Day 9 - Rust Mort the floors

Rust mort is a rust inhibitor, it converts rust to black or grayish, hard, insoluble, protective coating.

Then just applied with a small brass wire brush. I applied about 2 thin coats and I will let it sit over night.

Day 8 - Doors and Floor Pan Rust

Today we wanted to tackle the driver side door and the floor. My friend Paul came over once again to give me hand. WHAT A SUCKER! Lol jk.

Paul went ahead and removed the door panel and hardware.

We went over to the home depot and picked up a few things:

1. A wire brush attachment for one of the grinders. (This is for getting into the groves of the floor pans)

• A few wire brushes of various sizes (This for any detailed cleaning that needs to be done)
• A box of dust masks
  - For those of you who don’t believe in the use of dust masks, here are ours after just a few hours.

The top one is a new one, the lower left one is Paul’s and the lower right one is mine.

• Lacquer thinner (This is for cleaning surfaces just before painting.)
• Masking tape (Masking off any areas you don’t want paint on.)
• Welding gloves (The wire brushing attachment for the grinder is dangerous and hell
  on the hands, so I got these to protect the hands and help with the vibration.)

This took some serious grinding to clean up these floor pans.

When using the sanding pad you will notice it sparking when you hit seams or rust, nothing to worry about, just keep going.

Here are the floor pans ...

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Day 7 - Clean Up and Seat Stands

Today I just tried to clean the garage and build some stands for the bucket seats. Because the seats seem to be in pretty good condition, I wanted to protect them. These car seats bolt right to the floor I made some stands so the studs wouldn’t get damaged.

First I took a piece of plywood and cut it to the length and width of the foot print of the seat.

I then set it on the studs then marked where the studs are on the wood. I drilled out the holes and made sure it fit.

I then attached a couple of 2X4 s to the bottom so that the seat can sit on the floor without sitting on the studs.

Day 6 - Interior Removal

Today my friend Paul came over and helped me remove the interior. The seats seem to be in pretty good condition as does the center console.

That’s about where the good news ends. The floor as you can see is rusted in a couple of spots. I am going to have to cut those parts out and weld in some new floors. Most of it does seem to be surface rust so it’s not that bad.

We also removed all the door hardware off the passenger side.

I am bit concerened about the door striker and stirinking unit. It looks pretty mangeled but I won't know anything till the paint comes off.

During this part of the project we found countless screws that weren’t the correct ones or they just used self tapping screws to fasten what ever they needed to. This was not a very stellar job done by however we tagged and bagged everything.

Day 5 - Research

We put the charger on the trailer and took it to a body shop and got a quote for how much it would be to do all the metal work and paint on the outside (excluding the trunk floors). Jeff and Randy at Womack Auto Body at 9831 SE Powell Blvd. Portland Oregon were great. Jeff had explained that the entire passenger rear quarter panel that was pictured on day 4 would be about $2,200 dollars to fix. Yeah, that’s just the metal work. He also mentioned that the way the doors are put together on these old cars it will eventually rust through on the lower part of the doors. What they do is cut the corners off of the bottoms of the door to get inside of it and treat the rust and replace the corner with a new piece of sheet metal. He also could just tell the front part of the driver side fender was bondo under the paint. He then stepped back and said for all the exterior metal and paint work, it would be about $15,000 to $20,000 depending on much more metal damage there is. I then asked him “what about just the Primer and paint?” He said if you get the body all straightened out it would be about $4,000 - $6,000. He then proceeded to describe their primer/paint process. It is as follows:

1. Primer Car
2. Block Sand Car at 180 grit
3. Primer Car
4. Block Sand Car at 320 grit
5. Primer Car
6. Foam Block Sand the Car at 500 grit
7. Primer Car
8. Foam Block Sand the Car at 800 grit
9. Base Coat (this is usually the color of the car)
10. Clear Coat ( I didn’t’ ask how many clear coats)

We then took the car over to my dad’s friend who is also does bodywork and paint. He said that if I buy all the sheet parts for the car he would do all the metal work and paint for about $6,500. This of course sounded more reasonable. I then asked how about if all the metal work was done. He said about $5,000. There were only 2 problems. First, he didn’t know when he could get my car in. He had a crap load of cars in the back that all needed some body work. The second thing was his process was a little different. His was as follows:

1. Primer Car
2. Block Sand Car at 180 grit
3. Primer Car
4. Block Sand Car at 180 grit
5. Primer Car
6. Block Sand the Car at 320 grit
7. Primer Car
8. Block Sand the Car at 400 grit
9. Base Coat (again, this is usually the color of the car)
10. Clear Coat (again, I didn’t’ ask how many clear coats)

So those are kind of my choices and its a lot to think about. Since my car won’t be worked on anytime soon I think my next step is to get the car media blasted and see what I really have to work with, metal wise.

Day 4 - Rear Quarter Part 2

Today I cleaned up the rest of the bondo and primer and got the quarter panel down to the metal for the most part.

I then just wiped the dust off and applied some automotive spray primer from a spray can.

Day 3 - Rocker Panel

Today I just continued to grind the rocker panel all the way to the lower section of the fender. There is one bad spot just passed the driver side door on the rocker panel.

Day 2 - Quarter Panel Part 1

The next thing we will be doing is getting quotes for how much it would be to do the body work on this charger. To get accurate bids, I will be removing the paint and bondo layers to reveal any troubled spots. This will mostly consist of sanding down the rear section of the vehicle and exposing the rusted areas. My good friend Paul came over to help with the sanding. We will be concentrating on the driver side quarter panel. The car seemed to have a few layers on top of the metal, you had the metal then a red primer (possibly from the factory) then a pale yellow then a gray primer then a vibrant yellow, bondo, then the silver paint you see on the car

Upon closer inspection you can see where they used fiberglass once again, this time to create a look of the lower quarter panel. This piece will have to be replaced.

The Rear Valance also has some bad spots as you can see.

Day 1 The Project Begins, Trunk Floor Rust

So I have started an endeavor to restore this charger and Make is a General Lee replica.

When I got the car, I knew it was leaking gas from the tank. I happen to have another tank for a charger so I began to remove the original tank from the 69. After disconnecting the sending unit, fuel line and tank straps, I found that the tank that should have fallen down, just sat there. I then noticed that some type of nesting material was poking through the bottom of the trunk floor. I then opened the trunk to find the trunk solid but with some type of coating kind of like a rhino lining or something. I took a hammer and crowbar and chiseled a piece of the coating off to find that the whole trunk was coated with fiberglass. That was the nesting material that was peeking through the bottom of the trunk floor. Someone had fiberglassed the entire trunk floor. Now, I should explain that these cars are known for rust in the trunk floors and what you typically do is replace the trunk pans. Which are parts that you can get from Year One©. Now what these guys did was fiber glass over the old trunk without treating ANY of the rust, so that trunk continued to rust even under the fiber glass. After removing the fiberglass I found the trunk pretty rusted out, here is a pic of a similar trunk

We went ahead and cut out half of the trunk floor as to not weaken the body too much while we are replacing the trunk pans. Here is the half of the trunk we removed.

We will probably have to build up part of the wheel well that connects to the trunk pan. As you can see there are some holes there as well.