I introduce to you my '71 Charger Hardtop

[71ChargerMike]

Hello ladies and gents or some of you might prefer boys and girls??  My name is Mike and I reside in SE WI. I've been a Mopar owner since my 2nd vehicle back in 2000. I have a '71 Charger with a 318, only option it has is power steering. My dad and I were looking for a '68 to '70 Charger but everyone we found were either true project car that required frame off restoration which we are not equipped to handle or the cars that were running were way out of our price range by 10 grand at least. My dad found our 71 charger on ebay of all places for $4500. We made plans to check out the car, we liked what we saw and made an offer at $3500, walked away at $4000. I don't know how many miles are on the car, If I had to guess with the type of wear I'm seeing in the suspension I wouldn't be surprised if it's 189k miles. It was supposed to be a father/son project. Well it never really worked out that way. Bought the car in 2006, drove it around town by myself and got the car running 90% on my own, took the car to several local car shows, placed well in the diamond in the rough or in the works classes for 3 years. After 2009 I lost interest because my dad wasn't showing any interest in the car at all. Car sat from 2009 until about 2 months ago when I sold my '03 Dodge Dakota because I saw how the car was being treated at my parents house. I have plans to get the car mechanically safe in the brakes and suspension areas 1st.

Here's a few photos of what I'm working with:

These were all taken in the early summer of 2007




This is where I'll be doing a lot of upgrading! Looks rather plain and dull right now.


This one is the drive from my parents house to my house a few months ago

[polywideblock]

welcome aboard        looks like you'll be busy this winter 

[tan top]

    hello & welcome   

[71ChargerMike]

welcome aboard        looks like you'll be busy this winter 

Well without a heated garage what I get done will be limited to how much cold can I handle in 1 day lol. I have an appointment to get a full exhaust put on the car. I plan on this being the only thing I outsource mechanically. I have a disc conversion waiting to be installed. I stayed with the manual brake setup on the advice from a good friend of mine who also has owned classic mopars for the last 20 years. I plan on updating all of the steering components, what I can of the suspension (torsion bars scare the crap out of me). Upper and lower ball joints since the brakes will be off anyway. Steering box needs a rebuild or replacement as well. So yes I have a lot of work to do but I also have a lot of time to do it as well because I'm not in any hurry to get it done.

[polywideblock]

  I suggest that you source a factory workshop manual  either a hard copy or there is somewhere to download one I think ,someone else might have a link.
     I'm a bit old school and like to have the manual  in front of me so I've bought repo's but that's just me  
       
            http://www.ebay.com/itm/1971-DODGE-SHOP-MANUAL-SERVICE-REPAIR-BOOK-CHALLENGER-DART-CHARGER-CORONET-DODGE-/310629084394?hash=item4852efacea&vxp=mtr

others just print out the pages they want to use from the disc  or website

[Kern Dog]

A manual front disc, rear drum setup is a good, solid system. Even if the car stalls, the brakes work the same.
Car looks like a good find. It is great when you can locate a desireable classic that hasn't been hacked by 20 owners, all with their own idea of what is correct. 

[Ghoste]

Welcome to the group, looks like a nice car and its good you are keeping interest in it.

[71ChargerMike]

Thanks everyone. The work starts Wednesday but the real work will begin after I get the car back from the exhaust shop later this week.

[GeneralLee440]

Welcome aboard to the greatest Charger site on the web! Where at in Illinois are you? Im in Southern Illinois

[Mopar Nut]

Welcome aboard!

Nice looking 71!

[PlainfieldCharger]

Welcome to the forum!! That is one clean 71! Good luck on your project! Use the search function on this site for any questions you may have!! This place is packed full of info!!

[CDN72SE]

Welcome to the site and yes, very nice '71. 

[draftingmonkey]

and another welcome from SoCal.  Working in the cold can be a bear. I am from eastern WA and I can remember changing a flex plate while I was lying in the driveway with a -35 wind chill blowing around me, brrrrr...  As for the torsion bars I would rather change a torsion bar than a spring any day. Nice looking Charger too.

[ODZKing]

Welcome Mike.
Nice start you've got at least.  One thing at a time!   

[67440chrg]

Welcome!!!

