Lifetime Family friend has acquired a 71 Big Block 4spd Cuda. The owner will be following this thread and he may add the backstory and his association with it. But my part is to take a mostly stripped car and put it into color. The car is pretty solid, has had some patches installed in the firewall, the driver front & rear floors, partial lower rear quarters, and a poorly made patch in the trunk floor. The body looks pretty straight as it has been in and out of prior paint jobs at least twice. I am going to make sure it is done right and actually finished this time.

The first pic is the condition it was in 07 and it was disassembled February 2011 by the previous owner, The next are how I received it. there is no Fender Tag nor Build Sheet so IMO it is an open slate for building the way he would have ordered it, had he had the opportunity.

From investigation the car was factory B3, The familiar look was in a medium blue (close but not B5) the color has not yet been determined but leaning towards as it came from Ma Mopar. Thoughts?

Layers of body shop dust were throughout the car, I gave it a "Castrol Superclean" and detergent scrubbing bath and a serious pressure wash. Started removing small parts to start the body work and paint prep.

looks to be off to a great start !

After the wash down, it lost some of the previous paint job in the passenger door Jamb

Interesting project. I think B3 with a white or blue interior would be cool, and not common.

if a moderator sees this thread, i meant to post it under projects and survivor. not restoration. sorry can it please be moved thanks henry

Nice!

Seems like alot of the best deals out there have always been on abandoned projects as it once was.
You guys will get it done for sure!

in another thread I posted a question about these seams, There are no repairs or patches in this area, the seams are beautiful factory untouched from underneath, as of now i am guessing someone filled them to be smooth for one of the paint jobs and then for the subsequent paint job they cut the groove to look correct. They did not do a great job I will be removing any filler in this area and clean it up.

inside the trunk was a total mess, under layers of body shop dust were multiple paint jobs (probably rattle can) and hefty layer of undercoating on everything and under it all was a horrible patch and slopped on fiberglass cloth and resin over a small section. All in all the trunk floor is in great condition, just a couple of area that will get patches and most is quite solid with some pitting that I will decide later how to fill or hide.

cont

The exhaust tip hangars were welded on and buried under fiberglass.

All these are pics of a couple days working with paint stripper and every wire wheel, or stripping tool there is.

I will go over everything again before I seal it up with wash primer (etching primer) and K36.

The interior floors will get a light wire brush to remove the loose stuff, Then raptor liner for some sound deadening and give it a uniform look.

When it comes to the color, B3 or EB3 was not offered in 1971. They changed it to GB2 or B2 Glacial Blue Metallic

Yes Thanks my habit is to refer the light metallic blue as B3. The color code is B2 Glacial Blue. However I have had both (B2 B3) mixed at different times mixed by different shops and different lines of paint and they are effectively the same color. Color Chip books can look a little different due to lighting, and I have paint color discussions over several MoPar colors that through the years the color stayed the same but the code and name changed. And we are dealing with Base Clear instead of single stage paints so there adds some differences in color tones.

I had made hundreds of these Car-icatures in every color that was available. and my Fury was painted in B2,B3 or DD1 for 66 Light Blue Poly

The loss of paint from the pressure wash had me concerned so I went panel by panel to test paint adhesion. Lucky for me all the outer body panels are solid, no de-lam or weakness of adhesion anywhere, the same cannot be said in regards to door jambs, doors and engine compartment. Preliminarily started scraping away. its going to be a tedious process but necessary for a good finish. I don't plan on chem stripping, I only want to scrape and sand down to the original paint. before I etch prime the panels. you can see the driver door had been replace as it is Ivy green OG color.

About 2 days of work just scraping away paint

removed the rear axle and spring as an assembly, put the car on my casters, I had to weld the blind nut into its place for the right front bumper bolt, lucky it was still in the frame channel. The Owner will be coming by to remove front suspension to clear my way for sanding and priming. Lots of hours ahead but its well on its way.

If you owned this what Shade of Blue Which would you choose? B2, B5, B7, Winchester Gray Or what other color?

Me personally , Im a huge fan of the Winchester grey.
Especially with black vinyl top and interior and blk billboard

IMO the original colors or even B5 wouldn't be bad .

That said, even without a tag to prove it. I'M not a fan of color changed cars

I agree with Bill above. That Winchester Grey ROCKS but I'm partial to B5 too cause my 71 Challenger is B5. Those are the 2 BEST colrs in the Mopar lineup.

