Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Way Down South in the Land of Cotton...
The Dixie Horn... No General Lee is complete without it. We made the bracket for the horn from a piece of sheet metal. We had to make it to fit over the electric fan and not interfere with all that hardware. My son, Luke (Duke), wanted to be apart of the horn process, so I put him to work. He sanded the metal to rough it up, then he helped paint the bracket. He was very excited to help with the horn.
A long day... 10am -10:30pm
Arriving at 10am I found my second father-in-law, Jim, looking under the hood of The General. I asked him to help out with the wiring of the engine. He was quick to jump at the chance of being involved in the car... AND he will also be painting the car. Jim has his own shop and has been doing this line of work for over 20 years!! Another family member will apply their skills to this car making it even more special.
The run-down of the day goes like this:
Mounted the new electronic ignition boxes on the firewall, switched yokes on the driveshaft, cleaned the back brake drums and painted them Hemi orange, got the spark plugs on and the firing order down, made a bracket for the electric fan, and simply cleaned the front hood latch... We made the bracket for the dixie horn, but that deserves a post of its own.
Story of the Day:
In making the bracket for the electric fan we had to find a very small bolt to fit perfectly. After about 10min of searching we found what we needed in length. Only my dad had to grind the head to make it fit. Once he was done grinding he grabbed the bolt to put it in. Now ofcourse it was blazing hot!!!! He yelped in pain. I was laughing pretty hard. That was until I felt a slight pain on the back of my neck. I swipped the object, the bolt, from my neck. It landed somewhere across the garage. He basically branded my neck. He didn't think it was still hot, but it has been two days and I still have a bolt mark on my neck. In the end we had to search another 5 min or so trying to find that same bolt.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Wiring
It's time to juice her up. I can't read this stuff, but luckily my cousin Cooter, I mean Larry, can. Time to put some electrical power in this old thing again.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Front bucket seats
We had to put the front seats together, including the seat tracks, which didn't go smoothly. Nothing on the car has gone smoothly infact, (must be the roller-coaster ride people talk about with projects) but it's getting done. The headrest and accessories were added. You can also see we took out the steering wheel that came with the car and installed an original wheel I bought a few years back from some Mopar guys in Kentucky when visiting family. So much for a smoke-free car, my dad spoied that today... note the picture. Luckily I had the ashtrays in the car, but ofcourse he didn't use them.
Since I still had some day left, so my dad and I put in the back windows, side door panels, and the back seat. It was a pain in the rear getting the new panels to hook with the clips... Not fun, frustrating, but done. I also gave the armrest trim a new coat of chrome paint. It looks pretty fresh and clean.
Battery Tray
This wasn't a big addition, but I have had this new battery tray since I brought the car home. It took me almost fours years to install it. Ofcourse I had a couple things I had to get done before it went in.
Windshield Trim
Since the front of the headliner is in position, I started to place the trim around the area. You can see one of our many mistakes where we burned an A-pillar during a welding job about a year earlier. That could have been a costly mistake, but luckily I just traded for one with a guy here in town that had extra Charger parts.
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