My 68 Is Finally Home

[LeeBoy]

Well I was finally able to bring my Charger home to begin tear down and the bag and tag process. I bought this in 2001 and posted about it on the old site but not much here. It has been in storage because my old garage was only a one car and that had my Satellite in it. I built a new garage in December of 06 and between that and getting two other project vehicles I was finally able to clear things out and bring the Charger home. It's only a 318 car and needs a ton of work but there are only three other second gen's in my area. I paid $700 for it and it came with a 69 HP 440 and a 23 spline 4 speed which will be repaced with an 18 spline and the 8 3/4 rear will be replaced with a Dana 60. At some point I think someone put in a 4 speed set up, although the pedals and Z bar bracket look factory installed, accept where they hacked up the floor for the shifter. I haven't found a build sheet and the fender tag is MIA. The vin decodes as a 318 2bbl (XP29F8B) and that's all I know. Could it have been a three on the tree? The column has been changed to a floor shift column a some point because it is a different color.
  The car needs everything, although all of the frame accept the right front looks good. I have a good hood, trunk lid, front splash pan and full floor pan. I also have some nice doors but they are from a 69. I will probably get skins for my doors and sell the ones for the 69.
Last night I started to tear the car down. The entire Front grill structure only had five bolt holding it in, the fenders were missing several bolts and they had a ton of fiberglass matting in them! The inner fenders will need some repair but I think I can save them. The right front frame rail has me concerned.
The car was last inspected in July of 1979. I tried to buy the car from my neighbor back in 1988 but he said nah I'm gonna fixer up! Well then his barn started to fall down that it was stored in so I sat outside for several years and filled with water.
I will be getting a rotisserie in a couple months, so teardown should be complete by then and I will be able to get a good look at the underside. I was glad to here of the sheetmetal that AMD and CBD is making cause I need it all.
  Here are the pics. I'm sure I will be asking a lot of questions in the next few years so bear with me.

[terrible one]

Beautiful! Good luck on the restoration!

[LeeBoy]

some of the rust! 

[LeeBoy]

Progress from last night and ready to bag and tag!

[LeeBoy]

more

[The70RT]

Cool. Good luck 

[LeeBoy]

Some one put a nasty orange peel finished black paint job on it. I cleaned up an area in side the door jamb and it looks like the original color was  medium blue metallic. It is peeking through in other areas as well, I don't know for sure because the fender tag is long gone and no build sheet as of yet. Anybody have any guesses?

[LeeBoy]

Inner fender pics.

[LeeBoy]

How do the numbers on the radiator support decode?

[CB]

you got a cool shop to perform the rotisserie resto on the 68 Charger!
another charger saved
CB

[Charger-Bodie]

Lots of metal work to do,but thats fun if you ask me.

Take youre time with the metal work and the rest will be easy.

[Joshua]

$700?
Right on.....
Sure...it's needs alot, but looks fairly complete.
I dig your plans for it....
Looking forward to it's resurrection!

[Hemidog]

Don't loose your motivation and keep up the good work!
oh, and keep us updated, with pictures!

[gordo1968charger]

let the good times roll 

[Dans 68]

How do the numbers on the radiator support decode?

"B" - Hamtrack build
"8" - 1968
"X" - I've always thought of this as a separator, and to denote a body stamping.
"112619" - serial number that matches between the radiator support stamp, trunk lip stamp and fender tag (last 6 numbers). Look at my attachments.

Nice project! It should keep you out of trouble for a good while!

Dan

[69 rt]

It will be a great car when your finished, from experience, I can tell you to be patient, just keep the picture of how it will eventually look in your minds eye and it will get done. You will become great friends with Yearone, The Paddock, and many other vendors.

69 rt

[six-tee-nine]

18 spline.....Dana,......shifter sticks 

But first you gonna have to face some bodywork, but hey lots of knowledge on this site to help ya get trough it.

[LeeBoy]

Thanks for all the words of encouragement. I restored my Satellite back in 1992 so I know what I'm in for as far as work but $ that's another story. 

[Magnumcharger]

By the looks of it, I'd say offhand that your car was QQ1 Electric Blue Mettalic when it was made.
-Same as mine-!
That frame rail looks pretty nasty though. I would seriously suggest looking to Arizona, or Wildcat Auto Wreckers for a new one.
Other than that, you've got a great car there with a whole lot of potential!

Where are you located?

[hemi-hampton]

68 core support #'s are different then 69+. The X is for Charger & the next set of #'s are the SO (Shipping order#) or VON (vehicle order #) unlike 69's & up that used the Serial # from Vin.  LEON.

[LeeBoy]

By the looks of it, I'd say offhand that your car was QQ1 Electric Blue Mettalic when it was made.
-Same as mine-!
That frame rail looks pretty nasty though. I would seriously suggest looking to Arizona, or Wildcat Auto Wreckers for a new one.
Other than that, you've got a great car there with a whole lot of potential!

Where are you located?

QQ-1, Thanks. I'm in north central Pennsylvania about 30 miles south of the NY state border. I got a look at the rear frame rails today as well and they look soft in a couple spots.

[dodgecharger-fan]

I stared at this picture for about 10 seconds trying to figure out what kind of car the hood was from.. the one leaning up against the wall looking like a cobra front end, or some sort of British roadster bonnet...



Then , I leaned in a little closer.... two fenders botton to bottom!   Ah! Got it! Is there a prize?

[LeeBoy]

When I bought the car back in 2001 I took the bottom of the back seat out and found nothing so I put it back together. Today I took the top of the back seat out during the tear down and BINGO  there it was. Its faded quite bad but I scanned it and magnified it and was able to see the numbers faintly. a lot of the vin # was chewed off but the first few #s match my vin and the shipping# matches my radiator support number. Very few options on it. Hopefully I can get a fender tag made now, even though I am making an R/T clone I want all the right info on the car.

[Dans 68]

Good news! Congratulations!   

Dan

[LeeBoy]

Starting to decode the build sheet. There is a 1 in the trans block and what looks like 208 in the steering column block. I believe that the 1 means 3-speed manual column shift and 208 I don't know. Anybody know production figures on a 318 three on the tree? This explains the stock installation look of the clutch peddle and Z bar bracket.
There is also a 1 in the sold car block what does it mean. I've tried to do a search on this site and on the web to help decode the build sheet without any luck. Does anyone know where I can find that info?