video 68 charger ! interesting story !

[tan top]

  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QD6xl2wE3kU
have a read of the text  

[lukedukem]

I posted a message asking him to join our site and share his story. He has other videos too, but this one is best. Hopefully he comes on. That cars stance is tall in the front. Looks and sounds mean.

Luke

[tan top]

I posted a message asking him to join our site and share his story. He has other videos too, but this one is best. Hopefully he comes on. That cars stance is tall in the front. Looks and sounds mean.

Luke

  ...

yep sounded mean when he fired it up 

[TPR]

Good story.
Hopefully he'll sign up soon.
TPR

[lukedukem]

Good story.
Hopefully he'll sign up soon.
TPR

Yep, someone else posted too, saying they where from here and asked him to join. Hopefully he will

Luke

[68moparbob]

Thanks for the comments.  I joined up a couple weeks ago, but have been so busy and have not taken the time to post on the site.  Back in the mid 70's I owned several "B" body Mopars, including a '69 Charger RT/SE with a 440, 4 speed & Dana 60.  Those cars are long gone.
  I had the opportunity to buy this car from a local  guy in my hometown (Bluefield, WVA) in the Fall of 1978. I waited too long to get back to him and he traded it in at the local International truck dealer.  The day he traded it in, I contacted the salesman he dealt with and purchased the '68 in the videos for $1,600.00 on October 6, 1978. It had about 52,000 miles at that time.  It is a numbers matching all original car. It has the HP 440, 4-speed & Dana 60.  It is the "X" Blue with a white interior, with the AM/8-track radio.  I pulled the engine and rebuilt it the following summer and freshened up the engine bay. I installed new tires and Cragar SS wheels.
In June of 1980 my wife and I (she was expecting our 1st child), and a friend (he was driving his '69 Charger R/T) took a trip to Indianapolis to the Car Craft Street Machine Nationals.  Since we were of the first 500 entrants to the car show, we got to drive on the Indy track in our Chargers.
Well, in December of 1981, I sold the car to a relative so we could get enough of a down payment to buy our first home. I sold it for  $1,600 with the agreement that I could buy it back for the same amount, once we got on our feet again.  Well, we just couldn't seem to come up with that money and gas had just broke over $1.00 per gallon.  I just could not see me affording the gas for that car. HA! I finally told the family member to sell the car to someone else. She sold it to her neighbor.  He drove it around about a year and finally parked it in his garage and stripped the interior out of it, removed all the chrome and sanded it down.  He put a coat of cheap primer on it and there is where it sat for the next 30 + years.  We eventually moved on and things got better for us. The kids finished college, got married and we are now empty nesters.  Over the years I tried many, many times to buy the car back, but he would not sell it.  Finally, I gave up on getting it back and restored a '71 Chevy pickup. I could never get the Charger out of my mind.
On September 13, 2014, we received a call from the relative I sold it to. She told us that the neighbor was planning on selling the car and he would give me first option to buy. I immediately contacted him and we discussed the condition of the vehicle, etc. He said he was going on vacation and he would contact me in about a week. Well, it ended up a week and a half. That was the longest 12 days of my life.  He finally called me Thursday September 25th and we agreed on a price and I told him I would be there Saturday around noon to pick it up. He actually kept the interior pieces and chrome work wrapped and protected. 
The car now has 61,000 miles on it, it had 57,000 on it when he purchased it from the relative.
After I got it home and backed it out of the trailer,I could not get it started again. I thought it was out of gas, so I put about a gallon in it and it was all the way to the top of the filler neck.  I siphoned about 19.5 gallons of 30 year old gas out of the tank.  I put 5 gallons of fresh gas back in it, rebuilt the Holley 600 (that I installed new back in 1979).  It runs now, but my plans are to pull it down this winter and start the restoration. I will be posting more videos and pics as we go along.
Sorry this story has taken so long.  I am super excited to get this car back after 33 years and I am looking forward to being a part of this DodgeChargerForum.
By the way, do you know anyone interested in buying a nut & bolt restored '71 Chevy Stepside?



     

[myk]

Welcome and thanks for sharing your Charger story...

[tan top]

 Hello & Welcome , ( 68 MoparBob)    , thanks for sharing your story !!  awesome stuff      

 

[lukedukem]

any updates?   

luke

[Homerr]

Welcome!

