Looks great!
well, Iāve been putting in minimal effort on the challenger as of lateā¦because I was tired of working on everyoneās shit but my own. My dad is trying to take it to a big picnic this coming saturday so heās up my ass about getting the spare hood done and in black sealer. I started blocking it down but it was taking too long so I made him do it. He brought it back over last night sanded and sprayed with etching primer. I just spread some filler on little dings and whatnot on my lunchbreak, going to try to block it out tonight in between working on focus stuff, and I have to buy a quality HVLP spray-gun to spray it before friday nightā¦oh boy.
QFTā¦
plans for confederate flag on roof?
lol, yeahā¦I think in the past 12 months Iāve been a main contributor in the build of 4+ vintage bikes (two of which I literally did 100% by myself, though one was done as a birthday gift), the 120+hrs of wiring on the challenger and frame-patching. Iāve rebuilt or helped rebuilt 4 racks of motorcycle carbs, finished an h23 swap on a buddies 95 accord, and multiple free brake jobs for family/friends. In the same 12 months all Iāve accomplished on my own projects is the re-wire and part swaps on the cafe bike, rebuilt the brake system on my motocross bike, and now Iām finally neck-deep in the focus. Over winter Iām planning to store the focus and re-build my cafe bike, build the XS650 bobber finally, and do the bodywork/paint on this here challenger. I want next summer to be project-free. Iāll be 27 in january and itās about time I start traveling more seriously and checking off some items from my bucket list while Iām still young. Would be nice to also just enjoy a summer of cruising around, hitting the beach, hanging with friends, etc. Iām already feeling like summer is over, and I didnāt do NEARLY as much as I set out to at the beginning. Sucks.
---------- Post added at 04:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:17 PM ----------
naw lol. actually, I forgot to mention we took a sample of the paint into napa (a chip that fell off hahaha) and itās ACTUALLY real plum crazy purple. I convinced my dad to repaint plum crazy so I donāt have to do jams/trunk/engine bay. YAY!
so I blocked out the high-build only to find out that my dad DIDNāT completely get all the dark green paint that was on there (there were two coats of paint, original pea green color and then the shitty second spray of hunter green someone had done). judging by the area around the letters (letters werenāt removed before hunter green) I was worried that there was no real prep work done between layers and that there could be wax between them that would cause the new paint to lift when I spray itā¦wellā¦I was semi-rightā¦it āwrinkledā ever so slightly in a couple small areas leaving like a ghost outline in spotsā¦Iām not happy with it, but with how big of a rush heās been in and how much heās been nagging me I said fuck it and just sprayed it in black sealer like he wanted done by tomorrow instead of putting another coat of high-build on and re-blocking.
after blocking:
after black sealer:
Should had me blast it 
looks like a lot of mud. Screw it, enjoy it for the rest of the summer/fall then finish it over the winter.
I thought about it, but I was told by a guy that has restored over 20 of these that blasting tends to warp them because of the thickness/quality of the metal. 
They are really thin, you just have to be extra careful. Soda will not warp it, Iāve blasted probably over 300 cars by now and Mopars are the toughest, you do have to know what youāre doing with hoods, especially.
Whatās the typical rate for blasting an entire pony car? Joey told me before but I forgot. Ballpark is fine, Iām just looking to get a feel for price.
Well, itās onā¦but after sitting overnight it looks even worse. lots of fisheye from shitty paint underneath and all the outlines of the bodywork came back through somehow while it was drying. Looks like fucking shit to me. pretty pissed about it since it was a lot of work and I was rushed through the whole thing. At least itās sturdy, the old hood was gonna blow right off. I told him Iām forcing him to spend the money on soda blasting next spring so itās down to bare metal and I donāt wanna hear shit about how long it takes me to make it right.
removing all the trims from the old hood:
black hood on
fuck this car
that sucks but i do really love the look of the satin black hood on the car though.
Doesnāt look bad at a glace!
Did you overthin the paint? Seems odd that it would shrink back that drastically over night. It does really look awesome on the car though. Canāt tell at 55 right? lol
Fuck this car: LOL!
20/20ā¦ 20mph/20 feet away, car looks great!
The only part of other cars I see is the hoodā¦in my mirror.
nah, 4:1 mixā¦I did 8oz. sealer to 2oz. reducer (twice, 10oz of material didnāt cover)
like I said, anywhere in the pic where I had blocked it down and you can see hunter green is where it turned to shit. I know for a fact there was zero prep-work done when this hood had been painted that dark green so I really knew it was going to happen before I painted it.
Bump, is this car done now?
Nope. Maybe in spring. Dads been driving it exactly as those pictures. Iāve been too busy with bikes and such at my shop to swing a free complete body restoration and paint job for free.