What years did Chrysler use lead in their paint? Was it just the exterior paint or all paints (exterior, interior, rims, engines, etc)?

What would be the best method of removing the old paint without causing the EPA to get pissed? Also, wife does not want lead paint dust floating around with our 1-yr old in the house. She is also afraid of the lead getting into the dirt and causing problems when the little one get to playing in the yard. I am thinking of some sort of stripper, but that may not be 100% containment.

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Restoring Wife's Great Grandparent's 1963 Dart.
Built August 30, 1962 in St Louis
First month of production
Serial Number 599
Still is a basket case.

ALL paint up through the late 70's has lead (It may have been even later). The amount is not enough to hurt anything unless you do it day in and day out. Wear safety equipment (paper dust mask and safety glasses) and you will be fine. I would not have your child out with you when you are sanding/stripping and dont smoke or eat until you have washed your hands with soap and water. I would also change cloths and shower before handling your child.
Frank

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Scrapple: Because a mind is a terrible thing to waste.
73 Duster - Race Car
66 Dart Wagon - DD
178" FED
82 D150
All Slant powered

One thing I am wondering is why do you want to strip it? If the base paint is solid, and has not been painted before, this might be an excellent starting point. There is nothing wrong with going right over factory paint if it is solid. Once you take off the factory paint, you expose the metal to air and moisture and invite future rust.

That being said, stripper would be excellent containment as long as you put all the residue in cardboard boxes and let the solvent evaporate before you dispose of it. Lead is a natural element, and exists out in the environment in abundance. The problem comes when you ingest it. It stays in your body as any heavy metal will, and causes serious damage. It is said Beethoven died of lead poisoning from chewing on his pencil, which used to contain lead. They know this from examining a remnant of his hair for DNA analysis. And the insanity that was rampant in the royal families of Europe for centuries was most probably caused by the use of lead based metals in their diner ware, which only the rich could afford. They used to think the insanity was caused by inbreeding, but the thinking has changed on that.

That being said, stripper will not work very fast on that paint. I have done two of them, and it is a hard job, requiring lots of elbow grease and time. Try coating the part in question one evening, putting plastic over it, and letting it sit under the plastic a day before you scrape on it. If you want to do body work over the old paint that is possible if you prep it correctly. I will right more about that if you are interested.

Don't eat any of this, and wear gloves, and a respirator. Don't cheap out on the respirator. Go to a local auto paint store and get their best product. Take lots of breaks. Get good ventilation if you are not doing this inside.



Sam

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Lead was banned from paint in 1977. But keep in mind that a lot of products from china contain lead. Such as children s toys. Seems china can lead any product they want. For some reason there seems to be no problem with that.

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www.extrememopars.com

I was asking an honest question when I asked why you want to strip the car. Let us know your thinking so we can possibly help you avoid the mess that goes with this. General rule of thumb is, one re-coat is OK. So if the car has not been repainted before, and the paint is fundamentally sound, I would start there, no matter how much damage or rust is on the car.

There are techniques for working over paint that I would be happy to share. The car in the Avatar photo below is painted over factory paint. It was worked to a very fine level over the paint and has remained quite straight, except for the fiber glass for 4 years. I would love to share some of that technique if anyone is interested. Self etching primer is a big part of that approach.

Sam

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My main problem with the body of the 63 is that every panel will require body work. There is older body work on the front fenders and rear quarters. It looks like it was in a chain-reaction collision. Then, the kids worked over all the panels, so there are little dents/dings everywhere. The original paint is not that good, but solid in many places.

I just feel it might be better to strip all the old bodywork/ rust, and old paint off and start with a clean slate. This is going to be a complete restoration, probably on a rotisserie, so I don't want to skimp anywhere and have to redo it.

If the existing paint can be used as a base, then that may work. I want to use some sort of epoxy primer to keep the rust out better.

_________________
Restoring Wife's Great Grandparent's 1963 Dart.
Built August 30, 1962 in St Louis
First month of production
Serial Number 599
Still is a basket case.

This is a complex problem. I will share some of my techniques in a day or two. There are many issues at work here. For now, has this car been repainted before? Are you going to do the body work? Who is going to do all the spraying? Can you spray primers of various kinds?

Sam

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Some of the car is original. The front and rear have been repainted due to collision. The trunk lid is a replacement and already a different color. I plan to do all the body work and painting myself. I have a large compressor and decent spray gun. I have restored antique farm tractors and am somewhat proficient with the spray gun. I have not done a car yet. The quality of the sheet metal, paint and finish are magnitudes more critical than on an old tractor, although I have sprayed single stage Omni with hardener with good results. I am hoping to bump up my skill level with this project. I have several other old cars that are in line for restoration after this one.

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Restoring Wife's Great Grandparent's 1963 Dart.
Built August 30, 1962 in St Louis
First month of production
Serial Number 599
Still is a basket case.

