February 17, 2009
Getting my rear-end in gear
The way my entire Charger was sitting on jack-stands made it easy for me to prime. However, I noticed when block-sanding the car that the whole Charger would start to sway. This made me very nervous. I kept having terrible visions of my now-pristine quarter panels and fenders slamming on the ground. I decided I needed to stabilize the car better.
Since I had everything ready to go on the rear end, I decided I would put it under the car and put some junky tires on the car. The photos below chronicle the sequence I went through in this part of the project. One of the neatest things was, this was the first time that I was able to start emptying some boxes that had held new parts.
These first two pictures show the rear end stripped of its original 10-inch brake parts, with the axles put back in place. With it hanging from my engine hoist, I had just completed sandblasting the entire rear end.
These two photos are of the assembled and painted rear end, with the 11-inch heavy-duty brake hardware, the Mopar Performance OEM-style 440/Hemi leaf springs, all-new bushings, new hard brake lines, and the new rubber brake line. The gears in the 489-cased third member are 3:55's with the large 440 yoke. All that is ready to be rolled under the car.
In this photo, you can see everything in the new 11-inch rear brake system has been replaced: wheel cylinders, all the springs, self-adjuster parts, brake linings, everything new and shiny.
Here the rear end is all bolted in. The tires are tall, skinny 7.00-15 Bobcat tractor tires that I had from past projects. They allow plenty of room for me to work around the wheel wells, and I won't care if they get paint all over them. With the rear end in place and my stoutest jack-stands moved as far forward on the frame as I can get them, my Charger is now rock-solid, and I'll feel a lot better working those panels over as I block things out.
Posted in RESTORATION | sandblasting | suspension, brakes, tires, and wheels | link to this page | | Comments (0)
October 28, 2008
One last sandblasting chore
As the day to put primer on my Charger draws near, I realized I had neglected to strip the old paint and minor surface rust, etc., off the inner part of my doors. I had used a wire wheel on my grinder to remove all the paint from the door jamb area of the car body itself, but wanted a good fresh start on the doors. My son and I removed the doors, gutted the latches and window regulators etc., and set them outside for sandblasting. The red tank-looking object between the doors in the first photo is my inexpensive but very serviceable sandblaster.
This is a closeup of the areas I sandblasted. I protected the outside edge of the door, which already has primer on it, with a heavy layer of masking tape prior to sandblasting. I was very pleased with the results. All the rust, all the paint, all the years of glue, etc., are gone. After this, the doors were taken inside the garage and etching primer was applied to all the bare metal.
Posted in RESTORATION | body | disassembly | sandblasting | sanding | link to this page | | Comments (0)
February 19, 2007
Sandblasting, take 2
Since most of the hours I've been putting in on my Charger lately have involved trying to smooth out the body panels and move my body work towards "prime-able perfection", posting a monotonous series of pictures of the same areas of the car would not be interesting or helpful to the viewers of this site. Finally some of my work takes on a more visible form: I took over my wife's parking stall for the weekend, turning it into a sort of reincarnation of my sandblasting enclosure from a couple of years ago. This time, a large stack of small parts were the object of the sandblasting. I completely disassembled, cleaned, sandblasted, primed, and painted my steering column components, all the hardware for my new 11" rear brake assemblies, and a host of other brackets and things, as well as the underside of my rear deck lid, which still had some of the previous finish on it, and a set of wheels I'm going to put on my wife's Dart sometime in the near future. By Monday evening, everything was broken back down and the restored components were packed carefully away. My wife was really pleased that the BIG blue tarp was only up for a weekend this time.
After I get a few new components, I will be reassembling the steering column and putting it in storage until needed, as I have already done with the brake components and other sub-assemblies.
Posted in sandblasting | link to this page | | Comments (0)
May 20, 2005
Interesting historical find
You never know what cool historical things might turn up when you're restoring a car. I found this writing underneath the original primer on my front valance. The writing says, "SAVE FOR DIE SHOP TO LOCATE 06 AND 07 DIES ON COMMON PLATE". It is interesting to think that this part of my car was once used seemingly to help recalibrate equipment that would in turn make parts of other '70 Chargers. You can click this link to view the picture in a larger size.
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Posted in RESTORATION | sandblasting | link to this page | | Comments (0)
Sandblasting: results
I only sandblasted the sturdy, mostly-non-exterior parts of the car. My goal was to remove any rust, old paint, grease, oil, etc., and have a nice surface ready for primer and a good coat of Eastwood's rust encapsulator, where needed. More delicate exterior sheet metal is being stripped of its layers of paint, primer, and filler by chemical stripper and/or lots of power- and hand-sanding. The hand-sanding is where my kids "get" to help a lot (they really do enjoy it).
All blasted and clean, the engine compartment now looks so nice, I can just imagine the layers of glossy paint that will one day adorn it.
Several treatments with chemical stripper and a few hours of sanding have got my driver's side fender down to its original shiny self. After I smooth a couple of dings and installing a steel rust-repair panel for the area behind the tire, this fender will be primed with etching primer, awaiting the day of final painting.
My trunk was remarkably solid, and will not need replacement. A couple of minor pinholes will be welded up before the trunk floor is treated with Eastwood's Rust Encapsulator and preventative treatment.
The hood had an amazing number of layers of finish on it, but after many rounds with the stripper, and much sanding, the bare metal is finally showing itself.
The floorpan
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Posted in RESTORATION | sandblasting | link to this page | | Comments (0)
Sandblasting: setup
For the sandblasting phase of my Charger's restoration, I constructed a 20x20 enclosure, with a huge tarp over a steel frame, and another tarp on the floor to aid in sand recovery. Using up to 3 air compressors simultaneously gave me enough air to keep the blasting going strong.
A front view of the stripped Charger, ready for sandblasting
Rear view
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Posted in RESTORATION | sandblasting | link to this page | | Comments (1)