Look what followed me home today...

[Jamiez]

I've seen some chrome plating plastic kits..but have no idea if they work...looks like they run about 80-100.  I also see some silver/aluminum leaf sheets, pretty cheap (<$20)  I wonder if you could just silver/aluminum leaf it and then clear coat it?

[burdar]

The seat foam arrived on Saturday.  I was missing one seat medallion but I found a nice one in CA.  It's on its way here.  Now I'm just waiting on the seat frames.  I ordered the white gauge kit this morning as well as an odometer reface kit.  It's listed for NON Rallye E-body but they thought it would fit the Dart.  We will see.  If not, I can send them the mechanism and they will make/install a kit for me.

A few weeks ago I got done rebuilding the heater box.  A new heater core was only $35 so I bought one.  Why don't any replacement parts fit right?  It was a PITA getting the new core to fit. I also had to make a bracket for one of the blend doors.  The box was worn around where the door pivots.  Instead of opening/closing, the door would jam and actually pulled the cable bracket off the box.  The bracket I made surrounds the door pivot so it stays straight. The fresh air door was heavily pitted so I painted it with wrinkle paint instead of the correct gloss black.  It hides the pitting and I like the look. The hinges are very thin metal and were rusted solid.  Someone tried opening the door and broke the lower attachment point of the box.  I had to add a metal backer inside to reattach it and hide the bad spot. I sanded a couple bad spots in the box and sprayed everything with a semi-gloss clear.  It brought back the shine but it's not too glossy.
   








The DS fresh air door was also frozen.  The hinge was very thin so after freeing it up, I added an extra rivet in the center for support.







 

[MOPAR FANATIC]

  excellent job on the heater box,looks like it's brand new.if this car comes out anything like your chally it's gonna be an awesome mopar. 

keep up the great work. 

  Dave........

[brads70]

  Wow that looks great!

[burdar]

I worked on the dash frame a little bit today.  The lower right section of the frame was rusted.  The seam along the bottom was all swelled and had thick rust in between the two pieces. 


I drilled out the spot welds in that corner and separated to two pieces so I could sand blast.  I just have a spot blaster so I didn't blast the entire frame.  With the area cleaned up a little, I cut out the bad section and made a patch.  I'll get this welded in and have the frame completely blasted. 

[burdar]

I got the gauge cluster pretty much done tonight.  I still have to buy a solid state voltage limiter and have someone check to see if the gauges are calibrated correctly. 

I installed an E-body Rallye gauge odometer reface kit onto the Dart's odometer.  I originally bought a standard dash kit but found out that the Dart's odometer rotates in the opposite dirrection.  The Rallye gauge kit fit perfectly...I just didn't use the "trip" overlays in the kit. They also sent a B-body kit but the E-body kit is what I used.

before


after


 

[burdar]

I cleaned and resprayed the inside of the housing and made some new gaskets for around the lenses.


I stripped the paint off of the gauge faces...




I sprayed them white and then installed an overlay kit.  I'm not totally impressed with the gauge overlays.  It's not a fault of the product itself...the problem is that all the numbers/letters on the gauge faces are raised.  The vinyl doesn't conform perfectly around the raised sections.  This might just be a temporary solution.  Once everything is installed, I'll see how it looks. 


The back of the housing where I installed the oil pressure switch...


I'm going to hook a battery up to the dash lights and see how bright the original bulbs are.  I'll probably end up using LED's but I want to see how bright everything is before I spend the money.

[HP_Cuda]

You wouldn't happen to need a Jhook for the heater would you?

I'd gladly send it to ya if you need it.

Bryan

[anlauto]

  I'm not totally impressed with the gauge overlays.  It's not a fault of the product itself...the problem is that all the numbers/letters on the gauge faces are raised.  The vinyl doesn't conform perfectly around the raised sections.  This might just be a temporary solution.  Once everything is installed, I'll see how it looks. 

Because you're doing a custom look, I wonder if it would have been worth the extra effort to remove the raised parts all together.....as I type, I realize the material may be too thin and that might not even be an option...nevermind...

[422STROKER]

Heat gun and patience.


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[burdar]

I've got a nice J hook. Thanks though. I thought about grinding off the raised areas but I would have broken through to the back side. I don't think a heat gun would even work around the numbers. They are so close together...

What I originally tried was painting the faces with single stage Centari. Then I was going to spray them black with SEM paint. Finally, I was going to wipe the black off the raised sections with lacquer thinner. I let the Centari dry for four days before spraying the black. That obviously wasn't long enough because it lifted.

[422STROKER]

Heat gun and a toothpick would do wonders IMO


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[jimynick]

Heat gun and a toothpick would do wonders IMO


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   or push/tap with the rubber eraser end on a pencil which would have a bit of give.

[burdar]

Trust me, I worked on each piece for over an hour. It was a PITA.

[422STROKER]

I think it looks great. Behind the plastic it will look better. Just tossing out some ideas for you since you weren't happy...


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