Jay's 1968 Satellite

[Custom Mike]

And the assembly of the rest of the interior. I had the kit interior, and a '68 Satellite interior I got from Missing Link Resin Casters. The stuff from Missing Link is incredible, it looks just like a kit part, but it isn't a match for the picture of the interior of Jay's car. The Road Runner interior isn't a match either, but it's a whole lot closer, so I went with it. I painted the floor body color, added some Blue flocking, and painted the seats with some Dupli-Color White Primer, along with the door panels. I added some body color to the tops and bottom of each door panel, a strip of Detail Master Krome Foil to the top edges of the door panels, then glued it all together!

[RodneyBad]

That is a good looking shifter.

(See That folks? Quoted only One Pic )

[Custom Mike]

That is a good looking shifter.

(See That folks? Quoted only One Pic )

Thanks Rodney, the gear selector came out great, but the turn signal stalk is a bit long, and I'm going to try to use a smaller pin next time I do this, it's not supposed to be the same size as the gear selector!

And thanks for learning how to edit a quote!

Edited August 7, 2011 by Custom Mike

[RodneyBad]

Here is a link to my 69 Sport Satellite using a Johan RoadRunner and AMT Chassis.

http://s290.photobuc...models09-38.jpg

This is 20yrs ago when I last owned the car.

I now have a Original Johan 69 GTX to use.

Now that is the right Grill for a Sport.(minus the GTX Emblem)

It is the Littlest Detail that stands out in the end.

Edited August 7, 2011 by RodneyBad

[Custom Mike]

It is the Littlest Detail that stands out in the end.

Absolutely right Rodney, even if no one sees it, it's still important to make the little things look good. I'll make you a better builder in the end!

Now onto the wheel wells and firewall. I sprayed 'em with the Wally World Royal Blue, then picked out the details with Flat Black, and a bit of Flat White for the ballast resistor on the firewall. A bit of Ambroid Pro-Weld and we're all ready on this end!

Edited August 10, 2011 by Custom Mike

[Custom Mike]

And now it's time to attempt a vinyl top for the first time. I grabbed a roll of 4 inch wide 3M Blue painter's tape, and got to work. I polished the roof with some 2400 grit, then centered the tape on the roof, cut notches in the tape at the front and rear windows, and started carefully burnishing it out from the center to the edges. Once I had it set on the roof like I wanted, I started trimming the tape carefully at the window trim. It came out really well for my first time, but to be honest, I've seen so many guys do it that I just took the method that seemed the easiest and ran with it!

Edited November 10, 2014 by Custom Mike

[Custom Mike]

Once the tape was trimmed to where I felt satisfied with the new top. I masked off the rest of the body and shot the new vinyl top with some Dupli-Color White Primer. Once I got the masking removed, I compared it to the reference pic Jay gave me, and was very happy with the results! It looks like it should, so I'm a very happy camper!

Edited August 5, 2012 by Custom Mike

[moparfarmer]

Very nice work going on there. Wasn't the picture of the car in the beginning of the thread a big block car? Said 383 on the pie cover.

You are wiring up a small block. All big block distributors were in the front. Doesn't really matter though, its your car and your doing a

great job of doing it. Gonna be a killer build when done.

[moparfarmer]

SORRY,MY BAD. Wrong board and tread. I should have looked at page one before I flew off at the mouth. Hope you accept my

apology.................

[Custom Mike]

No problem Wayne, I even went back and looked at the beginning of the thread to see where the picture was of the big block, so you had me confused on my own postings!

The car was definitely a 318, bare-bones, plain old Satellite. Jay didn't have any pics of the engine to supply me, but I picked his brain on the engine, and he said the distributor was in the back, he remembers having to change the points on it a few times. So we both agreed it was probably a 318, especially when he said it couldn't spin the tires to save it's life. My 1:1 '72 Charger with a 318 was the same, but I got 273,000 miles out of that old girl!

Edited August 11, 2011 by Custom Mike

[Custom Mike]

Now onto the wheels and some chrome. I finally gave up on locating the hubcaps that were on this car, and went with the rims in the kit. Here's a shot of two detailed, and the other two waiting their tun. Then I got busy with some Detail Master Krome Foil, starting with the front end of the car...

Edited August 5, 2012 by Custom Mike

[Custom Mike]

And a couple of shots of the completed body. It came out nicely, but was a pain to do, as is normal when you've got this much chrome trim!

Edited November 10, 2014 by Custom Mike

[RodneyBad]

Paint and top looks Fantastic.

Ya really making me miss my Old 69 Sport Satellite

[charlie8575]

This is coming out very nicely, Mike. Although the Chrysler blue was a metallic, tone-wise, you made a good pick. I also like your method for doing a vinyl top. I might try that when I have a car with a three-piece top to build.

Charlie Larkin

[Ron Hamilton]

Very nice. I would love to see what you did with the trunk, and tail lamps. I have an old derelict (original issue) JoHan 1969 Road Runner, that I would like to do as a Satellite Hardtop.

