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Here are a few examples of how to make an old part new again. Below you will see the old “K frame” from my Charger. When you disassemble the parts, they are obviously dirty, rusted and in most cases have not been off the car in 30 years. The body shop that did my paint work had a very large parts blasting cabinet. It was available to me for cleaning any part. It uses Aluminum Oxide to “blast” the parts under high air pressure. The work is not much fun, but the results are amazing. I spent lots of hours blasting away at parts, such as the front end components, exhaust manifolds, intake manifolds, and then I would repaint and rebuilt the components with new parts. Here are some before and after pictures of some of this work. My thanks to Buddy Hooper and Hooper Enterprises in Oklahoma City, the body shop that did my paint work.
Above you will see a picture taken very early on in the “break down” process. I took a lot of digital photos to help me remember how everything went back together, as well as to document the restoration. I highly recommend this to anyone wanting to restore any car. Below you see my brother Tom who was helpful when I needed another hand. Thanks “coach”!
A stroke of good luck, no rust at all under the vinyl top, just lots of glue! This is normally a place the typical Mopar ends up with rust cause from water getting under the top.
When I removed the dash, it was obvious it had never been out since it was put in back in August of 1970. I did get an interesting surprise. Hanging from the top of the firewall was a blank “fender tag” hanging on a paperclip with plum crazy paint over spray. I have since been told of others who have also found these, but it is rare. Apparently the fender tags were hung here and at some point the workers on the assembly line would punch them for inspections, etc. Some cars needed 2 tags because of the number of options. Lynch Road cars are notorious for not having many options listed. My car did not need the other tag, and someone simply forgot to remove it. There it hung for 30 years! |