Thanks for filling me in. It sounds like you can do a good job. I will share more this evening. What model car is it. Maybe you said, but jog my memory please.
Sam

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It is the car listed in my signature panel. It is still basically a basket case, but I am acquiring some really nice goodies for it. It is your basic model 170 4-door sedan. The main things that are special about it are that it was my wife's great grandparent's car originally, and it is serial 599 made in the first month of production for the new uni-body style. I don't know if there is any real value being possibly the earliest uni-body still in existence. Would anyone really care?

Anyway, my plans are for a complete disassembly and build up. I want to add several things that will make it a really nice driver's car, including:
>3-pt seat belts, front and back, and possibly in the rear center
>Heavy use of thermal and sound insulation to make the cabin nice and quiet in doors, floor, headliner, trunk, etc...
>Head rests for front seats, maybe for rear also
>I have an under dash AC unit and under hood stuff from a 65 Valiant
>I have Power Steering from 65 Valiant
>Engine upgrades to get more power and economy
>Bigger valves
>Better/newer cylinder head with updated chamber
>Porting intake and exhaust passages
>2 1/4" exhaust
>Tranny cooler
>Tinted windows
>I have 10" drums and 14" rims already standing by
>Heavier rear springs
>Heavier front torsion bars already standing by

For the engine, I want a basically stock appearance. No headers, turbo, 4-bbl, etc.


Lots of ambitious things here, but being an engineer, I feel confident I can pull it all off. This will be a really nice cruiser if I can get it all done.

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Restoring Wife's Great Grandparent's 1963 Dart.
Built August 30, 1962 in St Louis
First month of production
Serial Number 599
Still is a basket case.

That sounds l like a great project. The only thing I might add to the list of upgrades is front disk brakes. I would never go back to drum brakes. If you are taking everything apart anyway, get the stuff to convert. There are now kits to add them to older drum brake spindles without changing everything out.

Here are some of the things I learned restoring my two Darts. I had done body work before and so had several other partial restorations under my belt by then. The first one I did old school with welding. The second one, the one pictured below, I did the way I describe here.

Make sure you have good ventilation. I built a down draft spray set up by putting a very large exhaust fan in the garage window, and then building a cabinet around it that made the air flow pull from down low, and away from the door.

The body work is where all the time is, but the final spray is where the skill and experience are key. Consider paying a professional to do the final spray, unless you have experience with this.

The Omni paint is great stuff. But, I think I never applied it without getting a run somewhere. You can sand those out, and rub it out to look fine, but it is a pain, and was always discouraging to see, since in most cases they would show up after 5 or 10 minutes. I just never had the sense to stop spraying when it looked nice and shiny. This is a case where more is not better. BE sure to use the hardener in the Omni.

I am a strong advocate of cold repairs to the metal. I do not like welding on body sheet metal. Welding starts rust. I repeat. Welding starts rust. It is the combination of heat and flux that does this. Not only that, but the heat from the welding distorts the metal. A Panel that looks smooth before you welded will then have waves in them that will require more bondo.


Bondo absorbs moisture, which leads to rust. It should be encased in water proof coatings of some kind, and never put over holes in the sheet metal, or over pop rivits, as they have holes in them.

I never apply bondo to bare metal. I don't care what it says on every can of bondo ever made. It will not stick to paint with wax in it, and that is the primary concern with putting it over paint.

Wax is one of the big enemies in doing good bodywork, and is probably the primary reason people like to strip the old paint off. I would say this about that, If you do strip the old paint off, don't feel compelled to go all the way to the metal unless you see rust showing up under the paint. In most cases you will find the rust is contained to a specific area. As you work back from this rust you will come to an area where rust no longer exists. I would feel fine about taking the paint off just down to the primer once you get to a rust free area. The primer Mopar put on seemed to be especially tough stuff, and I do not mind going over it. Here is my my process these days.

1. Remove all rusting metal with sheers, cut off wheels, or a hand held jig saw with a metal blade. The latter actually works pretty well. You can sand, scrub, wire brush etc to remove as much as possible.

2. Clean surrounding area well with strippers, and sand paper, etc.

3. Bend edges of remaining metal so a patch can over lap without creating a bulge. Don't worry, we will not leave a place for moisture to get in. I have a special pair of vice grips that create a step down in sheet metal for over lapping pieces, but this will not always fit in where needed. I sometimes resort to a ball peen hammer to bend the surface in enough.

4. Apply Captain Lee's Metal Prep available from Halon Marketing and wipe off after 20 minutes or so. Let it sit over night. There is NO product out there equal to Captain Lees. Once you have used it you will never go back to somthing else. It is simply terrific stuff, and will make you look like a genius. I have used others products and always end up back with Captain lees. Do not use their Rust Remover. It is not any better than anything else. The Metal Prep is what you want.

