72 TA : New Project

[Judges4u]

Steve,

Excellent info on restoration techniques. Your car will be awesome when done.

Have you tried any cadmium replating do it your self products from the following company?

http://www.caswellplating.com/kits/copycad.htm#

This company has several kits to replicate the cadmium (yellow irridite) process.

Thanks, Jim

[njsteve]

The body is finally at the body shop. I dropped it off last Saturday. He started on the paint and bondo removal to see what was underneath. I think we will now retitle this thread: "The Return of the Bonnie and Clyde Car." Take a look at the dent puller/bondo worm holes. I lost count at 167 on the driver's quarter.

Looks like she's gonna need a bunch of hours of metal massaging. No panel replacement plans since it is so rust free, just a whole lotta torch, hammer and dolly work in the future.



Or we could call it the "Lite Brite Special."



The view from the door jamb vent:

[VintageMusclecar]

WOW!

Ya gotta love surprises like that!

(Or not)

Eric

[njsteve]

Here's the driver's rear quarter. Very nice shape, no rust whatsoever:



Driver's side front door jamb/cowl area:



Passenger side front door jam/cowl area:

[njsteve]

A little less serious dent puller/bondo worm infestation on the passenger side quarter. There is a small rust area at the bottom of the quarter that we knew was there to begin with:



I could always weave some black string between the holes and call it the "Franken-Bird"

[njsteve]

The rear valance. This is an extremely rust-prone area on the 70 to 73 Firebirds. No patch panels are available. This one is completely rust free, just dented in below the bumper line and in need of un-denting. The upper area is supposed to look this way ( the fiberglass tail panel and tail lights cover all of the area from quarter edge to quarter edge. The only visible part is the lower valance area with the dent puller holes in it.

[Chateau Slate 66]

Amazing!

I guess it shows that these 30-40 year old cars could tell us a lot of stories if they could talk.

[mudjnky]

[ QUOTE ]
That's a very good question. I don't have an answer at the moment. I've never had much luck at using NOS decals. The sticky sides don't seem to hold up after 35 years or so. At least not the Mopar decals I've played with.

[/ QUOTE ]

Steve, have you ever dealt with Pheonix Graphix? They are usually pretty good to deal with. If they don't have your correct decal and you can supply them with an NOS piece they can usually fabricate it. I set this up for a friend of mine on his Bronco stripes. Not sure if he ever sent them, but they were eager to do the project. Just thought I'd offer the info to you.

http://www.phoenixgraphix.com/

[njsteve]

Actually, I checked with the folks on the various Pontiac websites for opinions. Those who have purchased the Phoenix Graphics version have been very dissapointed with the accuracy and the quality of the stripe package they sell for the 70-72 T/As. Stencils and Stripes seems to make the most highly recommended decal set currently available, though still not 100% accurate.

[mudjnky]

Are they not accurate because they don't have a good NOS set to duplicate? Just curious, you would think they would want to be as close to original as possible.