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72 Plymouth Roadrunner -- Body Work & Prep (Click on pictures to enlarge) ====================================================================== |
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| Looking like something off the Batmobile, this is actually the front valance (Upside Down).
This was heavily damaged from being the first part of the car to meet the road. Dents from curbs and rust everywhere, many hours were spent getting this piece ready for paint. |
A view of the underside of the hood.
Everything from battery acid damage to olive drab paint (no idea where that idea came from), to engine soot and oil was on this thing. Had to prepare and paint the under side of the hood prior to final painting. |
This was a big problem. Looked to me like the previous owner squeezed the big 6' wide car between 2 trees only 5' 11" wide or something!
My brother welded these pieces of scrap to the side and then had to pull on em with a "come along" to get the metal back where it belonged. |
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| Side view of the process. The masking tape helped figure out the body line.
The paint color that you can see inside the trunk was the cars original color. |
The car is down to bare metal and you can see how the body line has been restored.
Still have to file off any welds and then continue to shape and mold those awkward Mopar curves. |
Still plenty of work to do on this quarter. Every bit of this B Body Car is curved. I guess the experience gained by working on paying customer's cars has paid off!
Notice on the far left -- a shrink wrapped Chevy 383 Stroker motor. (ICK!) |
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| Bondo seen easing it's way up the side of the car.
I soon appreciated that body men are really sculpture artists. Removing 30 years of dents was way more work than I imagined. |
This is how the car sat in 1997.
The engine bay has been painted and the restored engine has been installed back where it belongs. |
Had to cut and weld in a small amount of metal behind the wheel wells.
Notice on the milk crate sits my old 3:23 open rear end (that don't sound right). Really need to put that away.. |
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