finally broke my last nerve

[71ChallengeHer]

Don't worry guys I won't let him see it.  He is a little frustrated, but it will be ok...It is just that the last few weeks we were ready to hit a car show, hubby works on the car all day on the one thing that is keeping us from going to the show the next day and in the end something else breaks.  As he said...he replaced the throttle cable that he broke last week (after spending literally the whole day outside redoing the exhaust, tuning up the car, and other little odds and ends...to have that break)...should have been it so we could have taken her to Coronado today...but no the dang thing won't start; can't figure out why not....no loose connections battery is fine...just keeps clicking......

Starter relay ?

[68chrgrwife]

Don't worry guys I won't let him see it.  He is a little frustrated, but it will be ok...It is just that the last few weeks we were ready to hit a car show, hubby works on the car all day on the one thing that is keeping us from going to the show the next day and in the end something else breaks.  As he said...he replaced the throttle cable that he broke last week (after spending literally the whole day outside redoing the exhaust, tuning up the car, and other little odds and ends...to have that break)...should have been it so we could have taken her to Coronado today...but no the dang thing won't start; can't figure out why not....no loose connections battery is fine...just keeps clicking......

Starter relay ?

nope checked that......

[sick dawg]

I know just how you feel. I've been there many times myself.  Going right to e-bay right now!  I've felt this way plenty of times too.
Now, on the other hand when I go down to the beach for street rods at the beach and go to kick back some cold ones with my friends at Fishtales I think different. When I leave the bar and have a hard time getting to my car because of all the people around it looking at it, I think I  sure am glad I didn't sell it.

[mikesbbody]

im glad your there to stop him from selling chrgrwife! hang in there!

[Back N Black]

Maybe bad ground at the starter? Take a jumper wire and attach it to the starter casing and ground it to the car body.

[moparstuart]

Maybe bad ground at the starter? Take a jumper wire and attach it to the starter casing and ground it to the car body.

is it an automatic  ?  if so  might be the nuetral safty switch ?   try to jump the starter with a big screw driver  ?

[69chargeryeehaa]

I'll jump in here, and save you guys alot of grief, and money. 

I sold my old 69 charger, had it with all the things breaking, constant fixing.  I bought a 1956 speedster replica based off a vw chassis, and sold the charger.  My other passion is vw's, and they never give me any grief at all (many years driving old air cooled vw beetles).  Everything's great, the speedster runs like a dream, many miles of happy crusin, life couldn't be better.  But after about 3 months i started dreaming about the charger again, in the back of my mind, i was thinking about it, and why i sold it.  The following summer, about 7 months later after i sold it i'm at a local cruise night......guess what shows up  MY OLD CHARGER......i heard it, saw it, smelled it, and the flood of memories of driving that 440 beast came back.  It was at that point i made the decision to get another charger.  It was an instant decision, i finally broke my last nerve!!!!!  Being chargerless for 7 months, you realize what you HAD.  Nothing mattered at that point other than to replace my charger, i begged the guy i sold it to if he would sell it back to me....his answer was NEVER...
So i basically put my life on hold, put the speedster up for sale.  Screw everything else, i moped around the house, and lived on the computer calling, saving, looking at every add on the internet for a 69 dodge charger.....and posted a wanted add moparts.  A few weeks went buy and i was going nuts, couldn't find a nice charger for a good price.  Finally out of the blue i get an email, " hi, i have a 69 charger r/t, 50000mi, second owner, v2 orange car, black... yada, yada, yada".....I instantly reply to the email, please send me pics......hoping....praying........then i got the pics.  I couldn't sleep, and immediately arranged a flight from Toronto, Canada, to Minnesota.  Long story short i found the deal of a lifetime, exactly what i wanted in a charger at a price that was unreal.  I flew down, bought the car and drove it home....1300 long miles with the biggest smile on my face......
My advice is simple, if you really had the last straw, and are ready to pack it in take the time to think about why you bought the charger in the first place.  If your like me, and have that passion for the car, you quickly realize that you would'nt be happy without one; as i found out the hard way.

since i know how much you guys like pics, here's the pics of the cars in my story:

i had this:


sold it when i got this:


cried like a little baby.....until finally.....I GOT THIS:


NEVER AGAIN WILL I BE SO STUPID>

[Charger_Fan]

Don't worry guys I won't let him see it.  He is a little frustrated, but it will be ok...It is just that the last few weeks we were ready to hit a car show, hubby works on the car all day on the one thing that is keeping us from going to the show the next day and in the end something else breaks.  As he said...he replaced the throttle cable that he broke last week (after spending literally the whole day outside redoing the exhaust, tuning up the car, and other little odds and ends...to have that break)...should have been it so we could have taken her to Coronado today...but no the dang thing won't start; can't figure out why not....no loose connections battery is fine...just keeps clicking......

Starter relay ?

nope checked that......

Make sure you remove & clean the battery cable terminals. Just 'cause they look clean, doesn't mean there isn't a film of corrosion between the battery post & terminal. I've had than happen more than once.
Get one of those cheap round battery brushes, works swell.

[1BAD68]

I'm kind of the opposite, I'm always looking for stuff to do on my car. Change this, fix that, upgrade, remove, replace, clean, etc...
I get bored quickly so if my Charger is running great and looking good, I'll take it out and beat it silly until I break something.

[Leonidas Rex]

I cannot tell you how many times I have "thought" about selling my projects when they crap out and I have to throw more money into them. My father gave me the best advice that I can think of right now. He told me to walk away for awhile and come back when you miss it. You can think better and will find the problem easier. When I am in my pissed mood, I want to strangle him when he says it but I know he is right.

Man, it took me over 36 years to acknowledge that my father could be right about anything! Good thing he does not come to this Board so my secret is safe.

