PINK AAR CUDA

[71vert340]

  Beautiful work on the AAR. I hope some day to treat my 71 convertible to that kind of restoration. I see you are located in Ohio. I bought my car in Toledo.
  Terry

[JS29]

WOW!!! That is Impressive, I appreciate the level of detail, and how you share the processes and procedure's to get to that level.   

[76orangewagon]

I have one question if I may , just how "Stinkin rich" must one be to afford such nice work?

Being Mike's most recent customer (I'm the guy with the 71 Shaker 340 Cuda) I can say its not cheap....I'm a Federal hourly wage employee in the U.S Air Force and am not "Stinkin Rich" in any way, shape or form. I Blew thru all my saved "Car" money but I wanted everything done right and I worked at Mike's pace (which was fast) so it was hard to save more money while I was shelling it out. I also was having my 340 built at a "High End" shop at the same time and that end costing double what I thought it would and then there was all the other parts and components I was restoring on my own at home and supplying Mike with all the parts as he needed them to keep the build going. Did I put a strain on my Finance's ? Hell Yes !!! but Was It worth it ...Hell Yes, to that too.  I have restored several cars over the past 30 years, all have had paint jobs I was proud of, My Cuda is at the extreme top of that list... but it should for the money I spent but where a shop like Mike's shines is the love and passion he has for caring about correctness and attention to detail to make sure the car is done the right way. I can't tell you how many parts Mike re-did in powder coat get them 100% spot on correct all for no additional cost, Like Mike said ... I paid money for materials and his talented crew, everything Mike did or helped me with was free of charge. So when your looking for a Restoration shop to do your Mopar you have to look at what your really going to get for the money you spend, like Mike said everything was done "in house" It wasn't "Restored by a collision shop that wanted some side work when times are slow. I cant tell you how many times he was out in the shop making sure his guys were getting the details dialed in the right way. The components are/were Professionally powder coated not just sprayed with Rattle can paint that's just close to the right color. He uses only the best parts and knows who to get those parts from. I could go on and on but I hope this begins to get the point across that you get what you pay for and with some other shops work you pay about the same money but get far less in the end.

[RUNCHARGER]

Most of us are on a budget but if you have a home garage and air compressor you can achieve the same results. It takes sweat equity and proper tools but there is absolutely no reason it can't be done. I do pretty much all my own work and the money I save on labour I use to buy tools to do the work. It takes longer but a normal person can do pretty much everything with a bit of guidance and a correct goal to work for. I love Mike's threads because they show the correct goal to shoot for.

[JS29]

  And explains in detail! 

[pink aar]

I'm glad you're finally posting these pictures Mike. It looks good.    

[JS29]

@pink aar I take it that that is your beautiful AAR. 

[RJChallenger]

I have one question if I may , just how "Stinkin rich" must one be to afford such nice work?

Being Mike's most recent customer (I'm the guy with the 71 Shaker 340 Cuda) I can say its not cheap....I'm a Federal hourly wage employee in the U.S Air Force and am not "Stinkin Rich" in any way, shape or form. I Blew thru all my saved "Car" money but I wanted everything done right and I worked at Mike's pace (which was fast) so it was hard to save more money while I was shelling it out. I also was having my 340 built at a "High End" shop at the same time and that end costing double what I thought it would and then there was all the other parts and components I was restoring on my own at home and supplying Mike with all the parts as he needed them to keep the build going. Did I put a strain on my Finance's ? Hell Yes !!! but Was It worth it ...Hell Yes, to that too.  I have restored several cars over the past 30 years, all have had paint jobs I was proud of, My Cuda is at the extreme top of that list... but it should for the money I spent but where a shop like Mike's shines is the love and passion he has for caring about correctness and attention to detail to make sure the car is done the right way. I can't tell you how many parts Mike re-did in powder coat get them 100% spot on correct all for no additional cost, Like Mike said ... I paid money for materials and his talented crew, everything Mike did or helped me with was free of charge. So when your looking for a Restoration shop to do your Mopar you have to look at what your really going to get for the money you spend, like Mike said everything was done "in house" It wasn't "Restored by a collision shop that wanted some side work when times are slow. I cant tell you how many times he was out in the shop making sure his guys were getting the details dialed in the right way. The components are/were Professionally powder coated not just sprayed with Rattle can paint that's just close to the right color. He uses only the best parts and knows who to get those parts from. I could go on and on but I hope this begins to get the point across that you get what you pay for and with some other shops work you pay about the same money but get far less in the end.

I believe I started with " That sure is some very impressive work. The nicest I've ever seen. " Which I truly meant. I did however think the comment true "Professional" was a slight against many or one member(s) of this site, myself included. I joined this site to help motivate me once again on my car. While most threads on this site, the greatest MOPAR site  do exactly that. It was not my intention to upset any owners of some of the nicest cars on the planet.If I did I'm sorry.

[76orangewagon]

I have one question if I may , just how "Stinkin rich" must one be to afford such nice work?

