Yankee Express RestoMod Project

[Brandy]

This is looking simply beautiful! Painstakingly slow but precise.
This one off will be referenced to in the future for sure.
Love the updates.

I had a long time ago 3 1969 Cougar XR 7's. I built one of them, the rag top, the others went for parts. I retained 2 of the sequential directional modules and harnesses. You have inspired me to rewire my rear taillight to incorporate the module. I really like your idea.
Kudos!

Thanks! Glad to be thought well of! I am NOT in a hurry.

 

[Budnicks]

I like the flat firewall...

keep it going, keep us updated

 

[Brandy]

Spent today redoing the hood frame. Took the skin off,...again....and cleaned up all welds, hammered everything straight and tidy, ground off the weld surfaces and cleaned them. I noticed that the hood skin was sort of out of alignment along the edges making the skin bow up so I lowered the skin edge to give it some relief and it worked out well. I also cut and shaped a panel to close out the front frame of the hood to give back the stiffness I took by slicing 8 inches off of the front. This is also the face that will be the vertical face at the end of the hood next to the nose section when the hood is closed. A lot of fooling around but it will look great soon enough. I also had the idea of slicing off the hood bumper plates as they are now hidden under the nose section, doing nothing. I'll relocate them and use them again.

 

[Brandy]

Express Update...The hood is finished excwpt for filler and whatever I decide to do with the open end of the cowl. Also the left side of the engine bay is in primer.

 

[747mopar]

Looking good, Hood and firewall are both coming together nicely.

 

[kiwigtx]

Some excellent work going into this car Ghost...keep it up and keep us updated....I'm lovin' this build.

 

[Budnicks]

Hoods looken' good too...

progress

 

[Brandy]

Spent some time today chipping off the undercoating on the left front wheelhousing ( backside of inner fender) and frame etc.... and then got interested in doing some scut work to the right fender. I tapped up a few low spots and sanded the wheel lip good and straightened a few small dings and bends out. Welded up the trim holes and ground them down. I noticed that the bolt that holds the aft corner of the top of the fender, where the shims go, is a snapped off bolt that's frozen in the weld nut. So, in trying to remove it I snapped the weld nut out of the plate. To fix that I used a thin cutoff wheel to slice the plate open and bent it back enough to slide a bolt with a captured washer under there to stick up through the weld hole and then closed the plate back up and welded it. There's a space under there to get an open end wrench to hold the bolt while tightening a nut above . Ground down the frame a bit and the shock tower area. That was all of the fun I could stand for today..lol. Leaves look great though...

 

[Brandy]

Didn't do much today. I cut the vertical corner out of the front left of the rad frame and replaced it with a nice FLAT chunk. The part where the bolts go through to connect the fender at the front. I separated the panel below the inner fender wall that has the three round cut outs for the bolt heads and took everything around to the two square stamped holes next to the radiator opening and all the way down to the frame. Going to do the other side too as soon as I pick up some welding wire.

 

[Mike67]

So what are you using to clean everything up, disc or wheel????
Also are you shooting epoxy right away? I've wondered if rattlecanning it would be ok until I was able to shoot the good stuff??? Seems loading a gun for small stuff would get expensive....
Love the thread and love the work!

 

[Brandy]

So what are you using to clean everything up, disc or wheel????
Also are you shooting epoxy right away? I've wondered if rattlecanning it would be ok until I was able to shoot the good stuff??? Seems loading a gun for small stuff would get expensive....
Love the thread and love the work!

Flap disk 60 and 80 grit. rattle can self etching epoxy primer until I get the entire front section finished and ready to spray then I have Eastwood's Epoxy two part primer. Also I have a quart of Chassis black satin for the front end parts and axles etc. The front wheel housing areas and frame rails will be body color back to the firewall and doors the rest will be returned to black undercoated. I do a small area at a time so setting up to spray is a PITA every time, so rattle cans do well although they can add up to some real $ over time. I also use a wire cup on the angle grinder to get the surface rust in the tight areas, along with assorted sizes of wire wheels and some cutoff wheel discs. Sometimes I have to resort to a small hunk of 80 grit on a gloved finger to get the real tight corners and such. Stuff like that i'll just do the best I can and coat it with some rust inhibitor first and epoxy later. The sanding is just to get it smooth enough to look good under the paint. I also am filling all of the spot welds in the engine bay area with filler and smoothing out some bumps here and there as I go along. Like the trim holes along the sides, once they are welded closed and ground off.

 

[Brandy]

worked on the trunk lip today. I cut a old piece of the trunk deck that I had not intended to keep and flipped it upside down and welded it to the trunk lip after slicing off an inch first. It fits well and will be fine after some tweaking. Next i have to sit in the trunk with the lid closed and see what needs to happen to have a seal run on the underside of the lid, since I changed the shape of it. It's more like a 66 Charger now. Wish I had an old rusted out 66 charger lid that had a nice seal run on the bottom rear. My life would be much easier...lol. I'm tired of having to create **** because I have no money...

 

[Homstead]

Looks like its coming together nicely! Keep at it!

 

[thedodgeman]

worked on the trunk lip today. I cut a old piece of the trunk deck that I had not intended to keep and flipped it upside down and welded it to the trunk lip after slicing off an inch first. It fits well and will be fine after some tweaking. Next i have to sit in the trunk with the lid closed and see what needs to happen to have a seal run on the underside of the lid, since I changed the shape of it. It's more like a 66 Charger now. Wish I had an old rusted out 66 charger lid that had a nice seal run on the bottom rear. My life would be much easier...lol. I'm tired of having to create **** because I have no money...

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Well, when you create, you know what you have as opposed to hoping it's right and finding it's not after ordering it.
You're doing a Great Job!

 

[Budnicks]

Your doing a bunch of work on her lately...

Keep it up, looken' good

 

[Brandy]

Your doing a bunch of work on her lately...

Keep it up, looken' good

Yah, ADD is a bitch.

 

[Brandy]

Went for a drive with the wife to see the leaves...lol. Glad it rained and we had to come home. Making some hunks of 20 gauge for the trunk seal underside of the lid. Had some tool failures today.

 

[Brandy]

After church today I managed to finish building the deck lid rear lip/trunk seal area and closed it out. Mounted the trunk lid back on the car and set about measuring for the gas lifts. I made up a mount for the swivel head end to bolt into that will be welded to the trunk underside and I have yet to design the base for the lift. It will have to hang under the seal lip and be offset towards the middle of the trunk enough to miss the rail coming down. The lifts I have are from a late model lift back and are 18" closed by 31" open. I'll be using about 24-26 inches full open I think. They are strong enough that it takes some doing to compress one by hand.

 

[Brandy]

Update::: I finished installing the trunk deck lifts today. They hold the lid stationary all the way down to about 8" up from closed, after that it sinks closed from weight. About half way up it takes over and opens by itself.

 

[thedodgeman]

Update::: I finished installing the trunk deck lifts today. They hold the lid stationary all the way down to about 8" up from closed, after that it sinks closed from weight. About half way up it takes over and opens by itself.

Another Cool idea to a Cool Idea.
Love the updates!