When we took the carpet out it was so smelly from the mice that were living inside that we immediately threw it in the dumpster. I remember seeing carpet tags on it too......but I didn't think to photograph them.:(

Did it originally have that much overspray? I've seen other Oshawa GTOz that way.It seems the Painter was paid by the Gallon.

Yeah it actually had alot of overspray all the way over to the tranny tunnel........I think I actually put on less than the factory! :)

Here we have the firewall completely restored. There were 4 areas where there was yellow grease pencil used. One right in the center of the firewall that reads "L74" for the Ram Air III engine option. The rest of the markings were to the very far driver's side. The number "10", which would denote the paint code, the number "268", which was the black bench seat interior code, and a great big "O" at the bottom, which I have no idea what that means. :confused: These were all copied exactly how they looked before......including the overspray pattern on the firewall.
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...barn/004-8.jpg

Also, note the pattern of the sealant sprayed around the heater box area and around where the throttle cable goes through the firewall and where the speedo cable goes through. These patterns are all replicated just like the factory did it. There is also some fo this sealant sprayed around where the emergency brake pedal attaches to the firewall, but the bolts to the pedal need to be installed first......so I'll add that later.

I used rubberized undercoating to replicate the factory sprayed sealant:
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...barn/005-9.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...barn/008-3.jpg

Here we are introducing the nice new body to the nice new frame. :D

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...barn/011-4.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...gebarn/014.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...barn/016-2.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...barn/017-2.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...barn/015-3.jpg

Has there been a 6 figure RA III Judge yet?

If not, we could be looking at it!

Nice work Jason and thanks for sharing it with us.

Chris

Chris - not sure if that was a rhetorical question, but a Carousel Red '69 RAIII Judge went for over $100k at BJ - think it was early 2006.

Jason - beautiful work; appreciate all the info and pictures.

Scott

I didn't see any at Bj that looked this Nice.

'
IMHO opinion, BJ sets the standard for....mediocre restorations with shiny paint! I doubt many Judges have been sold at B-J and restored by people with the talent or concern for detail shown by Jason and nearly every member of this forum. They aught to be refering to auctioned Judges as having a "PY Judges Forum Level Restoration" and forget about the quick jobs at BJ. You guys clearly set the standard. Again just my opinion.

Thanks for all the nice comments guys. :)

I've seen some really nice cars at Barrett-Jackson and I've seen some real doozys. They sell alot of cars so I guess every one can't be perfect.

Speaking of imperfection, the clock in my Judge wasn't working so I decided to take out all the gauges and gauge bezel and give them all a nice restoration. I soon found out that GTO dashes are not built like Trans Am dashes......because it was easier to just take out the entire dash than it was to take out just the gauges. :D

I had no intention of taking the dash out of this car but it's no problem because that will just make it easier to clean everything up under there and restore my pedal assemblies and stuff. Also it will make it easier to clean the dash pad more throuroughly while it's out.

Here are some pics:
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...barn/002-7.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...barn/003-7.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...barn/004-9.jpg

The dash bezel (like alot of them) had lost just about all it's chrome edging over the years. I really did not want to buy a reproduction because I didn't want to lose the original woodgrain and swirled aluminum inserts.....which are in perfect condition.

So I had my sister mask off all the edges. (my sister is a master at taping and she does the masking on all my cars for me) She masked off everything on the bezel and we painted the edges with chrome paint. The results turned out very good and I'm just very happy to be able to re-use the original bezel.
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...barn/001-7.jpg

Jason looks great, and progress has been amazing. Sounds like a family affair too.
How many hours to date?

Thanks Mike.

Yes our entire operation is a family affair. We've all been working together in the shop for 15 years now.

We've all worked on this car "after hours" so it's been hard to keep track of the hours, but I would imagine we'd be over 500 hours by this point. Frame-off restos usually run over 1000 hours on even the nicest cars.

You took the words right off my keyboard. B-J is nothing but a bunch of unknowing idiots with more money than brains.

Tim

Tim:

We must think alike because...God Bless the Wyoming Cowboys! Three of the greatest years of my life (pre-kids of course) were spent at the corner of 8th and Gibbon in Laramie, Wyoming. Ah, the Buckhorn Bar, Elmer Lovejoys, The Library....damn good years. Went to law school at UW and I look forward to someday returning. Just spent some time in Laramie this summer. Didn't see any Pontiacs cruising around though.

That's exactly what I saw when I was at BJ.

