Bringing it back to factory specs!

[resq302]

Well, haven't been able to get some work on the car done at Dad's house since my kids, wife, and myself have all been either fighting the flu or strep throat. Fortunately, I had brought home some parts to my house to work on so at least I am making some progress. Up first is the hood latch assembly (primary latch and release mechanism) which was done in brown zinc.



(pay no attention to the white grease that is messy!) lol



original / unrestored 44 year old headlight surrounds. (soon to be repainted to get the chips out!)





stripped down one so I have one to compare while I restore the other one.

 

[resq302]

Still not feeling 100% but got a little more progress done today.

Red insert in the grille air brushed in.







Wiper motor is almost ready to get back together. Just waiting on the barrel to come back from the platers.

 

[Budnicks]

looks good !!

 

[resq302]

So after being sick for quite a few days (strep and virus getting bounced around between my kids and wife) I finally got a chance to get back to Dad's yesterday and get some work started back on the car. I gotta say, its a great feeling to be doing some progress on the car! I also got a surprise when I came home from my Dad's. The stuff from the plater's arrived! Great day all around!

Here are some finished pics of the grille! I am glad this is done as this was probably the most difficult grille I have ever had to do. LOTS of masking as there are 4 different colors to paint.









Headlight buckets and hardware installed also!










Hood latch and release reinstalled after being refinished/restored.







Horns were blasted and repainted. (flash seems to have washed out the shine on the paint, more glossy in real life)



Date coding on horns: (faint stamping) 24th week of 1968 and 35th week of 1968 (vehicle SPO date of 10/3/68)





After the lower blacked out orgnaisol paint was nice and dry (worked out well with my illness for allowing a good dry), Dad and I applied the reflective pin stripe. If you are wondering what the wet area under the car is, we washed the black area to make sure there was no dust or overspray residue left on the black so we got a good adhering of the pin stripe.









This seemed like a nice shot for a screen saver!




As I said earlier, we got the plated parts back yesterday so I reassembled the electrical parts back into their housings for the starter relay and horn relay. From what my plater told me, he is 1 of about 6 people that he is aware of who can legally do Cadmium Cyanide, per EPA regulations. This is the company who did our products and they turned out great! http://www.oldschoolplating.com/plating-services





Starter relay dated 37th week of 1968.





Horn relay dated 261st day of 1968.



Wiper motor restoration. (I hope Jules the Wiperman would be proud!) Wires cleaned up and re-wrapped in the dry wrap tape. Armature and brushes cleaned up. Barrel housing and screws that held the magnets to the barrel all replated in correct plating. Red Glyptal sealant applied where it was originally.







Thats all for now till I at least get the carburetor reassembled and the brake booster assembled.

 

[69hemibeep]

Makes you want to find some mud puddles to run threw when you get done I have mine in the air for its annual cleaning before I have it judged in Vegas.

 

[resq302]

You joke about the mud puddles but rest assured, I'm sure at one point the car will get muddy as we plan on driving this car all over the place with the exception of long distance shows where we have the bias ply tires on it.

 

[Budnicks]

Looking very nice, your doing a top notch job, great documentation/photos of the progress too

 

[resq302]

Thanks. Forgot to mention the date coding on the wiper motor is also correct. 267th day of 1968. I had also come across a date coding on the front brake drum. H168 ! Granted, I would still want to try and find a paper trail to back it up but that date code breaks down to Aug. 16, 1968, again, in proper time frame with the rest of the date codes in the rest of the car so far. I find it highly unlikey that a car with over 100,000 miles would be able to retain its factory installed brake drums. When we got the car, it still had the original factory H exhaust pipe on the car, ball joints, tie rods, rubber bushings, all original sheet metal, original glass including windshield, original convertible top, weather stripping, and even the factory installed drive train. When we got the car the odometer said something around the high 9000 mark and rolled over to 10,000 mile mark. When we bought the car we were told it had over 100,000 miles. With this recent finding on the brake drum, what is everyone elses opinion? Personally, I'm beginning to lean more and more towards this car being a low mileage car. :welcoming:

 

[resq302]

Got a little more work done last night with the parts at my house. I got the power drum brake booster reassembled. With any luck I will be able to get over to my Dad's house tomorrow and get the carburetor back on it (after I reassemble that tonight) and get the car mobile again! I am also hoping to pull the front wheels on the car tomorrow as I found that the front brake drums are possibly the original ones to the car. Date coding of H 16 8 which turns out to be Aug. 16, 1968 right in line with the rest of the stuff on the car date wise. Now, with everything else that was original and on the car, I am really wondering if that 110,000 miles isn't only 10,000 miles as the car only has enough numbers for xx,xxx and people assumed it had rolled over 100,000 miles due to the age of the car. My personal feeling would be that these drums would have been worn way past their min. thickness sometime during the mileage if the car indeed does have 110,000 miles. Now it would be more likely to have 10,000 miles since they are still on there. I guess I will know more tomorrow when I get to pull the wheels off the car and hopefully pull the brake drums off. Really, really hoping that there are penta stars on the brake shoes!