My opinion and $3.50 will get you a cup of coffee, but I'm in a sharing mood :
I like EB5 much more than GB5, but it's a pretty common color.
I'm increasingly fond of the rarer colors, like the light pastel blue (B2?), Winchester Grey, B7.
There's plenty of red, orange & yellow 'Cudas out there, but GY3 (Curious Yellow) is a knockout.
Further afield is A4, which would be interesting, I think.
One consideration may be material prices, where single-stage non-metallic colors have a cost advantage.

B7 done right looks stunning. There is/was a lift off hood 69 Super Bee around these parts years ago in that B7 color, and it was a show stopper You could see the fabric on your shoelaces in the reflection down the sides of it. Only drawback to the darker hues is chasing swirl marks and dust like people who own black cars have to deal with.

Thanks all with the color opinions , I am only the grunt and will paint whichever color the owner decides . I think it has to be one of those scenarios that when he looks at the car it really calls out to him how he wants it to look when its in his driveway.

Hopefully he will chime in here and let us know the direction we are headed.

Looking at the small stuff in the trunk that needs attention and starting on the metal repair I find the trunk hinges must have been hyper extended and busted the welds at the gutter to hinge bracket. The jamb corners have had some metal work done and they used a lot of filler to shape the area and looked it. Time consuming to re work but absolutely needed for it to look/be right.

Reattached the hinge braces to the gutter and ground away the majority of the filler in the area, had to weld in some pin holes from previously compromised metal. the pics make it look worse than in reality

Found a new pair of holes in the fender well and installed the jack bracket. before and after of the shock bolt access hole.

Just a few more exploratory pics, Rear panel paint just about falls off the factory black , trunk bumper hump shows at least 6 coats of primers/paints over the og color, both front fenders have at least 1/8" thick filler slathered over their entire surface . We looked at the car a lot and it just seemed something was odd about it. The body lines of the car are too soft, the doors are pretty good, the quarters are good except for the lower sections in front and rear of the tires, I will be re-doing the lower rear quarters, Pass side will get the vertical part of a trunk extension, both sides will get outer lower skin patches. There is a bunch that needs to be corrected along the way but I am still impressed on how solid the car is. With the exception of the lower quarters, there is little to no clues of welded patches or through rust that was filled in anywhere. Seems the body guy just frosted the entire car with filler to block it down but didn't understand what a "Skim Coat" is

I've seen that before on a Jenson Interceptor years ago. Previous shop that worked on it coated the whole car with it and left up to 1/4 of filler on the car, and then painted right over it. Had to have been close to two cans of filler used to coat the whole car like that, and the metal underneath was in pretty good shape after it was all sanded back off. They even coated the whole roof, and there was nothing wrong with it. I don't get the logic behind it.

Also seen shops that will put new quarters on a car and then put thick filler over the whole thing anyways. If you did a decent job you should only need a little bit of filler around the weld seams to hide any small ripples that occur during welding.

Speaking of body filler hackery I ran across this yesterday. Talk about a mess.

https://youtu.be/wxnN1hzORco?si=iwQLNDYeoSPp-unV

Opened the proverbial can of worms started with some exploratory to see what I'm working with and found what we we hoping was not going to be there. Average of 3/16" filler over homemade poorly fabbed patches. Started blocking down with 36grit and didn't find base metal, so I broke out a grinding disk and went at it. After a few minutes I got impatient and cut into it a bit, found how deep it went and knew the quarter needed to get cut off. I found the old welded seam and planned my cuts accordingly, I want to preserve as much factory metal as possible.

more

While I had the tools in hand went to the driver side to see how bad it was, found about the same. I am glad the original driver inner is solid enough to use for position and reference. The outer quarter was a bit worse as it had got crunched by the marker light and needs to be replaced or get some re working.

i will be replacing the driver inner but it is being used for fitment and reference.

Here are the removed panels, look closely you can see the hand formed bends in the sheet metal to make the "body lines"

AMD inner trunk extension, only used the drop trim to fit only what I removed .

welded up

received the other patches, AMD driver inner, Both outer are Goodmark from different sources, packaged very loose and both got tweaked around the bumper area. I will not be using the complete panel so it doesn't matter much to me. Did the finish fab on the trunk gutters and skim coat of kitty hair on them.

