Test Driving a 1970 Camaro RS/SS Tribute Build

Today on muscle car limelight goes on the attack when the guys take her out for a spin,

Rick shows us the ups and downs of dent repair and we take a trip to the good guys show where Tommy winds up on memory lane.

We've had the chance to work on some pretty sweet cars on this show before

and they've run the gamut from low but do it yourself. Street cruisers

to asphalt thrashing fire breathing monsters that you could hardly keep the tires planted on.

But limelight here is a little different

what it lacks in over the top capabilities.

It makes up for with

purity

sophistication

and classic

sensibility.

You know, Tom, I think this is about the most accurate restoration we've ever done on this show.

Uh I mean, we usually upgrade stuff like motors, transmission, suspension tires, all that. But

I tell you what dude, sometimes the old stuff, it's just cool

limelights build with factory style parts, but just because she's got old school components, don't count her out when it comes to raw power.

One of the signature styling cues of a pony car is the long hood, short deck body style that they are often designed with.

Now, this results in a smaller car than most of the big models of the day,

but it still has room for a big engine with big power.

This citrus green paint looks pretty nice out under the sun.

It's got just enough metal plate for a nice subtle sheen.

This shade is not only an accurate Chevrolet color of the day, but it's also a unique choice that gives this car a look all of its own.

Tommy's Ruso job on these wheels looks dead on the poly glass rubber. Really completes that old school factory look. We're going for

the trim options for the RSS S model. Bring a good deal of pizza

to the table with subtle compliments of chrome and aggressive styling cues that you will not confuse this car for the base model

and the L 78 3 96 that we built for cranks out plenty of power to push it right on down the road.

It's chilling out in the ballpark of 375 horse

and for a car that's just a hair over 3300 pounds. That ain't half bad.

No, dude, it's hard to be at a good old fashioned big block and a four speed. We're just outright fun.

I'm willing to bet there'd be a lot more of these dudes still around, but they've been street racing beat up and

they're running a bridge of bucks,

which means when you got something like this, man, it's a shame to keep it locked up for no one to see these things were meant to be driven and enjoyed.

Well, I guess this thing is living proof that they knew what they were doing back in the day. Yeah, they did. She's pretty old and tired and wore out when we got her. But I think she's up for going out and scaring the heck out of some hybrids, man. Scare them. Heck, let's make some examples out of it. It works for me.

Did you ever accidentally smack your car with a hammer? Rick shows how not to fix it.

Plus a clean Plymouth with a dirty dirty name.

Hey, guys. Now, one of the things that separates a muscle car from, say a rock crawler or race car or a rat rod is the time and money spent on the paint. Now, we get a lot of emails asking us about technique materials and how do you really apply a show worthy paint job?

So, we're gonna be feeding you guys a few bite size tidbits now and again, to help you spread a little shine on your ride.

So today we're gonna talk about some of the most common mistakes that people make when painting a car because, hey, it doesn't take much to turn a really promising paint job. You know, a big old bucket of what the heck happened.

And that's why this kind of work can make some guys a little bit nervous. Now, odds are your wife doesn't like you messing around with her town and country. So do like we did run by LKQ and pick up one of their dent and scratched hoods. They're super cheap. And plus you don't have to worry about messing up the family truckster.

That's a good size dent.

Now, about 98% of the people that look at this dent think it's actually

about that big.

But I got news for you.

Now, the other 2% of you guys out there already know the dent is actually

about that size

and that is a big

difference.

Normally, I'd metal work this before adding the plastic filler. But to make a point, I'm not,

I'm gonna under fill this dent to show you guys what it looks like when you don't put enough material in there to properly repair it.

Uh Just like normal. I'm sanding it flat to the touch with a block and some 80 grit.

Now it doesn't look bad and actually it doesn't feel that bad, but don't forget where the real edges of the dent are. Basically. All I've done is go from a dent

to a ripple.

So basically what we started out with

is a hood

with a dent

and what we've done so far is come back and filled part of that d

like that.

