Resto project from downunder

[70E34]

Hi Guys,

I thought I'd start this thread on this site as the car being restored is in essence a 68/69 Dart with a few Australian modifications. It's a 1970 Valiant VG Hardtop with the Stirling Moss Special (A81) dressup option. These cars are absolutely identical from the firewall back to the US versions, in fact, all the panels from the firewall back were pressed in the US.

The chassis rails are 2 inches longer in front of the K-frame to allow fitment of the Oz only hemi 6 engines.

I started this thread on an Australian Mopar site last July and thought it would be good to post it on this site as well .... it'll give me extra motivation to get it finished!!

Initially I'll repost each of the posts I already have on Moparmarket.com forums just to get everyone up to date.

Cheers,

Mike

 

[70E34]

I just started a new project last weekend to restore a Sterling Special (A81) hardtop that we've had sitting in the shed for a few years now. We already have a couple of projects underway and hadn't planned to touch another car until they were finished. However, I met up with a retired paint and panel man who is traveling around Oz and was going to stay in Darwin for a few weeks and was looking for some work.

The Sterling seemed to be in fairly good condition so we selected it as we wanted the car finished before he moves on. So hopefully this will be one of the quicker projects posted in this forum.

The car is Sterling Silver with a black vinyl (V10) roof and burgundy interior, it's a base model 245 1 bbl with 3 on the tree. The previous owner had stripped off the roof and changed it to late bolt pattern (4.5" pcd). We plan to keep the car reasonably stock, repaint it in the same colour and refit a vinyl roof. I've ordered some 17" rims from the US and will post them once they arrive.

This first post shows the car after it was washed and before I started stripping it on Saturday a/noon.

Cheers,

Mike

 

[70E34]

Here's the 2nd installment of the project. I had the car stripped to a rolling shell by Sunday a/noon, 6 1/2 hours to do the disassembly - just shows what practice can do ........ don't leave an unattended Valiant near me for too long :twisted: .

Stripping the car was a revelation, I just couldn't get over how good it was. Although we've had the car for a few years I'd never looked closely at it until recently. I only bought it because it was cheap and the owner was desperate to get rid of it. He'd had it advertised in the local paper for $1000 and got no serious interest. I told him I'd give him $500 for it and a day later he rang me up to come and get it. Didn't even realise until I got it home that it was an A81 car. Hans, the bodyman who's working on it reckons it's one of the best bodies he's ever seen on a car of this age.

It only had rust in 4 small areas, a hole 5mm in diameter on one side of the panel between the rear window and the boot, a 25mm hole in the spare wheel recess, minor rust holes under the fuel filler spout in the boot and VERY minor rust in the lower l/r quarter. Plenum, base of the A pillar, sill fronts and front & rear windscreen surrounds were in absolutely perfect condition - still covered in the factory paint!!

Here are the photos of the stripped shell on Sunday a/noon before the body work commenced ....

With the engine at this stage all I plan to do is repaint it (can anyone tell me the original colour for the rocker cover on a D223A engine???) replace the water pump, give it a service and see how it goes.

Here's and interesting detail, the chalk marks under the dash, it was marked on both sides of the dash with the chalk marks on the passenger side looking like they'd just been done yesterday. The marks are 3M3 A81, it's interesting to see that the A81 option was written there.

I hope to post an update tonight showing the progress made already on the body as all the rust has been done and one rear 1/4 smoothed out already.

 

[70E34]

Here's the mid-day Friday update photos, Hans has spent about 3 1/2 days on it so far and the main body shell is nearly finished. It's taken a fair bit of work on both quarters between the door and wheel openings to get the lower sections smooth. On both sides it had been dented then poorly beaten and filled with bog. Both lower rear quarters needed small patches (5" x 2") welded into them.

Each section is being etch primed as it's done. So far I've spent about $180 on sanding materials and about $350 on etch primer, 2 pak primer surfacer, seam sealer etc.

This is the section under the filler neck that needed new metal in it ...

Repaired wheel wheel ...

Completed drivers rear 1/4 section in etch primer ...

 

[70E34]

Hans has been working on the car for nearly a week now and has made considerable progress, the only panels remaining to be prepared are the guards and the boot lid!

The section between the rear wheel opening and the door on the passengers side took a lot of work to get right as it had been hit there previously and very poorly repaired, so it took most of a day to get it just right and it now only has a VERY thin skim of filler on it.

Both doors have been finished, the drivers door was a replacement that had been fitted at some time during the cars life and needed a fair bit of work to get perfectly straight. I'd guess that the accident that necessitated replacing the door was when the bottom hinge and corresponding section of the A pillar was bent. When it was previously repaired they hadn't bothered to straighten the A pillar, instead they'd just spaced out the hinge with washers to get the door to align properly. That's all been fixed now and the A pillar is as it should be.

This is the drivers door part way through finishing ...

Finished passenger door ..

L/H 1/4 panel nearly finished ...

Finished L/R 1/4 ...

It took a few goes with degreaser and the pressure cleaner before the engine was ready for painting. Something to note when you have an engine out is to change the core plugs at the same time. They only cost a few $$ and its easy as to do them when the engine is out. I nearly didn"t touch them as they looked absolutely perfect from the outside, as bright and shiny as the day they were fitted. As I had plenty of spare new one, I though what the hell and knocked them out. Very fortunate I did as on close examination one had pin holed through and the others showed considerable erosion from the inside.

