67/68/69 cuda dilemma

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Next week the kids go on spring break. I volunteered to take vacation and stay home to "watch them". So my evil plan to get some quality time with my son working on the cuda is right on schedule (insert evil laugh here). Ever the constant thinker, I have been preparing for this. I rounded up a bucket blaster, a gravity feed spot blaster, and a blasting hood from china freight. I also have some heavy duty rubber gloves, a tyvek bunny suit, tarps and my respirator. Need to get 2-3 bags of crushed glass media from the local Benjamin Moore paint dealer.

Sonny and I been slowly working on stripping the remainder of the parts off the firewall. The ole bag n tag of everything as well. Will prob pull the hood and front fenders back off to sand blast the firewall on both sides as well as the cowl sides, rockers, door jambs, inside the roof etc. If the blaster and my sand recovery method with plastic tarps works well, I guess we will get it all stripped next week and into a thin wash coat of 2K epoxy primer.

For now I have been knocking the heavy undercoat and rust scale off everything I can get to. Been using these twisted wire wheel cups. To say these things are brutally badass is an understatement. I wiped out one that I had been using on other stuff, and finished it off scouring surface rust and undercoating. Just bought 2 more from china freight. Word to the wise, use a respirator, and a good set of safety goggles as these things make a bunch of dust you prob dont want to breathe, and little wires shoot off them you probably dont want in your eyes.

I got some action pix. Showed him what to do and stepped back for pix. So far we removed the gas pedal, heater box, steering column, and dash frame. We still have to remove the brake pedal assembly, LH vent box, parking brake handle, and misc parts. Anyhoo without further ado heres pix.

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How do you like that blast gun with gravity feed? I got the same one and it kept clogging on me. Even with my good filtration system. Wound up just taking the gun out of my blast cabinet and sticking it in a bucket of black oxide for blasting large pieces.
 
Thank you for the kudos sir.

Well i took today off work, had it as scheduled vacation months ago lol. the rain we were supposed to get today never materialized. Either that or it all passed through quickly yesterday. Sonny and I are sanding down the passenger fender, and some other touch up sanding stuff, then we will be priming some more today. My ancient water separator decided to **** itself today. I had a spare china freight one I bought years ago and got that put together fairly quickly. If the wind calms down I will likely shoot a bit of epoxy primer. Maybe tomorrow will be sandblast day on the rear framerails.
 
Well I gave sonny my 67 valance and hammered it straight. We got more stripped, and looks like my nice day is over. Rain is rolling in. Springtime is hard around here. Temps are great, but the rain is unpredictable.

In this era of social distancing my wife and I are doing date night round 2 in the shop away from the kids after my son is asleep. Welcome to Casa De La Cuda. Old bed sheet, card table, oil lamp, and laminated wiring schematics for place mats. I got pandora for music too. Gonna be chilis curbside pickup tonight. I am a bit more prepared compared to last week. The table cloth and the wiring schematic "placemats" were tonight's additions

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Well I got my $12 mini borescope for my phone. Had to get a micro USB to C adaptor. Right angle mirror attachment doesnt work too well. Pix with it are not very clear. Other than that, this thing is "tits". I bought it to look around inside the cowl at the standpipes and other low lying areas inside there where water tends to sit at both ends.

The lower plenum is surprisingly real solid. Better than I thought it would be. Some minor surface rust spots but easily cleaned up and sealed. With AMD doing closeout sales on the lower plenums I wanted to be sure if I needed one of these, to get one now before they are gone. So the $12 was worth it to find out. Turns out I dont need one, so that's $170 I can spend elsewhere.

I did take a few pix with the camera of junk i found in there which will get cleaned out when I pull the upper cowl panel. Looks like still pix from inside a shipwreck on a deep sea diving expedition. Heres a peak at some hidden treasure mateys. How many items can you identify?

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Well I gave sonny my 67 valance and hammered it straight. We got more stripped, and looks like my nice day is over.

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Your work reminds me of what I did on my 69 20 yrs ago. Blasting the underside with side curtains to contain the MEDIA and dust brings back memories. I was able to collect most of the media and reuse it by straining through a hunk of window screen.

Good to see you working with your son, more memories, and that he's wearing his PPE but.......open-toed shoes?
C'mon Dude!! This is no time to be taking a kid to the ER!
 
Sandblasting what a ******* mess. Spent 8 hours scouring the insides of these rails to clean bare steel. Got about 95% of the corrosion out of there. Going to epoxy prime it tomorrow to seal it up, then take a break from it. My body hurts after today. Still will have to blast the trans crossmember, forward framerails, firewall and engine compartment. Will need to get it done before the summer hits and its hotter than hell out there.

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I removed the crossmember internal tube reinforcements since I am going to be modding this for a 42RH when the floor is out. I figure I am better off scouring the inside with a sandblaster with these out. Was going to just replace them with steel tubing as reinforcements.

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I removed the crossmember internal tube reinforcements since I am going to be modding this for a 42RH when the floor is out. I figure I am better off scouring the inside with a sandblaster with these out. Was going to just replace them with steel tubing as reinforcements.

