Bye bye, baby

Well, another milestone today (so to speak...) my beloved 6.1L Hemi was plopped on the BOT to be taken to the body shop for mock up and stuff.  It was a not as difficult to get in the truck as initially expected and wrapped in a nice tarp in case of a stray shower:

Once there, they picked it out of the bed with a lift and put it on a engine stand:

now they will hook the tranny to the engine and finish off the mounts and stuff and all sorts of other things that girls should know anything about!!!

here is the progress on the making the transmission tunnel accept the MONSTER transmission:

seats and a small loss of a dream (sort of not really)

And Finally on the “good news bad news” category, the interior of the Chrysler 300 we had gotten is going to kind of work and no not at all!!  LOL!!  The rear seats are looking good:

  

Here is the seat without the necessary bracing that Mike had to fabricate:

 and the bracing for under the rear seat portion:

 

 And the seat with the bracing in place

 

But the all power front seats that have a memory that adjusts to whomever program it, will not work.  And while the front seats LOOK great; I guess we are missing the module to make that memory work and the wiring is entirely too complicated for this poor little girl, SO….  enjoy these mock up photos because....

 

We are going to use the front seats from a 2005 Sebring Convertible!

They are completely manual, no airbags, and not only have the shoulder seatbelt integrated into them, they will also allow passengers into the back seat.  The 300 was a 4 door car and we knew the seats would never really allow easy access to the rear seat, but with just us the back seat is not going to be used a whole terrible bunch, so it was a sacrifice we were willing to make!  However, it was not meant to be, so we went with slightly less posh seats, and all will be re-covered to match and look fabulous!!

Undercoatings and other thigns

 So things are progressing nicely with the Coronet!!  We’ve made great strides forward and Mike is doing an AWESOME job!!!  My hours at work changed, so forgive this late posting!!

Here are some photos of the underside of the car.  We are using the LizardSkin undercoating, 

before:

 and after:

Also we got a bracing kit to help strengthen the frame just in case a little lead foot HAPPENS to drop the hammer down….  I wouldn’t know who that would be!!

Parts, parts and more parts!!!

While I am reassured nearly constantly that the car has "good bones", most of the cosmetic panels need replacing.  Good news is AMD repops most of the stuff!!!  (AMD= Auto Metal Direct and repop = mass re-manufacturing of old/obsolete parts).

So, after a BIG chunk of change, we purchased a boatload of metal and sent it to the shop.  The only thing we are having a bit of trouble locating is the quarter panels which AMD does not repop, but Sherman does.  So we are good there as well, we just need to place that order....

Here are some photos of the boxes and boxes of the parts that have been delivered to the shop.

 Also Hubby took the tail panel, front clip and rear tail lights to the shop to be reunited with the car for the first time in at least a couple years.....

dustless blasting

In the wonderful world of auto services there is a relatively new way to rid an old car of paint and filler and so on.  Guess really any car and not specific "old car" but that is our application.


First is the usual media blasting, where one has to get non-operable vehicle to the place (via tow truck/flat bed hauler) and back to the shop or a new way: Dustless blasting.

As I understand it, (and I am a silly girl that knows very little about cars *cough*) the guy comes to the shop and removes the old paint and filler (and hopefully not too much rust) and there is no need to move the old beast!  I find that exciting and fascinating.


There is also less downtime because you aren't waiting for the tow truck guy to go get the car from the blasters and bring it back.  The blasting is done right there and all one needs to do is push it into the paint shop for primer.  Works for me!!!


Here is the old girl starting her primer:

a clever "storage solution?  tucked away safely in the rafters: