She's finally purple again! FC7 70 Shaker Cuda340

[njsteve]

Installed the rear glass today. Rather uneventful. I rolled out the 5/16" butyl tape and then applied the suctions cups and plunked the window into place. It touched the tape almost all the way around so I then started massaging the edges to get it to engage the entire circumference. After a while the weight of the glass did the rest of the work and there is a clean engagement line all around.

The problem now is that the rear window stainless is rather mangle-ated. There's only one large ding in one piece but it is all rather too "twisty" to use. I don't want to risk chipping any paint so I am on the hunt for a nice straight set of moldings. There's a few on ebay at the moment.

And before anyone comments, yes it does look like Linda Vaughn helped me install the glass on the passenger side but leaned in a little too close.   

[anlauto]

They do make reproduction trim now, so be careful when buying "original" trim on eBay that someone is not trying to pass of new stuff as original.

I've used a few of the reproduction sets, they're pretty nice

[njsteve]

Have you used the AMD reproduction sets? How did they fit.

[anlauto]

I've used both Cuda and Challenger with no issues.

[njsteve]

I found a nice, original set on ebay for slightly cheaper than the AMD set. I have no problem taking out any small dings and polishing it up. Hopefully this should work out well (finger's crossed).

[njsteve]

The used set of rear window stainless arrived yesterday from an ebay seller. Much nicer than described! Already polished, too!

I outlined the entire opening in blue masking tape and then gently snapped each piece in place which is rather tricky since they have to be connected together to do this because you can't get the last piece hooked to the first one if the first one is already snapped in place. Just slightly nerve-wracking.

[njsteve]

I also decided to reuse the original dashpad since there were only two very minor cracks by the front speaker grill screw holes - a common occurrence. Since it is around $800 plus $200 core charge to get a good reproduction dash... and none are available right now, I decided there are better things to spend my money on...like vintage mag wheels.

I wound up using some JB-Weld 5-minute epoxy and gently pushed it in to the cracks with a tiny screw driver. Once it was filled, I waited for it to cure and then sanded. It worked great, other than a lack of grain in the tiny repair area but I can live with that for the moment. I then sprayed the entire dash with SEM Landau Black interior dye (I LOVE that paint - I put that s@$& on everything!). Here's the results.

Not bad from a foot away or so and now I don't have to mess with transferring the vin tag to a new dash pad.

[njsteve]

I also got the dash carrier assembly disassembled. There was a lot of crustiness on the underside so I rigged up the pool cover siphon pump and a short hose and have it circulating the Evaporust solution via a spray tip, onto the dash frame. It all drains in to a sheet of plastic that ends at the bottom of a 7-gallon bucket. The siphon pump has to be fully submerged to work, so you want that at the bottom of the bucket inside the plastic sheet which acts as a funnel to direct all the runoff back to the bottom. I got the aquarium heater in there too. The kiddie pool is there as an emergency backup in case it all springs a leak.

[njsteve]

My birthday present arrived a couple days early!

Thanks to my undercover operative down in Oklahoma, who just happened to have the perfect alibi for being in Dallas, for an alleged wedding, he was able to circumvent the ebay crazy who blocked my bids because I asked too many logical questions about the set of wheels he had listed. Questions like "Are they bent or rusted?" "Are the lug nuts all right hand thread?"...you know really annoying interrogational questions that take a lot of time to consider before answering.

My buddy purchased the wheels and then had another sub-operative pick them up and transport them to his villainous lair in Oklahoma.

It took a few days since there was a early storm and power outage in town but he was able to get them packed up and after paying a fortune to the UPS store on his town, they arrived safely up here in Jersey this afternoon.

A beautiful set of 5x4-1/2 bolt pattern, 14"x6" late 1969-dated, Motor Wheel Spyders. They were complete with a set of original center caps and 20 right hand lug nuts. With the brand new set of center caps and 10 lefties and 10 righty lug nuts I got last week from the guy in Wisconsin, I now have a complete, new pair of shoes for the Cuda. I will be dismounting the new F-70x14 Polyglas tires off the rusty 14" rallyes and mounting them on the Spyders this week.

Here's what they look like after I washed and scrubbed them in my front yard. Next step is cleaning the aluminum with some chemical stuff I have coming soon. The chrome is amazing! - must have been installed on a central Texas car for the past half century.

[anlauto]

Those will give it a unique look for sure, I'm glad you're putting the Polyglas back on for the correct DAY TWO look .....you need my old license plates...

[6bblgt]

 

[Dakota]

Nice work on the dash pad.  You'd likely  be fighting other issues getting a good fit With a replacement pad anyways, so it's great that you were able to fix yours. 

Love the Evaporust circulating system - very inventive.  That is an amazing product.

[njsteve]

That Evaporust is awesome. The rig is just a pool cover skimmer pump (to get rain off your pool cover) from Home Depot. I think it is the lowest suction profile I could find. I then got a section of plastic hose and used a couple of screw-on garden hose connectors and use a garden hose sprayer end on one, and hook the other end to the pump head. This is the closest spray radius I have done. This setup is great for doing large sections of the underside of a car. You just use a lot of plastic sheeting to build what is essentially a giant funnel/catch basin for the pump to sit in, inside the kiddie pool. Then you use some large clamps to aim the spray head. I also use an aquarium heater to warm up the liquid as hot as possible - the warmer it is, the more effective it is a washing off the rust.

My son is a chemistry major who is usually not that interested in my car stuff. Until I tried "Dad-Splaining" how this solution works and got an amazing 15 minute lecture of how it actually works on a chemistry/PH/chelation level. It was a lot of fun to see that light bulb go off over his head and have him suddenly take an interest in this. :-)

Dads can be soooo tricky!

[njsteve]

Well I took a couple days off the tinker with the new wheels.

First I had to wait for the Aluma-Brite to arrive. http://www.k-chem.com/msds/AlumaBrite.pdf
Its a hydroflouric acid detergent solution used in the detailing trade to brighten up raw aluminum - like boat pontoons and big rig fuel tanks. After carefully donning all my PPE, I sprayed it on the wheels full strength and let it sit on there and foam for about a minute. I then hosed it off with cold water. It repeated it a couple times and then really washed them off with soap and water for around ten minutes.

I then moved on to the shiny parts of the wheels. It took eight hours or so of hand-sanding to get the polished finish back on the spokes. The five holes are supposed to be in an as-cast finish.

Starting with 800, then 1000, then 1500, then 2000 wet paper. I hand sanded the hub area spokes and the outer small hub spoke sections that touch the chrome rim. VERY CARFEULLY, trying not to touch the chrome with the sand paper.

I have no finger tips left at this point but the rims came out great. I then masked off the outer area and painted the black out section with Rustoleum Matte Black paint.

Here's the finished set with the Polyglas F70x14s mounted. Sorry I couldn't pull it out of the garage but there's no steering wheel or dash in it at the moment.

[anlauto]

Wow...unique look for sure, you don't see those wheels too often