'71 Hits the Paint Booth

[Midnight_Rider]

Have you decided on a color yet? I thought the white/black combo looked clean & sharp but I understand wanting to get the bad taste out.

What was the original factory color?

[71charger_fan]

Still not settled on a color. My paint guy tells me he has just what I'm looking for after telling him of some of the other purples I like. He sells auto paint for a living, so I'm anxious to see what he's thinking.

I removed the door and trunk weather stripping and have about run out of things I can strip off before it goes to the shop.

The stainless at the bottom of the windshield was deeply scratched. I sanded it with 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1200, 1600, then polished it with a rag and Flitz. I only went to 1600 as I didn't have anything finer on hand. It'll be mostly hidden at the back of hood, so 1600 will be good enough and it looks lots better than it did.

[71charger_fan]

Temperatures have dropped again, cooling my interest in being out in the garage, but I did pull the front bumper.

[randy73]

Sweet, wish that is all I have to do to get mine painted.

Good job and good luck, can't wait to see what color you go with.

[71charger_fan]

I too can't wait to see what color I go with. I really want to get a look at a 2015 Lincoln MKC in Tahitian Pearl. I periodically check cars.com, but the closest one to me I've found for sale was 75 miles away. I spoke with the local Lincoln dealer and they not only never sold one, they said they hadn't even heard of the color. I was hoping if one had been sold locally, they could put me in touch with the owner.

[randy73]

dealers usually have a color chart, it is not exact as it is on paper and your painting metal, but should be pretty close.

[JB400]

Nice shade of purple if you go with it.

[71charger_fan]

I've found that you have to see the color in person. I saw a Nissan color that looked great online on their configurator; they were putting on Jukes and Maximas. After searching inventories, I found one vehicle painted in that color at the Nissan dealer in Hagerstown. I drove up there, found the car, and, although it looked like a beautiful purple online, it looked brown in person.

[71charger_fan]

Yesterday, I fitted new hood pins. As the escutcheon plates are smaller in diameter than the old ones, they needed new holes drilled. Best to get that taken care of before it goes to paint.

[71charger_fan]

I think I've stripped it as far as I'm going to.

[71charger_fan]

I went ahead and pulled the carpets as I've found they hold unbelievable amounts of body shop dust. I did find the reason my shifter indicator light hasn't worked.

[71charger_fan]

Well, crap. My painter flaked on me. After stringing me along all fall and winter, he passed me off to a shop in Chambersburg, PA. Seems like a top-notch shop, but it's almost an hour away. So, I headed over to a local body shop that's worked on the Charger before and has done some work on my '55 Plymouth. They're going to paint it, but they're not sure exactly when they can start. So, looks like a large part of the 2018 season is lost to an unreliable painter who continued to make assurances right up to the point he abandoned the job. Since he gets most of his work by word of mouth, this can't be good for him in the long run as I'm surely going to tell anyone who will listen about how this went down. The part that really pisses me off is that he had me strip it to get a head start. I'm not putting it back together until it's painted.

[Bad B-rad]

OH man that SUCKS!!!!
What a bunch of $h!T, WHY did he flake?
If he got sick, or family issues I can understand, but to back out just because, that is not cool!!!
And AFTER you stripped it down, and strung you along, yeah your right this can not be good for his word of mouth bizz!!
I have had SO MANY people flake on me like that, I KNOW EXCATLY where you are coming from, I feel your pain!!!

[71charger_fan]

If I hadn't stripped it down, I would just use it as is for another season and get it painted next winter. He has a shop at his house and he had another shop in another town. The deal was that he would paint it at his home shop over the winter and I could come and put in sweat equity to hold down the bill. For whatever real reason(s), he lost his other shop. However, he didn't lose his other shop until he should have been done with my car. I'm just at the point where I don't believe anything he tells me, so I have no plans to interact with him again. By Christmas, i was getting a bad feeling about the whole thing and wanted to switch up and take it to the shop where it's going to wind up. However, I kept being told you just have to be patient with this guy and it'll be worth it. BS. I think he knew months ago he wouldn't get to my car. Why he waited so long to admit it, I don't know. He even stopped by the house a week and a half ago to check out the car to make sure we were on the same page as to what was going to happen to it. Fortunately, he doesn't have any of my money.