The engine freshly cleaned and ready for paint ...

Etch primed ...

Finished, the rocker cover will be metallic silver which appears to be the correct colour for D223A engines.

 

[70E34]

The last body panel (front right guard) is just about finished, there was a small setback as the guard fitted to the car was a little the worse for wear once it was stripped back. It had a lot of dents and was quite a bit out of shape, so after spending a couple of hours on it we decided to cut our losses and grab a better guard and start again.

This is the second guard, it only needed a small section welded into it, besides that it is very straight.

Here's the passenger guard waiting for etch priming together with the boot, bonnet and one door that have already been finished and etch primed.

Heres the completed and etch primed engine bay, the reason for the change in colour from grey to black is just that we ran out of the original grey etch primer and the new stuff turned out to be black.

Hans is taking tomorrow off, so all going well the 2 pak priming should start on Saturday. I bought the base coat and 2 pak clear coat plus 20 litres of thinners and a couple of other bits and pieces on Monday and that set me back $980.00. So far we up to about a bit under $1500 for paint and consumables!!!

 

[70E34]

Although we'd painted the engine a week ago it's been bugging me as the colour wasn't quite the right shade, so I tried colour matching again using the remains of the thermostat housing as a sample. The colour we used this time is called Impact Red and it's from the Protec industrial coatings colour chart. This time it's a PERFECT match for the Chrysler engine red used on early hemis :grin: .

Here's the repainted engine in the correct shade ...

Yesterday a/noon was partially spent erecting the Super Cheap car port that will be used as a spray booth. One small holdup in putting it together ... the box contained 2 roofs and no sides :evil: A trip back to the shop to get the correct panels (oh, and no apology or anything for the inconvenience caused or the 45 kms I had to drive!)

The last part of yesterday was spent stripping off all the old dried out seam sealer and wire wheeling the boot and interior, prior to rust treating and etch priming.

Etch priming the boot ...

The interior just prior to etch priming..

All the body work is now complete and the 2 pak priming will start today
:-D

 

[70E34]

Been a little break in posting update photos as I've been flat out with work and haven't had the time to resize and upload photos.

The following photos were taken on Saturday morning just after the base coat was applied to the body shell, all the hanging panels will be painted separately. 3 coats of Sterling (Mercury) Silver basecoat over 2 coats of 2 pak primer.

Here are most of the other panels just waiting to be dry-sanded with 320 grit the wet-sanded with 800 grit before being basecoated.

The 2 pak clear coat was applied on Saturday a/noon (3 coats), however we weren't happy with the results on the 1/4's due to issues with the spray gun, so it was all rubbed back again yesterday and resprayed using a new gun. I'll post photos of the finished shell as soon as it comes out of the booth.

 

[70E34]

Well it came out into the sunlight for the first time this morning. The clear coat will still need blocking with 2000grit wet and dry and then buffing/cutting, but already it's starting to look pretty good :grin:

I couldn't resist it and as soon as it was out I put the compliance plate back on it and the engine bay decals.

I'm looking for a set of chrome trim to go along its side, in particular the strips for the quarters, so if anyone has a set they'd sell me please give me a call!

 

[70E34]

There seems to be a problem with ImageShack at the moment so I'll post the rest of the installments tomorrow.

Cheers,

Mike

 

[msarni1]

Dude, I see the problem the steering wheel is on the wrong side! Just kidding it looks good. Keep the pictures coming..

 

[Snake]

man i have never seen anything like it very cool

 

[cuda65vpt]

Great looking project and great shop you have there

 

[70E34]

ImageShack is working again so here goes the rest to bring the project up to date....

IT'S FINISHED!!!!!!!!!! :-D :-D :-D :-D

4 weeks from start to finish for all the bodywork and painting. We hung all the panels today, so it's only the long tedious job of cleaning, detailing and re assembly to go now. Realistically we'll be very happy if the car is registered by December, given the amount of spare time I'll have for the rest of the year. Will be ordering a vinyl roof and hood lining from Year One in the US in the next few weeks and also track down some original seat vinyl from the US too.

I want to drop the K frame, detail it and rebuilt the front suspension before the motor goes back in.

I'm VERY pleased with the finished product all that I still need to do is block the doors, guards and boot lid with 2000 wet & dry, then buff it and finally polish it.

 

[70E34]

I just realised that it's 12 months since the last update on this project! I'd like to say that it's now completed,but sadly that's still not the case. Due to work and family commitments as well as buying a couple of pickups from the US and spending too many $$$ on "Cool Breeze", there has been no progress on this until last weekend.

I finally have the engine and K frame back in after making a mobile cradle to carry the complete assembly (something I'm sure will come in handy many times over the next few years) and have started refitting the completely rebuilt front suspension.

As soon as I've restored the dash it'll go into town to have the vinyl roof and hoodlining fitted, then the screens can go back in. I purchased a vinyl top from Year One in the US for about $170 including postage.

Shot with NIKON D200 at 2008-08-05

Shot with NIKON D200 at 2008-08-05

Cheers,

Mike

 

[ev2duster]

looks good Mike