A few of us here who are also members of the 'Trans Am Country' forum are well aware of Jason's history of quality restoration work. Prepare to continue to be amazed.
I'm really looking forward to seeing the outcome myself because I've never seen a GTO come out of their shop.
Very nice work Jason.

Jason,great job .Your quality of craftsmanship and attention to detail is an attribute to this hobby.Keep up the incredible work,and I am looking forward to the completion...
Paul

Thanks Greg and Paul for the kind words. :)

My clock wasn't working in the Judge, and I really didn't want to switch it over to quartz movement because then you lose that little "tick tock" motion of the second hand. So I tore the clock apart to see if I could do anything for it.

It turned out that the little "points" mechanism inside the clock had just stuck together after sitting for 30 years. Once I separated the points and put a little light oil on the clock mechanism, the clock started working perfectly. :D

I also tore down the rest of the gauges, cleaned and restored them, and bolted them all back into the dash assembly again.

The dash pad itself was thoroughly cleaned and given a light coat of dye to freshen it up, along with the rest of the dash assemblies like the glove box and the metal parts. The "Judge" emblem on the glove box door is especially stunning. It looks like it was made yesterday. It's in perfect original condition.

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...barn/008-5.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...barn/011-5.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...barn/013-4.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...barn/014-1.jpg

Jason did your Sister also paint the black on the dash bezel? Also, my dash is in about the same shape as yours, so I would like to attempt the taping and spraying the silver paint. What type of tape did she use and what silver paint did she use?

Thanks and keep up the awesome work.
Brian

Brian,

The black plastic on our bezel was in perfect condition. It was just the chrome that had worn off the edges.

She used a combination of 3M Fine Line masking tape and regular 3M masking tape. The 3M Fine Line series is a flexible, skinny tape that leaves sharp edges and it good for very fine detail work. It's a very tedious task to do this on these bezels. I think she spent over 6 hours just masking to make it perfect.

We used DupliColor Instant Chrome spray enamel.

Thanks Jason for the info. I know my woodgrain is fine and the black maybe too, but I do know the silver trimming is wearing out.

Appreciate you posting all your steps. It really helps us novice guys see what things look like before and what it should look like finished.
Brian

Those are really hard to see if they've ever got wet...
Also pictured is the tag on the rear seat.

Here's a good pic of an original '68 carpet tag. From an HPP article.

The Judge is ready to paint now.......so last night we spent a few hours getting all the front sheetmetal pre-fitted to the car. The radiator support and both front fenders are new aftermarket parts, so I expected to have to do a little tweaking to get them perfect. You don't wanna be tweaking on freshly painted parts.......so we do all that now. :)

Both fenders needed a little bending in the lower rear area of the "dog leg", as they didn't have the exact curve of the doors. A couple pulls of a slide hammer brought them out perfectly. I also had to do some metal work around the right side marker light to make it fit properly.

I was having a heck of a time getting the front end perfectly square because it seemed to be pulled about 1/4 of an inch toward the passenger side in the front. After working on the problem for an hour, I measured the new radiator support and found that it was slightly out of square. I don't know if it was made that way or if it happened in shipping......but it was screwing everything up. :gag:

A quick push of the top of the radiator support over toward the driver's side about 1/8 of an inch with a Porta-Power jack and everything fell into place perfectly. The hood fits great and clicks into place easily. All the gaps look good. These fenders actually work very well after you do a little fitting with them. :cool:

Time to tear it all down again and start spraying some Polar White paint!

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...barn/009-5.jpg

Not being critical here Jason, but I would have figured that after all of the beautiful work you have done to maintain the original pieces of this car - you would have done whatever was necessary to repair the original fenders and core support.

I would have loved to......but......

The radiator support was gone on the driver's side from a leaky battery at some point in it's life......so there was no fixing that. The mounting point where it was attached to the frame literally disappeared. :eek:

Both fenders were rusted out at the bottoms and it was getting thin around the wheel lips too.

Sometimes you have to bite the bullet and realize that some things are better replaced than fixed. Both of the old fenders will be kept with the car. It's kind of cool to know that the original paint and decals will be preserved on a couple parts.

Enjoying the thread and not trying to start a rukus, but what are your regular hours? I understand pics can be taken at any time, but in youre album most are times and dates I would term 8-5 M-F. You have done a tremendous amount of work in just a couple months to be strictly after hours. Potential customers could be concerned as the customers' cars on your webpage seem at a standstill over that same period? What is youre usual turnaround on a restored car? Excellent product nonetheless.

