SURVIVOR vs. GROUND-UP RESTORATION!

[PasiR]

Are you looking for a natural metal (head pipes) or a complete aluminized System?

Aluminized system. I want to drive.

[resq302]

With all due respect, to accurately represent an OE vehicle, their last 2 entries would have to be completely diss-assembled in order to correct the NON-Factory paint features.  With everything that has been revealed and discovered between 2008 & 2010, I am surprised that these errors are still being made in the OE restoration arena.  Even more shocking was that that the OE Judges allowed and even promoted these incorrect features during these past two years.  Hopefully the new OE program will be much better!

Im sorry Dave but I just went back through and re-read a few of the last pages due to a friend asking me something about a post on here.  What did you mean by NON-factory paint features?  Would this be areas that were supposed to be left bare metal or primered?

[resq302]

Speaking of incorrect things...... I notice an over flow hose for the rad missing in that pic.    Either way, it should have gotten white over spray on it since the white car has the lower part of the rad support completely covered in paint.   

[PasiR]

Looks so good, thanks for the info! 

[resq302]

Here is last years Mopar Nationals BEST of SHOW & OE Gold recipient.  It is a 1969 Daytona owned by Gene Lewis.  We recently replaced his NOS Exhaust System with our ECS Chrysler Licensed components and here are the results!  H-Pipe, Mufflers and Tail Pipes......the Best Daytona on the Planet just got better!

Driver Side Torsion Bar clearance


Passenger Side clearance


Factory Exact Mufflers


Passenger Side Tail Pipe


Mufflers & Tail Pipes


Factory Exact Mufflers


Gene Lewis checking for correct tolerances......I think we passed the test!


Complete System - Installed


The most correctly restored 1969 Daytona in existence!

Wait, thinking about it now Dave, didn't someone accuse you of being "jealous" because their car came close to scoring what your Valiant did?  I would imagine Gene's car came close to your score, too, no?   

[resq302]

Love the last pic of the girl taking a picture of the engine!  Thats the future of our hobby!

[resq302]

   No kidding!  Guess she is the future of our hobby huh?  She take after her ol man with the attention to detail?

[resq302]

How does this alienate folks?  It is showing people what a correct restoration is vs. the incorrect way of manipulating or over restoring something so it looks more pleasing to the eye.   

[resq302]

Dave,

In all honesty,  the process should not vary.  The factory masked off certain areas and then painted.  Sometimes the masking and prep work was not the best and over spray got where it was not intended for.   This would explain why there are similarities yet differences from each vehicle to the next regardless of body style.  You could have two challengers one right after the other and depending when someones break was, two totally different people could paint those two vehicles even though they are right next to each other in the assembly line.

You pretty much cited a perfect example of this with the inspection marks and trying to replicate someones "signature".  It could take you 2000 times to try and replicate something that someone did within seconds back in the day.  And to be honest, my signature has changed from when I started signing my checks back when I was 18 to the scribble I do today!

[resq302]

for a Survivor Restoration. 

Thanks again for posting your B Body GTX photos here in the "OTHER MOPARS" section Brian.  As you stated earlier, it can be beneficial in seeing what these cars originally looked like before people started to alter and modify them.

Hi Dave,

Wait a minute.... Survivor Restoration? I thought it had to be one or the other.   

As for the GTX, as soon as I get a chance to do more work on the car, I will be sure to post up more pics!

[resq302]

For whatever reason, some people can't grasp the concept that restoring a component on a Survivor takes just as much effort (in some cases....MORE effort) as restoring a component on a vehicle with 100,000 miles!

Just re-reading the replies on this page and saw this.  Funny how you mention the mileage since that was a HUGE debate about our GTX.  From all of the original parts, it is hard to believe that our car has over 100,000 miles!  Actually just turned 110,000 miles on the trip home from E-town.  Car still runs and handles like new though!  We just need to freshen up its appearance!   

[resq302]

Well, we made some progress with the interior dash area on our GTX over the last few days.  I found out why they had dyed the lower dash pad and kick panels.  The saddle colored parts were pretty much faded to a pale tan almost greenish tint color to the pad and the kick panels had a chalky look to them.    I also pulled the switch cluster and repainted that due to the black being also faded.  The hazard switch was tempermental at times and would either have half the lights flash or all of them.  I pulled apart the switch and the di-electric grease was all dried out and causing a bad connection so I cleaned that up and repaired it and replaced it and all the lights work perfectly again. 

Here are some pics of what we started with.....

-first pic is the kick panel.  you can see the darker saddle color in the upper left corner where we tried on a somewhat hidden place the stripping process.  Turned out pretty good with the exception of the chalkyness from the suns power!

-second pic is the glove box pad (which we found an inspection mark on the underside! pic to be posted later)  Again, you can see what the color of the vinyl originally was!

-third pic is of me gently using a tooth brush to remove the sprayed on dye with the stripping process to get it off of the vinyl pad.  Took quite a while but the vinyl came out unharmed from the stripping process!

[resq302]

I forgot to take pics of what the lower dash pad turned out like after we stripped the spray dye off of the vinyl padding.  The pads are in amazingly good condition, however, still faded more towards the center part of the car.  Anyway, here are some pics of the white metal switch plate after it has been repainted and relettered.  The lettering had to be hand applied by a brush with flat white paint.  That was not fun at all, especially if you don't have a steady hand!

[resq302]

Next we found out why the driver side tail light was dimmer than the pass side.  I should have taken a pic of all the dirt and corrosion that was inside the reflective housing but I thought Dad had taken that pic while he did the others for me.  I guess not .  Either way, the one on the right you can see how dull the silver reflective housing is but that was the bright side!  The driver side had a crack at the top of the lens which was not seen once installed and must have allowed water and such to get into there allowing the reflective paint to come off after all these years.  Also, it seems that the satin black paint on the edge of the tail light housing flaked off or was not prepped that well as it is in great condition just the paint seemed to become dust.

Pic 1 - restored on left, untouched original on right with 44 years of age and use!
Pic 2- closer pic of untouched original one
Pic 3- closer pic of restored original

[resq302]

Well, here is the finished result of getting the sprayed on dye off of the kick panels.  I will repost a pic of what it looked like before we stripped off the dye which left a whitish chalky color to the saddle colored plastic kick panel parts.  We then had to somehow bring it back to the original color without trying to dye the parts again for fear it might get bumped or scratched and have to be redone again.

First pic is the before.  Ones following is the after.