Restoring/Converting 1987 Daytona Pacifica to 90 Shelby Clone

[dan_j_b]

I have had this Daytona for a little over a year and I have been wanting to restore it ever since. I decided that this spring would be ideal weather to start the project.

Since I got the car I have upgraded to 16" pumpers, full TII setup from a chrysler TC, roller cam, swing valve ported to 2.5", custom cal runnign about 19psi, ported exhaust manifold, 2.5" mandrel bent turbo back with high flow cat and magnaflow muffler, A555, short throw shifter I made myself, relocated battery to passenger side.

My idea was to not only repaint the car, but to also change it from a Pacifica to a newer shelby-style car. This includes welding shut 16 half-inch holes and several rivet holes behind the rubber mouldings and the center spoiler mount hole, replacing bumpers, ground effects, hood and spoiler. I used a spare fender for the filler pieces for all of the holes. I also decided to shave the antenna while I was at it

Throughout the winter, I started collecting the parts necessary for the conversion. I got the rear bumper, ground effects and rear spoiler from a red '90 ES and the front bumper and hood from a red '89 Shelby.

On top of all this, I will be doing the famous "$50 Paint Job" (not including prep work). For those of you that haven't heard of this procedure, it basically consists of rolling on thinned-out rustoleum paint with a special 4" roller in about 8 coats while wet sanding in between, pollishing when done. Here is an encyclopedia of a thread to read on it if you have the time $50 Paint Job. I will be doing this on the metal panels and spray it onto the ground effects and bumpers since they have too much detail and tight spaces to be wet sanded.

And by the way, I have next to no experience doing body work, prep or paint so with a little help from my friends, this will be a great learning experience for me and anyone else who wants to make their car look better than new, but stay on a small budget.

I started on this about 2 months ago. Here is what I have so far.

Here are some pictures of it when I got it

[dan_j_b]

Here it is after the tear-down






Sample of what the upper half looked like



Here is an early shot of the chopped antenna



Here is the only rust I had to cut out on the passenger footwell area on a factory seam



Here is a shot of a couple of the 16 half-inch holes I had to weld up from the moulding



This is right after we pulled the biggest dents out



This door took the most work of anything. Aside from the dent where the broken off mirror hit and several door dings, etc, the entire length of the lower half where it was covered up from the factory was rippled badly. I figure it was this way from the factory and the guys on the assembly line decided to just put it on a Pacifica where it would be covered up.




Fenders ready for primer





Driver side rear quarter ready for primer.




Passenger side 1 coat of primer



Hatch with center hole welded shut since the Shelby one only mounts on the ends ready for primer



Shelby hood ready for primer. Interestingly, this hood was originally black and to black it shall return



Hood and hatch in primer

[CoolV300C]

Lots of work here so far. Keep posting your progress! Looks good!

[TopDollar69]

Dan,

Your Daytona has come a long ways since we saved it from the crusher.

[Darkapollo]

subscribed :-D

[1966 dart wagon]

Its great to see you started a thread, now comes to task of having to upload so many dang photos Keep the pictures coming its great seeing all the progress your making dont forget about the bumper pics

[dan_j_b]

Here is what I have gotten done since I last posted



I decided to fill in the cracks and grooves in the spoiler to give it a different look and hide the seam where they joined it together




Here is the front bumper all done. I filled/shaved the licence plate holder parts. I plan to make a custom removable piece that will mount to the lower front valance piece where I can hide the screw holes.



Hard to tell, but that is an old licence plate bent to match the curve and glued in as reinforcment to fix the big dips it had there on the outside then coated with rust-proofer.



Here is the hood underside ready for paint



And done



I decided to paint the rest of the underhood area while I was at it

Before




After prep(forgot to take pics after paint)





Here is a pic of the headlight covers and gas filler cover ready for paint



And here is the paint I took off of just those 2 headlight covers!



Here are the side mirrors before and after prep



I had to weld shut 2 of the outside spoiler holes because they have different spacing on the newer one I'm putting on.




And I had to put a little filler on this window surround because it was creased from who knows what



And here's the car with the fenders and doors on it. I now have the hatch and hood on but no pics yet. Getting very close to painting time!

[blk86trbo]

Hey congrats on the great pics and untold amount of work on your Daytona, I'm eager to see what it looks like with fresh paint!

[89ShelbyGuy]

I tried that 50 paint job on a spare hood..and man, never again...ever! it does shine but man...orange peel golore....u gotta do it just right....i am curious on how your is going to turn out...keep us posted...looks good so far!

[dan_j_b]

Yeah I read that if you don't have the surface perfectly clean or if you do the layers too thick, that will happen. I have a spare hood that I will be using as a test piece before I do the car.

[89ShelbyGuy]

What i didn't like, is it didn't cover worth crap...it was too time consumming for me...good luck with it.

[dan_j_b]

Here are some pics of what I have been up to since I last posted.

I constructed a cheap paint booth using 2x4s, some plastic, a furnace filter and a box fan. It works pretty well, pulls the sides in quite a bit when the fan is on.






I have paintind many coats on the car and done a lot of wet sanding. It is really hard to get this stuff to lay down well without getting orange peel. I think it took about 16 hours to wet sand it smooth again before I could continue painting. There is a fine line between too think and too thin. If its too thick, it will ornage peel. If it is too thin, it runs on the vertical surfaces. I have an HVLP gun I may try spraying some next to see if I get better results.

I will say that the process would be much easier if I was painting the car a light color that would hide the imperfections. My goal is to have the paint perfectly flat and smooth what I'm done so its just going to take a lot of time and work, but at least its cheap.

Orange peel on door, fender sanded and ready for next coat

[WickedShelby88]

What kind of roller are you using? A foam roller might make quite a difference in how smooth it lays on. Amazing progress. you have definitely spent quite a bit of time on that. Either way great to see another daytona get saved. Especially one that wasn't really full of rot at all.

[89ShelbyGuy]

Man, that brings back memorys...i did it with red..and it sucked...too much work imo....i'd rather just buy red base and clear coat for the 250..and have a much better/stronger finish.

looks like what i had....your going to have to fill up those spots you missed on the fender (orange peel)...it will show up when you buff it. the compound wont fill it...

[blk86trbo]

Heck just call it wrinkle black and be done with it!

J/K, good luck with how it goes

[dan_j_b]

I did some tests with an HVLP spray gun and found that if I mix the rustoleum 3.5:1 with paint thinner, it sprays out nice with little orange peel and no runs so I plan on trying this next on the car. this will also allow me to spray out the final coat with the bumpers and ground fx on the car to ensure a good color match.

WickedShelby88 - I have been using a 4" high density foam roller.

89ShelbyGuy - unless you are referring to the slight vertical line near the door, that is just the previous layer showing through. It is smooth, so the next coat will cover it up.

[J&H Ryan]

All that prep work to use rustoleum? I got a quart of nason paint for $50. Of course the hardener was $25 and the reducer $8 or vice versa, and then theres clear, but you could have done one stage. I can't talk, my paint job is hardly perfect, but I did mine in a barn...

[dan_j_b]

The guys that have used this paint say it is much tougher and durable than any single stage paint. And it is far easier to touch up chips and scratches later than with a base/clear job.

[WickedShelby88]

To each is own. A lot of old school guys used to use lacquer but you had to keep on it for it to stay shiny. Didn't last worth a damn in the sun compared to base/clear. Dark colors absorb a lot of the light so hopefully even though the paint may hold up it doesn't fade on you too much.

[TurboII]

its coming out nice. trial and error.... keep it up and it'll come out great!