Overdue for updates:
• Took the car for inspection
I drove the car same day as last post up to State Highway Patrol for inspection. It took them a while but it passed with no issues. On the way home I took it to echeck and it passed that as well. It was 75 miles of driving and the car ran fine. A week or so later we went to the title and license bureau to get the rebuilt title and plates. She put a few hundred miles on it after that.
• Moved/adapted Flowmaster exhaust from 2013 to this car
Up next was getting the exhaust from the 2013 moved over - already posted on the exhaust remove and the bodywork repair in the other Charger thread. Getting this Flowmaster American Thunder series required some fabrication. Flowmaster had a different part # for the 2019. I figured if the old one would didn't fit we could sell it. Removing the exhaust was fairly easy - everything was clean and new with not a spec of rust. Getting the hangers off the exhaust took some work - ended up using a 3 jaw puller to remove them.
Once the exhaust was off I compared it with the Flowmaster. The most obvious issue was the first tailpipe hanger behind the muffler was pointing inward but the hanger was expecting them to point outward. I was able to bend these with the vice, a deepwell socket and 1/2" extension. The next issue was the tailpipes were too short, as the rear bumper design is slightly different. I ended up solving this by cutting off the Flowmaster tips and having Kurt weld on a new set of 8" tips trimmed to like 7 1/2".
Fitting the exhaust in the car found the mufflers close to the differential yoke. This was similar to the 2013 so I didn't worry about it. The first movement of the car uncovered the mufflers were hitting. Well I ended up cutting a small portion off the end, pounding the main case down and having Kurt weld it together.
Second test found them to still hit. I tried sliding the mufflers forward on the pipes to no avail as they still hit. There was clearly space between them and the yoke bolts but driving the car was causing the diff to move or the whole exhaust move back just a bit. I ended up cutting about 3/4" inch off each pipe to move the mufflers forward, and that worked.
Lots of time lost trying to get the first pipe back off the stock pipes after the cat, and multiple assemble/disassemble. Also found some damage under the car which I attribute to the forklift, the most significant was one of the cross braces under the exhaust - the mounting locations were pushed up a bit which left not enough clearance for the main twin pipe. Well I ended up using that brace from the silver car since I had bent it down slightly for clearance when I had put this exhaust in that car.
• Cleaning up the paint
Painting with no spray both invites a lot of dust, and inexperience created some runs in the clear. I was mentally prepared for this based on what I had seen in so many videos. Created a plan, ordered/purchased some stuff. Plan was to scrape the runs and dust nibs off with a razor blade, sand the high spots with 1000 grit, then use 3” DA to sand with 2000, 3000, 5000 and buff our the last of the scratches.
Good plan, however I ran into trouble with the paper, and trying to buff out the last of the sanding marks. I could get a decent shine but there was still a haze to it. I wet sanded almost all the flaws with a 2000 grit disc, only to find the eBay cheap discs wear out quickly. Adjusted to 1 disc per 1-2 panels and it worked much better. The 3000 and 5000 grit discs I had seemed to wear out much more quickly so I ordered some 3M Trizact discs in 3000, 5000, 8000 (6 discs total = $45). These have a built in sponge backing and are great for wet sanding. Results were better but still not right in a lot of places. I got some Meguiars medium cut and tried that – also tried the old Ditzler DRX-16 sandpaper in a buffing compound, and neither would cut the haze. At this point I tried to really slow things down – picked a small section, redid the 3000, 5000, 8000 cycle then hit it with the buffing compound. That seemed to work. There were several pitfalls along the way as the result would look good but then if you got it in the right light you could see the difference in how clear it is. Grrr. This is going to take a while to finish but more practice will no doubt help me find a more efficient way to do it
• Interior: dash vents and window tint
Rachel had the car for over a week and was driving it. She reported the rear window tint to be dark and ask for it to be removed. She also reported the dash vents would not adjust.
The rear tint came off easy. Since there was no tint at the bottom where the light bar was, I just peeled it back from there. Bad news is the adhesive still stuck to it. It was at this point I started watching videos and realized there are different steps I should have taken to remove the adhesive with the tint. There are ways to remove that adhesive so that is still on the to do list
To address the vents, I removed the bezel, and soaked these vents in warm water. More coffee came out (water was brown). Let them dry a few days but they were still sticking so they got soaked again. After a few more days they seem fine and were reinstalled.