Restoration of an origonal owner 73 Challenger Rallye

[dodj]

Doing an amazing job burdar! 
Did you use a heat gun/hair dryer to get your headliner so smooth and wrinkle free?

Sorry to hear about your house and car damage. Hopefully not too expensive.

[73RallyeChallenger]

Sorry to hear about the damage the high winds caused.

Your car is looking great!

[burdar]

My brother,  wife and I are tearing the fence down right now.  I'm going to have to replace (2) 4x4's because they snapped off.  Two other ones pulled out of the concrete footings.  The roof is tarped so we shouldn't have any more water damage as long as there aren't any more hight winds.  Hopefully in a week or two, the roof will be re-shingled.

Did you use a heat gun/hair dryer to get your headliner so smooth and wrinkle free?

No, that wasn't nessesary with the Yorkshire material.  It doesn't wrinkle at all.  We just lightly pulled it tight and clamped it.  I think the perforated material is harder to get the wrinkles out of.  There is one area where the material is a little too tight.  The listings could have been trimmed a little more.  I'm happy with how it turned out though.

Time to get back to the fence.  It's supposed to be in the mid 90's today so I don't think I'll be working on it much longer.


 

[burdar]

Finally the dash restoration is done.  This was the part of the restoration that I was dreading the most...other then the bodywork.  I started the dissassembly in February.  I took a lot of pictures and a few notes.  I sent the pad to Ultimate Rides and had them redo the original pad and send it back.  I didn't deal dirrectly with them though.  Dave from Roseville Chrysler handled everything and was great to work with. 

The pad I got back had a lot of extra foam that needed to be trimmed.  I guess this is normal with an UR pad.  There were a few areas that I wasn't happy with.  I tried pealing back the vinyl in one area to trim some foam but ended up ruining the pad.   I called Dave and he talked to the owner of UR.  He generously agreed to fix my screwup as long as I paid the shipping both ways.  I was more than willing to do that so I wouldn't have to pay for another complete pad. 

About six weeks went by and I still didn't have the pad back.  I called UR a few times and every time I was told the pad was done....they were just waiting on the invoice.   Finally, I'd had enough and called Dave again.  Even though it was no longer his problem, he called UR to see what was going on.  The next day I got a call from UR saying that the pad was shipping.

A week later the pad arrived.  As soon as I opened the box, I could tell that this wasn't my original core.  I had engraved my initials in the frame right below the VIN plate on the underside.  If anyone sees DOB engraved in that area, you've got my original core.  I was tired of messing around with the pad so I didn't press the issue.  I'm sure the delay in getting the pad back was due to the fact that they sold my core to someone else.  Anyway, the pad I had gotten back the first time was accually nicer then this one.  I had to redrill the center speaker grill holes as well as the two VIN plate holes in order to get those parts to fit.  I definately think it's nicer to get your original core back instead of someone elses.  Things just fit better if you have your original one.

I shopped around to find someone to redo the gauges.  They were in decent shape so I didn't think they would need a total overhall.  I ended up sending them to Glen at GCAR.  He refaced the gauges with overlays...originally they were screan printed but unless you look close, you can't tell the difference.  He rebuild the speedometer and relettered the odometer.  I didn't want the odometer set to 0 so he kept the miliage the same.  The original tach was pretty close to accurate so he just calibrated it.  The oil pressure, fuel level, temp and Alt gauges were all in great shape.  The clock was converted to a Quartz mechanism.   

[burdar]

Here are some pics of the dissassembly.  The assembly had been sitting on a bend upside down for the last 8 or 9 years so it was pretty dirty.  I just took notes and a lot of pictures.  It came apart fairly easily.

[burdar]

While the pad and gauges were out being redone, I turned my attension to the dash frame.  First thing I did was power wash the frame to see what I had to work with.  The interior in this car was in pretty good shape so the finishes of the dash frame and the steering colomn were still visable.  For what ever reason, those items didn't have the heavy textured finish that the 1970 cars had.  The paint did look to be more of a suede finish but there was very little texture to it.  I had an almost empty can of SEM Trim Black paint so I thought I'd spray it on a section of the dash frame to see how it compaired to what was originally there.  Once the SEM paint was dry, I couldn't see a difference.  The SEM paint has that suede look to it.

Next, I sanded down the original paint on the visable areas of the dash frame as well as the glove box door and ash tray door.  I drilled out the rivets holding the ash tray to the door so I could completely paint the door.  I sprayed everything with a black SEM primer and then sprayed the SEM Trim Black.  I sprayed the final coat from a slightly farther distance to get a little texture.  Everything turned out great.  The inside of the ash tray had some rust in it but the plating on the outside was still in great shape.  I masked off the outside of the tray and blasted the inside.  I sprayed the inside with a heavy coat of clear after I polished the blasted finish with steel wool.

Once the frame was done I remembered that the map light switch was in bad shape.  You could barely move the lever.  I got ahold of JS Restorations and had Jim rebuild it for me.  I sent him two switchs(I had a spare map light switch) so he could make one good switch out of the two.  Jim called one weekend and said that even though the two switches had the same exact part number, the inner workings of the switch were completely different.  He'd never seen a switch like the original one before.  Thankfully he was able to repair the original switch for me.  He also was able to save the date code stamp on the outside of the switch.

The plastic MAP LIGHT bezel had broken years earlier.  I still had both pieces but didn't want to try gluing them together.  I found an older bezel out of a 70 Cuda.  It was the same shape as the original one but was made out of metal.  I cleaned it up and sprayed with with the Trim Black paint.  Once that was dry, I painted the recessed letters with Testors model paint.  The good thing about the Trim Black paint is that it isn't imediatly affected by mineral spirits.  Once the Testors paint was dry, I was able to wipe off the access without damaging the black paint. 

