Clean up that back end....

After Rusty sat for the last month practically untouched, I was excited to get back to work. I forgot how frustration enters with restoration though. We had to cut and bend to try and get the back valance extensions to meet the quarters. After a couple spot welds to hold the valance into place, we called it a day to restore energy and focus. Patience....

You're Not Done Yet

Since I couldn't really see the line like I wanted, I threw some primer on there to get a better look. Rusty was pushed outside so I could use natural light to see that line. Once I had the car out I could see that small portion of the line was lower. I marked the car once again to remind me where I need to sand some more and straighten her out.

The X strategy continued on the passenger side. Putting filler on and then basically working most of it off can definitely change your hair color... face pigment... your hands, and throw your pants in there as well.

Front fender line....

This week was just Rusty and myself battling out the body line. Aside from how much time it takes to re-create an inch of the line, now I have check how straight it is. Using a marker and a straight edge that can wrap around the car, I place an X where I'm satisfied that the line meets the main line. In the photos you will see many X"s marking my spot.

In determining if I had the right line created I would close my eyes and start at the original door line and run my hand along the line (up and down fashion) until I felt a blemish or nothing anymore.

Stale-Mate/ frequent Visitor

The next two weeks will be rather slow. My father is having a store in his garage so Rusty is pushed into a corner where I can't work on anything really. I can maybe start taking out the trunk. I'll post some pictures whenever I can reach her.

We have car shows every last Friday of the month in the summer and of course I'm there drooling. This is a 69 R/T that lives actually right around the corner from Rusty. It's very nice, but it makes me want to drive mine that much more!!!

Look at her curves... and that line

I've been sulking and whining about the body line that runs down the length of the car. It is there and you can definitely see that it is an important part of the looks. Well on the driver's side fender the line was replaced by a dent at some point in her life. The dent was fixed but the line was gone. I've been reading a couple magazines in order to see how to get that line back. One guy it took him 48 hours to work one fender. This seemed a little extreme and perfection was the only way this guy worked. Well I want perfection too, but I want to be realistic with the car as well. So I studied the strategy and technique to get the line back, X sanding, criss cross... I applied the filler and marked out my line to the end of the fender. I then started working the technique. After 10 minutes I thought I would just quit... Needless to say I caught on after a bit and found what I needed to do to get her line back. The first inch took me 2 hours, but it is there. I had about 10inches to get total on this fender. You can see a bit of how the steps were done. It isn't quite done as of yet, but I'm making progress. It looks and FEELS great, to me anyway. A lot of sweat was manufactured for this line.

Steering wheel and seats

A family trip down to Kentucky was the reason I found this original wood grain steering wheel. My cousin lives next to the ultimate Mopar guy. The man has two original Cudas, a couple Studibakers, A 32 dodge roadster I believe it was, Satellite, Super Bee, and a couple New hemi dodge trucks. The man had a couple original hemi's just lying on his garage floor, I was offered one at a crazy low price, but money right now is tighter than usual for a teacher. Well he pulled this steering wheel out and I was drooling at the mouth. It only had the one crack. On eBay they start around $300, I pulled this one for $125. Everything is there. It was great. Another great find.

The seats were bought off of eBay. I all ready got them and all they need is new covers... I will have black interior... I was priced out the lowest at $800 for 69 charger seats from a couple different sources... well I bought these for $475. I really didn't need them right now, but a deal like this with the headrest and everything was hard to pass up. I love my wife for letting me get these. ( I love her for other things too... hahahaha)