The little patch that was done next to the bumper was poorly done and they used filler for shape, figured the panel would be relieved when I cut it out. You can see it is out at least .080 higher than the patch. My patch after hammer dolly work and proper fitment and welding.

While getting the little patch done I had to address the body line a bit. The intersection of belt line and vertical corner section, there were some dings and flaws in the sheet metal that again they just overfilled to create shape. Blocking them down to get the filler down to minimal thickness. I use a very weak magnet
that gives me a feel for its depth without having fancy equipment It still needs a bit more attention when I block the remainder of the quarter. I probably removed 3/32" of filler thickness on and around the corner.

Onto fitting the patch panel. I dont know how there are some folks who just get these panels and use them without a good amount of modification. The lower body panel segment is 3/8-1/2 too wide. if I line up the flange the body line is way off, of course I aligned the body line and cut the flange off. The flange will get welded into position to fit the valance and get the right gap, then I will fit the patch to it. I wasn't expecting it to just drop on and overall I am quite happy with the panel, It has the overall shape and sweep of the factory quarter and had enough material to trim to fit. But it does rack up the hours planning cutting and fitting. the valance went on and off a dozen times.

Here are a few of the cuts made for fitting the patch, the factory panel weld had broken and was integral to the rest of the flange alignment so I had to rework it as a unit. I did not get many pics of the area as I was pretty focused on what I was building as opposed to showing what and why I was doing. You can see the copper weld through and some of the cuts and welds may be visible in the flange itself.

Gap fabbed.

Finished, fitted panel spotted in. Stitching it up and prep for prime will be next weekend. NOTE That is not a dent or panel warp-age under the side marker in the first pic it is a reflection

Finished welding in the quarter patch, Needed to do a little hammer & dolly work, I put a heavy guide coat to protect the metal for a few weeks prior to massaging the panel before epoxy prime and skimming with filler. In the one pic, you can see a small deviation at the rear most weld by the body line, it will need about .060 filler in that area. Going to move to the driver side repeat the process.

Holding a flexible edge to show the profile over the weld. the transition is 95% there and happy with it since the factory quarter was hammered on and wavy AS F.

Cut out driver side inner, installed the new AMD inner panel and established the panel gap to the rear valance. I had to add a piece to the flange for the attaching hardware hole. The Goodmark outerpatches are good in several ways but lacking in others as you will see in a couple weeks. I started fitting and trimming it and .....

Quarter to Valance panel gap welded in place, cut out the end of the mangled marker opening. reference pic of the stupid amount of unnecessary filler that was used to blend the ratty patch it had.

I chose to repair the mangled marker opening as opposed to finding someone who will cut one out of a parts car. Since I have to replace a good portion of the quarter I fixed this one and will scab it back into place. the fist two pics are how it started the next two are working the panel back into shape.

This is the patch after working its shape, welding the split and trimming it down. Its not virgin anymore that's for sure but will need nothing more than epoxy and high build to finish it ready for paint.

Ok, a lot went on with this panel prior to the point these pics were taken. Like the other side the patch has a overall great shape but needed quite a bit of "adjustment" It is not stamped with the small flange that goes behind the bumper so I decided to use the original which was very thin and had rust through, plus the angle of the bumper notch was off by 1/4" so I cut it down and flattened the fold in it. The original quarter was beat and hammered and shaped with filler, lots of filler. Just sad that this was common practice back then. I spent a couple days getting the panel close to where it needs to be, I wont get it back to original but I will only need a skim coat of filler to finish it.

This side also needed the valance flange cut off and fit, I mounted the valance to get the gap right.

Welded in, It is a respectable proper repair albeit not a master metal worker with every tool available. I am satisfied with it knowing I still have more to massage.

Still need to install the reworked marker lamp flange patch but you can see the overall shape is about 95% there.

Coming along!

Do you have a metal shrinking disc? They are great for leveling out imperfections on body panels during bodywork - high spots, and oil can dents that appear when doing metal work, ect

Neil, I do have one and have used it on these quarter patches. I will still be doing more hammer,dolly and moving the metal around when I finish the panel replacement and start dialing in the finish prior to filler.

That is great. I still run across people who do metal work on older vehicles that have never tried out a shrinking disc. They are pretty handy to have for certain tasks.

Look forward to more of what you are doing on this project.

