JHC's 72 Convertible

[Jesus H Chrysler]

After several stops and starts the ball is rolling with the convertible now.  My buddy John works in a body shop and is convinced the body will be done by May.  Here's what we found under 30+ years of paint and body work:

[ragtopdodge]

Curious, but why make it a 1972? 

[Jesus H Chrysler]

Dunno? I bought it that way.  I think it was made with parts from a Barracuda back in the 80s. Not professionally done but useable and gets attention.

[ChallengerHK]

What are your plans for the paint?

[Jesus H Chrysler]

After much deliberation, I narrowed it down to green, yellow and B5 blue. I finally settled on B5 with the T/A hood and spoilers.  Black top and maybe black 71 stripe. Option 2 was to simply clear coat the car after block sanding and call it the Jaw breaker!

[torredcuda]

Should look great! 

[Jesus H Chrysler]

Should look nice enough to lead the New England caravan to Carlisle this year.

[torredcuda]

Hopefully I`ll be driving the cuda along with you.

[Jesus H Chrysler]

Well we did some digging and it turns out my worst fears have been realized.  My Challenger is the masterpiece of some hack artist!  The convertible top well looks like it was removed from the donor car with a hammer and chisel, as well as the original roof of the Challenger.  The guy decided to leave it puckered in and braze it shut, simply filling in the half inch deep gash with some kind of gray mortar like substance as body filler.  It took me hours of chipping to get this much out.  Surprisingly with that much filler and abuse over the past 20+ years it wasn't cracked and still stuck in till the end.  The rest of the quarter is straight and rust free so I'd hate to section the whole quarter because of it.  My buddy the body guy says he can fix it so we'll see.

[Jesus H Chrysler]

Here's some more shots of work that's been done recently.  Over the past year I've been able to pick up some sandblasting equipment.  Here's what I did to clean up the firewall and fender aprons.  Someone painted some black industrial paint on top of the factory red.  It was chipped in many places but the rest was next to impossible to remove by sanding.  I made a tent out of a tarp, stuck a shop vac in to take out the dust, put on a bunny suit and hood and went to town.

[Jesus H Chrysler]

Here's the cabinet I got to do some of the "smaller" parts.  Iv'e had a whole rim and tire for my Jeep in here!









Here's some of what I've had to deal with.  It looks like someone repainted the Six Pack air cleaner and stuck their thumb in the wet paint.  I didn't think to take any pics of the lid before, but it was in similar shape only orange.

[Jesus H Chrysler]

Here's a part most people don't get to see.  It's the headlight bucket assembly thats normally welded into the fender assembly.  I had to remove it because it was in the way of the bodywork we needed to do.  I used a spotweld cutter to keep the damage to a minimum.  I figured while it was out I'd blast it and paint the hard to get areas.





Did you know it had its own part number?



Not done yet, I had to scrape the undercoating off by hand.  It's tough enough to withstand sandblasting.

[Jesus H Chrysler]

I started to put in my U.S. Car tool frame connectors and found my floor was very warped.  To the point the connectors wouldn't sit right.  So I decided to cut a section out to weld in the connectors.  The parts of the floor I've cleaned off have been solid, rust free metal with no signs of damage.  This piece is still undercoated top and bottom.  This video will show you what healthy metal ends up like if its subjected to constant flexing over 20 years.

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['Cuda Hunter]

Cool thread.  I was wondering when you were going to start a restoration thread.

Can't wait to see some more!

72 verts are really cool cars!  or car that is.

[dutch]

good luck with the project!