Ikbrown's 68 Charger

[ikbrown]

Welcome to the forum man, nice ride. I have a similar story to you, I got my 70 back in high school in 99, and have had it ever since. My daily driver and track cars are imports too (I lean towards E36s myself), I can relate. Nice rides. What's the story on the E type in one of your pics?

Right on, sounds like a couple others share our story as well. What E36 do you have? My first car that I learned manual on was a 93 325i. Loved that thing (except for the damn power window motors that were always going out). Lasted me until 3 years ago when it was costing me way too much money at 232k miles which is when I bought the Saabaru.

I'll post some pics of the e-type - my dad had it for awhile back when I was in high school.

[ikbrown]

Welcome to the site.     I'm from the placerville area.   Nice car.   

Thanks! 

Are you going to the Capital City Mopars 'Mopars in the Park' show? I will be bringing my Charger there for the first year. Excited to take part in the show.

[ikbrown]

Welcome to the site man, I like the parade of 68's.

Ya it was cool to have all the Chargers! Reached out to Rob, the owner of the black one and he knew a couple other guys so word spread and we had a good mopar turnout. Was a great cruise!

[ikbrown]

Cool collection of rides you guys have!

Welcome here.

I spot an E type Jag also. BTW, as a European member I did'nt even knew about the Existance of the Saab model..... Does it have a Saab engine or a Subaru flat 4?

The 92x was literally an Impreza with a nosejob and some upscale features added. It had a more premium feel to it compared to a similar Impreza, and was a little more expensive when new. They are mechanically identical to the subaru, though I'm think some tuning changes were made.

I think they look better than the Subaru version myself and would love to have one as a daily.  Saab was an interesting company, its too bad they closed the doors just as they were starting to get interesting.

JR did a good job explaining the 92x, ha, I have to have my elevator pitch ready for folks who give me confused looks at the gas station and such.

It's basically a re-badged Subaru WRX wagon that was only sold in North America for 2005 and 2006. There were I think only 9,000 made. The differences between the subaru and 'saabaru' are mostly cosmetics including:
different front fascia: bumper/headlights/hood/fenders
different rear fascia: hatch/taillights/bumper
roof rail deletes
different seats/door cards for the interior and a tad more sound insulation
steering rack from the 06/07 WRX

Mechanically it is all subaru so it is easy to maintain and there is a lot of aftermarket performance parts that work for it. The only bummer is if you get in an accident the front/rear parts are hard to come by (basically have to wait for one to be parted out) and so insurance is higher for the Saabarus since they're more expensive to repair.

[ikbrown]

Welcome and that is a sweet '68!  The best year IMHO.          What steering wheel is that and where did you get it? 

It's a Grant 4-spoke steering wheel, I think I bought it off YearOne or Summit or something. Just googled and looks like this is the same design as what I have. And of course I got a Mopar center cap for the horn too. 
http://www.4wheelparts.com/Interior-Parts-Accessories/Collector-s-Edition-4-Spoke-Steering-Wheel.aspx?t_c=9&t_s=98&t_pt=3192&t_pn=GRA1180&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping&emlprox=out&ppcfon=1&gp=1&gclid=CIG63IW_78UCFcskgQodDzUAAA

[ikbrown]

Welcome and nice cars! I am not too far from Placerville... I am in Napa. I have spent quite a bit of time in the Placer area. My dad has some land in Greenwood by Georgetown so I went there a lot as a kid.
Mopar Alley is a good show hopefully I will be there.
I suggest you check out Capitol City Mopars. They have a show coming up that is actually my favorite one around called Mopars in the park.

Where is the Mopar Alley show? Haven't heard of it.

Welcome! I'm in Sonoma the county area. Ill be heading to the Mopar show in Sac. Ill keep an eye out for you 

Right on! What do you drive? I will be bringing my car to the Capital City Mopars show this year. Look out for the faded red paint and white stripe 68! ha.

[ikbrown]

Beautiful Charger and welcome! Yours is the closest I've come to a twin of mine which is also 33-1 "Charger Red" with no vinyl top. I also went a similar route; drivetrain, suspension, plumbing, electrical, and most of the interior all done and dependable.

For me, it's fun having a patina and not having to worry about door dings, chipped paint, gravel roads, etc. 

I'll have to double check on the VIN but it's not 'Charger Red', it's RR-1 which is the burgundy color. I didnt make it very easy for you to tell that but the hood hinges are still that color, along with the floorpan in that pictures of the driver pan repair. The previous owner did a cheap-ish red paint job on it. I've had difficulties finding pictures of the burgundy color before, it seems like a rare color or people don't like it so they don't bother keeping it that color when they repaint. Stumbled upon a thread on here with a good example of the color on a 68 that's making me rethink plans of painting it another color. The RR-1 color looks really slick, and the fact that it's not common is cool too.
http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,55133.0.html

[ikbrown]

I am really digging that black 68.