[RallyeMike]

Sorry. Our Mikes + Chargers quota is maxed out. Git outta here!



Welcome aboard 

[71ChargerMike]

Welcome aboard to the greatest Charger site on the web! Where at in Illinois are you? Im in Southern Illinois

Well I used to live in a small town in far NE IL called Zion, IL. It's literally right in the middle of Chicago and Milwaukee. The car no longer resides in IL, it's now 20 minutes north and is in SE WI.

[71ChargerMike]

Hey guys thanks for the welcome! 

Well the car is currently at the shop getting a full exhaust installed. Now had this car been a highly optioned, rare car and #'s matching my whole plan on this car would be different. This car is nothing special so I'm not afraid to make this car my own with aftermarket parts.

The exhaust I went with goes like this, Hedmen headers, 2.5" dual pipes, h-pipe, 2 flowmaster 40 series mufflers. It'll sound great as is but it'll sound even better once I do the 4 bbl setup, 360 ported/polished heads, more aggressive cam but that's all planned for next summer. 1st is the brakes, steering components, suspension components.

[Dino]

Nice ride.   

Welcome to the club.   

[myk]

Hey guys thanks for the welcome! 

Well the car is currently at the shop getting a full exhaust installed. Now had this car been a highly optioned, rare car and #'s matching my whole plan on this car would be different. This car is nothing special so I'm not afraid to make this car my own with aftermarket parts.

The exhaust I went with goes like this, Hedmen headers, 2.5" dual pipes, h-pipe, 2 flowmaster 40 series mufflers. It'll sound great as is but it'll sound even better once I do the 4 bbl setup, 360 ported/polished heads, more aggressive cam but that's all planned for next summer. 1st is the brakes, steering components, suspension components.

You're wrong buddy, all Chargers are special, including yours.  Now if we were on Mustang.com, that'd be a different story...

[Jduv10007]

Hey guys thanks for the welcome! 

Well the car is currently at the shop getting a full exhaust installed. Now had this car been a highly optioned, rare car and #'s matching my whole plan on this car would be different. This car is nothing special so I'm not afraid to make this car my own with aftermarket parts.

The exhaust I went with goes like this, Hedmen headers, 2.5" dual pipes, h-pipe, 2 flowmaster 40 series mufflers. It'll sound great as is but it'll sound even better once I do the 4 bbl setup, 360 ported/polished heads, more aggressive cam but that's all planned for next summer. 1st is the brakes, steering components, suspension components.

You're wrong buddy, all Chargers are special, including yours.  Now if we were on Mustang.com, that'd be a different story...

Couldn't have said it better. Welcome to the forum. Some really awesome people here and there very helpful. I have been stuck on a dead end and these guys and girls have helped me out a lot

[71ChargerMike]

Tomorrow I get my Charger back from the shop. They got the exhaust installed finally. They will have had it for a full week tomorrow morning. They had issues with the factory exhaust manifolds coming off. Had to drill out 4 broken studs then retap. That took the better part of 3 days. They had to remove the steering box then fit the headers and then reinstall the steering box. Then they had issues with the exhaust interfering with the shift linkage so they modified the linkage which ended up giving them issues. After hearing about all the issues they had, I'm very happy to pay the $1300 bill and save myself a lot of headaches plus now that this has been done, when I go to upgrade to 360 heads in the future getting the headers off shouldn't be as much of a pain.

Tomorrow starts a new project. Drum to Disc conversion.

[71ChargerMike]

Okay after about a week I figured I would give an update on the progress on the charger. The goal is to make this car a reliable driver. I'm not doing a frame off resto. I don't have the space or income for that. I have the disc conversion kit, I have on order 4 new shocks, 2 upper ball joints, and 2 lower ball joints. I plan on getting new upper control arm bushings while I have everything apart. Lower control arm bushings aren't showing any movement.

This was the start of my work last Saturday


Current progress on the left front from yesterday

[71ChargerMike]

Just an update.

The entire front end minus LCA have been removed. LCA bushings are not showing any movement and look relatively newer. I almost have everything I need to start putting the front end back together. In the mean time I'm going to put on some undercoating to help keep the rust at bay.

Rear will just get new shocks, brake cleaning, and adjustment.