip tank, welded on a couple MIA weld nuts, painted epoxy/summit single stage black/my go-to general chassis black. Applied some wax to the backside instead of painting the backside like alot of folks do.

The long pins work with a ratchet strap to help me install the part solo. The idea Doesn't work 100% on the bumper because a pinch weld interferes, but helps get it about 80% in place.

The OE bumper fit the car really poorly, it fought me 30 years ago, and this reproduction rear bumper fought me quite a bit harder, and it took several tries to find the magic shim combination
to fit acceptably well. That and some of the trim did not want to do what I needed it to do. There were a few headaches and I did have to take a step back more than once. Have to admit a few parts on this thing did kick my butt for a minute.
I'll probably still try to round up another solid OE bumper just to have in the corner in case of future need.

 

[Rich H.]

My current situation starts now.

I saved the original tail light lenses with sanding/polishing. This seems to be fairly common knowledge but I'll explain to anyone looking to try it.

The reproduction bezels have the problems that everyone says/they don't fit exactly right.
But they sure look like they belong there, and I was surprised to find them at a discount so I can't complain much.
After I got them I realized part of the discount might have been, all the studs inside the package from pg classic were the wrong size, and way too small. I had to pull the original 10-24 studs out of the old bezels and use those instead. Situation normal.

The GTX emblem is the one that's been on the car as long as I've owned it, the only one I own, and might be original... it's not perfect but fine for now. The plymouth emblem is from a swap meet.
I spent some time cleaning and refinishing those. Pretty easy project to paint and solvent wipe the face.

 

[Rich H.]

A shot to show the improvement....I lived with the pitted originals for a few decades. Time to try to do better.
The original lenses look right at home.

 

[Rich H.]

A couple of the small parts in the dip tank. It's 6 gallons of vinegar and a handful of salt in the tank. Works pretty well but is a little slow. I can move on, go do other things, and come back to these later, hopefully finding them rust free or nearly so.

I know these are available new, but really don't see a reason to replace them if they'll clean up.

The reverse light housings and lenses cleaned up pretty nice, did not get a picture yet.

That's about all I've got for now. Thanks for following and checking out this mess!

 

[Rich H.]

It's finally running again after a 4 year hiatus. Sure felt good to hear it fire up again!
That's the second time it sat for 4 years.

Because it sat so long, Decided to make sure the oil pump was primed, so I pulled the distributor and intermediate shaft.
The bottom of the bronze gear is the part that’s always bothered me, more than the teeth, as the bottom always wears the fastest. The teeth have always lasted quite awhile.
50 turns of a speed handle was what it took to prime the oil pump, not bad at all for sitting so long, 70psi shown with the speed handle, 80psi running cold.
I think I have vr1 20w50 in it but it’s been 4 years/might be something else but I doubt it.

A Few things went wrong. Secondary needle and seat was stuck bad, got a nice geyser of fuel out the rear bowl vent at first. Freed that up and of course the float level needed to be set again, had to mess with it a bit.
To do the bodywork and get the whole door jambs and all painted I had to remove a lot of underdash wiring and so on to get the dash out of the way, which made a unique mess all it’s own, so the fuel pump and msd are temporarily hooked up
to wiring which had turned into spaghetti really quick when I removed about 2/3 of it, but had to leave the rest of it in place to make sure it'd still run....this is an example of horrible sentence structure.
There aren’t any gauges hooked up at all, other than an oil pressure gauge laying on top of the engine for now.

With it running it'll be alot easier to move the car around to make it easier/safer to re-install the door glass (I'm not willing to risk banging the door on a hoist post so this was a step I needed to take),
and do most of the other work. Also with it running again soon I'll have the opportunity to fix the leaking hoist ram that has driven me bonkers for a couple years......
It was good to hear the little 451 again and get a few Gearhead Feels happening. It's been a good engine for me and it taught me a thing or twelve.

 

[0DegreeEngineer]

Thank you for posting this! It was a great read, I am looking forward to seeing it completed!

 

[1 Wild R/T]

Hadn't seen this thread till now, just finished reading all six pages.. I always liked your GTX as having a rough around the edges street fighter look... Now it's a whole different vibe.. Show Poodle that'll leave you in the dust.... Love it!! You've done a lot of beautiful work!! The A4 Silver has always looked great on B bodies.. Are you planning on putting the hood stripes back? I too didn't connect the fact you were Zippy from Moparts.. Awesome thread!

 

[Rich H.]

Hey thanks guys for being here and saying something. These threads can be rough and personally I kind of feel like you're talking to myself after awhile.

If I decide to run an induction that will fit under an air grabber hood, and stick with one intake setup and never change it (seems unlikely as that's one area I seem to enjoy messing with), then I just might put AG hood back on along with the hood stripes. Right now the designated hood is an ill-fitting race weight a12 replica. I have an air grabber hood on hand but it needs some rust repair, was hoping to do that later separately.

 

[1 Wild R/T]

Hey thanks guys for being here and saying something. These threads can be rough and personally I kind of feel like you're talking to myself after awhile.

If I decide to run an induction that will fit under an air grabber hood, and stick with one intake setup and never change it (seems unlikely as that's one area I seem to enjoy messing with), then I just might put AG hood back on along with the hood stripes. Right now the designated hood is an ill-fitting race weight a12 replica. I have an air grabber hood on hand but it needs some rust repair, was hoping to do that later separately.

