No debate...car needs to be stripped and media blasted???

[nsmall]

  I posted this on Alan the Man in my books recent thread http://www.cuda-challenger.com/cc/index.php?topic=117232.15   ...... Alan, you are fast, you just got that car.  Yet you quickly PM me when I need help.  Do you sleep?  I have a fairly solid looking project and continue to fight you on the media blasting idea as my car will be prepped and painted in 2017....

    Obviously like I have seen with some of your other projects and this car, media blasting makes sense and in the end its worth it.  I better start saving more as I am not experienced enough to strip the car down all the way.

    Good luck with this project and THANKS for always helping this


Alans response...Here's the thing....I've been restoring Mopars for 32+ years, mostly E Bodies. I've probably done more Cudas and Challengers then any other shop in the world....
They come apart pretty easy....On average it takes about 20-25 hours to take them apart...about another 6-8 to scrape off the undercoating then let a quality blasting place to the rest. This car will be 100% bare metal for about $1500....then another $500 to epoxy prime.....

With this stage done you can be certain to find all the rust (except between panels yadda yadda yadda )...

...THEN you can fix all the rust.....this is the part that might cost you more money then you wanted to spend, but this is the part of the restoration that insures all the other money spent isn't wasted.

So some extra time and a extra couple of grand and you can sleep at night.......Oh did I mention commitment....One you start...you have to stick it through until the end.

I value Alans opinion as he seems to command a lot of respect around here.  I need to find a painter who understands E-bodies.  Tearing my car into pieces freaks me out.  HOWEVER this is a car I want to keep for a very long time and media blasting seems to the best way to eliminate rust, bondo, old paint. 

As always, thanks for your opinions as these cars are expensive and I am trying to balance spending too much money and doing a quality job....yeah I know that sounded like an oxymoron for an E-body.

Neil

[1 Wild R/T]

FWIW my opinion... Blasting is great for all the nooks & crannies, engine compartment, door jambs, wheel wells, under carriage... Exterior body panels not so much... I've had cars blasted, I've had panels that I expected to get damage come out perfect & I've had panels I thought would be fine turn into scrap.... Last three cars I've done I've chemically striped the exterior panels & blasted everything else....   Keep in mind Alan lives in the land of snow & salt... Many of the cars he deals with likely come from within 500 to maybe 750 miles of his area... I've seen lots of cars from that area & I've seen lots of smart people buying California cars because they are so dry & free of creeping rust....

[anlauto]

  One of the worse rusted cars I've done lately came to me from California http://www.alangallantautomotiverestoration.com/71-RESTOMOD-HEMICUDA.html

Of course I don't know where the car originated from, but you can make out the Cally plate in this picture...

[anlauto]

Of course the trick is to find a blasting company that know what they are doing.

[1 Wild R/T]

The problem is you'll get recommendations for a blasting company with a really good guy doing the work... Then when you bring your car in that guy is down the road & you get a hack.... 

And yes you can get rusty cars in California... Most come from within 10 miles from the coast... The rest come mostly from back east....  But either scenario is pretty easy to spot & clean solid dry cars are easy to spot as well..... 

[Topcat]

A full history on the cars past helps.

[anlauto]

I would like to think the shop recommended in the other thread would be good at blasting because they are also a automotive body/restoration shop....which I would hope means they have plenty of experience stripping exterior body panels.