About a week and a half ago I was in the garage trying to decide what I wanted to work on next. I saw the driveshaft sitting there so I decided to work on it. Probably seven years ago I wire wheeled the shaft and brushed on some POR-15. Then I sprayed it with Detail Gray spray paint. Since then I've seen some awsome looking driveshafts restored and left bare metal. I wanted to see how nice I could get the driveshaft to look without using any paint. Well, it didn't turn out as nice as I had hoped since it was extremely pitted but I'll show what I ended up with anyway.

I started by brushing on some paint stripper to remove the Detail Gray paint. It came off easily. Here you can see the POR-15 underneith.


Next, I sanded off most of the POR-15 with 80 grit sand paper and removed the U-joints.


I went to the hardware store and bought some 4" PVC pipe and a cap. I poured EvapoRust in the pipe and inserted the driveshaft.


After a day of soaking, the shaft came out rust free. I still had paint and POR-15 on the ends which required a little sandblasting to clean up.


I was shocked to find a nice looking part number still on the driveshaft.


I sanded on the shaft a little but the pits weren't coming out. I got online and found out that driveshafts are only about a 1/16" thick so I decided to just leave it. I lightly bead blasted the shaft to remove some of the sanding marks. Finally, I rubbed it down with steel wool to get rid of the blasted finish. Once the ends were cleaned up I dipped them in my black oxide solution for 30 seconds to darken them. I rubbed them with steel wool to remove some of the darkness on the high spots.

I took the driveshaft to my father-in-laws house and he helped me reapply the heat markings from the end caps being welded to the tube. Over the weekend I heated the driveshaft and applied RPM to it so it won't rust again. I also applied some RPM to the new U-joints. While I had the new joints appart I noticed that one of the caps was missing two of the needles. :22yikes: I returned that one today and got a replacement. The only other thing I need to do is have it ballanced.

Here's the finished product. I took this picture without the flash to hide some of the pitting. Hopefully it will look OK under the car.

Driveshaft turned out great Darren. Wish I had done similar to mine now. Getting closer buddy!

Joe

Darren Quite the improvement, Driveshaft looks great. keep up the good work!

Dennis

This car is going to be sweet, great work.

Dennis looking forward to more of your Cuda too

Wow ... Great work and great history on a project with such a family history. I want to see that picture in front of the house when it's done.

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I want to see that picture in front of the house when it's done.

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The original salesman that sold the car is now the owner of the dealership. It's still in buisness but is located in another town. I thought it would be cool to get a picture with him and my dad next to the car infront of the dealership. I'm getting ahead of myself though...I need to get the car done first.

I've been busy working on front suspension parts. Probably 9 years ago I wire wheeled the suspension components and covered them in POR-15. Then I painted them with Eastwood paints to try and replicate bare metal. I wasn't very happy with the way the parts looked but, at the time, I didn't know what else to do with them.

This winter I've been stripping off all the paint and POR-15, hoping to achieve a more correct appearance. Regular paint stripper won't touch POR-15 so I started looking for something that would easily remove it. I found that POR makes a product called POR-Strip that will remove cured POR-15. If anyone has applied POR-15 to something and now need to remove it, I highly recommend POR-Strip. It wrinkles the POR-15 almost instantly and makes removal pretty easy.

I started with the spindles and caliper brackets. After stripping the POR-15, I sand blasted them. I darkened them by brushing on some black oxide solution. Before I assembled the pieces I coated everything with RPM. The finished product turned out a little too dark but they still look a lot better then the previously did.

Next, I turned my attention to the center link, strut rods, tie rod ends and adjusters. Everything in this next pic was covered in POR-15 except the tie rods. I just clear coated those piece however they had started to rust underneith the clear.

After the POR-15 was removed I bought a smaller section of PVC and put the center link and strut rods inside. I filled the PVC with a 1 to 1 ratio of muriatic acid and water. Once they were rust free, I dumped out the acid and poured in baking soda and water. I let the parts sit over night. In the morning I rinsed them off and RPM'd them.

I also soaked the tie rod adjusters in acid. Before RPMing those pieces(as well as the clamps)I lightly wire wheeled them.

The tie rods I just stripped the clear coat, rubbed them with steel wool until they were clean and RPM'd them.

I had planned on buying a new idler arm but it turned out to be in perfect shape. I stripped the paint off of it and soaked it in EvapoRust since I didn't want to get any acid down inside of it.


The calipers I'm using are reman pieces I bought a long time ago. They had some slight surface rust from sitting for so long. I removed the pistons and all the seals. I cleaned off the surface rust with steel wool and RPM'd them. I reassembled them and installed new hoses.

The LCA's looked pretty bad. There was a lot of rust scale under the POR-15. I didn't even want to try an strip the paint so I just had them sand blasted. I was surprised how nice they came out. The date codes were still visable on the rivit heads.

I rubbed the LCA's down with steel wool, darkened the cast lower ball joint piece, the rivit heads and the torsion bar socket. I masked off a dip line and sprayed 3 coats of Krylon battery protectant followed by a matte clear. I let them dry for a day before I heated them up and RPM'd them. I went right over the paint with the RPM for some more protection. I think they turned out pretty decent. This pic was taken before the RPM was applied.


