Projects 41 plymouth coupe 392 hemi build thread

Thank you Moparts! Unfortunately it has been raining here for the last 6 weeks or so, slowing down the build at times. And they call this summer.....

 

Thats funny...Shows what a difference the other side of the world can be...I litteraly haven't had 1" of rain in everybit of 6 weeks! Its great cause the grass doesn't grow enough to need mowed, but it sucks because its 95-100 degrees every day and that really zaps the motivation!

 

Thank you hemi v8. The plan is to finish off the body work in the coming months and then I'll get into the plumbing side of things. So hopefully I'll have the engine running by the end of the year, before I strip the whole car again and get it ready for paint.

 

Back to work on the rear deck lid today. I figured that the inside of the top lid needed to be cleaned as the inner has a few round openings from where you can see it. So I spent close to 7 hours grinding, cleaning and painting it........a lot of work for something you won't see much of. Anyway, in my excitement I didn't take any pics until I finished it. Pic #1 shows how it was before the welding/grinding was done and pic #2 is the final result. Yes!

 

Nice work so far on the deck lid. I love the fact that you take a huge amount of time to repair all the parts that no person will ever see. You are a true craftsman farmer. Awesome. A real inspiration to me and quite a few others I guess.

 

Thanks plumbid. Threw all my rust dust away, I'd have a bucket or two filled up by now! ........just not familiar with the term pack-rat.(?)

 

horder

 

I have to stop looking at your build... although I love mine, I am envious! Got the steering wheel to work!!! F*ck yeah!

 

Thank you Car for the appreciated words.

Thanks.

Thank you.

 

Wow car looks great wish I had your patience great work

 

Thank you BettyBlue. I'm glad you got the steering wheel to work! No need to be envious, this has cost me a lot more time and money than anticipated.

 

Thank you zombie77. Speaking of patience.....I've been hammering away at the rear deck lid this morning, but after a few hours, my arms were aching so bad that I moved on to the rear bumper. After drilling a few new mounting holes in the chassis, I mounted the brackets, attached the bumper, mounted the wheels and lowered the car.

I want to move the bumper forward by about two inches, so when looking side on at the car, the bumper starts where the body ends. It's getting a little late now (past 23:00), so I'm going to cut the brackets tomorrow and figure out the final position. Here's a pic I just took, before it got dark. (deck lid is just laying there, waiting for some more beating.)

 

Looking good, Eric! Since I got distracted, you'll likely beat me in getting yours finished. But as I said when I started, I'm in no hurry.

 

Looking good!

 

Thank you Rock. No rush here either!

Thank you KustomCars.

 

As always, your work is amazing Eric. Hang in there, tired arms and all.

David

 

That trunk lid skin looks like nice,so it was worth to spend some time with hammering it.Keep up the good work!

 

Love the first pics you posted...cant wait to see the new stance.

 

Thank you for the kind words David. Every day working on the car, is a day closer to driving!

Thank you Finnrodder. I'm not done with the trunk lid just yet! More hammering tomorrow.

 

The new stance is going to be very similar to the first pics. That's one of the things I liked about it when I bought it.

I moved the car out of the garage slightly this morning in order to get a good side view of where to cut the bumper brackets. (I'm probably the only person in the world that needs 4 hours of thinking, measuring, cutting, re-measuring, etc in order to get the job done.....) But now it's in the correct position. I'm going to get some steel this week and weld on the new brackets. More tomorrow.

 

Great work Eric....been watching this from the start.
Heckuva lot of fabrication goin on there.

The picture just posted showing the rear bumper.... Are you going to use a pan/apron between it and the body?...modify the old one? How much farther in is it going to be? Was there a particular dimension you were after; or just move it closer in so that it blends better?

Are your bumpers going to be chromed, or painted?

Gatz

 

Looking great Eric!! I'm interested in seeing what you do with the rear gravel pan. I moved my rear bumper and pan in as far as possible without sectioning, but another inch would be great. Are you planning on sectioning the pan?

Keep up the awesome work my friend!

 

Thank you gatz.

I will be using an apron there for sure. I was going to modify the old one, but you know me, I'll probably make a new one this week. I like some of the features of the old one, but I'm going for a cleaner look. There are three brackets underneath it that I will use again in combination with new sheetmetal.

I've moved the bumper forward 54mm so that when you look at the car side-on, the bumper starts where the body ends. I've always thought that the pan was tooooo big, looking like an afterthought from the designers.

The bumper will be chromed after I've welded the 7 bolts in, giving it a clean look.

I hope I've answered your questions gatz. Glad you're still enjoying the build after this long time!

 

Hi Eric, i'm still admiring your incredible patience! just wow, what you're doing. your car is in best hands!

Cheers, Carsten

 

Thank you my friend. I think I've just about answered your questions with the reply to gatz.....

One thing with the bumper/brackets/pan is that you can still change it Rich, even after you have finished the car! In your case, sectioning would be a good way to go I think.

 

Thank you Carsten for the great words. Maybe patience should become my middle name. Considering the amount of time I've put in this project so far, a few more hundred hours won't hurt. I just don't want to rush to that finish line.

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again, this is one of the best and informative build threads here on the Hamb. This build thread has had more views than any other project! Congrats. Keep up the great work.

 

the rear bumper looks a lot better now. good job!

 

Thank you Hogman. I think that it's just unbelievable that the thread has had more than 350.000 views so far! And it has probably made some people look at a map to find out where the Netherlands actually is.

 

Today was bumper bracket time! I got some 5mm steel and drilled the necessary holes, then cut to size. I spot welded them on the bracket with the bumper in place. My mig welder isn't strong enough to properly penetrate, so I took them to my buddy Jaap (prof welder) to finish it off. Came out looking perfect. Next: mounting and adjusting.