This is my 63 V200 4 Door Valiant. I bought it in February of 1999. The previous owner was selling it because he couldn’t run the AC without it overheating. The car had sat for about 2 years when he moved it out of storage and into his driveway.


http://www.moparpages.com/photopost/dat ... l.jpg?3900

This is my first project car. I basically purchased it to learn how a car works. I was tired of going to a mechanic and having them tell me that the tingamajiggie was leaky and it would be $300 to fix it. Oh and if I didn’t fix it, I was irresponsible, a bad American and I would die.

So here I am. I own a car that is sitting in someone else’s driveway and it doesn’t run. Oh and they sold it to me cheap, so I would get it out of their driveway. A friend of mine came over and helped me rig the carb so it would idle. The carb was missing parts. I also had to have the massive crack in the top tank of the radiator repaired.

After a couple of days tinkering, I had made it home.

On a side note. I got rear ended on the way to pay for the car. The other driver’s insurance company paid me the asking price. It was meant to be. And nobody noticed the scratches in my Neon’s bumper.

John Killin

http://www.moparpages.com/photopost/dat ... e.jpg?9842

This photo shows most of the original damage that was on the Valiant when I bought it. The paint looked good and the damage didn’t appear to be all that severe. The previous owner loaned the car to a to his nephew that was visiting for the summer. Evidently his nephew relied heavily on the bumpers and the car’s mass to come to a complete stop.

So here is the breakdown of the damage:

• Dent by driver side headlight
  Headlight bezels dented/ flattened
  Taillight bezels dented/ flattened. Lenses cracked
  Bend in driver side of front bumper
  Grill and front valance dent (again on the driver side)
  Large scrape on rear quarter panel above the rear wheel on passenger side. This area had been pushed in quite a bit.
  Small patch of rust in lower rear window corner
  Rear valance dented around license plate
  The original gas cap had been lost and replaced with a radiator cap.
  The trunk was badly rusted.

All in all, the damage was not that bad. The car was fairly straight.

I drove the car for a couple of years as my daily driver. In that time the paint started to go. The top and hood developed some white patches (Previous paint job). When I redid the engine compartment, I taped up the areas I wanted to keep over spray off. In some parts the paint came off with the masking tape. While doing the body work, we were able to blow off some of the paint with compressed air.

http://www.moparpages.com/photopost/dat ... r.jpg?3019

Here it is after the primer. After all the body work, we put another 3 coats of primer on it.

I drove it for about a month like this. After a while, the primer color starts to grow on you.

http://www.moparpages.com/photopost/dat ... r.jpg?5795

After sanding the primer……

(I did the driver side rear quarter panel. My friend Greg did the rest while I was working on my section. It sure is nice to have a professional working with you).

We sealed the car with this black sealer. This looked really cool right after it went on. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of it before it was wet sanded.

http://www.moparpages.com/photopost/dat ... t.jpg?6099

Back from the painter.

We painted it a sort of dark blue metallic. I tried to find a code for the original color, but eventually picked one from the book that I liked and thought would be close.

We used a 2 stage paint system with Dupont Chromapremier paint. The paint code is B9056K D. It has 3 coats of base and 3 coats of clear. It was shot over a dark sealer. When testing the color, I was surprised at the difference the shade of sealer made on the final color.

I’m very pleased with the way it came out.

Next step, assembly.