Anyway, I wish you the best of luck and hopefully you hold onto your car.

[MoParJW]

 If it gets too much, don't drive it until you got all the problems fixed, and do some preventive replacements of old parts, it's a good way of making your car more reliable & collecting spare parts.

I work at a peugeot dealership, and I can tell ya my satellite has proven to be more reliable than some new peugeots 
and these old mopars are real easy to work on compared to modern cars 

[DodgeChargerNeeded]

I love having a charger but hate working on it so I sold my previous car because it was just nit picking me to death. I recently bought a cheaper replacement we will see how that goes. If I don't like it I will send it down the road too until I find the right one.

[68chrgrwife]

If it gets too much, don't drive it until you got all the problems fixed, and do some preventive replacements of old parts, it's a good way of making your car more reliable & collecting spare parts.

I work at a peugeot dealership, and I can tell ya my satellite has proven to be more reliable than some new peugeots 
and these old mopars are real easy to work on compared to modern cars 

the problem is we don't drive it.  We have never been able to drive it.  Every time we think that we are actually going to get the chance to drive it...take it out....bring it to a show....Something breaks and we can't do anything with it...it just sits there....The damn thing is "done", but we can't freakin' go anywhere in it because something new happens to make it not road worthy or whatever...that is his complaint.

[GL0169]

I HAVE BEEN DRIVING MY 69 CHARGER EVERYDAY FOR THE LAST 21 YEARS (24/7) -AND I AM JUST NOW GETTING ALL THE KINKS OUT - TO KEEP A OLD MOPAR RUNNING IT IS A DAILY CHORE THAT MUST BE IN YOUR HEART - YOU WILL  KICK YOUR SELF EVERYDAY IF YOU SELL THE CAR - TAKE A DEEP BREATH AND REMEMBER YOUR DREAM- ME AND MY CHARGER ARE ABOUT THE SAME AGE 39-40- BOTH RUNNING STRONG - AND NOW IM HAVING A CONTEST TO SEE WHO DIES FIRST   ME OR THE 69 CHARGER - I THINK IM LOSSING BECAUSE IM TIRED - DONT LET GO OF YOUR  DREAM -  RENE

[six-tee-nine]

This hobby is definitely not for the weak or impatient. PERIOD 

There's nothing harder than the truth. 
If you are impatient you either end up discouraged halfway or you end up with a dissapointing sloppy resto job.
I think patience and "love" for cars and tech stuff, even moren than knowlege, is the key to bringing restoring cars to a good end.

To give ya an example : I restored my 69's taillight housings this week, to get rid of the 40 year old gunk and sticky gasket remains, sanding, prepping, cleaning and finally painting took me about 5 hrs.
Then I don't even want to mention the cleaning/polishing of the lenses.


You can not push the limits on a hobby like this. If it gets too much then back away for a while.
Just like everyone here I guess, my restoring "fire" was dieing a little......till I saw some shiney restored cars this weekend on a meet.....well it feels like they pored gasoline over my fire right now, motivation is up tp 200% again.

[Brock Samson]

seriously, car shows and mopar magazines usually would bring my enthusiasum back when discouraged... as happened alot of times...

[jbweems]

I'm new to the Charger owning and have already experienced feelings like that.  For the first couple months after I bought my 72, it was in the shop more than in my driveway.   I got really frustrated because I knew I was having to go away for a while due to my job and I didn't want it just sitting and not running.  I even got to the point to where I posted it for sale but deep down, didn't really want to sell it.  Even now, it is taking a break and won't crank.  Vacuum leak, bad coil, I don't know what is wrong with it.  But it is so cool to look out the window and see it sitting in my drive and know that I'm owning a piece of history.  Hang in there brother.

Britt

[charger01]

if you drive these cars instead of babying them chits gonna happen,.. you guys have your cars what a year?.. maybe two?.. and your bitchen and moaning.. a paint chip, wont start?..
I think that's funny....

 

The not starting and paint chip frustration comes after much much pain and suffering from many many other large and small items of frustration.  Not including the financial strain, stress that carries over to family members etc...   He's not writing for the first time, nor am I commenting on first time issues.     Just last week when I was threading an exhaust stud into my head and it threaded right into the water jacket ( long story )  I shut the garage doors and packed it in. 

I thought certain exhaust stud on the 440 actually were supposed to go all the way through to the water jacket.  This is what I have always heard.

[1969chargerrtse]

if you drive these cars instead of babying them chits gonna happen,.. you guys have your cars what a year?.. maybe two?.. and your bitchen and moaning.. a paint chip, wont start?..
I think that's funny....

 

The not starting and paint chip frustration comes after much much pain and suffering from many many other large and small items of frustration.  Not including the financial strain, stress that carries over to family members etc...   He's not writing for the first time, nor am I commenting on first time issues.     Just last week when I was threading an exhaust stud into my head and it threaded right into the water jacket ( long story )  I shut the garage doors and packed it in. 

I thought certain exhaust stud on the 440 actually were supposed to go all the way through to the water jacket.  This is what I have always heard.

I said long story. O.K here goes.  I was putting on my left factory manifold when I noticed the exhaust stud was huge!  It was not the factory size, the factory long nut would in no way fit on this stud.  It came to my conclusion that it was a wheel stud.  I unscrewed the stud and it was like 1/2" course thread.  At that time I took a hardend 1/2" bolt and threaded it in.  Then I drilled and tapped the center of it for the correct stud. Well the tap started to thread in the home made stud so I stopped and started to drill a little deeper, but my drill grabbed the stud and BLOP it went into my head.  Now I had a funky stud thingy in my water jacket and a big hole left.  Thats when I called it a night.  I ended up putting the stud back in it after I ground the stud down to the proper size and threaded it.  Whole thing ended up working out just fine.