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68 Coronet, slow project in Napa, CA

It always amazes me at how good some guys can smear and sculpt bondo.....
Yeah. On one hand I can't believe the amount of mud there is. The pictures don't do it justice. On the other hand I can't believe how relatively good it looked. I am eventually taking the car down to metal, even the parts that will be cut out. I want to see how ugly some of the damage was. I know it is a waste of time, but my time isn't billable.
 
Yeah. On one hand I can't believe the amount of mud there is. The pictures don't do it justice. On the other hand I can't believe how relatively good it looked. I am eventually taking the car down to metal, even the parts that will be cut out. I want to see how ugly some of the damage was. I know it is a waste of time, but my time isn't billable.
Good chance the artist started out as very good lath and plaster guy, and found that the big bucks are really in autobody.
And of course the dope smoking is transferable :rofl:
 
Good chance the artist started out as very good lath and plaster guy, and found that the big bucks are really in autobody.
And of course the dope smoking is transferable :rofl:
Probably why I lack those skills. I only work with my Bood Lyte.
 
Got the windshield out and am happy that the body didn't rot like it did in the back...
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On a lighter note, I finished cleaning/degreasing my K member using everything from oven cleaner to gasoline. My final assault was with a pressure washer attachment that is meant to be on a long extension for cleaning gutters.
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Worked really well for getting inside the K member tubes. Also worked well for giving me a bath I didn't really want. I even managed to strafe my right hand with it at close range and would have bet that I cut my fingers off from the way it felt. I was pleasantly surprised to find that all it did was leave parts of my right hand really, really clean.

K member on the dryer...
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You got lucky, getting to close to the pressure washer nozzle can mess you up...
Nice parts dryer..
 
Started pulling the dash. Read some posts on the forum and it has been going pretty much as expected. It did go from partially tilted back to full tilt when something let loose. I think a vent tube. I was trying to get eyeballs on everything in the back while it was still mostly upright, but then bang, it was on the floor. The biggest concern I have right now is about AC. This car had it, but everything forward of the firewall was removed. I had planned (without doing any research yet) to try to replace everything in the engine bay with modern parts, but to try to retain everything in the dash and under the dash. Now, looking at a fistful of vacuum lines running from the controls to the box, I wonder if that is even feasible. I don't know anything about AC systems, but all those hoses under the dash look like a troubleshooting nightmare if something doesn't work down the road. Would I be smart to give up on the old stuff? Will new systems work with my original vents at least?
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Got it out. Was happy to find a junction that connects all of the hoses that go to the Heat/AC unit from the dash. I thought I was going to have to chase down and label every hose.
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Found some really cool wiring modifications while removing a couple of aftermarket gauges...

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So this is where I had to leave off for now.

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I am feeling pretty good about having the 4 door parts car outside. I intend to pull the dash from it soon so I can compare parts and use whatever is in better shape.
 
The biggest concern I have right now is about AC. This car had it, but everything forward of the firewall was removed. Would I be smart to give up on the old stuff?
I was facing the same thing. Nothing remained on the engine side and the underdash components looked like a huge mess.
I went with an aftermarket HVAC setup and wrote about it HERE:

Installing Classic Auto Air in a '70 Charger
 
And I've done dozens of keeping the under dash components & going with a Sanden under the hood... Both ways work, both have there good points & bad points....
 
From the looks of the surprise wiring mods, I would highly suggest its snip snip time on the old system. Give it the boot and do fresh from bumper to bumper.
 
From the looks of the surprise wiring mods, I would highly suggest its snip snip time on the old system. Give it the boot and do fresh from bumper to bumper.
I agree. I have a 68 4 door parts car that I am hoping has better wiring, but I am not getting my hopes up.
 
Let your project ride and the parts ride donate molded connectors. Every thing else, boot.
 
I vote keep the original a/c box under the dash and update under the hood if you must. My parts car had a nice dash harness and heat, a/c box. Hopefully yours does also. As far as previous owner harness mods, a little solder as heat shrink goes a long ways
 
Holy crap!! I’m always surprised when people find wiring like this. How the car didn’t immediately catch fire after it wad done, I will never know!
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Nice work you’re doing there!
 
My passenger door has some really good collision damage and I have so far not found a replacement so I thought I would try messing with it to see if I can salvage it until I find a good replacement. This is what it looked like after already grinding/sanding off quite a bit of filler.
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It doesn't show up well in the photos, but the leading edge got jammed pretty hard and the bondo master that worked his magic on the rest of the car did the same to the door. The passenger quarter panel and front fender also had/have really good damage too. Anyway, the forward door edge (where the skin wraps around the door chassis) was about 1/4" thick...
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If you look closely you can see that the door skin doesn't fold around flat anymore. It now folds around into a V shape.

The first few inches of the front of the door from top to bottom had some serious dents, holes, and hammer blow marks all covered with bondo up to about 3/8's thick. I got tired of the dust after a bit so took some filler out with a chisel.

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The inside of the door in that area was still bent and dented but they didn't fill that and somehow managed to get the door mounted and functioning. The door gap (didn't get picures apparently) was pretty wide at the rear of the door and almost touching in front.

So I came up with the bright idea to try and use a piece off the front door from my 4 door parts rig to see if I could fix the inner portion of the door and maybe be able to work the original skin a little better when it would be more exposed. Here are the doors on the operating table...

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The pictures don't really show how badly the original door is bent in these areas. My plan is to remove a lot of the door frame from below the hinges, to the forward edge where the skin folds over. It doesn't seem to be too structurally important and any visible welds would be in an area where you would really have to look for them. If nothing else it will give me some practice.

First few ugly cuts...
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and I am already learning...
First plan of attack was to cut straight along the 90 degree bend below the flat that the hinges bolt too. Then I discovered that there is a plate under the hinge areas (that I had missed by feeling around inside the door). Then, after some more cutting it dawned on me that it would be better to leave more material on the horizontal part as I could likely flatten out most of it with a hammer and dolly and it would enable me to put a gusset under it when I weld in the new piece. Although, the more I remove, the more door skin gets exposed which would greatly help with trying to do a better job of getting it closer to its proper shape. Again, you can't tell from the pictures but the door skins is caved in pretty good where you can see the inside of it, and it isn't flat where it is folded over. Those bondo turds are where there were holes drilled in the skin.

As always, I am open to advice and ideas.

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The tech's at the body shop I used to manage would sometimes have to do work like that on the inner shell after the skin got removed. Skin was getting replaced on all instances.
 
The tech's at the body shop I used to manage would sometimes have to do work like that on the inner shell after the skin got removed. Skin was getting replaced on all instances.
I am actually scared to work on the skin, as in a full replacement. Never tried it, but I think it would be tough to roll the edges over without making it look like crap. Also, with the price of skins these days, I will just keep looking for a door.
 
There is an air tool unit, uses an air chisel gun, that is for putting skins on. When that came out the guys bought them. Huge time saver, makes you money when its flat rate body time, plus didn't do as much damage as the old hammer and dolly routine. Of course not cheap though. May be worth checking with a body tech to see if they want some side work.
 
Since I last posted I sourced a bare door shell and a decent hood (shipped from Ohio). Haven't been able to spend much time on the car though. I did modify some cart parts to make a stand for my dash. I need to make a second one for the parts car dash as I am hoping to use parts from both to make one decent dash.
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Thought it was funny that with the back of the dash facing the sunlight coming through the door, I got to see this...

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