Archive 3

Journal

Archived Journal from 2011 to 2012.

1/2/11 - Had every intention of painting on some POR, but I'm missing the needed metal prep. I spent some time cleaning the shop up instead.

5/12/11 - No new updates. I made a deal with my cousin to repair the rust damage. He is needing some parts I have. I will also be using some of our tax return for some parts.

8/18/11 - I am now unemployeed. More time to work on the "fish". Between interviews that is.

11/3/11 - I have been removing the last of the flash off the body. The spears, rain channel trim, etc. All the stuff I was worried about bending or denting. As luck would have it, it all came off well. Then I tried to remove the drives side vent window. Big mistake. One of the keptsnuts broke off. I will have to leave it on. All thats left is both bumpers, antenna, locks and pentastar. Im also getting very close to having power in the shop. With power comes paint!

11/7/11 - I picked up the medium gold paint for the interior. Base/clear. Hopefully I can find a friend with space to paint in.

I found out some of my buddies have opened a machine shop and I am getting a few custom pieces for the Barracuda. Special adapters to use early Falcon arm rests in the Plymouth.

Since I have a small child that gobbles up baby food, we have a huge stash of Gerber plastic baby food containers. I found these make great bins for screws.

11/12/11 - Found a place to paint. That is awesome. I was also told about a product called Ospho that I am using. Is a metal prep and rust killer in one. It will allow me to sand down all the interior pieces, then coat with ospho and not worry about rust forming. My daughter and I got a few pieces sanded down and coated with Ospho.

11/13/11 - I finished sanding a couple parts from yesterday and aircraft stripped the dash. only have a small handful of parts to sand down before I take it all to paint.

11/14/11 - So yesterday I reset the "countdown to finished" clock. Seems I may have been premature. Now that the fire was relit under my ass to get this thing done only one thing could stop it. A job. Yes, I had a interview today and had the CEO tell me he will be putting together a offer letter immediately. Good news for my wallet and family. Bad news for the fish. If nothing else, I will have some spare cash to buy all the parts I need like carpet, windshield gaskets etc.....

11/16/11 - Got the new job. I start Monday. Looking forward to it. Im also working hard on the fish. The bumpers are removed. Only thing left is the locks. Also most of the interior, removable, sheet metal is sanded and awaiting paint.

11/17/11 - Got out the POR15 I have had for years and started coating parts. Here's hoping POR15 comes in black, because mine is.

11/27/11 - Sand blasted the last of the paint off all the interior except the dash. The dash was too large for the cabinet. I also spent some time cleaning the interior of the fish to get ready to POR the rest of the floor.

12/13/11 - I received a quote for a professional to vinyl dye the interior in the Barracuda. The front seats were cheaper to buy new covers than the price I was quoted. Everything else was close enough to buy new. To be fair, the person quoting had not seen any of the interior he would be working on. After the quote I was a little upset about the cost and vented to the EVBC and the MMCA, 2 top notch clubs I'm apart of and one member from the MMCA recommended Color Bond vinyl dyes. I found a gold color, marketed to the tuner crowd, and bought 2 cans, a touch up pen, and some cleaning supplies. Fingers are crossed that it will work. No other company I found online carried any gold colors in a aerosol can.

I'm also trying to come to a decision on carpet. I have seen sets from $99 to over $1400. Im currently looking at stockinteriors.com and Hydro-E-lectric. The Stock Interiors set is $355 and the hydroe.com is listed at $180. Though when I asked through ebay, I was told $300. At sub $200, I can deal with not having the correct color, but if the difference is $55, I will get the correct stuff.

CORRECTION: Seems the ebay retailer is part of Trimparts.com and they do carry gold colored carpets. They are sending me samples to verify and a photo of the heel guard. hydroe.com ended up quoting me $345 and does not carry gold carpet. Both companies don't realize that the 64-66 Barracudas didn't ever come as coupes.

12/15/11 - So, I was looking around google for a Skype pic that wasn't me and was clean enough for business use. I wanted to find either the Valiant V or the barracuda fish logo, when I can across a red 65 Barracuda using the hellfish logo. It happened to be the logo I modified for my web page(poorly done years ago is MS paint. ). So I run a search of hellfish and found at least one more site(non-car) using the same logo. I found it funny. The logo is property of the Simpsons and not mine. I can't be mad at people using stuff on the net and I'm not, in any way, mad at all. Just interesting to see how things spread and like minded people gravitate to similar items.

