SURVIVOR vs. GROUND-UP RESTORATION!

[dutch]

all of them are beauties, but do you dare taking them out in the wild ?   

ps, "rough" wasn`t what came to mind...      Not sure how you guys call it but here we call it de-flea each other   

[resq302]

Im sure I am going to catch hell from some people but I absolutely love the Valiant!  Although I have always been the "Dare to be different" type of person with what I have done in life, that car is not your typical resto car.  How many other people would cherish something as an every day beater car back in the day and then get something that was the very bread and butter of the industry and restore it?  It probably cost a billion times what the actual value of the car is in peoples eyes but where else can you find a pristine example of what the "typical" car was back then.  To me, that is my favorite!

[PasiR]

They ALL are extremely nice cars, but if some of them needs to be #1, I would say Challenger. Sure HemiCuda is nice too. Valiant is super detailed example of 4 door product, I bet there is not many cars detailed like this is.
Ford is nice as well, always like the body lines of 69-70 fastbacks.
 

[resq302]

Dave, I was just going over the entire thread again recapping some of the detailed pics.  I noticed that there was a metal strap on the original U joints that seemed to hold the bearing caps onto the U joint.   Do you know what their intended purpose was?  I have never seen them before and so far only on a Mopar.  My common sense guess would be to keep them together so they did not fall off during the installation process.

Also, when I get a chance to get back to my dads house, we had to pull the original door panel off of the GTX on the pass side door due to a rod falling off of the outer door handle to the latching mechanism.  We were amazed to see the original dip lines inside the door skin!  Truely one of the amazing things of this hobby with finding such details like this!

[resq302]

heres some more undercarriage unrestored pics that have been cleaned up so far.

[resq302]

Well, judging by the light gray primer, that was applied first, then either that gold anti rust coating or the dark gray primer since I can't tell if that line where the gold anti rust coating is could either be a body line or the dark gray primer over the anti rust coating.  Whats weird is that the light gray primer goes up higher than what the area where the door hinge bolts to.  Wonder if the skin was dipped in primer prior to being folded over onto the door frame?

I wonder if all of the U-joints were Detroit or if they used Spicer also?

[anlauto]

Did you guys clean all the rust out of those areas too ?

[resq302]

What rust?  This was a pristine Survivor that only required a wash & wax! 

 

I want to say that the black area on the mastic was most likely black over spray?

Just curious, how did you remove that surface rust on the bare metal?  We will have to do something similar to what you used with the undercarriage of the GTX vert.

[anlauto]

What rust?  This was a pristine Survivor that only required a wash & wax! 

I take that as a no....

[resq302]

Gee, Dave, maybe we should take pics of our battle scars and compare notes.   

[DodgeMaterial]

I take that as a no....

Alan, you take it wrong.  I was the dummy that pushed to restore the inside of the doors.  Dave W did the flash rust removal of the door shells and I worked on the hardware.  We were trying to hold to our mission of making the car as new - including things that "don't show."  I knew that if you really tried you can see the hardware looking down through the glass.  Lots of other hidden areas that got restored... everything was touched.  Dave W - you ought to post some pictures of my other "pet peeves" and some before shots in those doors/jambs.

Dave

[anlauto]

Sometimes people's sarcasm doesn't show through their typing and I know DW always backs up his comments with actual before and after photos, so in this case I wasn't sure what the correct answer to my question was. Thanks for clearing that up.

[resq302]

I'll start posting some of the minuscule things we did to some of the smallest (inconspicuous areas) and the documentation that was done to put these features back the way we found them.  I'll start with the remnants of Under-Coat overspray that we found on the back side crevices of the bumpers.  We measured where it was splattered, practiced spraying our own mixture under various pressures and then put it back exactly like it was found.  These aspects were probably never noticed by those who saw the Valiant in person.

Dave,

So the bumpers were on the car prior to the car being undercoated?  Wow. I never knew that.  I would have thought the bumpers would have been one of the last things installed.

[anlauto]

Dave do you have before and after pictures of the inside of the roof ? Just curious as to how much rust was under the headliner.
I know with the cars I've restored they tend to have a lot of rust up there and the insulation deteriorates quite a bit. Did you find the same symptom's under yours ?  What did you do about odors trapped in the insulation ? Is yours a solid cardboard liner or a perforated material ?

I noticed in the above picture the inside of the roof is protected with paper....Were you able to remove the original insulation under the headliner or work around it ? I just did a 69 Charger where I was able to remove and reuse the original insulation ....another area where the reproduction parts fail miserably..

[resq302]

Dave do you have before and after pictures of the inside of the roof ? Just curious as to how much rust was under the headliner.
I know with the cars I've restored they tend to have a lot of rust up there and the insulation deteriorates quite a bit. Did you find the same symptom's under yours ?  What did you do about odors trapped in the insulation ? Is yours a solid cardboard liner or a perforated material ?

I noticed in the above picture the inside of the roof is protected with paper....Were you able to remove the original insulation under the headliner or work around it ? I just did a 69 Charger where I was able to remove and reuse the original insulation ....another area where the reproduction parts fail miserably..

I agree Alan.  When I redid the headliner in my 69 Charger, the repro insulation was thin at best and nothing like the original jute-like padding.  I guess they don't care for stuff that is not seen.  Although a lot of the visible stuff that are repro's are still junk.  Kind of like the REM wood grain decals for the B body consoles.  JUNK!  way too short.