yeah, that's why I asked...it's a rough environment down there. Hope it does well for you.

Spent the last month trying to find the correct color. Paint formulas have changed(toners discontinued) since spray outs were done in 2014. Multiple different paint lines were tried and they all came out too light. Even used a paint spectrophotometer to take a picture of the paint and it came back too light. Finally, the last week of December, the body shop found a paint line that worked.

This picture shows the new paint spray out in the middle and the old spray out from 2014 below it. The spray out on top shows how all the other test sprays turned out...too light. These were all compared to original paint on the A-pillar that was covered under weather stripping.


The trunk and engine compartment were sprayed last week. The under side of the hood was sprayed yesterday.







The car is off the rotisserie and back on the body stands. Fenders are back on. Once the door-to-fender body lines are perfect, it's ready for paint.

Wow....it's coming right along! What was the paint brand that was able to mix the QQ1 correctly? My 68 Roadrunner is that color, so I need to store that info somewhere in my foggy brain....lol.

I'm going to the body shop in a couple days and will get that info. Thanks

Thanks Darren.

Wow.....looks awesome! Did they say what brand of paint it was?

Sorry, I posted the info in my QQ1 thread in the Restoration section. I forgot to post them here.

The white paint on the doors, rear panels and A-pillar/windshield trim was sprayed yesterday. The metal upper corner pieces on the windshield needed a little filler work after some big dents were straightened out. When the factory welded the A-pillars to the upper windshield support, they left the welds big and messy. When the corner pieces were installed, they touched the welds and were dented as they were being screwed down. I ground off those excess welds so that shouldn't happen again.

Thanks Darren. That will help a bunch when it's time to do my Roadrunner. Looks like it won't be long until you'll be in the "Bolt it together and don't skin it!" phase.

Outstanding work

I saved all the videos the body shop posted to their Facebook page and combined them into this Youtube video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xE5HQYVMxM&t=8s

The car is done. Since it's cold here in Iowa, we aren't sure how going from a heated shop to a freezing garage will effect new paint. We are going to keep the car inside the heated shop for a couple weeks in hopes that the average temp will increase before it's delivered. I want to let it sit a couple months anyway just to let the paint fully cure before I wax it and start throwing parts on it. One of the first things I need to do is undercoat the wheel wells and apply sound deadening to the floor and inner doors. I don't want to be doing that when it's cold outside anyway.

Here are some more from outside. This thing really shines!

Beautiful!

Quite the understatement!!

WOW!

Spectacular!

Man that guy aint waisting any time putting the paint on that car!

The car is back home. I need to let the paint sit for about 120 days before I can wax it. I'll probably wait that long before I start bolting on parts to the exterior. Until then I'll keep busy by installing things under the car and getting the glass into the doors and 1/4s. Once the glass is in and I make sure the doors don't need to be readjusted, the inner fender splash shields will be installed and undercoating will be sprayed in the wheel wells. Once the outside temps are a little warmer, I'll start installing the butyl sound deadener to the interior floor and inside the doors.

Late last week I installed the body plugs and set the tail light wiring in place.(man these A-bodies have a lot of body plugs...way more then my Challengers has) Saturday we had warmer temps so I decided to get the rad support blackout done. I set the old grill and headlight bezels in place so I could see which areas were visible through the grill. I didn't like how the factory blackout went all the way up to the top of the latch support so I decided to leave that area body color. The bottom of the latch support can be seen through the grill so the bottom was sprayed but not the top.




That was all the time I had to work on the car on Saturday. That afternoon I went to Disney on Ice with my wife and daughter. Then we rushed home at night to beat the severe thunderstorms and tornados passing through the area.

On Sunday I realized that the body shop had filled in the washer bottle mounting holes. I had them fill some extra holes on the inner fender but for some reason they filled all of them. After re-drilling those holes, I mounted the headlight relays to the battery tray and install that. Then I started running the new headlight wiring. The wiring was a little more difficult then I had expected though. I must not have tried fishing the plugs through the headlight bucket support during the test fitment stage. The aftermarket plugs are too thick to pass through the limited space available. I had to get out the cutoff wheel and cut a notch in the bucket support. About 1/4" more room was needed. Now the plugs will easily pass into the back of the headlight area. Once that was done, mounting the buckets and all the adjuster hardware went pretty quick. Later on Sunday I installed the brake/fuel lines and rear axle bumpers. Next thing to work on is cleaning up the gas tank and getting that installed.

Why do you think A-bodies are so light?






I would have agonized over doing this to a beautiful, newly painted car.

Still waiting until the 120 day mark so I can wax the engine compartment and start assembling things in there. For now I've been working on applying the sound deadener to the floor. I was concerned about the garage temps being in the 30s/40s but it installed easily. I was planning on using Kilmat but ordered some stuff called Siless by accident. It's 80 mil, made from butyl and came in the same quantity as Kilmat so I used it. I covered the entire floor pan and up the firewall to where the factory insulation starts.


I installed some under the rear seat but just in the middle. That's where the resonance was. The area above the frame rails were solid so I didn't think I needed anything there. The section of the floor pan where the convertible top will sit sounded really hollow so I installed some there as well. I put a couple strips of sound deadener on the seat back brace that spans between the wheel wells. It sounded really hollow too. The metal wire covers along the rocker area were really beat up and rusted through in a few places. Replacements seemed really expensive for what they are so I made my own. I just bought the thinnest sheet metal the metal company carried(20 gauge) and drilled some holes along the length. Then I dimple died it for strength. I thought about different ways to attach it but ended up just using the sound deadener itself to hold the pieces in place. Finally, I put some aluminum tape on all the seams. The edges of the sound deadener are exposed and sticky. I put the tape on it so the carpet doesn't stick to the floor when the temp warms up.


I also got the 1/4 windows installed. What a PITA. I downloaded the 67 and 69 service manuals(the 68 manual isn't online) and read how they are supposed to be installed. The instructions left a lot to be desired. I ended up having to completely remove the rear stabilizer and unbolt the front track in order to move the glass forward inside the 1/4 so I could get the rollers attached. Before I could do any of that though, I had to sand/polish the stainless weather stripping channel at the leading edge of the glass. On my Challenger, the stainless was still attached to the glass so I carefully polished it as an assembly. On the Dart though, the glass setting tape had lost its hold and the stainless was loose. The convertible uses rivets to hold the stainless to the lift bracket at the bottom. Once I drilled off the rivet head I was able to tap them out and remove the stainless piece. Here are the rivets holding the stainless to the lift bracket.


I discovered that I could drill and tap the lift bracket holes for some 8-32 button head screws. This made reattaching it at the base easy. There was still the issue with the glass setting tape though. A few well respected people on this site said they never really had much luck using that stuff so I was a little nervous. While looking up weatherstrip adhesive online I stumbled on a product called "windshield and glass sealant". Its designed to fix leaks between glass and rubber gaskets. The tube was only $6 so I thought I'd give it a try. The glass setting tape was still well attached to the stainless...it had just come loose from the glass. So, after cleaning the old tape and the glass, I ran a bead of the sealant on the leading edge of the glass. Then I pushed the stainless in place. After attaching the bottom with the allen head screws, I wrapped tape around the glass to hold everything stationary while the sealant dried. So far it seems to be working great. If it fails, I'll just have to install new glass setting tape. The windshield sealant is basically thin, flowable silicone. It's quite a bit thinner then regular clear silicone you find in a big tube. Here are the button head screws used to attach the stainless to the lift bracket.