5. Apply either POR 15 or other modern rust covering paint to all surfaces you can get to inside and out around you repair. Let this dry over night.

6. Spray surface around repair with self etching primer. I used 3M's version, but there are other good ones. Self etching primer provides a good base to do body work over, and sticks to POR 15 type products. Halon has a similar produc t to POR 15, which I have used. They are about the same in my opinion. The self etching primer is the surface I apply bondo to rather than bare metal. Let this dry over night.

7. Cut your patch out of sheet metal. The hand held jig saw with a metal cutting blade is ideal for this. Bend it to fit.

8. I fasten patches in with flush pop rivets available from Eastwood. Don't worry, all will be sealed up.

9. Put a layer of seam sealer between the patch and the body metal, and proceed to lay your patch in, and pop rivet it in place with flush pop rivets. This requires a drill bit , and a counter sink. You can drill all the outer holes first if you want, and counter sink them ahead of time, but I was never certain where I wanted these, so usually had two drills beside me with both a bit and a counter sink. Wipe all the squeezed out seam sealer off the surface. Let dry.

10. Apply your Captain Lee's, and let dry over night.

11. Spray over everything now with self etching primer.

12. Apply your first body work with fiber glass based body filler. DO NOT use bondo at this point. Bondo must be kept sealed on all sides from moisture, and your pop rivets allow moisture to get to the back side of any bondo you put on over them. I start with Gorilla Hair. This is a fiber glass filler that has strands of fiber glass in it. It is messy, sticky stuff, but works great, and reinforces the joint. Use 60 grit paper to cut this back down.

13. Apply fiber glass body filler over the Gorilla Hair base, and cut this down with 60 or 80 grit. Don't try to make it look too good at this point. It is a waste of time.

14. Once the pop rivits are well covered, you can apply regular bondo and work it just as you have always done. I like to finish up with 220 paper at this step.

15. Spray all with regular sand and fill primer to test your work. Keep a light down low and away from you so you can see how light reflects off the panels. This will allow you to see high and low spots. Keep spraying and sanding until you like what you have. If a spot is too low, go back to bondo applied in a very thin layer.

16. Go on to the next area, and start over.

You will eventually get very good at this. Don't be tempted to drink the cool aid and weld all the panels to keep it all metal. I did my 70 Dart this way, and it was not better looking in the end, and rusted again any way.

The same holds true for using lead to fill the seams. Although, it is important to get the lead out, as there is almost always rust under the lead.

Here are a few more tips.

1. Use a blow torch to get old bondo, and lead filler out. Don't set your car on fire.

2. Use a good respirator. Any time I worked without one I felt like my IQ dropped 15 points. This stuff does effect brain cells.

3. You can work several repair spots at once since there is much waiting with this process. I think that is the primary reason professionals do not work this way. It just takes too long.

What color are you painting your car? ARe you changing the color?

Good luck. Keep us in touch with your project.

Sam

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Sam,
All very good advice. I forgot to mention that I also have a dual bowl master cylinder on the shelf, and may add a power booster if I can find an original style. I have thought about the disc brakes, and may go that rout if the 10" drums prove to still be insufficient. I like the Scarebird conversion. Looks simple and easy to repair/swap.

Fortunately, I will not have to do much/any welding or patch replacement on the body. It is basically rust-free. It does have some damage to the hood where the kids laid something over the fender and slammed the hood. The bracing/framing buckled at that point, and repeated opening/closing of the hood caused the framing to break. I intend to cut out the ragged edges around the break. I will then work the top sheet metal back to smooth, and then weld a patch over the gap and reinforce the area. It will look patched from underneath, but hopefully I can get the top fixed good. Other than that, the main damage is old from the earlier collision. It has lots of ripples that were bondo'ed over. The filler is up to 1/4" thick in places. I will try to work the panel out closer to the factory contour and use less filler. The old worked areas are getting rusty now, so they will have to come down to bare steel. The rest of the car can probably be sanded down to the factory primer like you suggested. I will not be changing the car's color. It is/was the light beige/tan, and will be cool in the Texas summer heat. I am thinking of using the Eastwood system that allows you to paint the inside of frame rails and such. I want to cover as much of the hidden panels and seams as possible to prevent hidden rust. I am looking at using it in the framing/bracing around the roof, frame rails, quarter wheel housings, lower door seams, etc.



If you PM me with your email address, I can send photos of the damage.

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Restoring Wife's Great Grandparent's 1963 Dart.
Built August 30, 1962 in St Louis
First month of production
Serial Number 599
Still is a basket case.

It sounds like the most important tips I offered are:

1. Captains Lee's Metal Prep. I can't speak highly enough for it.

2. Put down a base coat of self etching primer under your bondo. It makes an excellent base.

3. Put your lights down low.

Good luck with the project.

Sam

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