We always like seeing pics here - current condition and any you may have from back in the day.

[lukedukem]

wonder what happened to this guy. i liked the story and video about his car.

luke

[bull]

Welcome. Is a 600 cfm carb big enough? I'd think you should have a 700 at least.

[G-man]

Awesome story!

Pity about that 69 RT/SE though.

Did you get the 68 Back for $1600 that you sold it for?  Sorry I just had to ask.

[8WHEELER]

I tried a new 625 competition carter on my 68 for six months. Tried everything to get it to have the most power with
a mild cam. Gave up, put a 800 Holley on, WOW......... put that 625 on my 383 69 charger the next day.

Hope he is getting it done  

Dan

[VegasCharger]

Hello and welcome

Great story and great 68

Looking foward to seeing pics and progress to the greatest make, model & year this planet has ever offered.

[68moparbob]

I tried updating this post a couple days ago, but it didn't work.  Let's try it one more time.
I did sell my restored '71 Chevy pickup to a Chevy dealer in PA.  He sent me a pic of it in his showroom, surrounded by new Chevrolets. I thought that was quite an honor. I hated to see the truck go, but that was one of those things I had to do to make room for the Charger. It was a bittersweet experience.
The Charger is sitting in my garage, waiting for the restoration to begin.  That was pushed back a couple months due to a family medical situation. I have cleaned out the garage and by mid-March the restoration should be under way. In the mean time I have been searching for vendors and perusing this Charger site looking for ideas and getting opinions of others. In April I plan to go to Charlotte to see what I can find there. 
-bull & 8 wheeler, the jury is still out on the carb. Not sure what I will go with when that time comes.  I appreciate your comments and I will stay attuned to the site to see what others have to say.  The 600 did a good job back in the day. I do not plan on building the engine for racing or any type of high performance results. It will be pretty much stock. 
- G-man, I did not not buy it back for what I sold it for. That would have been sweet!  Let's just say that inflation really hit hard when it came time to buy it back. I was very satisfied with the price we settled on, especially since I knew the history of the car, knowing it had been sitting in his garage for the past 30 years and the sentimental value that the car held to our family.  It was good to get the "old friend" back.  That's something I did not think would ever happen.
My plan is to go back stock. I will be driving the car on the weekends and making a few road trips with it.  I just want to enjoy the Charger.     
As I get started on the project, I do have some questions.
- I am looking at going with Legendary Interiors for most of the interior parts?  Thoughts?  Good/bad experiences?
- How about RockAuto for suspension/brakes/engine parts? Any other vendor suggestions? I am looking for good quality parts at a reasonable price - not the cheapest necessarily, but quality products.
- The car had Cragar SS wheels back in the day(and still does, but they are rusted/pitted). I am kicking around the idea of going with the factory style Magnum wheels. Thoughts/ideas on wheel vendors? Show me your pics.  What did you go with?
- Sound system - I have the original 8-track tape player. I want to upgrade and have a decent sound system, but not go overboard with a trunk full of speakers.  Who makes a good set of rear shelf speakers and front speakers that fit in the stock holes?
-  Exhaust - I want to retain the factory look with a bit of rumble on the outside and be able to talk/listen to the stereo inside the car.  Flowmasters- what series? Ideas?
- Chromework here in the east?  Any good/bad experiences?  The bumpers were re-chromed in the late 70's. They've held up well, but I plan on getting them re-chromed again.

Sorry to ramble on, but these are some of the things that I've been kicking around before I get started on the restoration.
Thanks in advance for any input/suggestions.  Will update with pics as it progresses. 

   
 

-               

[lukedukem]

Good to see you got to post.
I have legendary interiors, one complaint that I have and I've heard is the buttons coming off. Only the driver seat because it gets used more. Not sure if they have corrected it, but I'll let others chime in.
I've used rock auto for brake parts, for engine I used summit racing. I haven't done suspensions and steering yet but others like moog, and you can get it at mancini racing in a complete front end package or I think rock auto has them too.
Good luck, this site has all you'll need. But you will have to provide pics. 

Luke

[tan top]

  thanks for the update !! 68Mb   ramble away !! were all charger & mopar nuts & love reading  this kind of stuff  

[will]

Ironic to me is that you contacted the guy on September 13th (my sons birthday) and brought it home on September 27th (my birthday).