Finished the side marker area, metal worked the panel quite a bit, Very pleased with its shape. It will only need small amount of filler to finish it off and return the quarter panel to a proper repair for the rest of its existence.

This quarter panel has had plenty of abuse over time, the whole car has been filled and overfilled throughout multiple paint jobs. I block sanded down through all the layers to get to the high build that was sprayed over the original paint, From here I will apply black epoxy prime and then do filler. When I am satisfied it is very close, I will seal with epoxy again then proceed to 2k high build. I expect to get it about 90% with the initial high build and only have to spot in any areas that need a little more attention. There is SO SO much touch time throughout this process, few people understand it.

The Owner brought me some parts for fitment, the driver side bumper bracket needs some tweaking to set the gap. But it is nice to see the parts go onto the car and know that progress is being made.

Ended cutting about 1/4 inch from the outer arm of the bumper bracket and tweaking the angle to get the bumper in the same orientation as the other side. You can see the RePop bumper has a poor profile on its trailing edge. It has a concave curve which doesn't match the shape of the car and also has a point in the top rear corner that needs to be softened. But that will add cost to the rechroming and maybe a stock replacement may be better. I also had to weld new studs to the bumper-ettes as as soon as i touched them with a wrench to remove the nuts the Chinese hardware broke. Figures

Moving forward on the quarterpanel, the rocker at the bottom pinch weld was loose, Many of the spot welds along the rocker were broken like they were never solid, no rust or damage to speak of almost like they were never welded. I also ran into some rust and another plastering of filler. Not only did they cave in the rusty areas and a crappy patch to fill with bondo but the assembly line welded the quarter panel on so poorly that it had a bulge of about 1/4" behind the leaded seam. These Bozos decided to use body filler from the center of the rocker to the wheel opening to make it "straight" and they removed all the trim studs while doing so. Just adds hours to the bill which is just the reason why flat rates are rarely offered. The additional items that were not in the expected scope of work is being covered with an hourly rate, Otherwise I'd be kicking myself.

Section removed, will be doing clean up to the inner panel, even with relief cuts you can see the bulge in the panel. My straight edge is pushing in the panel where it will be welded. Even had to cut the door corner as it is proud of the door too. Lots of these small things add up to a car that is restored better than stock but has to be done make it right.

The Door is not aligned yet for those wondering

Decided to move to the same area on the passenger side to see what we have there. In between I spent a few moments fixing a tiny crack in the rear valance, little things add up but are necessary.

passenger side WORSE Bad Patch warped the [censored] out of the panel, Again they had tons of filler to make it SEEM straight.
hard to make out in the pic but the warp is about 5/16 to 3/8 at its worst. welded and plastered over Just so bothersome.

I am looking for a partial quarter skin, a few inches below the beltline from the door to the wheelwell. if anyone has this either OG or repop Plase PM me here.

All the top surfaces were blocked down to the high-build primer that was on the car prior to the last two paint jobs, the few places that I blocked through showed an etch primer under it, I know there is minimal mil thickness. To seal all that has been done I covered in PPG black epoxy. I did two wet coats with 20 min flash. Did a third coat in key areas and the over-spray gave the entire area a dry appearance.

Within the window for chem adhesion I went ahead and did the first coat of 2K. This will allow me to continue with all the other fab and repair needed elsewhere on the car. With a 120 scuff and a clean surface, the filler I use will have an excellent adhesion and the layers below my work are sealed.

Cant see in these pics but I masked off the areas that still need fab. The trunk jamb, Dutchman, Sail panels and Tail panel will only need blocking before final prime/seal.

Dutchman to quarter panel seam and drip rail, corner detail, trunk jamb all worked and good to go. Just the beginning of knocking areas off the "Things To Do" list

Coming along nicely - hopefully the customer is pleased that you've corrected so much hack work.
A few years a go we stripped a car done by Restorations By Julius because the paint was cracking.
Filled at least 3 5-gallon buckets with material before getting to bare metal, and had to repair a lot of hammer-hits...like ball-peen hits.

Thanks Topside, I know the old way of "fixing" these old cars was done everywhere but now it is all considered HACK jobs. Im doing my best to fix what was done so poorly.

