GJS's 1967 Dodge Monaco 500: Beverly

If I remember your sequence of posts, you were aware of the rear window from the beginning, so hopefully the extent of the rust is not too much of a surprise.
I'll have to find the thread on the Monaco. Not my cup of tea either, but fabrication skills are better than mine. What I see is the modification of the 500 trim. The trim looked all most too good to be modified.
It's a sacrilege, if you ask me. That stuff looked to be in better shape than mine. .. and mine is in pretty "OK" shape compared to some I've seen.
 
For your rear interior panels. If the hard board is fairly straight you can re stretch the vinyl and re glue it. I use a heat gun and an iron with a cotton towel to massage out the wrinkles. If it is too hot to touch with bare hands it is too hot. If it is just starting to get uncomfortable to touch it is perfect to stretch. Stretch and clamp it first. Let it rest a few days and repeat. The last time, spray contact cement on both sides and slowly start in the middle and stretch and glue towards the edges clam and let dry. I have pictures somewhere. I can’t remember if it is in my restore thread or I had a different one.
 
Here is the before and after. On the door panels.
68 Polara restore back on

I’ve about memorized your restoration, man! I’m not super confident in the board at the lower end of my back panels but I haven’t picked at them too much either. They’re down in the basement shop now so hopefully I’ll get on that shortly. Otherwise that’s all I’m really worried about with them. The fronts are in really good shape considering.

thanks again!
 
Remember your seats hide the lower portion. And you can use hardboard for a new straight backer if needed.
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Driver seat with trim all fixed up. Pretty happy with how it all held up... what was problematic about it wasn’t to hard to fix... still has some buckle rash but, I’m not going for factory fresh. Have to reassemble the glides and install them then figure out how I’m gonna store these things.
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I do my best but... there’s three of em.
I understand. When I had 2 German Shepherds, we stopped them from climbing / jumping on the furniture.
One time we had come back from running errands and the female (Porsche), was sleeping in the middle of our bed.
Firmly told her NO, she already had the ‘guilty’ look as soon as we had walked upstairs, as she was sound asleep and we had woken her up upon going upstairs.

gotta love em tho.
 
I understand. When I had 2 German Shepherds, we stopped them from climbing / jumping on the furniture.
One time we had come back from running errands and the female (Porsche), was sleeping in the middle of our bed.
Firmly told her NO, she already had the ‘guilty’ look as soon as we had walked upstairs, as she was sound asleep and we had woken her up upon going upstairs.

gotta love em tho.
Yeah, I’ve got one Malamute/husky, one pit bull/husky, and one blue tick/lab... all handfuls.. all totally love able.

Artemus (the Malamute) will regularly get on the bed if I’m in the shower and I’ll only know from the mass amounts of white hair on the comforter. He’s clearly figured out the water running/water not running thing...
 
Not much progress to speak of. Just playing around with materials and colors for the rest of the interior, tightening up the plan on that.

I'm starting to look at taking the windows out however and am running into an issue with my rear window lower trim:
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As I've said, some PHD ran a bead of silicon around the OUTER (lower) edge of the trim (and for whatever reason, the upper edge of the trim around the bottom of where the vinyl roof would end ..). I cant seem to get that piece of trim off for the life of me.

If any of you have ideas for getting silicon off, let me know. I've been cutting at it and gently prying the trim but it doesn't seem to want to let go.... starting to think I'm going to have to sacrifice it after finding a replacement.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. I hope you all are well.
 
It's been some crazy late night laying in the trunk nipping off bits of frikkin silicon. Still nowhere near actually being able to remove the trim parts I need off ... They must've hired some child labor for this one, I mean, the sh** is smeared in places that are just silly.

Anyway, got bored after two hours of picking last night and took the tail lights out. Pretty ok in there, actually. There's some pitting and one place on the passenger side that's a little blown out but overall .. not too bad. Really friggin wierd looking though. Like when a bird pecks a fish's eyes out or something.
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Not much progress to speak of. Just playing around with materials and colors for the rest of the interior, tightening up the plan on that.

I'm starting to look at taking the windows out however and am running into an issue with my rear window lower trim:
View attachment 405699

As I've said, some PHD ran a bead of silicon around the OUTER (lower) edge of the trim (and for whatever reason, the upper edge of the trim around the bottom of where the vinyl roof would end ..). I cant seem to get that piece of trim off for the life of me.

If any of you have ideas for getting silicon off, let me know. I've been cutting at it and gently prying the trim but it doesn't seem to want to let go.... starting to think I'm going to have to sacrifice it after finding a replacement.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. I hope you all are well.

Don't know if you have already taken care of this problem removing the trim, but it might help if you heat it up with a hair dryer or a heat gun used to shrink shrink-wrap.
 
Don't know if you have already taken care of this problem removing the trim, but it might help if you heat it up with a hair dryer or a heat gun used to shrink shrink-wrap.
I haven’t. The heat gun thought crossed my mind but ... I’ll have to try and get a camera on it for y’all... the spaces I’d have to direct that heat into are really tight so a number of places around it would also get heat. I’d rather sacrifice the trim piece than the window itself so I’m a being a little cautious.
Not to mention that my heat gun is a certified fire hazard.
 
Had to take a break from crawling around in the trunk... don’t know why but the trim I’ve been working on for weeks doesn’t want to let go. More like I DO know and don’t want to admit it... pretty sure this part of the car was glued back together in a way that may prohibit my saving the trim..

Anyway, put some time into interior parts today, first was the console arm rest which was pretty discolored:
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cleaned it down with SEM soap which was a delight to use... a little gross considering it was 50 years of greazy elbow crud... but satisfying as it only took about 30 minutes of present day elbow grease. Mixed up a quart of “gold” which is slightly off the Original gold but matches the slightly off new seats and:
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This will go on the sail panels and door arm rests as well. The door panels themselves will likely be redone in a combination of the original basket weave and the vinyl that was used on the seats so that the only difference from original is the slightly different lighter gold.

Also took some time with the chrome parts of the console. More on that later, still in early stages.
 
Jesus, that sucked. All the trim is fine though. Only lost one clip.
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The channel is pretty pooched.
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I officially withdraw (as I should have a few years back) any comments made about the car being unmolested... it’s been pretty molested.. and not in the like 5th date, knows what he’s doing sort of way. Clearly this was an issue a long time ago and silicon is sort of the least of my worries. There's a bunch of hard black goop shmeared up between the deck lid hinge brace and the structural brace at the center of the wheel well. I’m assuming the rot had gotten down into the joint between the fender panel and the Dutchman’s panel. It’s unclear how far that goes back but.. guess I’ll find out!

Anyway, at least I can see how bad it is now. That’s somehow comforting. Onward.
 
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