Yeah, makes sense, black stripes on a black hood would just be black... Guess I need to wake up before asking dumb questions... LOL..

 

[Rich H.]

It's all good.

 

[Black_Sheep]

Yeah, makes sense, black stripes on a black hood would just be black... Guess I need to wake up before asking dumb questions... LOL..

Wut? No…

Rich I read and enjoy your posts and occasionally throw out a like or an agree

But I know what you mean, I often felt like I was talking to myself in my project thread. Fear not, people are paying attention…

 

[MarPar]

Fear not, people are paying attention…

We is...

lol

 

[Runcharger]

Wild said it all: The car is looking absolutely fantastic. It was cool in my Moparts days too and I loved that it was used as Mopar intended. Now it is morphing into a perhaps show car and it looks better than I would ever imagined it ever would.
Not too many cars I passed up that I wish I could go back and get a second chance but there was a silver, 4 speed, 69 GTX I looked at and passed up that I regret. Mind you 68-70 B-bodies are one of the few cars ever built that look great in any colour, heck even in primer.

 

[Rich H.]

Thank you all for interacting and speaking up, guys .

Best way I know to describe the whole process is a passion.

Recently Ran into one of the guys I originally wanted to pay to paint the car for me and thanked him for turning me down at the time, helping to send me on this journey.

Up at 4a on a Sunday RN, heading to a local swap/show, always a good time.

Pics From yesterday as the The Long list of Little things continues onward.

Front bumper brackets were sitting in the dip tank for about a month and still needed a light spot blast. The metal was torn in a couple spots and I welded it up. Spi epoxy, summit single stage black. Glad to do that job on a nice day outdoors and keep overspray away from the gtx.

I admit I did make a mistake and get a tiny bit of overspray on the car previously which a clay bar took care of,100%. The trouble was, most clay bar lubes have wax in them, and I’m dedicated to not waxing this car for a long time. Long story short, Wizards Mist and Shine is the only product I could find with zero wax and did what I needed.

Though I’ve used a lot of the summit single stage product as a chassis black and for steel wheels and stuff, I’m still learning it. It was over 80F yesterday so I decided to add a slow reducer (4:1:1 mix instead of 4:1). It laid down better than ever/was a good experiment to try, and I’ll stick with that. It was the second time reducing it (first time was on the rear underbody, but I used around 10% and that worked well too) so I feel I learned more about it and proved out my process well enough.

I saved about $70 by soaking and painting the license plate bracket + the light instead of buying new ones. Went to put it together and wouldn’t you know it, the vinegar/rust removal brew ate up the little spring inside the light bulb socket, it had mostly disintegrated and wouldn’t hold the bulb. I was able to disassemble the socket enough to replace just the spring which cost me 25 cents at ace hardware, LOL. Old car serviceability FTW

Rustoleum professional rattle can as basecoat+fc720 clear on the license plate parts/same as the gas tank.

I had some extra chrome 1/4-20 valve cover bolts on hand and admittedly got a little extravagant with the license plate fasteners

 

[Rich H.]

Today I finally got to see the whole exterior of The GTX outdoors in full daylight.
It was time for some gearhead emotions to kick in.

With the car out of the shop for a minute and no fear of damage, I was then able to tear into the hoist.
That leaking cylinder has driven me crazy for a couple years and it was good to get that rascal
out of there. I'll probably just drop it off somewhere and have a pro go through it + my equalizer cable
is starting to look ratty so I'll shop for a new one of those too.

Just so nobody gets the wrong idea, this is an OLD hoist.
It's a 9000lb capacity bend pak and probably from the 80s (maybe 90s).
It's so darn old, it even says "made in usa" on it.
Brand new today, the equivalent would probably be about 5 grand.
It had been used in a pro environment for who knows how long,
I bought it second hand for $1200, and have probably done at least $30k worth of work using it, so I feel like
it owes me nothing.

By some convoluted process I'm not entirely sure of yet, I'm looking forward to continuing on the GTX, getting the shop in better order, and getting the hoist back in shape to get caught up on some daily driver maintenance stuff, kind of all at the same time, one way or another.

 

[Rich H.]

When you get that thing out in the sun it’s going to be spectacular…

I wasn't super confident I'd find it spectacular, but I'm going to go back and grab this comment because
you were right. Thanks for sticking with me.

Just need to keep the work moving forward, now.
So much easier with the car being mobile under it's own power again.

 

[Black_Sheep]

A4 is a great color, especially in BC/CC…

 

[MarPar]

Gorgeous!!!!

 

[Rich H.]

Gorgeous!!!!

Thank you (and all) for sticking with me since page 1

Good times ahead/best might be yet to come.

 

[Rich H.]

Parts are on order for a major refresh to the old hoist, and a badly needed shop clean/re-org is underway.
It's great to pull the car outside in the sun, smell the urethane still outgassing as it will for a long time to come, and have plenty of room to work without worry of causing any damage.

The improvised booth LED lighting is working out well, under the loft, to replace several failed bottom-of-the-line T8 fixtures as I'd originally hoped/planned.

When things are a little closer to normal then will resume bigger tasks on the car.