Jason

Like everyone else that views this thread I really appreciate you sharing this with us. One question and I see this done all the time. How do you keep the detailed frame from getting overspray or getting loaded up with dust that will mess up the final paint job?

thank Scott t

It's not just myself working on the car. The entire family is working on it along with one of my father's employees so it gets worked on sporadically just about every day.

Turnaround time depends on the amount of work to be done and the condition of the car at the beginning. I give customers an estimated time of completion, but I'm not a guy who goes by a deadline usually. I'm not ever going to be like a Boyd Coddington who is throwing together a car at 3AM in the morning to make a photo shoot. That's not the way to build a car.

When the car goes in for paint, the entire inside, underside and trunk area is masked off with plastic......so nothing is exposed to the paint booth except for the outer skin of the car.

I've got a bad case of the flu, so I laid in bed today. My sister came in around noon and asked for my camera.....so I knew something was up. :D

My dad decided to paint the Judge for me today! He's been painting since the early 70's so he's actually more experienced with single stage paint than I am. I haven't seen it in person yet but the pictures sure do look good. He says it turned out beautiful. :)

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...ebarn/0032.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...ebarn/0073.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...arn/0083-1.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...arn/0092-1.jpg

Did GM have to go thru this whole masking process too for each car???

:eek::eek:

shell only
 

I think the body shell was painted empty, off the frame, no glass.. Nothing to mask.

Just out of curiosity, since you're doing the car to factory original everything, do you paint all the bolt heads seperately for the door hinges and trunk bolts since those were installed before paint originally? Or do you hit the bolts with a touch up gun after install? I guess I could just shut up and wait for pictures further along the process and that would answer these questions!

That one is stunning!!! Shazaam!

Outstanding work.
Jim

When we paint the doors and trunk, we screw the bolts into their holes so they get painted right along with the part. If they get any nicks on them during installation we just touch them up.

Thanks Jim!

I'm pretty sick with the flu......but my dad was begging me to come up and see the car today, so I went up this afternoon and took a video so people can see the reflection and clarity of the paint. It's hard to take good pictures of white paint.

Click on the picture to see the video:
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...n/th_006-8.jpg

... which, considering he's no longer with us, is probably a very good thing.

Looking great, Jason! Thanks for the regular updates.

You are right about the clarity. There are a couple of spots in that clip where I had to run it back to see if my eyes were playing tricks.
It was very difficult the first time through, to tell where the reflection of the flourescent lights on the roof of the car ended and the actual lights on the paintbooth walls began.
Has it even been buffed out any yet?

Great Thanx...Is it too risky to replicate that method rather than masking everything?

rotisserie
 

You could do it on a rotisserie, but you'd still need to mask the top of the dash at a minimum.

When it did get painted on the line, weren't there dolly marks - spots where the car sat on a dolly that didn't get painted?

I would never try to paint a car body with the inside of the body not masked off. There are just too many nooks and crannys for a speck of dust to hide in. When you start spraying the car there is alot of compressed air flying around.....and any little speck of dust is always gonna come flying out to land in your fresh paint. It never fails. :)

If one were to be doing a car that needed to be acid-dipped......and the inside of the body was bare metal.......I would spray the inside of the body first to make it LOOK like it was oversprayed, and then mask it off and do the paint on the outside seperately.

Thanks Greg.

It looks good in the video but you should see it in person. It looks like a big, white mirror. :D

My dad did do a little light buffing on it yesterday before it was unmasked. The paint just turned out incredible. I just love those DuPont paint products.

I can tell by the amount of progress this is not a brother/sister operation alone. (This will be my last comment because I don't wish to take away from a good restoration thread) The fact remains the other cars you have on youre site are not progressing over the Judge's same term. Please understand, for those shopping for a good restoration shop the lack of new progress on your customers' cars over the same period would be a red flag IMO and leaves the existing customers scratching their heads.

All this being said, you are very talented and I will be following all youre photoed projects for they are a good resource for us hopefuls.

Good point...So it could be done just like the factory did it if body was completely dust free...Then put on Frame...:ranger::rain:

Just wondering then if GM did do some masking, if that's the case..Just not sure if it was common practice as it is time-consuming and results could vary if manual masking was done...Every minute costs them $$$ no?:police::police:

Greg:

That is what I was looking for. The repopped ones I have seen are very different. Thanks for the photo. I will try to make that for myself. Do you think the part number is the same for a 1969 application?