12/17/11 - I got a little time to play today and broke a part I needed. I have been gathering parts to rebuild the steering column. Found a harness from SlantSixDan at ForAbodiesOnly.com. Dan have exact reproductions made. I figured it can't hurt since the column is in pieces. I do have to buy the lower seal and find a good shifter lever.  Well, today I removed the harness and pulled it apart to sand it down. The top collar/ turn signal cam housing was out of round for some reason. I thought it would be a good idea to true it up. 3 or 4 hammer taps and it was almost there. A couple extra taps should have had it perfect, but instead I cracked it and lost a chunk. I forgot that it was pot metal. At least the tube is sanded down and my arm is sore.

12/28/11 -  The 56 F-100 went to ASC Racing and Restorations today to get running correctly and a little paint work. The Barracuda is getting more parts all the time. I found a set of motor mounts for $5 each and a rear window gasket for $80. I received the spray dye for the interior yesterday. I needed some thing to test it out on. I dug out a set of sun visors I picked up at a junk yard years ago. The vinyl was in good shape, but the stitching has come apart. I grabbed some upholstery thread I had and re stitch one some far. Its taken 2 day, about 4 hours, to redo. My fingers are sore. 

1/12/12 - The carpet finally showed up. Looks good, but seems to have a little more carpet than I need. I think one piece is for the trunk.

2/8/12 - Found a few parts I needed on ebay. Got a turn signal lever with good chrome finish, steering column lower shaft seal and AC/heater box rebuild kit. I jumped on the rebuit kit as most I have seen are for non-AC cars. It also comes with instructions. This weekend is the MMCA Freeze Your Buns Junkyard Run. I hope to find the upper steering column housing, that I broke, and maybe a replacement for the cracked section of my AC/heater box.

2/19/12 - I have all the parts now for the Fishes steering column. Well, almost. I misplaced the bearing. I spent yesterday working on the 56. I replaced the UCA bushing that were gone. We should be able to bring it home next weekend. Up next will be paint on the Barracuda's interior as soon as the weather warms up a bit.

3/4/12 - Pulled out the dremel and worked on removing all the left over paint on the dash. Got about half of what I need to do to it before paint.

3/11/12 - I found the broken column housing, removed the bearing and installed it into the new housing. Tried my luck at welding on the floor section with oxy acetylene. I am not good at it. I need to get some smalled tips I think and work with the adjustments. The floor is thin and rusty, so I was burning through a few times.

3/13/12 - Dash and interior pieces are in primer with thanks to Steve and ASC Racing. I have some wetsanding to do because of overspray.

3/14/12 - Gold paint has been laid. My prep work was not that good, but its at least the same color. Clear coat tomorrow and then I can rebuild the steering.

3/15/12 - Clearcoat is applied and looks as good and my prep allows. Ha! I had the bell for the steering column fall and roll across the floor picking up dirt and junk in the wet clear. I will redo it later.

3/18/12 - Parts all dry and back at home. Have a few parts I may redo in the near future because the base didn't cover as well as I thought. Got in a rush with the base coat and should have applied additional coats and directions to cover better.

3/21/12 - Archived more older updates from 2008 through 2010.

4/07/12 - Repainted the one resewn visor. Looks real good now. Need to finish the other and repaint the seats. Maybe this weekend.

4/09/12 - So, my overly messy garage is filling up with new parts for the Barracuda. In an effort to clear out space and drive the sleeping beast, Im thinking about "cheating" on the paint. Most of the body paint is ok or better. Its single stage white. Im thinking about just repainting places that need it and the engine bay, and calling it done. The doors have a couple paint cracks and some paint has peeled on the 1/4. So, sand down those areas and blend in with fresh paint.  I don't have the time or funding to take it all the way down and painting the whole thing. The paint on it is somewhere between 20 and 30 years old and had held pretty well. 

4/15/12 - Installed the shifter bezel on the housing, cleaned some of the bright work for the dash and installed on the dash, and worked on restitching the second visor.