Sorry for these long posts but the dash assembly is full of smaller pieces that all need to be restored separately.  I thought if I described my process that it may help someone else who is going to be going through this.   

[burdar]

Ok, here are a few more pictures...

Pic of the original heater control bezel...


The refinishing of this piece was pretty fun.  It involved 4 different painting steps.  I think it turned out good for my first time trying somthing like this.  I tried everything to get the original paint off of the bezel.  Bead blasting didn't touch it and sanding was taking forever.  I ended up covering the thing with brake fluid a couple times which loosened up the paint.  I was able to scrape most of the paint off with a razor blade and finished up with sand paper.

The first painting step was to spray the inner rectangle with SEM Trim Black paint.  I didn't mask anything off...I just sprayed the black inside the rectangle.  Then I masked off the rectangle and sprayed the entire bezel with VHT Wrinkle paint.  I sprayed it outside on a hot and sunny day.  The paint won't wrinkle unless it's sprayed very heavily.  By having the paint dry in the sun, the wrinkles become tighter.  I let the wrinkle paint dry for 2 weeks before continuing.  Once it was dry, I masked off the inside and outside of the rectangle leaving the raised border.  I lightly misted two coats of chrome spray paint onto the bexel.  The chrome paint doesn't look chrome but it looks less silver then a paint pen.  It's such a small area that it looks decent.  Finally, I used a white paint pen to repaint the letters.  I went over them once but they still looked dirty.  I had to go over them a second time in order for the white to really pop.
 
Finished bezel...


Pic of the entire bezel.  It looks a little blotchy with the flash.  OK for my first time I think though.  The speaker fader knob and bezel are NOS piece my dad bought many years ago.


I refinish the radio faceplate the same way as the heater bezel.  I took the faceplate off and sprayed it with the SEM paint.  Then the rectangle border was masked off and I misted two coats of chrome spray paint onto it.

[burdar]

I bought a new M&H main dash harness from Year One.  The original harness ended up being in good shape so I could have reused it.  I feel more comfortable with a brand new one though.  The only problem area on the old harness was the steering column connection.  The large start wire was melted at the connector and had been bypassed long ago.

There were some secondary harnesses that needed to be reused.  The Rallye light bar wiring, light group wiring, speaker wiring and console light wire were all cleaned up and installed onto the new main harness.  I layed the new harness up next to the old one and changed everything over that needed to be reused...one wire at a time. 

Once the dash pad came back, I attached it to the frame and installed it into the car.  I wanted to make sure it was going to fit before I had the entire thing assembled.  I installed the A-pillar trims to see how they would line up with the new pad....they didn't.  There were large gaps(up and down...not side to side) between the A-pillars and the pad.  "Bullitt" and "Hood" were nice enough to send me some pics of their original dashes to see if I could figure out what the problem was.  Since Cody had been posting some pics of his dash restoration I PM'd him for some advise.   He gave me his number and we talked one Saturday morning for about a half hour.  It didn't even occur to me that the frame is adjustable up and down in the kick panel area.  I had the frame sitting right down on the attaching bolts.  I tightened up the four screws at the base of the windshield first.  Then had a helper lift up on the dash while I tightened the side bolts.  That took care of the issue.  The new pad fits the car about the same as the factory one did.

Pic of the pad/frame being test fit into the car...

[GranCuda1970]

Good info I did not know you could adjust up the position of the dash that will come in handy when I reinstall it.

[burdar]

Good info I did not know you could adjust up the position of the dash that will come in handy when I reinstall it.

Yah, it didn't cross my mine that the dash frame is slotted in that area so you and adjust it up and down. 

I also talked to Cody about the dash woodgrain.  I was going to reuse the original woodgrain but it just wasn't in nice enough shape.  Cody gave me some advise on installing the new parts.  I got lucky and found someone who was selling new woodgrain from BE&A/PG Classics that they weren't going to use.  I wouldn't have been able to afford it otherwise.  The new piece is a little different though.  The original part didn't have the little washer and headlight drawings painted onto the woodgrain.  Also, the label for the headlight switch says "Lights" instead of "Head Lamps" like the original one.  The new panels are shipped flat and need the corners bent up to fit the plastic bezel.  Dad and I used a piece of pipe to push against to make the bends.  I ended up using Gorilla Glue to attach the woodgrain to the metal support plate.

The speakers were sent out to Jackson Speaker Service and reconed.  When I removed the plastic speaker grill, I noticed that the screw heads had rubbed some paint off of the plastic.  The plastic was blue inderneith.  I asked dad about it and he said the grill had never been off the car before so it had to have come from the factory like that.  Why the factory had to paint a blue grill I don't know.  I cleaned it up and sprayed it with SEM Trim Black which matched the paint that was on it.

Here are the rest of the dash pictures.  Hopefully I'll get it installed tonight.  It was my parents anniversary last night so dad wasn't able to come over and give me a hand.

[Street_Challenged73]

Very nice progress!!!   The dash assembly turned out great!!

[Grec]

Interesting.

The lower dash panels on my '73 definitely have a textured paint, but don't seem nearly as textured as your original picture shows. It looks to me more like the "suede" paint on 70 steering columns...

Possible different paint was used on the lower panels of different cars?

Mine needs to be redone as the textured paint is flaking off in areas.

[burdar]

The paint on the bezels was discussed a few months ago.  More than one person said there car didn't have the heavy wrinkled texture but more of a sandy texture.  I don't know if the wrinkle paint was just sprayed too light at the factory or if a different kind of paint was used.  I just tried to replicate the finish I found on mine.

The dash is now in the car.  I need to install the A-pillar trim before the dash can be tightened down permanantly.  It's looking more like a finished car every day.         

[joelson6]

that looks oh so familiar to me 

keep up the good work Darren, looks great 

[burdar]