Cool hey I know that black 68, I Follow Rob on IG.

Ya, Rob has a great looking 68. I actually met him through IG as well. Add me if you want to as well - my name on there is ikbrown, although I post my pics of my Saabaru than the Charger but that may change if I start working on her more 

[ikbrown]

In the process of changing my oil a couple weekends ago and having the car on the lift I noticed that my driver side tire is seriously worn on the inside so I'll need new tires on the front and an alignment. In a case of 'while I'm here' I decided that I should lower the Charger a bit before I have the alignment so I can have the lowering accounted for in an alignment as well. Lowered the front end 2 1/2 inches using the torsion bar adjustment. No more gap and the fender sits a bit lower than the top of the tire. I'll have to look at it from further away to see if I like the raked look or if I should lower the rear a bit too using lowering blocks

[Troy]

A little late but, yes, RR1 is pretty rare. It's an awesome color though! (In my opinion of course.) I'd have a hard time going with a different color. If you type "1968 Charger rr1" into Google there will be some decent pictures come up in the "images" part. If you leave out the Charger part you can see what some of the other models look like.

Troy

[ikbrown]

A little late but, yes, RR1 is pretty rare. It's an awesome color though! (In my opinion of course.) I'd have a hard time going with a different color. If you type "1968 Charger rr1" into Google there will be some decent pictures come up in the "images" part. If you leave out the Charger part you can see what some of the other models look like.

Troy

Ya, that's what I was thinking. If it was a more common or boring color stock I'd just find a new color to paint it but after finding some better pictures of that paint color, I think I'll go with RR1 when I repaint it down the road. (With a white 68 bumble bee stripe as well as opposed to the 69-70 stripe that they painted on her) 

[ikbrown]

Been off the forum for a bit but got the Charger lowered to where I wanted her finally . Don't know I didn't do this sooner! I think it looks great.

Ended up lowering the front about 2 1/2" and the back 1". Since the front tires were worn from a lack of alignment I replaced those w/ 245s (those will be the front tires once I get wider wheels/tires for the back) and put those on the rear.

When I had the tires installed I was going to have the shop do an alignment as well but they said they didn't want to do an alignment until I replaced the pitman and idler arms since there was a ton of slop and it wouldn't have held the alignment. Grrrr. Pretty sure we replaced those when we re-did the frontend, but that was about 8 years ago.

Here's a pic of how she sits now..


And... a pic of the show car winner! haha. Won 2nd place in the 'Under Construction' category at the Capital City Mopars show in June. Was a nice surprise to win something with my faded rust bucket

[303 Mopar]

Been off the forum for a bit but got the Charger lowered to where I wanted her finally . Don't know I didn't do this sooner! I think it looks great.

Ended up lowering the front about 2 1/2" and the back 1". Since the front tires were worn from a lack of alignment I replaced those w/ 245s (those will be the front tires once I get wider wheels/tires for the back) and put those on the rear.

When I had the tires installed I was going to have the shop do an alignment as well but they said they didn't want to do an alignment until I replaced the pitman and idler arms since there was a ton of slop and it wouldn't have held the alignment. Grrrr. Pretty sure we replaced those when we re-did the frontend, but that was about 8 years ago.

Congrats!  Do you mind me asking the specs for the wheels and tires?

[ikbrown]

Congrats!  Do you mind me asking the specs for the wheels and tires?

Not at all, but this isn't what I'm going to be running forever. Currently I have:

F: 235-60-15
R: 245-60-15

both over 15x8 inch wheels - not sure the backspacing, they came with the car when I bought it and I haven't measured.

Ultimately my goal is to go with:

F: 245-60-15 over 15x8 wheels - 4 inch backspacing
R: 295-50-15 over 15x10 wheels - 5 inch backspacing

[JB400]

Congrats on the trophy   What car got first?

[303 Mopar]

Congrats!  Do you mind me asking the specs for the wheels and tires?

Not at all, but this isn't what I'm going to be running forever. Currently I have:
F: 235-60-15
R: 245-60-15
both over 15x8 inch wheels - not sure the backspacing, they came with the car when I bought it and I haven't measured.
Ultimately my goal is to go with:
F: 245-60-15 over 15x8 wheels - 4 inch backspacing
R: 295-50-15 over 15x10 wheels - 5 inch backspacing

Thanks!  Sounds like you are going in the same direction as I am.   

[ikbrown]

Congrats on the trophy   What car got first?

Thanks - I'm actually not positive what kinda car it was. It looked to be an early 60s B-body of some sort, I only talked to the owner briefly. I'm hoping when they post pictures of the show I can find it - was a good looking car.