5/2/12 - This past weekend I hit a swap meet and set up shop for the day. Did pretty well. After the meet, one of my car friends followed me home and took all my spare early A body parts off my hands. With the money I received for the box of goods, I bought a new windshield. Its brand new, was local and priced better than any place that had to order it.

5/6/12 - I was able to sale a few additional parts on Saturday. On Sunday the 56 was returned from the shop and the Fish left to get some welding done. While I had the Fish out of the shop, the kids and I washed off a lot of the grim that was on the car. It cleaned up pretty well. While its at the shop, I will be working on some last issues with the F100 and I have some paint work to do on the Fish.

6/10/12 - I went and checked on the progress of the cuda. I'm very pleased and excited to having real progress made.

While at the shop, I decided to work on the rear roll pan. It has a large dent and 6lbs of bondo. A little grinding, a pin gun and a slide hammer provided this. Still need to grind down the pin spots and grab a hammer and dolly to finish it.

6/24/12 - The Fish came home yesterday. The repairs look great and I can now get some work done. I have some interior painting left to do, but once done, I can install the carpet and headliner. The floor board repairs are great.Steve did a wonderful job making the 67 panel fit.

While the temps did hit 104 yesterday, I will have to continue progress on the Fish. The shop is still without power, but I think I can either run my small compressor at the house and wheel it to the shop to paint the little areas I have to do or roll the car our side and paint.

7/04/12 -  Happy Independence Day. Broke open another small can of POR15 and coated the repaired floor sections. I also "repaired" the rot in the rear of the car. This is hidden from view by a metal plate and carpet. The rot is the result of a rust hole in the body near the rear window. Since Steve (@ ASC Racing) repaired that the correct way, I thought I would try to patch the interior rust. Welding currently is not an option, so POR15 and fiberglass was used. This is part of the POR floor repair kit. I coated the floor with the POR15 paint and laid over a piece of fiberglass mesh, over the rust holes, and applied additional paint over it. It is dry and pretty solid, but I plan to add additional mesh and paint to make sure its tough.

7/07/12 - A few weeks back I was reading a tread on For A Bodies Only with a guy looking for a hood to radiator cowl seal. I started to wonder if there was a cheaper option than a $45 piece of rubber and found a test candidate. I received a 63-64 Ford Fairlane / Mercury Meteor hood to cowl seal from ebay. It is the same length and almost the same width(1/16-1/8" very small) as the factory Barracuda seal. The fasteners are not in the same spaces, but the first and last hole are. The Ford fasteners are a little bigger. Basically, if you are not afraid to drill a few holes that no one will ever see, you can save $30 with this seal.

7/09/12 - With the floors repaired and POR coated, the next step is sound deadener. While a Dynomax kit would be ideal, its not in the budget. A good friend gave me a old fashion tar based kits for a 69 Mustang that he had bought and didn't use. Since the price is right and the Barracuda never used a sound deadener this will be an improvement. The tricky part was figuring what pieces go where. I still have some trimming to do and need a body plug kit before adhering the deadener on the floor.

7/12/12 - Spent the day working on the heater assembly. I bought the gasket kit off ebay from Detroit Muscle. Not a bad kit, but the direction are poorly written in spots. Plus you have to buy spray adhesive. That little item involved a unplanned trip to the parts store. I still have more clips to add, but otherwise its done. The housing did have some cracks, but i think I have them fixed. I used 2 part epoxy instead of fiberglass resin, like I should have. It should hold up.

7/13/12 - Got the last few clips on the heater box assembly. Started breaking down the A/C box. What a mess, they were coated in tar inside. Scraped and cleaned the box then repainted it. Ran into a snag as I didn't have weather strip adhesive to attach the insulation to the inside of the A/C box. From there, I moved onto seam sealing the floor boards. Lastly, I pulled out the steering shaft and disassembled the u-joint and cleaned the shaft and painted it.

7/14/12 - Got the A/C box rebuilt and attached to the heater box. I also rebuilt the u-joint for the steering shaft.

7/19/12 - I had to stay home yesterday to watch the kids while my wife was sick. At nap time I snuck out for 5 minutes and put part of the steering column together. I still have to repaint the bell. I can't wait to see this complete.

