Fortunalty the guys that scanned my deck lid did a great work with the color shade. It matches very well.
That pretty much it for the visual side of the car so far.
I'm now waiting on my steel wheels that are currently beeing widenned (had those late 70's 15X5.5 - Front will be widened 1 inch to make it 6.5 and rear 2.5 to make it 8 inch wide)
Then I'll paint them same color as the car.
Did I do a perfect job for the paint of the car ? nope. A good job ? Nope. It's an OK job. The idea was to repaint the rear so it matches the front. And to that extent, I may have made a too good of job haha. I wanted it all the same color. It's now done.
Technically, things have moved as well :
Fixed the windshield wipers not returning to parking position. It was a little metal contact inside the motor. Took 23 seconds to fix once I found the issue.
Discovered this and fixed it :
Not a fun job for a guy with no lift. It's not an insible job, but the frame is now safe.
A bit of rust primer, and rubber over it. Good for another 20 years !
As I had put the steering box back on the car (and took the opportunity to swap the exhaust gaskets) I decided, since I had all the parts with the car, to change all the ball bearings and buschings on the front end.
I don't have the proper socket for the upper's. So a guy did what he had to do...
That pivot bushing on the lower control arm needed a little "detour" to a friend's house with a good press. But with that, it was done in a breeze.
Decided to put it back together with red loctite on the thread of the shaft, and with the bolt in contact plus 1/4 turn. Stacked as much grease as I could there... And I can now see that the whole shaft is rotating in the K member. It's not the bushing itself that swivels like crazy and self destruct in 12 minutes. Mopar did NOT do a great job with that pivot arm thing. Will see if my technique destructs the K member but I really beleie I'm ok.
Out with the old (that is just one side):
In with the new. Well, 2009-never-mounted-on-a-car new. This exact model isn't even available from wilwood anymore haha
Now all the front end bushings, ball bearings, bearings etc are done, I moved on to brake lines.
The only ones remaining are the ones going from the MC to the proportionning valve and the one that goes to the front passenger side.
All the other ones were either damaged or simply not there.... Fortunatly the car came with the main rear line et the 2 smaller ones going to each rear wheels, brand new.
Quickly made the little line for the front driver side in copper.
I slapped all of these on the car, taking my time (this time) - after all it's brakes. It's no joke. Used a billion of screw-in clamps to hold all those line secure.
The car also came with a new fuel line. It run off a rubber hose so far.
Slapped that on, too. Not the easiest without removing the tank, but I could do it.
Finally swapped the rear slave cylinders and gave a good cleaning to the drum brakes assemblies.
One last thing I had previously done is reweld the exhaust pipes on the back of the car. It had been slaughtered by the guys that did the floors.
And with this all, this car ran on the street - for the first time since at least 2009 (Previous owner said he never ran the car since he owned it).
That was prior to the paint etc. Sorry for this deconstructed posts - Just trying to upadte you all on my work on the car.
Those with sharp eyes and with no hard feeling for GM's may also see a little Camaro back there.
Well... I've only had my 2 pontiacs for years and years... And just after buying the Challenger I saw that camaro and could no resist to buy it.
This is an official General Motor France car, sold new in France in 1968 and it's a real documented RS/SS396. I just replaced the rear end on this car, the original one scared me on the 800 miles trip back home.
But anyway I'll end this here.
You are officially up to date.