Now, you could technically go over the top of this thing with a coat of primer

and through a

couple of coats of primer and blocking,

you could get that surface flat.

The problem with that is primer and just about everything else that you spray in a car shrinks as it dries don't ever forget that.

So what's gonna happen? You got this much primer here,

but this much primer over here. So it may be flat when you block that thing out. But as it dries that primer is gonna start to follow

that d

and then about six months after you paint your car, everything's dried out, you stand back and look at it and go, man,

I thought I blocked that thing out straighter than that.

So now what I'm going to do is prep the surface so I can overfill the same dent. Now, this is another very common mistake. A lot of guys will build Mount

Vesuvius out of body filler and then try to level it back down.

Not only does this make for a lot of extra work. It also usually turns out badly.

Now, at this point, we do have the whole dent covered up. The edges are blended in pretty decent,

but we're a little bit overfilled.

So now we've got our hood

with the dent,

but now we got it overfilled.

So it's actually coming up like that now to blend it out on the ends.

So it almost feels like it's all where it's supposed to be.

You can prime and block it and get a flat.

But you're gonna have the same problem primer this thick over the top of your filler and this thick over everywhere else. So you'll end up with that primer drawing

and get another wave in your body work. Now, another problem I've seen guys do with this

will come back and they'll add more filler

and try to blend that in and fill it. Well, now you feel a dent over here,

so you gotta add a little bit more filler and you'll end up chasing this thing on both sides of this dent

all the way out

down the panel. And what you end up with is a quarter panel, fender door, whatever that looks pregnant all the way down the side of it.

Don't do that.

If you're new to this, then invest in a can of guide coat and a long board because those two tools will really help you avoid some of the mistakes I've shown you here today, which are common, but definitely not the only ones that I see you guys make. So stay tuned because we got a whole truckload of tips and tricks for you on paint and body work coming up later in the season,

coming up a lightning quick four speed duster plus put on your drool catchers because we're headed to the good guy show.

Today's flashback. A 1970 Plymouth duster 340

back in 1969 the Barracuda was headed to the larger E body platform

leaving behind its roots in the valiant. A body.

This left Plymouth without a compact muscle car to compete against Chevy and Ford with a tiny retooling budget in just six weeks, they designed a brand new value

threw in a 340 Wedge V8

and Voila.

The duster 340 was born. It was unleashed in 1970

quickly left the competition in the,

the designers of Plymouth kept the frame in front end of the valiant, but that was about it.

They added a sleek fast back roof with large sea pillars and rounded out the rear with wider fenders.

This gave the car a muscular Coke bottle shape that was hugely popular.

If you ordered the 340 package, you got

racing stripes,

dual tail pipes,

a hearst shifter rally gauges and a full slate of wild colors to choose from. This one is called in violet.

Oh, yeah. Don't forget the obligatory cartoon character. A

friendly little dust devil. Just a reminder. The car is what was passing him by

for owner Don Cartwright. This duster is a dream come true.

When I was a kid. I had a next door neighbor that had a blue 344 speed duster

and uh I just always wanted one.

He got his wish when he found this numbers matching beauty in 2005. Me and my son did the total rest of registration. Our sale built the engine transmission rear end,

all the mechanicals, basically every nut bolt

has been totally replaced or restored on car dusters came with several engine choices including two slant sixes and a 318 V8.

But the real powerhouse was the 340.

It pumped out 275 horses of 5000 RPM.

Weighing in at just over 3000 pounds meant this car got about one horsepower per 11 pounds.

The duster 340 could go from 0 to 60 in just 6.2 seconds and do the quarter mile in the mid 14 s.

The duster was hugely successful because it packed in so much bang for the buck

at only $2500. It was nearly 500 less than the similarly equipped Chevy Nova. 350

over 200,000 dusters were sold in 1970.

Double. The number of valiants sold the previous year of those nearly 25,000 were optioned with a 340 package. New packages were added with cutesy names like feather duster,

gold duster and Space duster

and Don Cartwright. He still enjoys picking up the dust in his pristine

purple.

Next. Hey, Tommy, you like that, impala, huh?

Tommy? Tommy.

You're watching Muscle Car for a DVD copy of this episode. Just go to Power Block tv.com and order your copy for just 595 plus shipping and handling. Start your own muscle car collection delivered right to your door from the power block.

Hey, guys, normally we all cooped up in the shop having to work on something. But today we get to go out, check out some cool rides, see if we can find something to get into. So we're here at the good guys, Nashville Nationals. And as long as we're out of the studios, we're gonna hang out, throw back a few cold drinks, check out some hot rides.

Here's a little tip for you. I like to head to the swap meet right out of the gate. Early bird gets the worm when it comes to these kind of things.

If you wait even a couple of hours, you could miss out on something and never see it again.

Nothing wrong with them. Ouch.

You can look for stuff for years and man, just one day you'll just run up on it, you know, and di

I've seen some stuff I hadn't seen before.

And, uh, as far as the cars, man, they're great.

Something like this. About how much time do you have

about four days

at a big show like this. You can find cool stuff you've never seen before. Along with some familiar faces, advanced plating, the Ring Brothers

green and auto rad rides.

Hey, we even ran into Brian from auto body color and supply.

We get to meet not only our customers that we see on a daily basis but the backyard guys that are doing themselves, they're really proud and show us some really amazing things they're doing at home. I get to be face to face with a lot of the people that I get to talk on the phone with all the time and, and uh, face to face time is, is really good. It's,

it's a lot more meaningful.

We figured it was time to go. Look at some cars. It seemed like a good place to start. I'm Dennis de Camp and this is my 1970 mustang with a 427 small block rouse.

And believe me, it's quick

route of the year 07. Muscle machine of the year 0 10. The only left original is the roof. Everything else has been replaced. I just drove the car out from L A to Nashville. It was just over 2100 miles.

We love seeing people just getting out and driving these things.

Oh,

it's rare for me to get out and go. But I love to go and

just

kick back and

talk to everybody about cars. You know, the motors wheels just kind of need to see it a little bit. Doesn't matter if it's fast or slow. It just,

just taste,

man. This thing's got me thinking this was exactly like my first car. Dude

still got it.

Makes me wanna go home.

I still have it, dude. That's nice. No.

Makes me wanna go home and work on it though.

Need to dig it back out of the weeds and

get on it.

My name is Billy Seals. That's my 63 Impala. Well, I bought this car here and, uh,

1966 when I was 18 years old for many years. It was my main car but it said about 15 years before I actually done

anything major to it. I started in the mid nineties putting it back together like it should be same thing what you got except mine wasn't a 409. It was my very first car. Is that right? Yeah, me and my dad put it together. We bought it for about 200 bucks. Drug it home, put it back together and that was all the way through high school. Mine has black interior in it, of course. But, uh,

about the same color.

Well, looks like Tommy has gone all starry

eyed over this one.

It's got me wanting to go home and

start working on mine.

Have you

got

one?

Yeah, I still have mine. It's nowhere near this nice.

Like no pair of steering. No pair of brakes. Just, uh, just a 4094 speed. Just to go fast. Goodies. Pretty much. It's got a 411 posse in it.

Wow. That they

ought to get up and move pretty easily then. Yeah, it, it does very well. You got any

future plans for it.

No, I plan on keeping it

as long as I can as long as you can.

Yeah,

I

get guys coming up to me that I went to high school with.

It's usually the first or second question they asked, ask how I've been.

You still got your old car to

maybe that's the best part of these kind of events, seeing a car like this can inspire you to get into your own garage and start building.

You know, man, a bad day here at the show is still far better than a good day at the shop. You ain't joking, brother.

It looks to me like people are loading up and heading out, so I guess we should probably do the same. Sounds good. Let's go find that cold drink he was talking about

works for me.