This is not fred flinstone taking the coupe for a spin. Its me inside spending a few hours scraping dyna mat out of the car.
When i first built this i put two full boxes of dynamat in the car. With all that sound deadener and leather seats riccardo montubon would have felt at home behind the wheel of the chrysler.
this is what several hours of scraping gets you. Not to mention all the cuts on my hands. The aluminium skin can be razor sharp. All the effort will be worth more than a tenth. The boxes had shipping weights of 75 lbs a piece.
I just about have it all out. Just a few more hours and this night mare is over. Funny thing you never see anyone doing this kind of work on the tv car shows. Maybe bloody fingers is not what the public wants to see. i was told i might have to loose the dual cowl vents. they might not fit with the cage. i told jim i want to keep as much of this car chrysler as possible. what ever needs to be reworked to keep the dash and vents intact to do it. i don't want a bracket car type build. its a little bit of a harder road but it will be worth it in the end.
Kudos for wanting to keep the character features on the car. So easy to just shave everything off! jerry
The whole dynamat thing has always kinda made me snicker, considering how much of my youth I spent scraping undercoating and pulling that horsehair underlay out of old cars, and chucking it in the dumpster...
originally i wanted a nice quiet interior were i could listen to the stereo and cruise down the road. i also had the exhaust running under the car so i was concerned about heat in the car. after i ran the side pipes the heat and stereo were no longer a issue. i can't hear the stereo and the heat is no longer under the floor. i might change tho zoomies speaking of exhaust. the pipes would have to be double wall with the nitro. all the rules change with nitro. but it is cheaper than skin grafts.
66 it was built three weeks after i was born. we are both showing a little wear as we approach the big 50. maybe i will have a party for me and the car next spring. its amazing we both survived this long.
oops a few too many. i snuck in my sons 69 bee also. any one following along that has a hemi timing chain cover that has the hole to mount a fuel pump. I'm in need of one.
when i bought it in 84 it had slots on it. after a few months i had to have polished centerlines on it because thats what all the cool cars in hot rod had. when i got it back 26yrs later i rounded up the slots you see here. it gets away from the eighties look. i lost the mullet to.
when i moved here there was no shop or garage of any kind. i kept the antique bikes in the house. i found a guy seven miles away tearing down a pole barn and garage. i bought it from him and moved it over ten days. it was february and snowing. the whole building was nailed together. the garage was cut in half and moved. i had to wait a few months to put it up. the ground was frozen. it was resided this summer. hard work for sure but it saved needed cash for the cars. if you like the shop you will love the shooting range. i was just exercising my second amendment rights this afternoon. i shoot a 45 because they don't make a 46
I live in the suburbs of Vancouver BC, its about the hottest real estate market in north america. It wasnt always like that, I grew up here it was loggers, farmers and millworkers. Now the only people with acreage around here are Korean multi-millionares. I am building a 30x36 shop right now, its about 30 sq ft shy of the absolute max I would be allowed to build... There are times I have thought about moving away, but when I drive across the Fraser River on a spring morning, and see all that forest and mountains in front of me, I know I couldnt do it, its home.
I was out of town this weekend so not to much was done on the car. I did clear out a area in the shop for the frame. Its now strapped to the wall in my offerings to the gods of speed. Maybe some day i can tell my grand kids about walking away from the wreck. That is if my kids give me some. I got alot of shop cleaning time in also. I had quite the mess going after blowing the car apart. The old block and bellhousing are loaded in the truck. I will drop them off monday. They will be used for mock up.
Firstly, the important thing is that you're alright, strong a healthy. Cars are just cars and always are repairable. I like your wall though!
This may not be very exiting tonight. I stopped at the shop after work. I was able to remove the rest of the sound deadener from both doors. I was able to remove both the front and rear windows. They are both broken. I was able to get them out in one piece. This will save alot of time as i can use them as a pattern now. The new windows will be a special lexan. Not only will they save alot of weight the special lexan will allow me to use a windshield wiper. Regular lexan would be ruined with scratches. The lexan will also be safer. I removed the rollup rear window assemble to be cleaned up and painted. A few tubes are now on the frame table. I spoke to steve about the wheels. They did show up safe. Not very glamorus stuff tonight but it needed to get done.
the metal tray with the hose attatched is a factory part. They didnt know how to seal the rollup window back then. The rain ran into the metal tray. Its slanted to drain to the right. The hose drains it through the floor. I will keep this whole set up because i like it and its cool. the rollup assemble has been removed already. i also had round two with jim. it was a spirited discussion. i told him the dash and cowl vents have to be saved somehow. its going to be very busy under the dash with space being a premium. we went over some possibilities that may work. these little things are part of the soul of the car. they are whats sets it apart from other makes and models. we will make it happen.
the shop is full of stuff. every broken part has a story. i wish i had saved it all over the years. i have the pistons from my 48 indian chief when it went 100 mph plus to the diff cover off the minivan to nitro parts. i think the snapped dana 60 pinion is cool. the mag brad anderson valve cover got ventilated in a freak accident. we had run the car at the grove on sunday. we needed to go to atco nj the following weekend. we would always drain the oil before we loaded up the car to come home. for some reason it was not drained. on a blown nitro car some fuel always gets past the rings. thats why used nitro oil looks like a milk shake. the car had sat for two days like that. when i pulled the valve covers to run the lash i smelled the nitro that had evaporated. i put it all back together and fired it up. the explosion was heard by a friend two blocks away while he was mowing the lawn. the best we can figure is a plug wire was not on all the way and arched over to the spark plug tube. my friend just had his face in the engine compartment checking the timing. parts were flying everywhere. we never did that again.
Glad you are ok, but with 59 caddy tail lights on a 31 coupe something bad was going to happen sooner or later...
Glad to see the car's getting a second chance, and that you were able to have the opportunity to do so. Look forward to seeing the cars transformation, and love the ideas and passion illustrated thus far, keep at it. Cheers, Drewfus
The Jalopy Journal