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The crossmember kit for my T56 Magnum has tube spacers (DOM pipe). You use through bolts to align them and tack them in place. It is just there to keep the bolts from crushing the frame member.
 
I have a weldable steel exit window torque tube from the aircraft I work on that's the perfect diameter and thickness for this. Part was damaged at the linkage end not repairable. About the same wall thickness as these brackets I removed
 
I have a weldable steel exit window torque tube from the aircraft I work on that's the perfect diameter and thickness for this. Part was damaged at the linkage end not repairable. About the same wall thickness as these brackets I removed

"You mean to tell me you built a plane out of a Barracuda? I thought you were joking when you said your car(s) we're gonna fly and when they hit 88 MPH, you're gonna see some serious lift!"

Sue me, it's still early, lol.
 
More blasting today about 9 hours worth. I think I am done with that messy **** for while. Gonna primer tomorrow. Had to go back over the stuff I did last week since I missed some spots and had flash rust on some spots. That put me behind. Will have to cut out and patch the torsion bar crossmember on the left side as water layed in there under the torsion bar lug. I didnt clean the center hoop area where I plan on cutting it for the 42RH trans mod. That will be something I do before the floors go in. Tomorrow I pull the rear axle and springs so I have some room and going to primer this thing up.

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"You mean to tell me you built a plane out of a Barracuda? I thought you were joking when you said your car(s) we're gonna fly and when they hit 88 MPH, you're gonna see some serious lift!"

Sue me, it's still early, lol.
Dan when she hits 120mph and I pull back on the steering column we will achieve liftoff LoL
 
Some new pix. Did a lot of primering today. About 4 thick coats of epoxy primer inside the framerails.
Sealed it up good. Took me hours to get in all the nooks and crannies to make sure everything had a decent coat on it. I am very happy with how my framerail repairs came out. You almost cant even see where they are. Once I undercoat this thing, those repairs will blend well enough that they will all but disappear.
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I also test fit the transition pan, and the inner and outer wheel houses on the left side. The AMD outers are looking like they will need some work to make them fit. Everything is just temp clamped in place with a bunch of miniature C clamps.

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Got to keep the missus happy. She promised that after we got the other side of the courtyard done with brick pavers that she would leave me alone with home projects. We did the pavers on one side last summer. Had to shovel out shitty lava rock and dig down enough to have a nice bed of paver sand under them to level them out. Today was the day to dig out the shitty lava rock on the other side. Next weekend is when i will set the plastic, paver sand, and put the pavers down. Prob no car stuff until I am done with all that. Heres progress pix. Pic #2 is the paver job from last year as a preview.

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Pavers got done last weekend, other than that, not much to report today except I got new rear springs for her. 5 leaf units. General spring $260 delivered.

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Been trying to get back in the mood to work on things. After I had to put my four legged best friend to sleep back on the 5th of May it's been kinda hard to get motivated on most of anything. I pushed through last weekend to get the pavers done to get it over with.

However I did a little shop clean up/straighten up today though. I also plan on listing some parts I'm not gonna need or use. I did do a simple project today out of some pieces of metal in my scrap pile. Didnt feel like cutting and chopping so I dug into it until I found the right combination of junque to just weld together and paint. The brown bracket was a piece of old bedframe angle, I have no idea what the rest of it was for or from. Anyhoo, I made a better hanger for my jumper cables and extension cords. Originally I had an old bent up headliner bow hooked onto wiring conduit.

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Been trying to get back in the mood to work on things. After I had to put my four legged best friend to sleep back on the 5th of May it's been kinda hard to get motivated on most of anything. I pushed through last weekend to get the pavers done to get it over with.

However I did a little shop clean up/straighten up today though. I also plan on listing some parts I'm not gonna need or use. I did do a simple project today out of some pieces of metal in my scrap pile. Didnt feel like cutting and chopping so I dug into it until I found the right combination of junque to just weld together and paint. The brown bracket was a piece of old bedframe angle, I have no idea what the rest of it was for or from. Anyhoo, I made a better hanger for my jumper cables and extension cords. Originally I had an old bent up headliner bow hooked onto wiring conduit.

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Those four legged friends are heartbreaking, sorry for your loss !
 
Finally got out there today for a bit. Fitted and welded together the RH inner and outer wheel houses. Inner is from a plymouth scamp, outer is AMD. The AMD outer was a little short on the stamping at the front. I had to make a piece of strap to add to it. It's also a little long at the back. Once I have the trunk floor in place and I start fitting the trunk drops I will cut the outer wheel houses back and reweld to fit. I definitely have to say however the AMD outer wheel house is stamped out of a thicker metal than the OEM inner wheel house. That's definitely a plus

I used a harbor freight panel flanger/hole puncher to make the strap, and punch the holes in it. The welded together wheel house test fit as an assembly into the car pretty well. I also used these harbor freight vise grip spot welder clamps these made short work holding the pieces tightly together for rosette welds. Both tools worked great. A definite recommend, although I have had the flanger tool for years. Not sure they even sell this tool anymore. Tomorrow I will start to tackle the LH side.

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