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Okay, You've seen the paint scheme. What should I name it?

  • "Utter Madness"..Also a good name

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1962 Plymouth Belvedere "Jackpot"

58K views 247 replies 27 participants last post by  Road Angels 
#1 · (Edited)
So it's time to get a build thread going on my 62 Plymouth...I am going to start with a bit of history of the car...

But before I get started, let me say something...I may sometimes use the term "gasser" when discussing this build...yes, this forum is called "Gasser Hot Rods", correct? Now I don't want to ruffle any feathers!

I know what I am building is NOT an exact era-correct "gasser". It is NOT built to race in a specific "gas" class...I am aware of what a true gasser is, and I will be the first to say that is not what this car is.

What I AM building here is maybe a gasser "style" car? A "straight-axle hot rod", "nostalgia drag car", "2% altered","street freak"....whatever you want to call it. I'm not into naming a genre my car is "supposed" to fit into and building it to suit. When it is done it will speak for itself.

Anyway, I am trying to build is a bad-ass hot rod...Something fun! Something that is going to make you smile just looking at - then maybe your smile cracks your face in half when you actually drive it! Something I may have built in the mid-sixties had I been around to do it. There are elements of old school Mopar super stock, street machine, and gasser influences thrown in there. The idea is to have it look period correct as much as possible, but with some leeway given to safety and driveability. Some things like brakes and fuel system are just too important go for me to go really "old school" on.

Thanks for listening so far...:)
 
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Discussion starter · #2 · (Edited)
Anyway the history - Maybe 1991-92 or so...I saw this very car sitting in a parking lot in Daly City, CA. White with red interior - really nice condition. An old man's reading glasses and a cane sitting on the front seat, no joke.....I HAD to have it. I left a note on the windshield expressing my desire to purchase the car and then pretty much forgot about it.

About three years later,I get a phone call... "this is ..(can't remember the name), want to buy the Plymouth?"

At first I don't know what the hell he is talking about, since I am a Mopar nut gearhead, I must have looked at a dozen Plymouth's or more since then. So I figure it out, run over there with cash in hand, and make it mine.

First order of business was to rip out the old moldy carpet and the broken bench seat. It was originally a slant six car, but I set out to swap in a big block 383 - tracked down a big block pushbutton transmission, ditched the power steering, etc....

So here are a couple pictures of that FIRST restoration in progress, around 1995-1996 or so??


 
Discussion starter · #3 ·
So after the big block swap, there was still seat covers, paint, etc to be done. (the buckets and rear seat were from a 1965 Coronet 500 that I had)

Most if not all the mechanical work was redone, and in great shape. The car ran and drove great. But that paint....Ugh.. There were some rust issues, the cowl had some perforation into the drivers compartment and door jambs, and there were rusty lower corners by the front and rear glass. There were rusty bubbles beginning to come through the lower quarters on both sides. I located a replacement trunk because the lip had started to rot.

The body of the car was a ticking time bomb, but I didn't have the ability or money to fix it yet. I drove the car like this for a few years. I just enjoyed the fine running Mopar that looked a but run down from the outside.
 
Discussion starter · #4 ·
So in 2003, for various reasons I had to get rid of the car....But the fortunate part is that I sold it to a friend, so that it stayed “in the family”. I wasn’t saying goodbye to it forever, hopefully. When my friend took the car, he had big plans to fix the rust damage (which was advancing as every year passed) get the paint done, and recover all the seats.
So this car sat, in his warehouse, In San Francisco (salty air) Ouch! This car sat there for seven years. Although he had good intentions going in, we all know that doesn’t always work out. I had asked him many times if he would consider selling me the car back, I was ready to tear into it if he wasn’t going to. So finally, a couple years ago he sold the car back to me, and I bought it sight unseen. I was HOPING the condition hadn’t worsened too much over the years.
Boy was I wrong! The cancer got this car something bad. Here are some HEARTBREAKING pictures of when I went to pick the car up from storage...What the hell happened?!?!:


 
Discussion starter · #10 ·
I'm glad to hear the responses here ....Glad to see that members here are sensible enough that they aren't getting all bent out of shape about terminology or bashing repop parts. It's what a lot of us have to work with. This seems to me like a group that likes to build our hot rods, share, and bounce ideas around. GOTTA LOVE IT.

