An update on the GTX for...anyone who cares I guess....Most of this is already ancient history, but some expressed interest.
FB friends already know + I'm filling up memory cards on an old clunker device I leave in the shop for stuff like this.

I'd fired up the 572 Hemi on 4-26-20 after having worked from home about a month and a half.
The extra time with the commute gone really helped me wrap up the engine project.

It was peak CV time and emotions were high. Maybe more on that later, or not.

The GTX was the most logical destination for the engine.
Couple friends said just throw the engine in, but I felt that was not a great idea as I
knew there was a small weak spot on one frame rail directly
opposite where the motor plate would attach + the car just looked bad and I wanted to get after it. So I tore the fenders and front end metal
off and repaired rust, replaced both front fenders with some better OE ones, converted a 68 fender to '69 in the process,
blasted and epoxy primed the exterior stuff,
filled, block sanded, 2k primer/blocked some more and stopped at a middle of the road point, when it was ready for 320 blocking.

Also stripped, blocked/filled, and reworked the fiberglass hood, but tbh I am not sure I will use it yet/may look for a better one.
The end refinish of the hood was posted here:
https://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/2893208/re-an-organisol-adventure.html

Also the right apron looked like swiss cheese on this car, + had a tear in it from a previous altercation.
Previous owners installed the coil and ignition module in apparently
5 different places, and I admit I was not kind to it either. the appearance of it drove me nuts for a long time.
So I cut that out and welded in a repro.

Not pictured...also rounded up the stock air grabber hood that I ran for a short while in the early '90s, which will help with front
end fitting + I might as well restore an original style hood too, while I'm at it. might use it someday. The car did not come
with an air grabber originally but other than the weight I liked that style of hood without the ducting, it was very useful on the street for letting heat
out.

By early fall (no leaves on the trees, as you can see), I had the front end where I thought it needed to be.

I took the Liberty of adding the bullet turn signal indicators, mine is a September '68 build, (edit) as best I can tell the car was built with the rectangular
style (it had holes in the fenders)but I never cared for those compared to the bullets....

Wanted to go after this stuff for a long time. Now was my chance.

Very cool, glad to see you making progress

Work from home continued. Couldn't really do much. Fall '20.
I finally subscribed to motor trend on demand (Now + or whatever), they had a $2 a month special on black friday.
This was good for when I was wore out, waiting on parts or whatever.

Needed a next step. I'd patched and painted it to the best of my ability back around 1991, it got the car on the road for what I could afford to do back then
but it never looked right, and I'd learned alot since then...some out of necessity, some out of choice. Started to look into more metal replacement.
Couldn't talk myself out of it. "You always wanted to do it, now is your chance. You may not get a chance later." was the mindset.

Full speed ahead.

The trunk floor was pretty good, had a couple small patches, I blasted and epoxy'd it years ago and it held up well. But the rear crossmember was not good, and the back of the trunk floor was welded to it. So, whole trunk floor, both extensions (gone years ago), both quarter panels (gone years ago, then patched poorly by me, now about gone again) all had to go..... was considering mini tub, when AMD introduced the wider inner wheelhouses. So, decided to replace inner and outer wheelhouses too.

You've been hitting the "like" button from the beginning of this mess, thanks buddy.

Dang, DUDE
Thats some serious work
You've got way more ambition and skills on body work than I could ever imagine having
Good luck, keep after it

Wow, talk about mission creep - I get it, my 1st RR went from fixing a torn rear seatback cover to being blown apart for a restoration...

Might a well move the rear springs in...you know, "while you're there"...

I've really enjoyed watching this thing take shape/get rebuilt! I really need to do the same thing to my cuda, but can't bring myself to tear it apart yet. Plus I have to get the truck I just bought on the road, lol.

I started removing rust from the roof/original vinyl roof car, and it was so thin it holed through.
To patch, or replace? Went through a few scenarios. Could have patched it and did vinyl again but decided to ditch the vinyl
and make it as close to new again as I could.

So, I ended up replacing all that other stuff and the roof skin too.