7/31/12 - Just scored a set of roof rail seals on ebay for $50. Normal cost is about $80+. Now to find a windshield gasket and lock strip.

8/2/12 - No windshield gasket yet, but just won a set of Metro vent window seals for half of new.

8/5/12 - While rebuilding the A/C-heater assembly I found one of the gaskets were missing. I emailed Detroit Muscle Technologies for a replacement. It had been months since I bought the kit, but customer service was great. They didn't argue with me, just sent me the gasket. I will happily buy parts I need from these guys again.

I received the gasket yesterday and installed it today. While I has some extra time today, I started pulling the wiring harness from a 88 Lincoln. I will use the wires, and some connecters, to improve the Barracuda harness.

9/1/12 - Progress has slowed some. I spend a few hours unwrapping the Lincoln and Dakota harnesses. I must have removed a mile of tape. The Lincoln harness was not the gold mine I had hoped. Once it was apart, most of the runs are shorter than expected. The up side is that I have the improved headlight circuits intact. The Dakota was a different story. I will get to reuse the fuse box and the connectors. The connectors are super simple to remove and with new spade ends can reuse them in the new 65 harness that I build. I need to work out a diagram since I will be adding headlight relays and a MSD ignition.

10/18/12 - Progress is at a crawl. Have not had a lot of time in the shop. I have revisited the paint plan. I will be doing the rustoleum roll on paint method on the 65. I did in on my 89 Bronco II hood many years ago and it worked ok. This time it will be the whole car. Hard to beat $75 for a paint job. I will start with the trunk and engine bay this weekend. Then the hood and then the rest of the body. If I did spray the car, it would be outside. If I use a roller, I can do it in the garage and not worry about overspray. It will take more time, but I have time to do it. I did start putting in some of the interior rear panels in the car. These are hidden under the carpet when installed. I also pulled down that seats. I will wash them and spray them gold this weekend. The passenger seat needs the upholstery finished. Not completely sure how to finish it, but will.

10/21/12 - Picked up all the paint I need to start the rustoleum paint job. Bought gloss white paint and white primer. I decided to start in the engine bay since I want to get the engine off the stand and in the car. It is very hard to use sanders in there so I hand sanded. I got 2 coats of primer on the passenger side inner fender.  I will wet sand the primer next and will start on the enamel after that. I started sanding down the drivers side inner fender as well, but that side needs a lot more work before priming. I coated the exposed metal with Ospho to protect it until I can get back to it.

I also bought a rattle can of rustoleum clear coat to try to finish the interior at home. Years ago I bought a rattle can of gold to spray the inner doors. I didn't use primer or a clear and it looks funky now. I wet sanded the old paint and shot a little clear to see what would happen. As luck would have it, it was fine. I sanded down the area beneath the rear window and coated it in self etching primer. I will spray the gold. Once dry I will spray the clear. If it works I wont have to take the car to Steves to finish this little bit and can start to install the carpet and other interior parts to start moving forward.

10/28/12 - I carved out 2 hours for myself to work on the Cuda. I spent time with a bottle of Simple Green, over cleaner, scotchbrite pads, and a bucket of water to clean the firewall of the fish. I also spray painted the interior exposed steel under the rear window that I primed last week and the bell, that I had dropped, for the steering column. My last bit was resanding the passenger side door and priming it.

11/2/12 - First coat of primer was added to the complete engine bay, clear coated the area under the rear window and the bell from the steering column. I also painted the top of the passenger side door. As luck would have it, I ran out of gold spray paint. I will have to either buy another can of gold spraypaint or use the real stuff. I will most likely use the real stuff since I have it already.

11/3/12 - Primer and paint are dry from yesterday and the steering column is assembled. The color of the spray paint is not as nice as the parts I sprayed with base/clear. I may mask and repaint it down the road. Not sure yet. I also removed the wiper assembly for the car. I need to install a new seal kit, but that will need to be after paint.