My next step was to remove the door and block it down, when it is off I will address the inner door and the jamb. Cant wait to find whats waiting for me The door blocked out pretty well with just a nickel size ding on the body line and a small patch lower front corner, it too was partially welded and sunk in about 1/8" and filled to be smooth, not flat.

you never know whats hiding behind the paint

Along the jamb at the front of the sill below the hinges was the next surprise. Yes it had some rot but is not totally compromised. a couple patches and as good as new

The bondo lumps are just part of the game. the cowl side has been stripped of paint and ready for sanding once the lower rear rocker damage is repaired.

Well that's not what you wanted to see. Good that you found it though.

Back to the rear of the driver rocker, not photographed but I cleaned up the inner structure by grinding the thin metal away from the rust holes and sandblasting the area then treating it with ospho and good coat of rust inhibiting paint. Prepped my fabricated patch panel with the same paint and weldthrough primer on the edges and flange.

My patch panel was made in two pieces to be able and create the drain slot on the pinch weld and achieve a great fitment over the area. I also welded a bead along the sill where the factory lead filler would normally be.

There is limited access to the backside of the is area, so welding the diagonal seam was a bit of a challenge to not let it sink in since I wont be able to hammer it flat. Some wedges from behind and off dolly slapping and my stud gun did the trick. little time consuming to get flat and straight. I am NOT a metal shaper by trade but its with in my tolerance of 1/32". You can see the weld bead below where the inner rocker structure makes access impossible. I also drilled divots over the factory trim stud locations to either re-weld studs or to use screws depending on the trim clips that are available.

few more pics of the area

Onto driver door...ISSUES with cars that have been passed around and mistreated I chose not to chem strip the door jam on the car or the door. Just counteracting the chemical plus cleanup and the shear mess it would make inside the door made me choose scraping all the paint off, It all gets sanded anyway so it is a lesser of two evils

Issues that you find as you look at the parts on a small scale, you focus on the little things instead of as a whole, that is one reason I like doing 1 or 2 sections or parts at a time. The lower front glass channel slider had broken at some point, and slid down to the bottom of the run, this in turn would not let the glass roll all the way down to allow access to the front mounting bolt through the rectangular window. I assume this led the asshats to literally tear apart the door frame and completely beat the inner door and window regulator mounting to FIX it. They did not!

Another small item is the outer door handle was pushed in enough to split the door frame. I had to put three little stitches into the crack and tweak the area flat so there will not need any filler in this area.

Door sanded, and DP40 epoxy primed. I scraped away every bit of 5 layers of paint poorly adhered to the factory green. In its existence it had been painted Burnt Orange, then Blue then Primed then Blue and Primed again.

Car Jamb sanded and Primed

reinstalled the door, aligned and gapped. It will come off again when the car comes apart for color

Moved to the pass side and tore into lower A-pillar. Found a little rot, much more solid than drivers side. CUT, BLAST,FAB,PREP,WELD,GRIND,SAND, DONE, NEXT....

Back to the pass side lower front quarter rocker area, I left primer off of the area knowing I would be cutting this out, The straight edge shows how much of a warp bulge they put into the panel. the red square shows how flat it became once the panel was cut and relieved.

Doner panel from a goodmark skin. Really helpful having a panel already close to shape. But the details are just CRAP. The rocker flange is inadequate, the drain is non existent, the folds at the door and at the fender were very soft (rounded over) so plenty of hammer dolly to tighten them up. Overall it saves plenty of time but these panels all need plenty of touch time.

Welded a bead across the gap left by the lead removal along the rocker, patch panel installed and straight. almost zero deflection at the weld seam, the wheel lip is wonky cause in its previous life someone cut and hammered the flange up.

Last few pics for a couple months. Merry Christmas everybody

Did a little over the Christmas break, I have a contract for a model yacht due in March so little to no update till then after today.

Stripped the gallons of filler off the door to find (not surprisingly) poor patches and hidden rot, the door is much better than so many original units that are available so I will be repairing this one unless a good one turns up.

The lower front inner corner looked like gobs of bubble gum when i stripped the paint off. The door skin has a bunch of high spots (dings) made from inside, and plenty of areas that will need attention.

Put the driver door, Passenger jamb and rocker repairs in Epoxy and High Build. The repair fab work is nearing its end and I will get into filler, blocking and prep for base coat very soon

Then I find the next surprise. not really too bad, I will cut out some of the inner structure to access the backside of these areas and repair accordingly. The structure will be welded back into position. I am getting excited to move into the body work phase to really get a good look at a fresh straight and proper base for painting.