The Great Pumpkin - '71 Duster
Been feeling motivated lately and am moving forward at a decent clip.
After cleaning and re-paint, the rear end is all buttoned up and ready to go in. Fairly happy with the way it turned out. Got all new housing end and center section studs and gaskets from Dr. Diff and new brake lines that theoretically should not leak. Was on the fence about re-installing the parking brake parts but decided to go ahead with it.
After sitting in my storage loft collecting dust for the last several years, I finally got my fiberglass hood down and started to mock it up. There are already provisions for pins in the front on the radiator support which only needed to be drilled out but the rears took some planning. I studied old Pro Stocks to figure out the placement and wound up about 5 1/2" in from the sides and around 2" forward of the cowl. I may add a few more pins.
This is just the hood sitting on the bumpers, no pins yet.
The big step this time was getting the engine by prepped and primed for paint. This took a lot of doing and felt endless. There was a lot of oxidation, extra holes and staining to deal with. I hope that I did a decent enough prep job and the paint lays down OK. As with the underside, it would have been preferable to sandblast the surfaces but that didn't happen so all the cleanup was painstakingly done by hand. My wrist is sore from wielding the grinder for several hours. There will be some filler in a few spots but nothing major.
Over the years there were a lot of extra holes made for various things. It would have bothered me to leave all of them so I welded them up save for a larger one the P.O. made just under the cowl for a fuel pressure gauge. Even with the welder settings on low, this was not an easy task because it's easy to burn through the metal and end up with a mound of weld to fill it. That's why I spent so much time with the grinder. Plus all my flap wheels are dull...
This was what I was dealing with. It will be really nice to have clean surfaces. Note hole for the fuel pressure gauge line on the left diagonal seam above the heater hose outlets.
Primer'd. I did not use any reducer in the primer this time so there is no sheen to it. I'll probably shoot another coat with reducer before paint since there will need to be some filler or at least high-build primer in a few spots.
Last - the tail lights were reinstalled with new gaskets. The weather stripping needs to be glued on which I'm not really looking forward to but it's gotta be done.
More to come.
Been feeling motivated lately and am moving forward at a decent clip.
After cleaning and re-paint, the rear end is all buttoned up and ready to go in. Fairly happy with the way it turned out. Got all new housing end and center section studs and gaskets from Dr. Diff and new brake lines that theoretically should not leak. Was on the fence about re-installing the parking brake parts but decided to go ahead with it.
After sitting in my storage loft collecting dust for the last several years, I finally got my fiberglass hood down and started to mock it up. There are already provisions for pins in the front on the radiator support which only needed to be drilled out but the rears took some planning. I studied old Pro Stocks to figure out the placement and wound up about 5 1/2" in from the sides and around 2" forward of the cowl. I may add a few more pins.
This is just the hood sitting on the bumpers, no pins yet.
The big step this time was getting the engine by prepped and primed for paint. This took a lot of doing and felt endless. There was a lot of oxidation, extra holes and staining to deal with. I hope that I did a decent enough prep job and the paint lays down OK. As with the underside, it would have been preferable to sandblast the surfaces but that didn't happen so all the cleanup was painstakingly done by hand. My wrist is sore from wielding the grinder for several hours. There will be some filler in a few spots but nothing major.
Over the years there were a lot of extra holes made for various things. It would have bothered me to leave all of them so I welded them up save for a larger one the P.O. made just under the cowl for a fuel pressure gauge. Even with the welder settings on low, this was not an easy task because it's easy to burn through the metal and end up with a mound of weld to fill it. That's why I spent so much time with the grinder. Plus all my flap wheels are dull...
This was what I was dealing with. It will be really nice to have clean surfaces. Note hole for the fuel pressure gauge line on the left diagonal seam above the heater hose outlets.
Primer'd. I did not use any reducer in the primer this time so there is no sheen to it. I'll probably shoot another coat with reducer before paint since there will need to be some filler or at least high-build primer in a few spots.
Last - the tail lights were reinstalled with new gaskets. The weather stripping needs to be glued on which I'm not really looking forward to but it's gotta be done.
More to come.
