My 71 Duster Project
- Thread starter smartken22
- Start date
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smartken22
U.S. Navy Senior Chief
Well here is the progress from today. The trunk lid is complete and the dash is finished. Tomorrow I am gonna finish welding on the rear quarter panels, strip and POR-15 the inside of the trunk and fill the pits/block sand the roof. I will upload more pics tomorrow night.
Looks Great. I think I live in the wrong state LOL.
smartken22
U.S. Navy Senior Chief
Here is the progress from today. My plan is to finish up the engine bay tomorrow. I will send more pics tomorrow night.
Is that por 15 you used?
smartken22
U.S. Navy Senior Chief
Yes it is!
smartken22
U.S. Navy Senior Chief
Sorry guys, I forgot to send the pics last week of the engine bay. I got it all cleaned up and even laid some rage body filler to smooth out the rough spots. I cant wait to shoot primer next week! As far as the K-member and front suspension goes, I plan to restore that after I primer and shoot color in the engine bay. I also received my firewall boot for the clutch cable and my Z-bar frame rail bracket. I needed the firewall boot in order to repair the hack job for the pedal linkage (see pics) and I am going to attempt to put in the z-bar bracket after I primer this bad boy.
smartken22
U.S. Navy Senior Chief
I started the stripping process of all the paint from the car today with the fenders. My plan is to work my way to the back of the car. I also re-applied some undercoating to the insides of the fenders as well. Getting closer to primer day!
smartken22
U.S. Navy Senior Chief
Here is the progress from today. I finished stripping the drivers side of the car and started to repair the clutch cable boot area of the firewall. Just need to weld it up now. Tomorrow I plan to strip the passenger side of the car and any other final areas. This has been very time consuming because there were at least four different paint jobs to this car...the original blue, than black, than red, than black again! Sunday I plan to finish the final body filling and welding. Friday is off to the booth for primer!
smartken22
U.S. Navy Senior Chief
Here are some pictures from todays progress. The car is completely stripped down now. I have a few areas here and there that need stripped and will knock that out this week. Man, my Dad was right. This passenger side had a lot of bondo work done to it. It is straight and smooth though so I am not going to mess with it. When he first got it, the right side was put in a ditch. Cant beat getting her for $500 though! I did not strip the rear quarter panel because that was replaced a few months ago so I know that one is good to go. Tomorrow I plan to wipe it down really good, finish up last minute welding and body filling.
unknownsnake
Well-Known Member
moving along
PapstXX
Well-Known Member
go go go
Racingduster
Certified Welder
Looks nice!
Sorry I haven't been keeping up.like I normally do. I have been following so close on several threads that I am starting to soak it in.
smartken22
U.S. Navy Senior Chief
Here are some pictures of the z-bar frame rail mount welding project. I got the tranny up to make sure everything lines up. It looks pretty good to me. The only thing I am not sure about is how high or low the tranny bellhousing goes, but according to the measurements for the bracket that you guys provided me in the 4 speed forum I should be good. I also fit checked the shifter while the tranny was in and I noticed that the linkage hits the crossmember so I broke out the shifter that came out of the car originally and noticed that they both have different linkage hookups on the bottoms of the shifter. That brings my next question on whether those are the correct A-body shifters or not. I will have to jump back over to the 4 speed forum and do some research on that one. I know those rods were for the B/E tailshaft setup so hopefully the combo of new A-body rods and the shifter will make things align properly. Other than that, I got the clutch rod firewall hole all welded up and fit checked the boot. Its coming along!
smartken22
U.S. Navy Senior Chief
Well I was unable to get to the booth this weekend due to the nasty weather here. It decided it wanted to start pouring on Friday and Saturday. I am unable to shoot primer due to the humidity and getting the car soaked towing it to the booth. I do not want to come this far and risk corrosion because I did not want to wait for good weather. I talked with my buddy at the booth and he has it reserved again for this coming Friday so weather permitting I will try again. In the meantime I am kind of at a standstill on the car right now. I looked her over again and everything looks pretty good. There were a couple of areas that needed some attention and I fixed them. I decided to clean out my garage and get the tranny ready to build. I have a rebuild kit on the way. I am taking the tranny case and all the gears to work with me on Monday to put in the parts washer to clean them up since they are pretty nasty! I am going to degrease and pressure wash the bellhousing and get it ready for primer and paint. I am going to paint it hemi orange to match the motor. I also removed the reverse gear from the tranny finally. I was unable to get it out due to a special tool I did not have so I decided to make one. It came out nice and when I went to use it the reverse gear popped right out! I also sent some pics of the front suspension components that are going in once the engine bay gets painted. Pictured are all the tie rods, pitman arm, idler arm and both lower ball joints. I am still waiting on the new upper ball joints. I also got the official service manuals at a good price too and they have been extremely helpful.
smartken22
U.S. Navy Senior Chief
Here is the progress from today. I am finished with the car so I was looking for some work to do on her today. I decided to seal all of the corrosion prone areas with body seam sealer and also shot primer on the tranny bellhousing, crossmember and clutch fork. It is pretty cold here right now so depending on how long everything takes to cure, I should be able to shoot orange on the bellhousing tomorrow. The other items will be black. I have been watching the extended weather forecast for next week and it looks like it is going to rain here Friday through Tuesday again. Go figure, right when I am ready to go, the weather wants to play games. I hope I get a window on Friday otherwise I will be delayed longer again. Oh well, at least everything is completed as far as the body work goes!
smartken22
U.S. Navy Senior Chief
Well, I got the car all loaded up on the trailer and took it over to the paint booth today. After I got there, the owner told me he was having problems with the climate control/ventilation system and that I was not going to be able to use it. One of my buddies was with me and saw how mad I was and offered up his place to shoot primer since this is the second weekend in a row we have had issues with the booth. So we ended up towing the car over there and got it in this makeshift garage he built. We got the car all taped off, and wiped down, but it started getting cold on us so we had to call it a night. Tomorrow morning I am heading over there and we are going to light off two propane heater cannons to get the garage to temp and then shoot primer. As far as the color goes in the engine bay, if we cant shoot it this weekend due to the weather, then we are going to take a long lunch during work next week to do it. Here are some pictures from today.
HemiMark
Well-Known Member
:thumblef:
smartken22
U.S. Navy Senior Chief
Well she finally got some color today! Here are the pics!
smartken22
U.S. Navy Senior Chief
Here are some pictures of the transmission build while I am waiting for the car to cure. Everything is built up until I take the mainshaft and input shaft to the tranny shop tomorrow to get the bearings pressed in. After that I will be able to finish building the tranny. I plan to bring the car home Thursday as long as everything works out this week. It does not look like there is going to be much body work left prior to painting the whole car. Next plan is to pull the K-member and restore the front suspension and than install the motor and tranny. Once that is all in, I will shoot the rest of the car blue!
smartken22
U.S. Navy Senior Chief
Here are some pictures of the engine bay and door jambs with color on them. I plan to tow the car back home tomorrow so I will take some more pictures when the light hits the paint. It actually looks a lot better than these pictures portray!
That is beautiful.
smartken22
U.S. Navy Senior Chief
Thanks Cliff!
smartken22
U.S. Navy Senior Chief
Here are some pictures of the car coming home today. Time to start restoring the front end! More pics to follow...
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