SURVIVOR vs. GROUND-UP RESTORATION!

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Hi Dave,

Just happened to see the reply now.  Sheesh, I really gotta get back on here more often.  Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't you use a lot of NOS parts on your Valiant or was that all original equipment stuff that you rebuilt / restored?  I was just reading a magazine article over the weekend where the editor said that its all about the parts which makes a correct OE restoration.   I have to disagree as anyone can find the parts if they have the time or the money.  I would have to say it would be the application of how the stuff is restored, not the parts which is the key factor in the resto!

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If memory serves me right, it was Mopar Action.

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I have to agree with you Dave.  I would say that finding a part is about 25% of the total job and having a CORRECT restoration the other 75%.  As you said, finding a part takes just either time or money but finding a person to restore it with the proper technique is not as easily done.

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Oh good grief!  There is "cliques" or "gangs" on the internet too?  What is this world coming to!   

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The "click" is the sound of the hammer heard from the editor shooting his subject in the foot.  I read the article.  He wrote how Steve had to tell the truth twice (to find the car) before having to lie in order to go see it!   

 I guess honesty is a virtue, used as a punch line to get what you want. 

But Dave!  It MUST be true.  After all, haven't you seen that commercial on TV about the stuff that is on the internet is absolutely true?  Otherwise it wouldn't be up there, right?    

by the way..... pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.   

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Figured I would post up some pics of our newly acquired 69 GTX convert.  Upon the start of cleaning up the car, I am very surprised that this car has 109,000 miles on it and would suspect that it has the actual 9,000 miles that the odometer shows.  The car sports all of its original bushings, ball joints, tie rods, front exhaust pipe, 100% original sheet metal, and a lot of other stuff that I am certain would have disappear or have been repaired if it had over 100,000 miles.

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Granted, we have an excellent platform to begin with and here is how the undercarriage started looking once we started cleaning it up.  We found some original inspection marks and paint daubs.

Can anyone explain what these different colors mean?  I know the dark brown color on the torsion bars designate what the diameter was for quick assembly.

And for those wondering, as much as I would love to go the route that Dave did with indexing all of the nuts and bolts, I think I would lose my last ounce of sanity if I did that with dads car.   After all, I don't have that much sanity left to spare.   

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we found a dark green horizontal inspection mark on the tie rod adjuster sleeve on the pass side.  I have never seen a dark green one in this area before.  The pic is really hard to see it as a lot of it seemed to come off when we were cleaning the parts off on the car with brake cleaner.

The rear axle was repainted however, the previous person decided to not paint the center banjo area where this marking was.

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The torsion bars BOTH exhibited drips as the bars appear to have been dipped horizontally when it was painted.  Both sides have a long row of drips on the bars and then appear to have been coded with the dark brown paint for the diameter size.  Two stripes on the driver side, one on the pass. side.

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Very impressive Dave.  You need to start making the dry transfers for the earlier voltage regulators.  We all don't have a 70s and up.    Some of us like the older 1969 toys. 

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heres some more pics I took while under the car.

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Yeh, there is unfortunately a typical debate over on that forum with a thread I started due to someone saying that the area on the front rails were never like that.

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I have plenty of pics of the undercoating details on my lap top computer.  I will try to post pics tomorrow.   

[resq302]

Dave,

You mean that glob of stuff under that inspection tag wasn't a special "internal code" secret handshake to give that car special undercoating treatment?   

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Here are more pics of the "so called non factory applied" undercoating.