[DeTomaso] dipped it

[Chuck Adkinson]

"Chemical dipping means everything including the wiring must be out of the 
car, which makes for a true pain- you essentially rebuild the whole car." 

This is a true statement. I removed my hacked up, beat to crap original wiring harness with a reciprocating saw. It weighed about 40 pounds I would guess and will be replaced by a "Painless" 22 circuit harness.

I'm nearing the end of a (so far) 5 year total restoration of #2113. Working mostly by myself, it's taken a lot longer to do this than I predicted it would. I dipped the car after total disassembly and I'm glad I did. The work was done at "American Metal Cleaning" in Toledo, OH. Everything but steel and lead was removed from the car during the stripping process, including undercoating, paint, oil, rust, etc, etc. "Clean" is not the word to describe the results. 

The metal repair work I completed after the stripping was much easier to do with a clean, solidly grounded unibody. Had I not intended to do a complete resto on the car I wouldn't have stripped it. Instead I would have probably continued what the previous owner did to the car. Two words: Bondo, undercoating. This car had so much filler and undercoating on it I think it would could have floated in the nearby river. 

As far as beeding into the paint goes, I haven't seen this so far. The car is still in primer and will be until it's road worthy and debugged. 

I did attach the car to a rotisserie expecting trapped fluid to run out when I turned it over. Didn't happen, not a drop. This is probably because long ago, rust created an excellent drainage system in the car. I replaced both rockers(inside, center, outer), both rear wheel houses and the firewall as a result. It all came out pretty well for an amateur. 

I've taken 700-800 digital pictures of the work and a few are on my website, www.pantera.ws

Later.

Chuck
#2113