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When Bill bought this Dart the first priority was stopping the rust that was taking over the roof.

The car came from Dodge with a factory vinyl top which looks great when new, but ends up being a nightmare as the car ages.

Sun light, heat, and car wash chemicals all lend to the breakdown of the vinyl which then lets moisture collect underneath. In the old days most manufacturers never treated the metal under the vinyl before gluing the vinyl to it; they all simply glued the vinyl directly to bare metal and moved the car down the assembly line. So when the vinyl breaks down the moisture immediately attacks the bare metal like a Sumo wrestler attacks a buffet…not a pretty sight!

Matt, who at the time was taking an auto body repair class at a local adult education center, and Bill started by stripping trim and the old vinyl. Once this was done Matt started taking the car to class to learn how to repair the roof.

Follow along through the stages as the rood went from an ugly, rusty mess to being ready for paint. We'll start with a few pictures of what the roof looked like when Bill picked up the car...

Stopping the rust was a very long, tedious project. When they [Bill & Matt] started working the roof they thought all that needed to be done was run a wire wheel over the metal, remove as much rust as possible, then shoot primer and voila, they were done.

Tony, the instructor at the auto body class had to ‘educate’ them… They ended up doing the roof in small sections. First they would indeed run the wire wheel over the section to take off all the loose shtuff. Then they would apply acid to the section letting it dissolve the rust. After about twenty minutes the acid was washed off, the section was air dried, then they would inspect the section seeing if they could see any rust left in any of the divots. The acid would dissolve the rust leaving the metal shiny like new, but the rust in the divots was stubborn and often needed several acid treatments and some heavy wire brushing. Once all the rust was dissolved/removed the next step was to neutralize any acid residue by scrubbing the section with sodium bicarbonate and water. Then the section was again air dried and checked to see if any rust was missed. Once it was clear that no rust remained the section was primed.
It was not uncommon to get only an 18” x 18” section done in a class night.

Here are some pictures…

Once the rust was removed the entire roof was light sanded. Matt then shot the roof with sealer in Bill’s favorite color, hot pink [Bill HATES pink!]. Matt justified the color by calling it ‘salmon’ and telling Bill it was the only shade of sealer available at the time. Truthfully, Matt is colorblind and thought he was mixing red. Bill had to drive the car around with a hot pink roof for a while. You would have thought the world was about to come to an end the way Bill cried about that color.

The next step was to apply a very thin layer of skim coat to fill in the divots and small dents. Hours of sanding, guide coating, sanding, guide coating, sandi…you get the point, ended with a very clean, straight roof that was ready for primer.
In the following pictures you can see the light skim coats, remnants of the ‘salmon’ sealer, and Matt getting ready to shoot the nice, neutral gray primer [Bill liked this color a lot better!]…

With the top sealed and primed Bill felt comfortable moving to the ‘drive train upgrade’…he, he, he.
Remember, Bill is an old school drag racer. His favorite statement is
‘There is not replacement for displacement!’

Stay tuned, there’s a lot more to come!