[Midnight_Rider]

Sorry about your luck. On my last car, I had to go to a 2nd, and then a 3rd paint shop to get it done right. 

[Bad B-rad]

THAT SUCKS, but your right at least he doesn't have your money!!

My father and I had a 66 Charger, we paid the body guy a good down payment to do our car(only needed a lower 1/4 patch and a full paint job)
anyway long story short, I had to STEAL MY CAR from his yard!!!!
Yep, a screw driver and a jumper wire, and I busted my car out of body shop jail, and drove it to my grand parents house.

The State troopers called me to file chargers on the guy, and told me I was very lucky, I took my car back when i did, because a lot of cars that were there left that next morning, and DO NOT EXSIST any more!!!!!

Why are so many good body guys so "hard to work with"?

[71charger_fan]

I've finally found a shop with which I feel comfortable entrusting the Charger. I'm throwing the job to Doug Carbaugh's Auto Restoration near Waynesboro, PA. The downside is the Charger is about 7th in the shop's queue, so, at this point, I don't know when it'll actually go in. It was much harder than I imagined it would be to find a shop to do this type of work. Every shop around here only seems to want to do insurance work.

[hemi-hampton]

Bummer you gotta get it repainted. Tri stage paints like Pearl & Candy (real candy, not these new candy's) can be much more difficult to spray then 2 stage base clear or single stage with no clear. Takes experience. maybe your past painter did not have a lot of experiance painting tri stages? Plus they are always more expensive. I'd advise anybody to avoid these types of paints. LEON.

[71charger_fan]

Making the tour of other shops and talking to other body shop operators and painters, I've been told that the shop that applied the tri-coat had severe personnel turnover issues and that they sometimes had top-notch painters, but they rarely stayed for long. Obviously, they didn't have an A-team painter when mine went through the booth.

[hemi-hampton]

Making the tour of other shops and talking to other body shop operators and painters, I've been told that the shop that applied the tri-coat had severe personnel turnover issues and that they sometimes had top-notch painters, but they rarely stayed for long. Obviously, they didn't have an A-team painter when mine went through the booth.

I've worked in many body shops like that. Not uncommon unfortunately. LEON.

[71charger_fan]

So, I may still be a couple of months from getting the Charger into the shop. So, I decided to rip into the dash and figure out what was going on with my A/C-heater vacuum system. When I did finally get in there and trace things out using the FSM, I found the shop that I'd paid to work on the car had made a mess of it. Dodge made it modular and pretty much idiot proof. No need to remove individual vacuum lines. Alas, nothing is idiot proof. There should have been one hose pulling engine vacuum. They had hooked two lines to engine vacuum and left two vacuum ports open to the atmosphere. Explains why it never seemed to idle correctly after I got it back. Luckily, I had a complete heater-A/C box assembly from a parts car with its vacuum harness intact to use as a guide since there were two hoses marked with white stripes and two with red stripes.

[71charger_fan]

I test fit my AMD dual exhaust rear valance. I'm very happy with it. Only one bolt hole didn't line up and that is where the quarter panel got hit about 30 years ago so I assume it's the car and not the quality of the part. Of course the tailpipes are going to have to be modified.

[ACUDANUT]

VERY Nice 3rd Gen. Love it.    Unless your going to use the factory exhaust tips, I would have opted for the straight rear valance without exhaust cut outs.

[71charger_fan]

The box in the trunk holds a pair of Pypes repro tips.

[71charger_fan]

Hopefully, it'll finally be going to the shop next month. I decided, after spending a lot on a good bezel, gauge repair, and a repro radio, to go a completely different route and buy a Classic Dash panel and a set of Autometer Cobalt gauges. Yesterday, I took a good look at the headliner and decided to go ahead and change that too. I moved the RetroSound radio that I had in the dash to the glove box. I will eventually extend the wiring harnesses for the knobs and have a small panel made to attach to the bottom center of the dash to house them and a USB charging hub as well.