Welcome to the Michigan FBody Association website.
The Michigan FBody Association is a centralized website for FBody enthusiasts to discuss what's going on in the Michigan area. MiFbody.com was created to allow for an easy one-stop place to find out what's going on in Michigan as far as FBody events, to find out what clubs are available in your immediate area, and for an easy place to post classifieds for items you want to sell! Our goal was to create a more close-knit community of FBody enthusiasts in the state of Michigan, and to bring Camaro and Firebird enthusiasts alike together for some amazing FBody events!
The most important thing to know about the Michigan FBody Association is that we are NOT a club! The Michigan FBody Association is open to everyone, and is a community. Thus, we will have get togethers, casual cruises, events, and such like that, but this is not an exclusive club and it's 100% free to join this site! So what are you waiting for? Register now!
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us!
I try not to be too overly paranoid as I cruise the interwebs...I'm certainly not worried about you and Don! But I was playing with Gimp editing software for something else, and thought I"d try it out. I'll probably end up posting pics of the contents anyway, so no big deal.
Transported to detail shop yesterday. I went and met with them to go over what needed to be done. They seemed very nice, and interested in helping save the car. It's stored indoors, and behind a locked gate, so it should be in good hands.
The cement under the car, not so good. A lot more carbon and soot than I had hoped. Probably means that despite appearances, the underside of the car has a little soot on it too.
To give you an idea of how thoroughly the smoke leached it's way into small space, those squares with an X shape in them...those were gallons of distilled water for the new radiator. The X is the moulded shape of the bottom of the jug.
The white outline is where a piece of rolled up carpet was sitting under the car. Front of car was to the left, fire to the lower right. It's amazing how the smoke traveled, with more soot up under the front of the car than there is nearer where the fire was. There are cabinets in front of the car that are heavily covered in soot, while items 2 feet from the fire are much cleaner.
I'll try not to bore you with all of the tedious steps of the cleanup process. But for a lot of the contents of the shop, cleanup is on me. And much of it will go like this past day did (or at least I hope it will).
Thus far, for items stored in a container or box with a full lid, the contents survived well. No detectable smoke smell, no soot. So I'm taking those containers, laying them out on sunny days to air out and bake in the sun (helps break down the smoke molecule).
Plastic containers absorb too much smoke smell to clean, and must be replaced. Obviously, the same is true for cardboard as well. I started with these plastic containers. After a day in the sun and fresh air, I transferred all the contents to new containers, and stacked them away in the back garage. I did do one copy paper box of stuff. It did not fare as well, as you could easily see the smoke and carbon/soot got under the edges of the lid all the way around. The smoke molecule is tiny, and gets everywhere. Unless sealed air tight, there's going to have been some level of smoke damage. In this case, the box was full of old magazines, and after a day outside, there was no detectable smell, and no detectable soot deposits. So they did NOT have to go through the bagging with baking soda procedure seen above with the build sheet. Got lucky.
We'll see later how the old containers with split design lids, or cardboard boxes with folded flaps fared. The parts that are not in a container of any kind will require quite a bit of work, if they are savable.
Yes, I'll be back at it tomorrow and through the weekend.
This is the easy part. Just airing it out, and swapping boxes. It's the item that are unboxed....Chrysler wheelwell trim still in it's original paper and plastic 40+ year old packaging...3 bulge (one Ramcharger) hoods for 71-74 Chargers, an NOS finder for the Cordoba, and NOS deck lid for the Cordoba, and entire, assembled, take-off concealed from headlamp bumper and grill system for the '72 Charger, etc. etc.....those are the things that are going to be a ***** to clean, dry and re-store in some manner.
Lots of parts unboxing and cleaning to do...100s and 100s of pieces.
Container arrived yesterday (Thursday). "Contents" crew was going to be here Monday, but we backed that up a week so I can make more progress on my part of the deal.
Broke into a stack of boxed parts today. Except for a pitman arm for the T/A, it's all Mopar parts....refinished 340 (Charger) A/c brackets and fasteners, restored Charger HVAC controls, floor mount cassette player and housing, Ramcharger hood vacuum harness, dash switch and bezel, solenoids, concealed headlamp relays, Charger cruise control system, Charger sport mirrors, NOS Cordoba lower grille, nearly NOS Cordoba Lean Burn air cleaner pie plate, NORS Cordoba heater core, etc. Out of frame a spare tire subwoofer, and Rock Auto closeout Bendix rotors for the Cordoba, and a pair of Cadillac rear disc calipers for use with conversion brackets on the Cordoba. All aired out, cleaned if needed, repacked and reboxed.
Didn't think to grab a photo of today's goodies, but dug out 2 more crates of parts, and started in to the dreaded stack of parts on top of and between the crates....items that were wrapped or packaged, but those packages were not in a box or crate....my custom made dual snorkel air cleaner, two battery thermogards, Edelbrock Performer intake, Mopar Performance (MP) cam and lifters, chromed rocker shafts, aluminum shaft hold-downs, valve seals, two Carter Strip-Kits, Mopar TQ rebuild kit, spare O.E. gauges, power door lock system, CPDP aluminum water pump housing, MP aluminum water pump, repro decals and documents, and dozens of other small parts. Also some parts that were full-on exposed. Got everything re-packaged and crated up, air cleaner carefully cleaned with a chemical sponge and wrapped in a clean towel, but ran out of time to do the parts that were bare. I'll have to get back on those tomorrow.
Last edited by DynoDave; March 20th, 2021, 05:38 PM.
Never realized how far you are into Mopars. Was there myself until about 10 years ago. Had a big block 72 duster, 71 GTX (possibly the last GTX ever built), 74 roadrunner, 71 340 Demon, 68 GTX. Damn, had a lot of them
Yes, I have 3 of them, all projects I hope to get done before I die.
The '70 Duster was my first car, and owned by both of my brothers before me, purchased by my middle brother from the original owners. A fairly plain 225 slant six, automatic car. They ordered an AM radio, tinted glass, full wheel covers, and a deluxe interior. They added under-dash air. Been in a minor accident when my middle brother owned it, then the front end got torn off when a drunk ran a stop sign at night with no lights on (I was driving for that one), and I put it into a river. So with three boys owning it, it's sorta used up. It's not likely to be "restored"...just made as mechanically sound as possible and presentable looking, and just enjoy driving it.
The '72 Charger Rallye - also a fairly plain car. Certainly the rarest of the 3, the Rallye was THE performance package in '72....R/T and Superbee are gone. As such, a Rallye comes with some nice pieces...340 4 bbl. is std., front and rear sway bars, disc brakes, louvered tail lamps, louvered doors, available machinegun exhaust tips, rallye instrument cluster, etc. Mine does not have a lot over the base Rallye package. It did NOT have the exhaust tips, just turn-downs. No extra chrome trim...so no wheel opening mouldings, rocker mouldings, trunk or hood egde, drip rail or front valance mouldings. It did have an AM radio, tinted glass, air, automatic transmission, and that was about it. Base bench seat interior. This one was purchased 80% disassembled (I knew the two previous owners), and I took it the rest of the way apart. Left the front and rear suspension in so I could roll the body around, but everything else is removed. Some parts here, some in Illinois. Previous owner was going Pro Street in the early '80s, so much was discarded, like seats, wiring, gas tank, parking brake lever, original fasteners replaced with allen heads, etc. It has other problems too, but I won't bore you with all the details. I have many of the missing parts, but certainly not all. Only 82k miles though, and off the road since '82, so it's actually pretty solid. Probably the least likely of the three to get restored in some fashion.
Lastly, the '77 Cordoba. In our family since new. Has about 38k miles, but some rust and body damage. Nothing too crazy, but needs a complete exterior re-do. Sunfire black metallic with black halo roof and black Corinthian leather bucket seat interior, 400 4bbl.
We had a ton of Mopars in the family in the '70s and '80s, so they are sort of what I grew up with. Nothing against other domestic brands, they are just what we had the most of. My oldest brother had a Hang 10 Dart from new, which he turned into a mild Street Machine, and I went to a lot of shows with him in my youth. Got me hooked on this stuff.
Been a whale of a week. Content cleaning crew in the garage all 5 days, working the first 4, calls in about detailing, about processing the contents, with the insurance company...
So after a week, this side of the sop is looking pretty empty.
That's the front of that bay. The back is no better. The row of "stuff" nearest the photo is content that has been inventoried, and written off, awaiting my final decision on if I want to keep and try to restore the items my self, or if they go straight to the dumpster. A slow, and painful process. Depending on what day of the week, and what section was being inventoried, the amount I "saved" varied.
Here's an example. This AC item came off of a shelf directly above the garage door, which had the worst smoke/soot damage. Several boxes of petroliana in similar condition. I didn't take the time to clean everything...Many items were simply reboxed (because the cardboard is dirty and smelly, but the contents not as bad...they will get a thorough cleaning when they come back out of the box to but placed back in the restored garage). But I needed to do a test clean on a few pieces, to see if they were worth saving.
Since several test piece looked good, and went ahead and gave all of the pieces from shelves a similar treatment. Time consuming, but I did not want that acidic soot staying on the container finishes all summer until I pulled them out of storage.
If you go back up to the shot of the full side of the garage, you can see the soot stained Steelcase file cabinet. Here's the same cabinet after cleaning.
And a few form the lighter side....is that some sort of liquid sealer in that control joint? Nope...that's liquid car cover. Melted from a synthetic fiber to a liquid that flowed into the crack and cured post-fire.
I had a row of old license plates and frame above the pegboard wall. The last plate above the worst area....you can actually read the plate that was there. It's the only one that did that. Even the plate right next to it left no legible trace.
So just lots and lots of cleaning to come. But it is nice to see some visible progress being made. And I AM throwing out a LOT of stuff. Stuff I just didn't need, stuff I haven't touched or used in 20 years...get it gone, give me the money and the space. Like that sand blaster. Nice to have at times, but I haven't used it in a decade, it makes a mess when you do use it, and it takes up a ton of space. Just let 'er go.
I was fortunate to have a 4 day weekend around Easter, so I was able to work in the garage with the cleaning crew on Friday and Monday, and got some other work done over the weekend as well.
The workbench side of the shop is 99% cleared. About 2/3 of the contents from the attic were marshalled in the center of the shop, and gone through. Lastly I started to attack the bay that was full of stored parts. It may not look like a lot of progress, but that table made of saw horses and a file cabinet was full of boxes underneath around it, and stacked 7' high on top of it. All have been gone through, lightly cleaned as needed for now (full cleaning will come later, as needed), and moved to clean new boxes. Not inventoried at this time, just moved to clean, safe packages.
Fortunately I had a bit of an obsession with keeping parts wrapped, boxed, crated, or otherwise protected. Probably only about 5% of the parts were out in the open, and thus heavily damaged in the fire (not counting the car cover, water pump and sander that were at the heart of it). Here are a pair of NOS rocker mouldings for the Cordoba, wrapped in several layers of Saran wrap. You can see the soot in the wrap.
The box is restaurant food worker gloves. 2000 for like $10 or something at Sam's Club. Makes it very possible to wear a fresh pair to unwrap the part without touching the part itself and transferring soot to it. Throw them out, then a fresh pair to wrap the part, store it, then clean the clear-coated plywood table I made for this job. Unwrap another part, new gloves, and so on. Really helps eliminate contaminating parts that survived without damage.
Tweet
It's not likely to be "restored"...just made as mechanically sound as possible and presentable looking, and just enjoy driving it.
Comment