SRT-8 Daytona Clone

[Stevearino]

So I got the car out of the spray room and covered up so I could start working on some parts. I decided to start with the hood and trunk lid as they will be the same color. I had a little fabrication work to do to the under side of the hood in that I had to make some kind of closeout panel to hide the area where the extension was mended at the back of the hood.

[Stevearino]

I case anyone was wondering how I went about creating the flared holes in the close out panel, after I created the panels and used a shrinker/stretcher to contour them to the hood I drilled a series of 1/4" pilot holes along the center of the panels. I then widened them out with a step drill bit. For anyone who has never used one these are an excellent nonviolent tool for making large holes in sheet metal. Unlike large twist drill bits they give you a nice round hole. The hole was enlarged enough to fit the center bolt from the punch/flare die. The two halves are then tightened down until the hole is punched and then the subsequent flare is formed.

[Stevearino]

Finally this weekend I thought I was going to get some paint on but only managed to get the K2 primer on and start to sand the trunk lid.

[moparstuart]

ill send you the visor for my nash windshield so you can punch those holes for me      nice work as always

[Stevearino]

ill send you the visor for my nash windshield so you can punch those holes for me      nice work as always

Send it on Stu. Send it on.

[rapidtransitrick]

i just read thru this thread start to finish. this is an excellent build. looking forward to your future progress

[Stevearino]

i just read thru this thread start to finish. this is an excellent build. looking forward to your future progress

Thank you for taking the time to go through the entire thing . It is getting a bit long at this point.

Well about 2 weeks ago I slipped on my kitchen floor and wrenched my back so I have been dealing with the aftermath of that so no work on the car last weekend. Today I had a couple of friends from South Carolina stop in for a visit so I took the opportunity to get them to help me roll the car outside to look it over in the sunshine.  Good that I did because there a number of places I thought looked good that need help on the body work. I am all pilled up but hopefully I will get over this back issue and get back to work both at my job (cause I can't afford to loose it) and on this car.

[Baldwinvette77]

AWESOME 

[funknut]

Looks great to me!  I've been following this build on facebook (stayed up waaaayy too late a couple nights going over all the pics, but I was hooked!) and just recently found it here.  Your fab skills are amazing, and you have some very clever solutions in that car.  The truss under the dutchman panel was really cool to see, everything looks rock solid.

Can't wait to see more, hope you feel better soon. 

[rapidtransitrick]

sorry to hear about your spill. take care of yourself first we will all be here when your ready to get back to it

[dyslexic teddybear]

First things first....take care of your back. I know how that works from personal experience. [also known as getting old sucks]

Your loyal fans are patient, we know perfection takes time. We know how things go, and most of us prepare and stock up on

Relax and put your feet up.....we'll wait.

[tan top]

  good stuff !!   

[Stevearino]

Thanks for all the well wishes. It really brings home the point of how vulnerable we all are. Pretty helpless feeling. Thanks again.

[Patronus]

Always following your thread.
Sux hurting, take it easy.
I like to push the project out into the sun and let it bake repeatedly during body work.

[Stevearino]

Always following your thread.
Sux hurting, take it easy.
I like to push the project out into the sun and let it bake repeatedly during body work.

Thanks Patronus. Being a one man band over here it takes a lot of time to move this beast around. So I took the opportunity with a couple of guys who were visiting to get it muscled out. Wish I could do it more often like you say you do but I swear this is the heaviest car I have ever tried to move.

[lukedukem]

Always following your thread.
Sux hurting, take it easy.
I like to push the project out into the sun and let it bake repeatedly during body work.

Thanks Patronus. Being a one man band over here it takes a lot of time to move this beast around. So I took the opportunity with a couple of guys who were visiting to get it muscled out. Wish I could do it more often like you say you do but I swear this is the heaviest car I have ever tried to move.

I bet that thing is as heavy as a 4-door sedan......
Lol, get it. Cause you used a 4-door sedan as the donor car.
Kidding, hope you feel better. Pills are great

Luke

[djcarguy]

   steel one of the dinning room chairs,saw the legs down ,few brakets so it dont flip into the back seat and drive it around in an out of shop??     hope ya get better an back, ta work soooooooon,lol..

    stu an i offered before to come down an help out at your shop ?? oh wait that was come an have you help on our projects ,i think..  oh well along those lines sorta?  thought that counts? Maybee 

                         new pix are great an show lots of room for several campers an more projects,haha..


                    get better, i know bout knee pop an falls in bath an kitchen,an slips an crashes.DJ    enjoy the site or few old movies? 

[Stevearino]

   steel one of the dinning room chairs,saw the legs down ,few brakets so it dont flip into the back seat and drive it around in an out of shop??     hope ya get better an back, ta work soooooooon,lol..

    stu an i offered before to come down an help out at your shop ?? oh wait that was come an have you help on our projects ,i think..  oh well along those lines sorta?  thought that counts? Maybee 

                         new pix are great an show lots of room for several campers an more projects,haha..


                    get better, i know bout knee pop an falls in bath an kitchen,an slips an crashes.DJ    enjoy the site or few old movies? 

I will keep an eye out on the horizon for the arrival of the campers DJ.

Well the back is about 70% so I have been trying to get back out and get this project moving forward again.  We all know how fun it is to try and sand and prep the underside of the the hood and trunk lid but it is a necessary evil that seemed to take forever but I finally got them sanded, sealed base coated and cleared.

[Stevearino]

Following Charger-Bodie's advice I had used the trunk seal to do the body work but I had taped it in rather than glue it in .  The only problem with this was removing some of the masking tape glue residue. I used some acetone for that and was able to use the seal .This is a picture of the final install of the modified trunk seal. It had to be shorted because of the size of the Daytona deck but it worked out good.
It felt good to finally be putting something back on the car to stay when I re-installed the trunk lid for the final time.

[Stevearino]

So that I would not have to go through all of the alignment issues again before I had removed the hood catch I had drilled 2  1/8" holes so that I could easily relocate the latch with some cleco's. Obviously not a tip you could use on a restoration but it worked for my purposes. I then permanently installed the aluminum rear hood closure. Here you can see that the color for the top of the car is not really black against the pre-painted black aluminum.

[keepat]

Color looks great! I'm looking forward to the body work on my car! Did I just say that?
Pat

[Baldwinvette77]

Amazing! 

[Charger_Fan]

Very impressive work on this build...actually, more like completely & utterly amazing! 

[rapidtransitrick]

looks like things are rolling along  smoothly. great stuff

[Bobs69]

How the hell is it you don't have your own TV show?

I get so tired of seeing these douche bags pumping cars out in a matter of weeks and making big money on them.