My 1966 Charger Page - Ongoing Project - Warning, pics galore!

[Suicide_Scott]

This will be my ground up restoration page for me 1966 Charger project. I bought it for $800. It was a very incomplete AZ car. No numbers match, no engine and no hope.

I stripped her to the body and sent her off to blasting. I am about to put her into a zinc black paint to inhibit rust while we do the body work.

In the meantime I have a 440 ready to rock n' roll for her with a mild street build at just under 500hp, aluminum Edlebrock heads and sweet as molasses.

My goal for this car is to do a mild resto mod. Since it has no hope of being an original numbers matching car, I though I would go this route.

The paint will be a single stage black. The entire car will have a mild pirate theme and be a complete blacked out car.

Here she is from the very bottom. With each passing stage I am more and more exited to be bringing this car back from the grave.

The Photos here depict her as I found her:

 

[Suicide_Scott]

Its not that bad really. LOL.

I spent about a year or so collecting things like a better hood and a door and a fender etc to complete the body. Then I recently sent her off to the sand blaster for a strip.

Now she is in bare metal and today I will be blowing out all the sand and putting it into a black zinc rust inhibitor coat.

 

[Suicide_Scott]

So as you can see it is ready for body work.

What do you gurus think I should do from this point?

I took it around today and am appalled at what the prices are.

From a local Jesse James type outfit: body and paint 30-50k. Yes they do great work, but they are high on the crack. I found a sweet '71 charger there in mint un-restored condition. That was worth the trip just to see it even if they did want 75k for it. This was the kind of car that they said was not worth working out the small dent and paint chip as it is worth more with it!

The next guy was really nice and I found him to be trustworthy, and he quoted 8-9k. Shop had smokers in full drag, water on the floor and dust which did not inspire confidence. The first shop inspired high dollar compared to this place but their price tag said to me that they are over leveraged on image.

I have a craigslist guy telling me $700 for body work. Backyard ex military type.

What would be a fair price to pay for body and single stage black quality paint job. Not show, but darn near for my not quite daily driver?

 

[Suicide_Scott]

Just a note, why is there no such thing as used 14 inch tires anymore?

I have to drag this babe around on flats.

 

[res1vw21]

lol $700 back yard body work, I would run very fast away from that. You get what you pay for. I would go to the second shop, dust is going to be in a shop, the important thing is, is dust in the paint booth?

Anyway you look at it 8-9 is cheap for the amount of metal replacement that needs to be done on your car. Remember 4-6k is the price for a good quality scuff and shoot.

Hate to say it but 30-50 isn't out of line for a good paint and body. My grandpa just had a '34 Plymouth done and I think he is into paint and body 40-50K and while it is VERY VERY nice it could still have been a little better. Luckily for him he isn't a body man so he doesn't see the little imperfections.

 

[69HEMICORONETR/TCONV]

I have seen cars much worse than this brought back from the dead.

 

[Suicide_Scott]

Here is what I don't understand.

I have seen cars like mine (mild resto mod) very nice in black paint go for around $20,000 on ebay.

How can you justify a paint and body job for $40,000 on a non numbers matching, non hemi 66 charger?

At what point does a paint job like that make it worth it?

Too me it seems like its just like buying a new car. This is something I would never do because as soon as you drive it off the lot it loses 25% of its value.

 

[Chris-Turbo]

Nice work till yet!

 

[CtownChris]

Get references from a few recent customers from any shop or person you are considering doing body work. Price means little sometime. Quality for your $ is what I would want to know.
I mean $40K might be a rip off at well at $10K, depending on what they do for your car with hours spent, $ per hour, experience, quality of paint, number of coats.

And figure what ever the quote is that it will probable go up as the body shop finds more stuff as they go along.

Just take your time researching a GOOD Mopar experienced body shop for your needs.

Good luck and have fun.

 

[rumblefish360]

Holy Moly, talk about gettin down to biz!

Yea Baby!

 

[moparstuart]

nice job keep up the good work ,more pictures please

 

[Donny]

Wow, nothing like sitting down X mas morning, eating banana pumkin bread with coffee and looking at this thread/post! How much can you do yourself in this re-build? The car is not in that bad of a condition, really, I've seen worse; haha. Also, your skill level and facilities are an important variant to consider, and the tools you have, with the time available to undertake these kinds of things. I speak from my experiences; back in 1999 I went head first into something I had no concept of the time/money it would take; 2 1969 B Body Plymouths. Given the fact I was an active duty soldier with 9 yrs to go until I could retire, finding the time was like a great easter egg hunt, couple this in with life, like marriage/divorce/kids, job changes, state changes, getting shot, blown up and seeing death and massive destruction first hand, finding the time was hard to do. Perhaps you are in a better position to render your 66 to life faster, and perhaps better than I've been fairing thus far? At any rate, I will be glad to offer any advice I have for you in this build; they are fun, they are time consuming, and, even better if you have a lady pal that shares this with you...that makes ALL the difference as you won't need a kitchen pass to spend 10 hrs on Saturday messing with your Charger! From what I can see, you are going to need to now disassemble ALL of your components; front end, rear end, K member, power steering and pull off the upper cowl. Because your media you had the car blasted with, from what I see and what you said is Sand...and that stuff is very small, and has...let me repeat it HAS gotten into ALL of your joints; upper control arms, etc. Now, when you remove them, you are going to have to clean up the areas not cleaned by the blaster, and replace/repair the surfaces that move; ball joints, etc.

