Dad and I decide to purchase and restore a 1974 Challenger...

Looks great!

well, Iā€™ve been putting in minimal effort on the challenger as of lateā€¦because I was tired of working on everyoneā€™s shit but my own. My dad is trying to take it to a big picnic this coming saturday so heā€™s 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 Iā€™ve 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. Iā€™ve 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 Iā€™ve 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 Iā€™m finally neck-deep in the focus. Over winter Iā€™m 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. Iā€™ll be 27 in january and itā€™s about time I start traveling more seriously and checking off some items from my bucket list while Iā€™m still young. Would be nice to also just enjoy a summer of cruising around, hitting the beach, hanging with friends, etc. Iā€™m already feeling like summer is over, and I didnā€™t 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 itā€™s ACTUALLY real plum crazy purple. I convinced my dad to repaint plum crazy so I donā€™t have to do jams/trunk/engine bay. YAY!

so I blocked out the high-build only to find out that my dad DIDNā€™T 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 werenā€™t 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 ā€œwrinkledā€ ever so slightly in a couple small areas leaving like a ghost outline in spotsā€¦Iā€™m not happy with it, but with how big of a rush heā€™s been in and how much heā€™s 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 :slight_smile: 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. :frowning:

They are really thin, you just have to be extra careful. Soda will not warp it, Iā€™ve blasted probably over 300 cars by now and Mopars are the toughest, you do have to know what youā€™re doing with hoods, especially.

Whatā€™s the typical rate for blasting an entire pony car? Joey told me before but I forgot. Ballpark is fine, Iā€™m just looking to get a feel for price.

Well, itā€™s 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 itā€™s sturdy, the old hood was gonna blow right off. I told him Iā€™m forcing him to spend the money on soda blasting next spring so itā€™s down to bare metal and I donā€™t 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.

Doesnā€™t 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. Canā€™t tell at 55 right? lol

Fuck this car: LOL!

20/20ā€¦ 20mph/20 feet away, car looks great! :slight_smile:

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 didnā€™t 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. Iā€™ve been too busy with bikes and such at my shop to swing a free complete body restoration and paint job for free.