Last night the engine/trans were removed from the K-member. The engine was put back on a stand so I can change a few things. I need to remove the cork valve cover gaskets and install rubber ones...all the brackets have been removed and will be redone with a more correct looking black.

The trans is going to get stripped of the AlumBlast paint I used on it earlier and all the fasteners and brackets will be redone without paint. The K-member will be sent out to get powder coated and the steering box will get some new seals and a coat of black paint instead of the incorrect cast blast paint that's on it now.

The original carb is going out to Scott Smith this week. I'll be sending the alt out to Dixie soon too.

I made some good progress on the K-member assembly this week. I had the K-member and swaybar brackets powder coated an 80% gloss. The powder coater was only supposed to blast the swaybar so I could darken it and leave it gray. He ended up powder coating it by mistake.
I put a pitman arm seal kit in the steering box and painted it with Eastwoods Extreme Chassis Black. It has a little less gloss then the K-member which I believe is correct. The rest of the suspension componants are bare metal.(except for the LCA) The dust shields are supposed to be galvanised but I bead blasted them years ago thinking they were supposed to be black. I stripped off the black paint I had put on them and lightly wire wheeled them. I still have to redo the end links and find some new pins for the strut rods but basically the K is done.

The guy that did the bodywork and paint on the car lives about an hour away from me now. A couple weeks ago I gave him my air cleaner, spare steel wheel and 4 Road Wheels to paint. He is going to work on them in his spare time. The air cleaner and spare wheel will be painted about an 80% gloss. I'm not sure what paint we are going to use yet. He said that he can add a flattening agent to the gloss paint BUT, if you clean/polish the parts often, you will bring back the gloss. He might look for a paint that is accually designed with less of a gloss. I don't know how this paint stuff works...I'm just going by what he tells me.

The Road Wheels will be sprayed a semi gloss...a little less gloss then the spare wheel. The spokes are being masked off so as not to destroy the original matte chrome finish. He sent me a couple pictures of some of the blasted parts.

Here's a picture of the rear axle assembly that I posted at the begining of this thread. At the time I thought it looked good but I've wanted to redo if for awhile now.

Previously, everything was painted with POR-15 and cast blast paint.




The first thing I did was have a look at the original center section. The car originaly had 2.76 gears but I had a working 3.23 sure-grip so I decided to use it. The 3.23 sure-grip was a factory option for a 318 Challenger in 73 so at least it's correct for the year.


After cleaning off the caked on grease, not much was visable. I did find an orange mark...


...and a little white mark on the side.


I had some used up EvapoRust and decided to soak the center section to see if anything else would show up. After soaking, two yellow dots showed up on the bottom. Two yellow dots stands for 2.76 gears.


The white mark on the side really became visable...

Next, I removed the axles, backing plates and lines. I bolted on some wood pieces to the ends of the housing to seal it up and had the entire thing sand blasted.


I darkened the center section to get rid of the blasted look. I traced the white stencil from the side of the original center section onto a piece of transparent paper. Then I used some transfer paper and copied it to the other center section. I should have had a stencil made so it would look better but it is what it is. I also put back the two yellow marks on the bottom and the orange mark on the top.


After RPMing the center section and installing a new seal and metal dust cover, I think the center turned out pretty good.

I had the housing powder coated but I wasn't happy with how it looked. I thought the powder would have hidden the pitting in the tubes but it didn't. I ended up taking the housing to the guy that painted the car. He scuffed the housing...sprayed it with a high build primer and sanded most of the pitting out. Finally he sprayed it with a sem-gloss black. It looks a lot better then it did.

I looked at new brake drums at a few part stores and didn't like what I saw. One of the drums had "CHINA" cast into the face of it. It would have been visable through the spokes in the Road Wheels. I decided to just use the originals. I blasted them, painted the faces an orangish red and RPMed them. I don't know how close to correct the red color is...I could have boughten RestoRicks paint but I need to save money where I can. If it ends up being way different, I can repaint it down the road.

The only other thing I'm considering is painting a yellow or white "J" on the center of the housing. It looks like the "J" stood for 1973. The housing was way too rusty to see any original markings. I don't want to add marks that the car didn't have but the "J" looks to be a pretty safe bet. I havn't decided yet.

Here's the finished rear axle assembly...

Your doing a great job and i love the pictures , I have a 73 with same colors and I haven't seen many with this color combo . Keep up the great work

Darren I agree always first class work. Keep the pictures coming.

Dennis

I should be picking up my new MP leaf springs this weekend. I'm not looking forward to disassembling a brand new pair of springs to strip off the black paint though. Hopefully they are assembled first...then sprayed black so I don't have a lot of paint to strip.

I have a batch of fasteners getting zinc plated. When those come back I can reassemble and repaint the engine. It shouldn't be long before the car is back on its wheels.

Big day today! The rear axle assembly is installed and the car is stitting on its rear suspension for the first time in 14 years. I wanted to spray the undercoating first but decided to wait. I just test sprayed some spray can undercoating because I had it and it looks awful. I'm going to get the car on the road and buy some of Resto Ricks undercoating a little later.

I had some 15x8 Rallye wheels sitting around with 235-60 drag radials mounted up so they went on for the time being. They do look good on there but the Road Wheels will look a lot better.