All the problems you've heard about with reproduction metal fit+fit of OE parts where they interface,
are all true. I had to rework all the same stuff that everyone else did. I've documented all that with my own pics
and can get into that later. Those areas and the rework of them are why not anyone can just replace the panels, and you need
considerably more skills than just a "parts replacer". I knew it going in and just took it as a challenge. Overall I'd say the products
are good, but definitely are not perfect. Part of me wants to complain, the other part of me that wants to learn and
exercise skills shrugs it off. Maybe more on that later.

The roof skin was the nicest fitting repro metal of all pieces used. The dutchman panel was the worst.
Plenty of pics to show later, possibly.....

Had to get creative more than once, The rear down bars were flexed and held up with a ratchet strap to (just barely) allow the one
piece trunk floor to be slipped in from the side, with the wheelhouses and quarter panel cut off. Wasn't sure that would work until I tried it.

Passed alot of time doing all this stuff. I probably make it sound like nothing but it was a pretty big deal for me.
I've since heard from a few FB friends that they found the little incremental progress pics I've posted for awhile
to be uplifting and positive. That was part of how it started...I needed that myself.

Thanks buddy, Glad to have you there on that other platform and glad you've enjoyed it.

Well, the 3" wider inner tubs lead a person down that path, and I always just liked the look of a slightly bigger tire, so it was in the plan from the beginning.

I've wanted to get after it for at least 10 years, but: (insert all the usual reasons/excuses).

Tried to investigate a few resources and would have paid good money to someone to do it, but when I asked the most logical and reasonable
resource, the answer was "No, I won't work on it". The next one wanted $900 to paint a door exterior, I knew not to ask anything more.
The next one was almost 3 hours away, easily leading to "Sure! Trailer your car here, I'll tear it apart, and then we can talk": no thanks.
Eventually I got tired of asking. That was in 2018/2019.

Thank you sir.

I got the car on the road best as I could with patchwork made from old metal gas station signs or whatever else I could find, attached with pop rivets, and smoothed out with bondo. I knew better and had desire, but did not have the money/means/knowledge/tools/place to do better. Had fun with the car anyway and learned alot.

That was 30 years ago, those efforts totally failed a long time ago but I'm still here and so is the car...Might as well do it right while I have the opportunity.

Also just looked the thread on the hood painting and think you should run the one you've already finished

Yes I keep up with you on FB, thats going to be an AWESOME GTX !!!!!!

That took some dedication and hard work so great job!

Thanks, I am pretty satisfied with that interpretation of Organisol. It looks just like the best cars I have seen.

Nice thing about it is, even if I don't use that hood...once arriving at that finish now I can duplicate it in other places and on other parts, which I will want to do.

Thanks! Have tons of pics but just hitting some highlights here. I haven't made it to the present day just yet.

Everything behind the quarters was repaired as well, lots of time spent on structure and so on.

Awesome progress and fantastic work. Only thing I would point out is that if you put all this content on YouTube instead of FB, you could have 1000+ subscribers and you could be making money every time you posted. People love seeing a guy in the garage actually making progress on a project.

Thanks, I do have a few videos, it could happen at some point.

I've picked up on a couple of the less-flashy styles on youtube, and
would probably be better at Richard Holdener-style voice over picture stuff, or "the gunman" (painter) action shots with voiceover, and might head down that road later.
It's really a huge effort to do the kind of video 1000+ people want to watch, and will probably end up taking more time than the project itself.

There are so many examples of perfectly good videos and creators that have almost nothing for views or subscribers, it's pretty discouraging and I think a person
would have to not care if anyone is going to watch their material and just try to put something decent quality out there.

Example, None of these are monetized.
I can sort of see why, there's nothing really scripted there, but not sure I'd entertain anyone much either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx7flhbZbpM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxTrSoUc-7A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5NEfLKdKBg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B221wNtXP2M

Also been suggested "Homebuilt hemi for regular gearheads" youtube content.

We aren't quite up to date yet as alot more work has happened................

I have about 200 subscribers to my YouTube channel and my videos are just short clips shot with a cell phone. Some have voice over, some are just dyno pulls or engine shots with no narrative. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoSY4bQ7I23XK834NLVTC9w

I'm going to start shooting with another camera and working to improve the quality of the videos. I don't think I'll make much money off of it but I think I can provide tech information to a wider audience using YouTube than the old magazine article gig. The magazine stuff has just about gone away.

Project creep is an artform that you have now fully mastered!


Looking good, Zippy!