Hood Lettering Repair

As usual, the majority of the pins that locate and retain the hood letters were broken or missing. They had already been re-chromed, but whoever did that job neglected to repair the pins before plating. Since I had been concentrating on installing the brite body trim, the Plymouth name on the hood was next on the agenda. The repair process was time consuming, but not difficult since the results of the pin installation would not be visible from outside the car.

I prepared the letters by first cutting the broken pins flush with the back of the letter and drilling new holes in the original pin locations. A new, very sharp, 1/16^th inch drill bit easily cut the old pot metal, and the holes were then finished to size with a Dremel and a small bur tip. I oversized the hole enough to fill with plenty of five-minute epoxy to hold the pins securely. The new pins were cut from small panel nails.

I let the epoxy cure overnight and then installed the letters with a dab of trim adhesive where the pins protruded through on the back side of the hood sheet metal. It was just one more thing that wasn’t stock but the results worked out fine for a daily driver.

No pictures yet, but I installed the headlights today. Once again I’ll have to loosen several bolts that mount the grille parts and adjust every attachment point before the pot metal headlight surrounds will clear the grille. It must have been frustrating for the factory workers to custom-fit and adjust every car coming down the line.

I'll have to wait to accomplish the final tweaking when the re-chromed hood-lip pieces return from the plating shop.

Hood and Headliner

I repainted the hood three days ago and while it is better, it is still far from perfect. Remnants of the shallow hail dents are still visible, but I think most will disappear with color sanding. The paint has cured for three days now and should be ready to sand. 

Since I’ll be helping my wife celebrate her birthday today, I might not get time to work on anything car related, but I am anxious to finish the hood and get the last sheet metal installed so I might sneak into the shop for a little while!

 

While waiting for the repainted hood to cure, I replaced the cat whiskers in the door glass flippers and installed the headliner shell so I can determine the final trim lines.

 Ireceived the generic vinyl trim I ordered to see how it would look with the fiberglass shell. The factory pieces were cracked and broken and even if they had been usable, the OEM configuration wouldn’t work with the shell.
The fit seems to be okay but looks much different than stock. The color is more gray than it appeared in the manufacturer's catalog and I would have preferred a gold or tan tone. However, if I can find a fabric with a close color match it should do the job. Internet colors never look the same on a screen, so I’ll have to visit an upholstery shop to order from their sample charts.

The rivets I needed to replace a part on the flipper assembly arrived, so that job is done. I had to order a package of 100 to get the two rivets I needed, but a package was only $5.55 and I now have a lifetime supply!  If you ever wanted to know the part number and a source for those tiny rivets, here’s the info, and if anyone needs some to repair your project, let me know and I can send you a few for the price of postage.

Beginning to look like a car!

Record rains continue and summer heat will arrive this next weekend. Meanwhile, though not accomplishing much of importance, I did finish color sanding and cutting with compound and buffer. I'll wait to polish after it's running and ready to hit the road. Also finished a few visuals of body and trim installations. Both bumpers, along with the rear wings are now in place. I had planned to leave off the rear bumper guards, but if I do, the point where the wings attach to the bumper look unfinished, so for at least the time being, the guards remain.


Installed the trunk latch and release button along with the trunk seal. Looks like I will have to further slot the adjustment screws to make the trunk fit tighter.

The grille is in place and adjusted. That involved a lot of tweaking, but it came out okay.


Door handles also work fine so I should be able to glue in the seals. I will have to make some hinge adjustments on the doors as I'm not satisfied with the way they fit.


The hood paint job looked really bad so I'm working on it again. It apparently suffered hail damage at some point and despite a lot of leveling and sanding, there were too many shallow depressions visible while sitting behind the wheel and looking over the hood, so it's back to blocking with a long board.

As posted a few months ago, the hood really should have been replaced with a better one before even starting to repair it.

I finally created a tool to make it easier to attach the door-window frame cat whiskers to the stainless steel trim parts. Now it now takes only a minute to clamp the parts together and drill holes for the staples to fit. Trying to use the original hole staple locations was a big pain and very labor intensive, and I wasn't eager to use pop rivets.

Both doors will be ready to install the power window hardware as soon as the re-chromed window frames are done. No word from the plating shop yet, but I didn't expect them to be done this soon.

Not sure what to use to plug the holes for the door locks, but will probably just install the unused key receptacles for looks only. If I eventually decide to install locks, I'll use solenoids and hidden buttons or a remote.

I'll probably work on the headliner next. It needs to be in place before I can permanently install the "flipper" assemblies above the doors. I need to decide what method to use to attach the fabric to the sheet metal as the stock flexible vinyl molding is not reproduced and the original is in bad shape. The shell will have to be propped in place so I can try out a few ideas for mounting before I order the fabric.