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Work junk, and junk... at work. By 'junk.



Well, the decklid needed more finish work before primer, but here ya go...

Finally grey! He done alright, I think. This should be back in my stall Tuesday, to begin work on the front end. A change of scenery for me... sort of!
smile.gif













 


Well, one more time then-

Crummy shots of the urethane primer job. Looks crisp! Anyway, tomorrow I will start fitting the front clip and tying up the remaining "loose ends" of things.





 


I'm back working on this car now. Today's work went fine and I was happy with what I accomplished... but it was an exercise in futility.

We had another cowl hood in storage, and new hinges and springs for this car. The new hood we have did not fit well enough so we wanted to try another. After removing what was on it, I put new hinges on and tried the storage hood. It was better, but I don't have a striker or bracket to latch it with.



Main problem I found was the top front fender mounting holes are placed differently on the two fenders, with the passenger side holes being about a half inch farther inboard than the other side.





I was slotting the front hole and broke my only burr bit. Had it for at least a decade. Time for new. Seemed strange to me though, the cutting head separated from the shaft. Like maybe those things are fusion welded, made from two pieces. Wierd. I meant to get pic but didn't. Anyway, I borrowed.

The header and valance panels were also preventing a proper side-to-side alignment of the hood, so I removed them for now. In this pic the top one is just wedged in. Gaps are great if you hold the thing shut-



So I reported that this hood was gonna work nice. And it would...

but it belongs to another job, a long-term one not currently on site.

Phooey! Fits nice but I can't use it. At least we know now that our new hood is indeed the problem. The back of the scoop looks crooked to me on both hoods but thats probably to be ignored for now. No telling what I'll end up with. Glad to know that theres not a problem with core support positioning, because now I'll not worry about that any more. Fenders are going to need work at top rears but a nice 1/4" hood gap all around should be achieveable and thats a load off my mind.
 
First thing today I tried the other hood back on it, just in case my core support and fender adjustments from the grey one would help it. It did, to a degree. The front gap looks the same but the rear of the hood is just too narrow. You could stick a pinky in each side. So still a no-go on that.

But the new dash top panel was waiting for me so I yanked the fenders and tackled that instead. Starting point. This piece is too far forward.









So I get to chop on a Monday! :)







OH! Yeah, hey... theres some rust monsters under that glass bed! I'll just clean that up and make it black, eh? Still solid where my part welds on at . ;)

Took awhile to deftly grind all the old dash weld off the bars but not the lower dash or front edge. Those were barely attached. Main reason this is happening is because the glass bed area was misaligned and not flush. But the welded dash to rollbar was the clincher, it just looked bad.

So I put away all that surface rust (will seal the area before welding this up) and had a go at carving corresponding notches in the dash, for the bars to reside in. The plan is to just leave an even gap around them, more pleasing to the eye than what was there. Pretty sure it won't show but now there will be a spot to tuck upholstery if desired.



I did suggest adding a dash bar to the cage at this time, and will suggest having me make wrap-around fiberglass dash pad end caps to use with a bobbed new dash pad. Anyway I was still sneaking up on the right side when the Pontiac clock said 4:55 so here ya go-







 
First I wanted to be sure no gouges would show where all the grinding happened-



Shot some black over that on both sides then scuffed it once dry-



Swapped the VIN tag over with plain rivets, and weld prepped the dash. Cleaned and painted a little behind the old dash face. Put some wide masking tape behind that rusty old top flange, then I used 3M 8308 seam sealer over it from the front side and went to eat.







It dries shiny like that and is kinda rubbery like pliers handle dip. Like a layer of plastic because its 2K. Anyway, I scuff sanded that and used trim black over it. Then I welded the dash on and smoothed the welds. Bottom edge welded up just fine. I was very careful in placing my plug weld holes over good steel and it paid off with no giant warpy blowed open spots-







Before walking out, I degreased and hit the bare stuff with two coats of epoxy primer on a foam brush. Its really humid out. I believe the window bed will work now. The notches may be entirely covered in the end. I will be sure painter knows about the underside of this seam needing corrosion protection and perhaps seam sealer, from inside the wiper area.

 
All this fancy work for a race car makes zero sense, but when you got money to burn...... burn it I guess
 


Who's angry? We pressed the guy for his intended usage... "Are you going to race it or show it?" His response- "No. (looks around) ... I'm gonna throttle whip the piss out of it!" and thats all the man said. The deal is this car was thought up and started during the ProStreet era. All slicks and blowers and for-show cages, just like this. Its just taking all this work because the wrong guy got ahold of it first time around. He learned his lesson and is glad we don't rub his nose in it. Same way with lots of customers. At least he didn't do it himself.

Remember the grey T/A clone? Holy crap that man USES that car with no mercy. They just want loud obnoxious toys that make them grin when they mat the gas, they ain't serious. You're right, race cars do not need this much detail.
 
Previous guy did a lot a crap work then, looks like it would be cheaper to buy another car and start fresh
 
Well once they spend a bunch of money on something they ain't willing to wad it up and toss it. We do sometimes advise a different starting point. But you do realize this car sits on a full frame, right? The aftermarket chassis represents a huge investment.
 
Regardless of the intentions for this specific car, the work being shown is the best way to do that work(from what I can tell) and if the customer wants it to be certain way, it gets done to their specifications. It seems to me that the owner wants this car to be straight, clean and rust free. Fixing all of the little things and paying close attention to detail is what idrivejunk gets paid to do.
 


Thats my job, yep. Most of what I fix has already been fixed ha ha. Thanks :cool:

Not much to show today. I did hang doors and fenders and we still have gaps there (once the rest of the mud is on). Cowl, hood, header, and valance fit are still up in the air pending hood and striker plate.

But I knew it still had those notches in the rockers so I patched them. The rocker ends needed some coaxing to line up with the wheel openings. Then I spent some time adding welds to the seat braces. Pic lighting sucks but the A/C sure felt good today!









 
Where did today go? 68 Camaro guy came by and we talked. He assured me the glass and moldings were there (and they were), and I assured him we're almost done. I had plenty of things to show him.

Test fitted the glass and they fit nicely on both cars. Thats good news!

I welded the quarters to the rockers at the bottom on the inside then moved on to making these flange strips before getting sidetracked. Car feels fairly sturdy now, with these things all tied together.


 
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