Pro Touring 68 Dart convertible

[Jocigar]

Trying to learn.. did they spot weld the edge of the door to add material and close the gap ?

[Burdar]

Yes.  On my Challenger they welded a small rod to the back of the doors and then ground it back to get the gap right.  I assume the same thing was done on the Dart.  The Dart has a fixed cowl that adds complexity as well.  The top of the door, cowl and fender all have to match.

[Burdar]

Haven't been to see the car in a month.  I need to get back over there sometime soon.  They have been sending me videos but not many pictures.  The car has been blocked a couple times and is almost ready for sealer.  The engine compartment has had a few rust pits filled, sanded and is ready for sealer.


The reproduction gas cap I bought didn't fit right.  It sat at least 1/8" below the surface of the 1/4 panel.  At the Mopar Nats, I looked at a lot of A-bodies and most of them had the same issue.  The funny thing is that the aftermarket cap that came with the car fits fine.(it has a junk plastic handle on it though so it won't be used)I'm not sure what they ended up doing to fix it but it fits much better now.




The bumpers have been fitted.  The front bumper fits ok but for some reason there was an issue with the rear.  It sat up way too high and hit the body just below the tail lights.  There is supposed to be a 3/8" rubber filler below the lights so the bumper needed to be lowered about 1/2".  Variations with the AMD bumpers vs original?  A half inch seems like an awful lot.




On the home front I've been working on the rear end housing.  The housing is painted...I'm just waiting on a friend to have time to help me set up the gears in the center section.  Once the housing was painted I turned my attention to the leaf springs.  I've got a set of MP oval track springs with "0" arch.  They had crappy thin paint on them from the factory so I wire wheeled that all off and re-sprayed them with a semi-gloss black.  I was curious about the original springs and if they had any paint markings on them.  I have a bucket of EvapoRust so I soaked the front spring eyes for an hour to see if anything showed up.  EvapoRust is magic.  Look at those paint markings!  Now I want to try it with my original Challenger springs.


I know the springs aren't the factory ones but I still like the look of factory paint markings so I couldn't help myself.  I added the markings to the new leaf springs and even the torsion bars.  I used Testors model paint and mixed different colors together to match the colors I found on the original parts.

[Burdar]

Back on the rotisserie for some weld clean-up and then paint.










I was sent quite a few videos, however the quality was reduced a lot in order for them to go through on the phone.  I strung them together in a video anyway.  If I get ahold of the high quality video I'll redo it.  It looks best if you view it in "miniplayer mode".  Sorry (high build primer, sealer, dip primer and blue in engine comp/trunk)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrOlEqRnY_I

[Burdar]

The underside is sprayed with a single stage greenish/gray paint that mimics the factory dip primer.




Undercoating sprayed on inside of 1/4's.


The engine compartment has one coat of blue on it.  The color that the computer said was correct for QQ1 was not.  It's more like B5 than QQ1.  They will respray when they get the color figured out.(maybe next week)

[dodj]

Nice progress.
Too bad about the colour. Looks good to me...but if it's not the colour you want. sucks.
Maybe have them mix a small amount and spray it on a piece of primed scrap metal?

[nsmall]

Looking great my brother.  I love the attention to detail. 

[Bullitt-]

  Tried watching your video but access denied.... Says it's private

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrOlEqRnY_I


  My uncle had an Electric Blue Road Runner back in '68  ,,
The color was more like this than many that show up on the web. 



  Probably a little less green

[anlauto]

Sucks about the shade of blue, a spray-out card might have come in handy 

[Burdar]

My uncle had an Electric Blue Road Runner back in '68  ,,
The color was more like this than many that show up on the web. 

We left original paint on the A-pillars so we could match it.  It's darker then what you show there.  It's hard to judge a picture onlline because the color changes so much in different lighting.  They did a sprayout years ago and the color matched good then.  That paint line is no longer available so they had to start over.  I'm not a body man so I'm not going to comment on how each person/shop does things.  The engine compartment(and trunk) sprayouts weren't meant to be the final spray.  The invoice says "Apply blue paint to trunk and engine bay to seal it off."  When they sprayed the color in the trunk, the inside of the 1/4's didn't have any undercoating on them yet.

Sprayout from years ago.  No flash on top...with flash on bottom.

[Bullitt-]

  Just comparing those two photos I would say the 1st is the more accurate shade but the 2nd more closely reflects the tint.  Crazy how lighting & even the background can impact what we see, even the primer looks totally different.
The earlier photos you posted appear to be a much darker blue. 

Made a little montage... last photo,bottom right, seems to be spot on

[anlauto]

 

[Burdar]

The rear end is done.  It's a 741 case 8-3/4 with 3.73 gears.  I picked up the case really cheap at a swap meet.  It had a grenaded cone sure grip and junk gears. 


Last year I had the pleasure of meeting @Gary and his brother at their farm.  They showed me around their shop and cars.  They also blasted and powder coated the center section for me.  It's just clear powder over blasted metal.




The housing is an old C-body unit that I had cut down.  It's actually a little narrower then a stock A-body housings.  Any shorter and the outer U-bolts would hit the housing ends.  The perches are also moved in 1/2" per side using a Dr Diff spring relocation kit.  The brake lines are from Fine Lines.  I bought them a long time ago when I was planning on using a Wilwood disc brake kit.  I ended up going with Dr Diff's kit instead.  This meant that the lines were too short.  Instead of changing the lines, I just modified them slightly and routed the brake hoses differently.  That meant I had to drill and tap some holes in the axle tubes to attach the stand-off brackets.  I used thread sealer on the screws so I shouldn't have any leaks.


I stripped the housing, filled the pits and painted it with Eastwood's Extreme Chassis Black satin.




I added a drain plug to the bottom of the housing.

[dodj]

That drain plug is an excellent idea! 

[Burdar]

Been working on finding the right paint color for the last month.  Everything has been too light.  Tried multiple different paint lines and    Even resprayed some left over paint from 2014 and sent it to the paint supplier.  They used their paint spectrophotometer and took a picture of the sprayout...still couldn't get it right. Finally, last week they found a different brand that matches but had to drive into Illinois to find it.  Sprayout at the very top is how everything else has been coming out.(too light)  The ones in the middle are the old sprayout and the new one that matches.  Again, this matches original paint that was under the weather stripping on the A-pillar.


Engine compartment, trunk and some overspray were shot today...