I 100% agree that it would be great to have a correct survivor - I could think of nothing better. But I am going to borrow a quote from my 5 year old: "you get what you get and you don't throw a fit". I am happy to be building this project with what I have to work with - There is a definite movement going on right now with the whole gasser thing and it would be a shame to sit on the sidelines and miss out...... The SPIRIT of the build is what matters to me, I am glad to find like minded individuals here

Anyway, I am off on a tangent there - Here are some pictures of the car coming home and some (Uuugghh) RUST DAMAGE

Kids love old cars!!
 
Discussion starter · #11 · (Edited)
As you can see, the rust repair was going to be a MAJOR project. This was just the cowl/firewall. The window corners front and rear, and the quarter panels had their share of damage as well:


 
Discussion starter · #14 ·
Yikes! That should keep you busy a day or two!
Yikes is right. What a mess. The bright spot in this is that those are pictures from when I started the project. The next set of pics I will post is are of the repairs. The rust nightmare is all behind me now..but I want to post all the progress to date until this thread becomes current.
 
Discussion starter · #15 · (Edited)
So the next thing on this project is getting the rust all cut out, making patches, and getting the sheetmetal all back together. The cowl area was especially tricky because there was the firewall plus an upper and lower cowl panel that covers the firewall. These three parts were all badly damaged and welded together with spot welds. They had to be cut apart and pieced back together with a variety of new patches in each.

It was like the worst jigsaw puzzle ever!




 
Discussion starter · #19 · (Edited)
Nice work! Did you have a donor car to get some pieces from, or was it all fabbed from sheetmetal?
It's all handmade out of sheetmetal - Although I have done lots of work on cars over the years, this is the first time I have done any sheetmetal/welding work. I practiced a lot on scraps, etc. before doing anything on the car.
Thanks for the compliments

Now we we are getting somewhere - all of the cowl is pinned back together, the welds are smoothed out and the bare metal is etched. Frame connectors, cage, and straight axle swap are coming next! Stay tuned!


 
Discussion starter · #21 ·
I am also on for B bodies only. I have a V Code 70 Charger and I will be using repop parts on the restoration. Some people might not like that but it's my car and I plan to keep it until I can't drive it.
Good to see you here also....I like the sounds of a '70 Charger. Good stuff! Hey, nothing wrong with repop parts in my book, it's good there is a lot available for your project. I wish there were even a couple parts available for my '62, really nothing out there. But I guess that is some of the fun, using what you can get.
 
Discussion starter · #23 ·
I recently finished the build of my '71 Camaro SS
Small world! One of my high school cars was a '72 Camaro SS. Sold it in I think 1990-91. That is one I really wish I had kept. That car was so much fun. That was the first car I took completely apart and repaired/detailed everything I could. Back then there were some repop parts but not much - front air dam, emblems, rally caps, this-n-that. The car was black with metallic blue rally stripes- I don't remember too many specifics about the motor but I had swapped the cam, Dart heads, headers, 750 double pumper - TCI tranny. It was fairly quick but real driveable. Good stuff for a dumb 17 year old. Like I said, fun car...miss it..sold it too cheap
 
Discussion starter · #33 · (Edited)
Ouch, this thread took a turn for the worse

I am seriously thinking of the spray on chrome process to re-chrome everything
Any updates on your car?
Yeah this thread got gloomy quick! Here are some updates, I will keep them rolling in.

As far as the chrome, spraying the bumpers silver always looks pretty good, in my opinion. Think of any car with fiberglass bumpers - painted silver - looks tough. I was originally going to straighten and paint my bumpers but ended up finding a good front (two actually) and my brother found a killer deal on a rechromed rear so I am good to go on that. But painted was my original plan

Anyway, updates:
As the cowl repair progressed, I also got working on some other rust repair. There were a couple spots in the trunk, the lower corners and rear lip of the back window were rotten, and both quarters ahead of the rear wheel were rotted through. So all that was getting patched as well. Also dent repair on the roof and top of passenger quarter where years ago a tree fell on the car. Also a big crease by the tail light panel where some yahoo apparently pushed the car around with a forklift while it was in storage




Patching the quarters:



And done:

 
Discussion starter · #34 · (Edited)
Before the front end started coming apart for the straight axle, I installed frame connectors (still a greasy,dirty underside - but not for long) These frame connectors were made by Hammer, a guy on the 62-65 Mopar website and B bodies website. Nice piece and a great guy to deal with.





Notice how these connectors pass up through the floorpan so they can connect to the center of the rear frame member

 
Discussion starter · #41 ·
I am still around everyone....sorry I haven't updated the thread, been busy. What time I've had I spent on the car, not posting updates. We have baby #2 coming tomorrow! While we are settling in with the new guy, I promise to post up A LOT of updates. Stay tuned - Craig
 
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