Being Mike's most recent customer (I'm the guy with the 71 Shaker 340 Cuda) I can say its not cheap....I'm a Federal hourly wage employee in the U.S Air Force and am not "Stinkin Rich" in any way, shape or form. I Blew thru all my saved "Car" money but I wanted everything done right and I worked at Mike's pace (which was fast) so it was hard to save more money while I was shelling it out. I also was having my 340 built at a "High End" shop at the same time and that end costing double what I thought it would and then there was all the other parts and components I was restoring on my own at home and supplying Mike with all the parts as he needed them to keep the build going. Did I put a strain on my Finance's ? Hell Yes !!! but Was It worth it ...Hell Yes, to that too.  I have restored several cars over the past 30 years, all have had paint jobs I was proud of, My Cuda is at the extreme top of that list... but it should for the money I spent but where a shop like Mike's shines is the love and passion he has for caring about correctness and attention to detail to make sure the car is done the right way. I can't tell you how many parts Mike re-did in powder coat get them 100% spot on correct all for no additional cost, Like Mike said ... I paid money for materials and his talented crew, everything Mike did or helped me with was free of charge. So when your looking for a Restoration shop to do your Mopar you have to look at what your really going to get for the money you spend, like Mike said everything was done "in house" It wasn't "Restored by a collision shop that wanted some side work when times are slow. I cant tell you how many times he was out in the shop making sure his guys were getting the details dialed in the right way. The components are/were Professionally powder coated not just sprayed with Rattle can paint that's just close to the right color. He uses only the best parts and knows who to get those parts from. I could go on and on but I hope this begins to get the point across that you get what you pay for and with some other shops work you pay about the same money but get far less in the end.

I believe I started with " That sure is some very impressive work. The nicest I've ever seen. " Which I truly meant. I did however think the comment true "Professional" was a slight against many or one member(s) of this site, myself included. I joined this site to help motivate me once again on my car. While most threads on this site, the greatest MOPAR site  do exactly that. It was not my intention to upset any owners of some of the nicest cars on the planet.If I did I'm sorry.

I Never even considered this as offensive or upsetting. I felt that since that being a recent customer would take the opportunity to address the cost associated with a build at a dedicated Mopar shop and explain some of the differences I've used in my 30 years of using various shops to paint my cars, Mike handled the paint and body work but like the majority of members I did almost all the component restoration at home in my garage. 

[RJChallenger]

Only in my dreams will my car ever be as nice as yours . After putting three kids through university, the youngest med school its a struggle to to buy quality parts. I really enjoy all the fabrication work and have learned to paint the car myself. But after waiting 37 years for it's my time, I have a better chance of dying than actually finishing / driving the car

[nsmall]

How many pink AAR's are out there?  Pretty wild stuff here.  Its going to look killer. 

[HEMICUDA]

Here's the body shutz in the rear wells and rocker blackout, this is the last thing I do before the car is taken off the cradle.  The rocker black is way to neat and tidy compared to original, another liberty I take.  I didn't have the rear end bumper wedges and correct factory bolts at the time I did the wells, those will get shutz over spray on them also.

[HEMICUDA]

I also break in and tune every engine before I go through the labor of assembling the entire driveline & suspension that will be put in thru the bottom of the car.  I don't want any surprises after it's in the car, it's much easier fixing any leaks or correct any other issues now.  This is not a "dyno" it's a cheap engine run stand with my cheesy looking universal exhaust.  Once I call the engine "good", I will disassemble all the parts, that wern't on the engine when it was originally painted, and drag it into the paint booth for the correct orange.

[JS29]

I remember back in the day when a car got a paint job, the rocker panels would be ruff from over spray. Those look better than the factory did them!   

[JH27N0B]

That stand brings back memories.  A shop in Michigan rebuilt my T/A's engine and ran it on a stand that looked much like that one.
And it turned out the date coded water pump I'd found and sent to someone in CA to rebuild several years earlier started leaking. 
The engine sat for a year or more because the restoration shop in MI the car was at wouldn't make any progress.
So I finally made arrangements to move the car out of that shop to a established well regarded shop here in IL, and before we traveled there to MI retrieve everything from 2 shops, my engine guy Ron said he'd paint the engine for me, and the shop in IL said no, we will do it, don't let him paint it!
So after I got the car painted and partially reassembled to a "roller" at the IL shop, and finished the assembly in my garage, it finally was time to try to start the engine in my car!
So me and several buddies including Mopar Mitch here were playing around trying to get it started, I'm in the drivers seat turning the key while Mitch and another buddy made adjustments under the hood.
After a few minutes I notice a reflection on the engine and said hey wait a minute, and we look closer and the intake manifold runners have pools of gas in them!  The damn lines are leaking at the carbs. 
We are cleaning up the gas, and I notice that paint was lifting on the manifold where the gas had pooled. 
We tried everything without success to get the lines sealed to stop the leaking.  Finally I called Ron the guy who built the engine, and he says put red grease on the fuel line fitting threads.  I'm like, can't be that easy... he said try it.  So I did, worked like a charm! I mentioned the paint problem, and Ron said, Jesus, don't tell me your shop didn't use fuel resistant paint on your engine??
I apologize for the long story, but reading these threads on cars Mike works on and how well everything goes with customer projects and his happy customers, in contrast with all the hell I dealt with with shops on my restoration, makes me very envious!
I'm still fixing some odds and ends the shop in IL did.