When I get a client that is in the beginning stages of their build like you are, I counsel them to remove all the stated components for the reasons I've stated, and offer assistance as I feel is applicable to the early stages of their builds. I steer clear of paint/bodywork as that is not my lane, there are tons of paint&body places out there on every corner in the USA, but very very very few are equipped to do any serious Media Blasting.

At any rate, I've enjoyed looking at your pics and this post, for sure, I will be checking back to see your progress! Perhaps you should move this to the Members Restoration section?

 

[Suicide_Scott]

I am going to remove all the parts next and resend them to be blasted again since he said he would do that for free. I had no way to get the car there and back without it rolling.

Ive been thinking for 40k I could setup my own shop and hire a paint and body guy for 3 months. ;=) J/K sort of.

Paint booths are 3k on craigslist now. I actually have most of the tools and some time to deal with this. I think for 8k I could do the entire thing myself and have all the tools left over for all my other projects including a real paint boot and air system.

So many ideas. I will post pics as I go along. My engine will be next since its mostly done now.

 

[440brew]

I had my 67 Coronet painted at a Maaco place, it was $2k for some body work (half a dozen dents and some holes filled) plus full sand and paint. It came out great! People are shocked when they hear the details and see the paint. I advise checking these places out! They normally have many cars rolling thru so you can judge quality!

 

[Suicide_Scott]

New years update:

I just (finally) put the car into 2580CR to keep the bare metal from rusting.

The weather was not favorable for the last few days, but since I could keep it in my warehouse for the time it was bare it did not rust.

Here is what I learned painting at this level for the first time:

1. get good advice. Johnny at Hi Speed in Tucson turned me onto this 2580CR from DUPONT. Finish Masters was effing totally clueless and were trying to sell me a self etching primer that has to be primed after thus doubling my costs. Note to self, never listen to the people at the paint supply center in this town. When I finally got on the horn with Johnny, the Finish Masters people were saying that that was the best thing to do even though they never even mentioned it for the 30 minutes I was debating the clerk about why I should not have to use self etch and prime this early just to protect bare metal.

They wanted me to self etch then prime, then do body work and re-sand and then do it again before painting.

If you go to bare metal, get 2580CR to protect your metal while doing body work. It requires about 1 gal to do the entire car and a 2 to 1 reducer. Costs about $400 total retail.

2. Don't buy a Kobalt HLVP from Lowes. Its great until you start working sideways or upside down and paint starts to run all over your clothes, the ground, your hair and all over itself. If you never turn the gun to the side use this. Otherwise, steer clear. I will be returning this tomorrow.

3. Get a rotisserie. I put this car up in the air on a forklift. This is a bad idea all around. Not only must you trust your forklift with your life, its a pain to paint upside down. Especially with a crappy Kobalt sprayer. I have been trying to avoid the expense, but I would not go further on this car without a rotisserie.

The main flaw here was that the lid was cheap and never got a good seal. The gun is metal and the lid is plastic. Bad idea.

4. Test your painting skills on something other than your car. I started painting the left quarter and got a 4 ft run on the first pass. I learn very fast. Don't do that. By the next panel I was doing at least 98% good work and only ran 2 small spots after which I think is not too bad for a first timer under these conditions. I will sand these out later.

I also missed a few spots due to my next problem.

5. Don't start late in the day without proper indoor lighting. I did this job outside and half way through I lost light. That caused my second run and then I finished half the car with a flashlight. Not ideal, but I finished.

The couple missed spots I will shoot when I do the loose body parts I have racked. Hopefully I can do these with a better sprayer.

Here are the results so far:















6. If you are not using a rotisserie, you have to take off your shoes when doing the inside of the car if you want to keep it clean.

 

[Suicide_Scott]

p.s. I have decided to do all the body and paint work myself and save the cash. We shall see how this works out over the next year.

 

[Big Sugar]

Scotty Stop in @ http://www.66-67charger.com and say hi.


Ron

 

[Suicide_Scott]

I just ordered a DeVilbliss 3 with 4 heads for $220. I think that will improve my situation without having to outlay big cash to get the job done. I aim to get by on this low cost gun for a while longer. Now I have to wait for UPS to deliver with ground shipping while I return the piece of **** Cobalt gun.

I have a pint of por15 on hand in case rust starts to appear on the doors, hood, fenders and deck lid in the meantime. My inside roof is seriously surface rusted and the blaster did not want to deal with that due to risk of warpage so now my next step is to get into the roof with a sponge full of por15 and see what transpires.

 

[RGAZ]

Good choice on the Dupont Epoxy primer surfacer. Great base to work from. For spraying upside down you may want to try the Dekupps system from devilbiss. Pretty cheap and easy cleanup. Personally, I have had bad results with POR-15. Try Eastwood rust converter instead.

looks good.
Randy

 

[69HEMICORONETR/TCONV]

Looking Great, Keep Up the Good work !..........how much for the orange turtle in the second picture ? :grin: