{Chrysler 300} 1964 body work

I went to the body shop today to see how the work is going. The caved in driver’s door was warmed up and carefully hit and a good part of the cave in popped – hammered out thanks to metal memory. The guy who hit it will be paying, via his insurance, of that work and painting the driver’s side. I will of course pay for the rest of the car.

We decide to tell the body shop to sand down the entire car for a complete repaint. With the roof in need of paint and the trunk as well and down the entire left side to get the door to match…there was no way to “conserve the factory paint job”. Too bad, I had intended to do that.

The rest of the body looks as good as new. Truly, zero rust anyplace. Around the rear windows where they used lead at the factory to go over the body welds to the door bottoms to the sills. Nothing but nice clean bright metal with a slight gray dull look at the lead seams.

The fundamental reason I purchased this particular car was the metal. I got lucky, no surprises. Given that the metal is so good and the front and rear glass is not leaking, I elected to leave them alone. I doubt there is anything rust wise going on under the seals. In any event, I put some rust converter down into the body seal area just in case. I also left the header stainless alone as the side windows are fitting well. I did not want to mess with it. My body guy says he will use an very small air brush to get down into the roof gutter with the stainless roof gutter trim masked off. For a street car, should be fine.

The only damage prior to the drivers door incident was an old repair to the left rear corner. I suspect that the bumper got hit and pushed into the body. The bumper must be a replacement as it shows no sign of it. Whoever did the work on the body though was an amateur. They just hit it with a pick hammer and pushed it in and used Bondo. My guy will fix it correctly. In about two weeks I should have the car back and ready to put all the bright work back on.

Of course, the bright work will now look like crap with new paint 😊 For a driver, I do not know if I want nice chrome or not…

James