A Jewel up in flames!!

[firefighter3931]

Best of luck on the rebuild....i'm sure it will be top shelf like the original was ! 



Ron

[Charger_Fan]

Man, I missed this thread the first go-round...HOLY CRAP!!
I'm sure glad the damage wasn't worse, glad you're gonna fix it, too.

[1FastCharger]

Hey Norway, get your shop back in order first. Everything else will come later. I went through the same thing about 8 years ago. An electrical short started a big fire in my shop. My Charger, which was apart at the time, suffered some damage. I ended up selling the Charger to pay my bills while the shop was rebuilt. I was sad to let it go, but I knew it had to be done.

The clean up is the worst part. If anyone has been through a fire they know what I am talking about. If you have not - it is truely terrible. The acid in the smoke mixed with the water vapor corrodes EVERYTHING metal. It seeps into tiny cracks and leaves residue on everything. Steel rusts, aluminum oxidizes and it is a nasty mess to clean up.

I have a Mustang that has been sitting since the fire. I just began resurrecting it. I gutted the interior and began taking everything completely apart, cleaning and repainting the metal. It will be a long project, but I know it will look good when it is done.

[1FastCharger]

Rebuilding...

[1FastCharger]

New Shop!!

[1FastCharger]

The black Mustang in this pic is the same one as in the burnt shop pic. The car had a cover on it and was mostly undamaged. The cover was melted to the roof. I scraped it off with a plastic scraper. The cowl vent panel was melted so I replaced it. This was a customers car. My Mustang is the white one you can see in the bottom left corner of one of the burnt pics.

[PocketThunder]

10-4 brother, good luck on the rebuild... 

[NorwayCharger]

Hey Norway, get your shop back in order first. Everything else will come later. I went through the same thing about 8 years ago. An electrical short started a big fire in my shop. My Charger, which was apart at the time, suffered some damage. I ended up selling the Charger to pay my bills while the shop was rebuilt. I was sad to let it go, but I knew it had to be done.

I am looking forward to the day when my shop is rebuild  , but that take another 4-5 month..

The clean up is the worst part. If anyone has been through a fire they know what I am talking about. If you have not - it is truely terrible. The acid in the smoke mixed with the water vapor corrodes EVERYTHING metal. It seeps into tiny cracks and leaves residue on everything. Steel rusts, aluminum oxidizes and it is a nasty mess to clean up.

I know everything about cleaning sot....

[NorwayCharger]

NorwayCharger, glad to here your going to fix it. I loved the way it was, any hints as to how different you are going to do it this time???

Hmmmm, it may be to early to say
But i have been thinking about the new hemi route, and a different color.

I will be updating DC.com

Thank you all on this board for your support, i may need to ask you stuff as the build starts..

Thanks
Arne

[daniel_depetro]

It suscks no tweo ways about it.

Glad you decided to come back out of the depression that can be caused by it.

From the looks of your photos a lot was saved.


We had a fire on December 26th that burned down our shop to the ground. Nothing survived. Heck you could barely recognize most things.
We (my father and I) just decided to start getting seriously into the buying & selling Mopars game, however this happened shortly after we consolidated about 4 garages full of stuff. It was a collection that has grown from the late 70's. Back then my father parted shakker 'Cuda and R/T Challengers pretty regularly. He is pretty much only into Challengers and Chargers. About a week before the fire he says to me "I have been checking out insurance. I didn't realize we had so much valuable stuff and now it's in one location. It'd be nice to have something just in case." It was a short week as it flew and needless to say we didn't get any insurance coverage set-up yet.
He called me at 5:00am that Satiurday (I think it was). All he said was "Its all gone, we lost everything. I need a drive and will come and get you" Being half sleeping and dazed I wasn't sure what he was talking about.
I could see the glow from the building from about 3 miles away. Being winter it was very dark that time of the morning around here. After arriving on the scene I was shocked. It was undescribable. Thankfully nobody was injured. All I could focus on were the tools that I have been buying since high school along with all the rare parts that we could never afford that we happen to stumble upon for nothing or my father had stored away
since they were NEW including some cool NOS pieces.
He said somebody called him at around 3:00am which is about an hour after they figure it started (a passing motorist phone in to report it). It was around 6:00am now and they were finally getting it under control.
Even building was gone.

Just hoping our stupidity will make you feel a little better about your situation.
Here is some of the carnage:

[daniel_depetro]

The only good news was that scrap prices were really high and all the copper wiring was bare and there was tons of aluminum all melted and cleaned.

There were tunnel rams, many vintage intakes, many carbs, many sets of tires, many sets of vintage slotted mag wheels & Weld and Centerlines too that were never found. Obviously our E & B-body NOS 4 speed consoles, door panels, rallye clusters and such were never found either.

The building was 60 x 80 and had open storage upsatirs were we kept all the parts including body panels, transmissions, and everything else except the cars and engines.








There used to be around 10 superchargers all set up and ready to go:




All I could find from the many numbered radiators upsatirs:




My dads all steel 1940 Ford coupe deluxe he bought back in there early 80s. All steel (fenders and such were henging on the walls along with a lot of Mopar muscle grilles and dashes) with no rust and was very straight:
You mentioned the springs being weak and such check out the rear differential (an 8-3/4" unit). It is sitting up inside the car now.