Anyway, here are some more pics for your viewing pleasure of the original choke theromostat (made by Carter), the power drum brake booster, and the original (replated) date correct power steering pressure line. I still have to try and reapply the yellow lettering and lines to it to make it exact to the original factory installed appearance.

Choke thermostat



Midland Ross style power drum brake booster







Original power steering pressure line - Dated 270th day of 1968

 

[resq302]

So I got the carb reassembled last night and installed onto the car today. Didn't have a chance to fire it up and fine tune it (you'll see why later) plus a bunch of other things done today on the car.



Notice the green teflon coating still on the primary throttle shaft! (yes, I know the one bracket is on upside down for the choke pull off, it was since fixed after I installed it on the car)





Also got the trunk weather stripping back on. Man I love the way it looks! Correct yellow adhesive that was on there before was reapplied just as the factory would have done.











Dad got the correct wide pattern sealed beam GE headlights reinstalled. (just have to paint the surrounds and the front end will be done!)



Pulled the pass side wheels off and confirmed the original dated brake drums were still there! Also found the original red paint on the drum faces confirming road wheels from the factory! As an added bonus, found a green inspection mark on the hub snout!

Front drum:









Rear drum: (again, more red paint found under the cast gray paint someone put on)



Date coding of 8J18 !



BUDD (manufacturing company) cast into the drum.

 

[resq302]

Lets see how good of a trained eye everyone here has. Below is a picture of the two headlight surrounds for our GTX. One has been restored while the other is factory applied stuff.

 

[resq302]

Meanwhile, here are some other things that I restored.

Hood secondary latch. Black zinc.



Date coding - 271 8 (271st day of 1968)



Also while I had the wiper motor out, I pulled the back up / neutral safety wire harness out and repaired a couple of cuts and cracks to the insulation. I also had to replace one of the Packard 56 terminals as part of it broke off when I was removing it from the wiper motor harness plug. Once all the repairs were made, it was re-wrapped back in the dry wrap tape.

 

[Big John]

Lets see how good of a trained eye everyone here has. Below is a picture of the two headlight surrounds for our GTX. One has been restored while the other is factory applied stuff.

Top one is resto.

 

[69hemibeep]

I agree

 

[resq302]

Correct! I guess the faded black on the lower one kind of gave it away. lol. Oh well.

 

[69hemibeep]

Where is our prize

 

[resq302]

Oh, crap! I mentioned there would be a prize? Bummer. lol. The prize is more pics and write ups of the on going resto! More to come soon, but have to wait for my recovery from my surgery today.

 

[Budnicks]

nice detailed work

 

[resq302]

Thanks. Got the other headlight surround restored. Starting to run out of exterior things to do! Soon I will be moving onto the engine and components resto!

 

[resq302]

Ok, so lots of progress in the last 2 days when I was at my Dad's house! I started disassembling the engine to get it all cleaned up, repainted, proper factory items put back on, etc. Here are some before pics of the engine.























Correct horn mounting bolts



Original engine harness with original fuseable link.







Original Chrysler water pump!









Grille and headlight bezels back on! Looking good! Also Westinghouse and GE original sealed beam headlights with wider diffusers.







Original condenser mounted on the bolt holding the ignition coil down. (disregard the blue tape, just so I remember which side of the ignition coil it attaches to)





Engine ID stamping pad





As you can see, someone had painted it red before it was painted the street hemi orange again. I was able to find the factory applied street hemi orange under some of the red areas that also flaked off. I'm guessing the paint prep was not done that well on the engine.






Original Chrysler temp sending unit.








Tail light bezels that were rechromed and repainted.







Restored striker and secondary hood latch.






Fixed fan removed from the engine and cleaned up. Someone had painted it black with the solid aluminum spacer on it at the time. I guess I should actually thank them as they covered up the ink stamping on the "ENGINE SIDE" of the fan revealing this when I removed the spacer to strip the paint off.