[Dr. Cranky]

The details are all coming together and paying off! Sweet.

[exnyman]

Looking good! I have been trying to come up with something that would be a close match or a good startoff point for those wheel covers but so far, not coming up with a suggestion. It does look good with the sport wheels though!

[Custom Mike]

Thanks Virgil, she's rolling along nicely now!

Yeah Jim, I've looked at literally 50+ different sets of hubcaps, and finally just surrendered and went with these. They do look really sweet on there, don't they?

Ron, the tail lights will be coming soon, I had to do some modifications to make them work right. The tail lights and trunk trim will be handled by a decal from Keith Marks (For a GTX, slight modifications will be needed!) So keep your eyes open, it'll be showing up soon!

Charlie, I couldn't find anything other than Chrysler Poly Blue to match the pics he gave me. Figuring on the age of the pictures (And fading of the colors in the picture), it was the only match I could find. It was listed as non-metallic, so I ran with the Wally World Royal Blue.

Rodney, I'll have the same feeling when I break out my '72 Charger replica build. I might shed a tear over the old girl....

[Custom Mike]

Here's where I get started on the tail lights and trunk decals. I bought a set of GTX decals from Keith Marks for this build, not 100% accurate for Jay's car, but this was apparently an option on the Satellite, as I found on the reference pics I got for this build. Now onto the issues with the kit tail lights. AMT got the placement of the back-up lights wrong, and the shape of the tail lights is way off. Keith does a ton of research when he makes these decals, so I trust his decals (And the reference pics I got) more than AMT's old kit. So the back-up lights were sanded off, and the tail lights were painted body color, the decal will handle making it look correct. Once they dried, I tried test-fitting them into place on the body, and found they were way too thick, and they didn't fit well at all. I reshaped them slightly, then thinned them down by about 1/3rd, getting them so the fit in place flush with the trunk. Some more paint, and about 6 hours in a dehydrator, and we're good to go!

The reference pic showing the trunk trim with the red along the top and bottom...

And the picture that matches what Jay had on his car. Removing the red is not going to happen, so Jay just got a new option on his old car!

The Keith Marks decal, the original (Incorrect) tail light on the left, and the smoothed-out one on the right...

First shot with the smooth tail lights, way too thick right now...

And thinned down, these are a much better fit!

Edited August 5, 2012 by Custom Mike

[Custom Mike]

Here we have the thinned and reshaped tail lights glued down, and the decals in place. The GTX logo will have to go, but I've got that covered. When I first received these decals, this piece had black splotches in some of the chrome areas. I dropped Keith a line, and he sent me out a new trunk decal. So now I had the fix for the GTX logo! I just cut a piece of the damaged decal out, and applied it over the GTX logo. I need to cut a tiny piece out and repair the small hole that appeared in the passenger side tail light, so I'll get to that later when I feel like straining my eyes some more!

Edited November 10, 2014 by Custom Mike

[Custom Mike]

Since I needed an air cleaner for this one (And the '71 Duster has the wrong style), I grabbed one from the '71 Charger kit. Here's where I got lucky, the Charger's air cleaner is a dual-snorkel, the one that comes with the Duster has no snorkel, and I needed a single-snorkel (Actually, I need two, one for this build, and one for my upcoming '72 Charger replica). I carefully removed one of the snorkels from the Charger air cleaner, smoothed it back out, and threw the new single-snorkel Charger air cleaner into my '72 Charger box. Then I glued the removed snorkel to the Duster air cleaner, making it a single-snorkel air cleaner. It went on so well, that no sanding was required, so I painted it Semi-Gloss Black, and called it good!

Edited November 10, 2014 by Custom Mike

[Custom Mike]

Now onto the engine. After test fitting the 340/318, I found that it was way too low. Since the Road Runner kit comes with a 440, the engine mounts were going to have to be modified to get the small-block to sit up higher. I grabbed some sprue, shaped it into a rectangle, then cut it into two pieces. I played with the height for a while, finally settling on what you see in the picture. I drilled a hole through the center of each piece, and into the existing motor mounts, stuck a piece of 28 gauge wire into the new mounts and down into the existing mounts to keep it nice and straight, then glued them down. A quick test-fit of the engine shows that it sits where it should now!

Edited November 10, 2014 by Custom Mike

[sak]

Great idea to get the motor to sit higher. Once painted ,you wont even see em. Good job

[RodneyBad]

Good Engine Placement and the Engine compartment is looking good.

Great looking hood still

There seems to be a Lil bit of a gap in the trunk panel red strip or is it just me?

[exnyman]

Good Engine Placement and the Engine compartment is looking good.

Great looking hood still

There seems to be a Lil bit of a gap in the trunk panel red strip or is it just me?

There is a gap and I think the GTX actually DID have those gaps. Here is a link to the 68 Plymouth Brochure showing the Sport Satellite's tail panel. It has the gaps but not all of it is in red. If memory serves me correctly, the GTX had this same panel but had the extra red... http://www.oldcarbro...%20Line-13.html

Edited August 14, 2011 by exnyman