11/6/12 - Finally got around to watching Desert Car Kings 64 Barracuda episode. Being the owner of a 65 Barracuda, this show made me laugh. First off, that rear glass is not worth $2k. Ebay has them for $200 to $500 all day and that is still over priced as they don't ever sell. The glass is $100 tops. They seemed to have used a ton of stuff from the 2nd car they bought including the engine and steering wheel, and likely the K frame and suspension parts. As for the 273 V8, the valve covers painted red hurt my soul. 2 minutes of research would have shown them that the covers should be crinkle black. There were other small details that I was amazed that they over looked. The rear emblem was not repainted for one. Then there was the starter. They are a junk yard and had no idea that a mini starter from a Dakota would fit and work better on the 273? Im sure they had a dozen or more there. The interior was nice, but I doubt that the cover were made and not bought. The steering wheel painted to match the interior, I get, but would have looked better brown since its a wood grain steering wheel. As for the crusher guy, I do not believe he would not sell the glass by itself. As a crusher, the glass costs him money. Value of the metal decreases when glass and plastic is mixed in and the overall weight would be less anyways when the broken glass falls off the crushed cube. Of course they got theirs finished and I have not. 

11/14/12 - Not much to report. I got the connector housing put on the steering column and a defrost vent painted. Been watching a bunch of car TV shows on line while at work. Lately its been Overhaulin'. It has me thinking... if your car was on that show, what direction would you like to see it go? On my Cuda I would love to have the hood louvered. 4 louvers per side of the hood starting at 6" x 6" from the rear corners. I'd hope to see the interior stay gold, but maybe 2 tone seats. No major stereo. Either a reworked factory unit with digital guts or a hidden MP3 interface. Rims would be 15/16" tops. 8.75" suregrip rearend, swaybar front and back. Flush mounted door handles like a 69 Pontiac Grand Prix. Paint would stump me. I have been set on white for some time. Pearled would look good I think. Pin striping would be killer. I saw a car car in CarCraft many years ago that had these overlapping pinstriped flames on the inner door that I would look great on the fish too. Oh well, no more dreaming, time to get to work.

11/25/12 - The past 2 weeks has involved a lot of digging. With the help of neighbors and my wife, I have buried about 140 ft of cable to provide power to the shop. Still have to dig 40 ft more and remove a stump then bury the last 60 ft of pipe. The cable is all pulled. Once connected to the meter we will finish the little bit left to do in the shop. The plan is to have power in there for 2013.

11/29/12 - Here is what I want for Christmas. HEI Mopar SB Distributor Reading a few reviews and it sounds real good for under $55. A new stock electronic ignition distributor is $45 at AutoZone. Time to ask Santa.

12/2/12 -Got 15 ft further dug this weekend. Stump burned out and a few mesquite trees removed. Im slowing down some, but making progress. 25ft to go.

12/9/12 - Trench is finished, cable and conduit are in place and no more digging. Left to do is finish the lighting wiring, install the breaker panel and have the main connected. While I was hanging out with the kids, I wash and started dying one of the seats( or part of it anyways). Its gold, but not the factory fancy bronzie gold, but it will do. The seat covers started out tan, so it is an improvement.

12/19/12 - I may have power to the shop by this weekend! My wonderful wife has gotten my Uncles brother-in-law to come over and hook it up as a early Christmas present. Looks like Saturday I will be busy finishing what I can and installing the sub-panel. 

12/22/12 - I have power! We had to pick up a new main panel for the pole and put 50a to the shop. I currently have 5 lights and 2 runs of outlets. All thats left is running some more conduit and cable to tie in 3 more lights, 2 of which are over my work bench. Since Im getting use to having power, I thought it was a good time to modify a door panel for the 56. After 2 broken drimel cutoff wheels and a jigsaw blade, I called it quits. Next weekend will be reserved to chopping down some dead trees in the yard and cleaning the shop. I also pulled out the dash pad for the Fish. I need to clean it up and work some magic on the vinyl to soften it before dying it gold.

12/28/12 - As 2012 winds to a close, I look back over the year and feel a little impressed with the progress I have made. This may be the most productive year on the Barracuda to date. The fish will be running in 2013. A special thank you to everyone that has helped this past year and all the others. 

12/31/12 - Update 43 for 2012. Starting sanding down body panels. Started with some that had the largest chips and cracks in the paint. Found a lot of bondo in some areas covering smooth metal. It will take a lot of time to get this ready for paint. There is at least 4 layers of paint or primer currently, which makes spot sanding a little harder. 

Just wondering, does anyone read this? If you do, drop me a line!.