Chris' 1968 Charger Upgrades 6/13 Bunch of updates, done uploading

[JB400]

 

[Chris 69]

Went for a test drive, and the car ran great. The disk brakes are a huge improvement over the stock drums.

Later in the day, a friend stopped by with his '71 Demon. The Demon is a 318, sizzler package (stripes have been removed), and it has 214,000 miles on it and the motor has never been apart. His Aunt bought it new from his Uncle's dealership in Arizona in 1971. Very nice ride...

[Chris 69]

Thanks JB400!

[Chris 69]

Next was putting the hood on. Hood clearance was a concern, so I used my iphone to check clearance by taking a video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sf9AjiLWNQ

The hood cleared the air cleaner!

Here's a couple more photos of the Charger outside; just because I'm revved up that it's running again.

[Chris 69]

After driving around for a couple of days in Redding's 100+ degree heat, I was getting tired of the blast furnace coming up through the 4-speed hole in the floor. So it was time to put the hump in.

I didn't want to weld the hump in because then it's difficult to adjust the shifter linkages without dropping the transmission. Also I wanted to make the hump installation and removal easy to perform with one person. Here's the mods:

1. Cut 4 tabs out of steel bar stock.
2. Drill tabs for 5/16 bolts.
3. Weld tabs to hump.
4. Line up hump on floor and drill holes through floor.
5. Paint the hump.
6. Add weatherstripping.
7. Install it.

I figured the tabs and bolts would be OK since I plan to Dynomat the floor, and the Dynomat will "absorb" the added hump pieces.

Photos: Tabs welded to hump; painted hump.

[Chris 69]

Next was weatherstripping and installation.

[Chris 69]

Next the automatic console needed to be modified to fit around the 4-speed hump. Here's before and after photos. I used a pneumatic cutoff wheel for the modifications.

The cut doesn't have to be perfect since the plastic 4-speed cover will be installed on the outside of the console.

[Chris 69]

1, 2. Here's the console in place without the cover.

3. Here's a photo of the plastic side cover set in place for reference. The cover is semi-crooked in this photo.

[Chris 69]

Next was lower boot installation and console top plates.

Second photo is how it sits as of tonight.

[Chris 69]

Still have more work to do; I'll post updates as they occur. For now it's great just to be able to go for a drive again!

[VegasCharger]

Well, the Charger is up and running and I've been driving it for a couple weeks! Only stalled it twice so far - both times in my driveway.

Starting the motor went "fairly" smoothly. Had a friend come over to help. Went through my pre-start checklist, tried to fire it, wouldn't start. After some investigation, we determined that I had the distributor 180 degrees out. Flipped the distributor and the charger fired right up.

Here's a video of the motor running for the first time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqoYxpeldzM


Here's a photo of the Charger out of the garage for the first time since mid-January earlier this year

[Back N Black]

Nice work, good idea on the 4 speed hump. 

[don duick]

first time I read this thread don't know how I missed it in the past. Is absolutely amazing how you achieved so much in such a short time.

Now you need a trip to the dyno.

I also installed a new 440 in my charger, I got an extra 30hp after a dyno run, you might too!

[Dino]

That looks awesome!  Congrats!   

So...what happened to the garage door?   

[Charger-Bodie]

Gotta love the hand shaker option. Looking good!

[Chris 69]

Thanks guys.

That's a good idea to go to the dyno, although I don't know if there is one in Redding. I'll have to do some research.

Regarding the garage door, it seems that when my subdivision was built, the builder went as fast as possible with the cheapest materials. The garage door is very thin metal, and 5 of the roller brackets ripped out of the door. Right now, it's patched back together, and I have operate it manually. Very inconvenient. For now I'll just continue to operate it manually since it's about $1300 to have a new door installed.

[Chris 69]

It's been a while since I worked on the car. Kinda got burned out after the motor/trans/brake swap, and once it was running, it was nice just to be able to go for a drive the last 3+ months.

Now that the weather has turned wetter, I've got the desire to do more work, so I decided to install the subframe connectors I purchased a few months ago from US Car Tool.

First was painting the inside of the connectors with Rustolium I had on the shelf.

[Chris 69]

Next was supporting the car with my "lift", which consisted of 4 ramps. This allowed the suspension to remain under load during installation of the connectors.

Note the jack stands for secondary support.

[Chris 69]

Next was installation of the driver-side frame connector. First had to remove the brake cable, and all seats inside the car. If I had carpet installed, the carpet would need to be removed as well.

Photos are of the brake cable.

[Chris 69]

Next was fitting the driver's side connector. Basically, I jacked it up into place with two hydraulic jacks, verified where the high-points on the connector were hitting the floor pan, marked the locations, and ground off the high points until the connector fit as snug as it could.

There were still gaps, likely because my floor pan was dented in a few places, I think.

Finally got the connector as snug as I could get it.

I used chalk to mark the connector outline and a Dremel/grinding stone to grind-off where the welding would take place.

[Chris 69]

Next, welded the connector in place.

Still learning to weld the thin stuff. I started on the drivers side, outside, and by the time I got to the passesenger side, outside, my welds were looking better and better. Still need more practice though. But that's one reason I try to do my own work on the car, to learn how to do it (had to do some grinding on the ugly welds though)...

[Chris 69]

Next the process was repeated on the passenger side.

Looks like I'll be cleaning up the welds on the cut-outs too while I've got the car up "in the air".

[Chris 69]

Passenger side...

[Chris 69]

Ran out of C25 gas today.

Still have to:

1. Weld the slots on the passenger side connector.
2. Clean up some of the welds.
3. Remove my tacked-on ground clamp mounts.
4. Paint.

Next will be welding in the torque boxes. I'll post photos when that occurs.

[Chris 69]

Might as well show some more upgrades. The following photos are when I painted the tail stripes on the car. The overall paint job isn't that great, so I decided to try painting the stripes on. If something went wrong, oh well, the paint could be taken off. However, the stripes turned out pretty good. See the following photos.

The following work was performed January 2011.