[daniel_depetro]

Customers truck (they had just bought it and boy were they mad! Of course it was replaced through their insurance:




Snap-on box:




Large Matco box:




Supercharged 392 HEMI:




Super clean almost no mileage Chrysler 331 HEMI we just sold on eBay a few days prior top the fire:
Amazingly the buyer who was really cool offered to let us go trhough it/redo it and would still take.
Unfortunetly my father just went into deep depression worrying about finding work and such and sort of "gave up" for about a year or so afterwards.

[WingCharger]

[daniel_depetro]

Miller Welders:




Two sets of cutting torches, a Snap-on tool cart. and an OTC air/hydraulic transmission jack:




Media Blaster:




This soesn't include all the A, B & E rear ends, posi center chunks, transmissions (a few 18-spline units; many 23 spline units), and small trim, chrome, panels, bolts, hoods, fenders, dorrs, deck lids, shifters & handles, automatic consoles, 4-speed pedal assemblies, steering wheels (woodgrain & tuff wheels), auto hoists, engine hoists, engine stands, tools, paint equipment, compressors, and all our phone numbers/contact information from all the years of talking with people at various events/cruises or just circumstancial passing/dealingss.

[daniel_depetro]

A couple before shots just for reference...


Here is the box right after I bought it. It was only about 6 months old. I already had all the tools to fill it.




This is what the 392 looked like:




The baby Chrysler 331 HEMI as it sat in the 1940 Ford just after we fired it for the first time:

[Brock Samson]

wow... what was the fire's orgin?.. 

[NorwayCharger]

It suscks no tweo ways about it.

Glad you decided to come back out of the depression that can be caused by it.

From the looks of your photos a lot was saved.


We had a fire on December 26th that burned down our shop to the ground. Nothing survived. Heck you could barely recognize most things.
We (my father and I) just decided to start getting seriously into the buying & selling Mopars game, however this happened shortly after we consolidated about 4 garages full of stuff. It was a collection that has grown from the late 70's. Back then my father parted shakker 'Cuda and R/T Challengers pretty regularly. He is pretty much only into Challengers and Chargers. About a week before the fire he says to me "I have been checking out insurance. I didn't realize we had so much valuable stuff and now it's in one location. It'd be nice to have something just in case." It was a short week as it flew and needless to say we didn't get any insurance coverage set-up yet.
He called me at 5:00am that Satiurday (I think it was). All he said was "Its all gone, we lost everything. I need a drive and will come and get you" Being half sleeping and dazed I wasn't sure what he was talking about.
I could see the glow from the building from about 3 miles away. Being winter it was very dark that time of the morning around here. After arriving on the scene I was shocked. It was undescribable. Thankfully nobody was injured. All I could focus on were the tools that I have been buying since high school along with all the rare parts that we could never afford that we happen to stumble upon for nothing or my father had stored away
since they were NEW including some cool NOS pieces.
He said somebody called him at around 3:00am which is about an hour after they figure it started (a passing motorist phone in to report it). It was around 6:00am now and they were finally getting it under control.
Even building was gone.

Just hoping our stupidity will make you feel a little better about your situation.
Here is some of the carnage:

Compared to your misfortune, i am a lucky guy..
I had good insurance coverage, so i´ll be ok financial.

I don´t know if i feel better, i feel very sorry on your behalf 
My best wishes for you and your father

[Charger_Fan]

Wow...just...wow. That happened just this last December?
I can only imagine how completely devasating it would be to lose a lifetime of things & memories that were in that garage. I'd much rather lose my house than a garage like that. How is your Dad doing now? I hope he's improving. Sounds like you're doing better than he is, although I'm sure nowhere near normal.

[daniel_depetro]

wow... what was the fire's orgin?.. 

As they got it under control the fire marshall said "with how far gone it is, I doubt we'll find the cause." They never did either.

This happened in 2005 so it is coming up on 3 years here soon.

I kept my good spirits through the whole thing.

My father is doing much better now. Although with winter coming again and still having nowhere to store anything he wants to just sell everything and be done with it. He said he'll keep his 40 coupe (or sell it and buy one) and probably keep his ultra cool 1971 Challenger (was in another garage with the other 354 & 392 HEMIs.
I just wish I could do more to help him out.
Sucks we had so much cool stuff, because now we can't afford the 'good' parts anymore. I think if he had a garage to work out of he would (obviously) be more into still and be able to get some of the cars back together.
Hopefully I can sell the 1968 GTX and a few engines/transmissions and whatnot and get a building/garage up at his house. Then we'll be able to get a couple cars and the parts inside again.

Here are some of the engines after rebuilding most of them:
There is (4) HEMIs, (2) 360s, and a 340 in that corner. My poor Magnum it really looks out of place. I really need to finish that engine. I am glad my Mopar Performance heads were in a different spot. Under the 'blanket' is an original 25,000 mile 1958 300 2x4 392 HEMI. That engine thankfully was in this garage and not at the shop.

[Charger_Fan]

I'm glad that enough time has passed, where things are starting to look up. At least that's what I'm getting out of your reply.
I sure hope the best for both you & your Dad.

[bull]

Wow, this is really a depressing thread. But I'm glad no one got hurt and that things are looking more optimistic.