learned a valuable lesson 'bout Chargers(and other wanted cars)

[CB]

Delivered my car to the body shop today together with the sheet metal I ordered.
Estimated cost for 1 front floor section and both 1/4s to install will be $1000 - 1200.

Went home (by hitch hiking ) and took a trip to my part suplier. He told me to drop bye to check out this 383 69 Charger with brand new TTI exhaust system and '40' Flowmasters. It sounds great BTW.

Then I checked out his shop: 3 '69 Chargers a Chrysler 300 and '71 Charger.
Allow me to talk a bit about the 2nd gen Chargers:
The first 69:
It was bought it on E-bay as a '20 footer' , driving car with good interior, BB and posi rear. The guy paid 15K for it. He started to take off everything and all the paint to get her fully restored. Taking off the pounds of bondo the car is now a RUST BUCKET  Holes everywhere!!! Nothing left of the body!!! He lost big money...

2nd Charger: a white 69 all the goodies, ready for getting back together. Nice car with some work needed.

3rd Charger: A General Lee project when I first saw it. Orange , fenders/grill/hood/trunk lid/... off, holes EVERYWHERE. The car was filled with cardboard andthen smeared with bondo. It was a good looking car if you stood 50 feet away. Or when youangledyourcamera when shooting pics. And(!) yes you guessed it!!!, it came from HLPAG    
So I saw a fixed up ,painted over tons of Bondo, 69 General Lee, YIIIIHHAAA shit hole , they sold for 13K to an uninformed foreigner. Dayum... it is total loss!!!!!! The guy will sell it for parts( or what is left of it) and he bought Charger #2 from above.

Now I got scared.
My Charger had a repaint in herlife. They crammed the quarters full of bondo.
I am afraid I gonna end up with the same rust bucked here...

So because of the hype of owning a 2nd gen Charger people have sold many, many ratty Chargers for big $$$.

My advice: KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN!!!

Thanks for reading my story.

[Mefirst]

I hope that your ride wont need that much surgery..

I found out myself, just last weekend, when I was working on my ride and for some reason I started to check the body condition of my ride, found a cupple of bondo spots. The thing that suprised me was when I checked the trunk, the whole right side rear fender has been changed out at some point.. I tried to see if there was any accident evidence, but the wheel well looks intact, so I guess the fender was rotted, there for changed.. I have to say that the guy who did the work changing out the fender, did an awsome job..

/Tom

[Johnny SixPack]

Here's hoping you lucked out, CB!

Hlpag is worse than Hilter.

[Chad L. Magee]

It really depends alot on where you live, and the people you deal with on the quality of the cars that you can buy.   I typically buy midwestern cars and expect to see rust in the quarters, trunk floor gone, and some minor floor rust.   A few rusty exceptions are my 70 Superbee (SD car), 1969 Coronet RT (eastern Kansas car) and my /6 Charger.   That one migrated from Iowa and the underneath is almost gone (it needs a new underframe).   Most of the Chargers that I have seen west of the Missouri are typically less rusty than those east due to salt on the roads, acid rain and such factors.   Case in point, last year (I will get flack from this) I could have bought the remains (shells) of two 1969 Chargers for $300.00.   There was a catch though, as the cars were left in a low lying valley that saw the flood of '93 and even their roofs had rust through damage.   A guy did buy them but they pretty much disentergrated upon towing them out.   I am used to seeing almost rust-free cars out where I live in the flatlands of Kansas-Nebraska-Colorado, but then again, most of those have been picked over by major Mopar guys for years so don't expect to see the good ones left for cheap anymore.   As they say in coin collecting, buyer beware..............

[Charger_Fan]

Hlpag is worse than Hilter.

Especially when someone from another country buys one of their piles, those folks probably stand the LEAST chance of ever getting any retribution.

[Mopar440+6]

Hey CB, After seeing that car Im pretty sure it wont be THAT bad. Now granted there might be some rough spots but I dont think theres any cardboard under that paint...

[Vainglory, Esq.]

I bought mine as a 20/20 too, and I definitely learned a thing or two about incomplete sales tactics.  I've replaced the quarters, rear valance/caps, decklid, parts of the rockers, the hood, the trunk floor and braces, the trunk extensions, and some outer wheelhouses.  I didn't replace the sailpanels or decklid filler panel as well as one each of the fenders and doors because they'd already been replaced.

So when does my car become a rebody?

[AKcharger]

Hlpag is worse than Hilter.

Hey! that's my line!!!

But agree you have to be mucho careful in this business, remember these things are approaching 40 years ols and many have been molested a nummber of times

[Blown70]

Well you need to find someone who is willing to take picture GOOD ONES of the areas you need to have.  Most people who are serious will do this,  I think a lot can be leanred from the add and how it is written,

Make sure you feel comfortable..... Not the blah blah blah, is a great car great car blah, blah blah,

Most of us here would be happy to go look at a car I know I would, Just make sure the person you are speaking to knows not to selll it to Them...

Tom

[RT/SE]

When it comes to classic cars.........Buyer Beware applies.  For those of you saving up for a car you should allocate some funds for travel/inspection.  If you can't make it out to look at a car yourself in-person, then you should try to find someone who will do it for you.  In my opinion, it is well worth paying someone to look at a car for you in person especially if you can't do it yourself. You could end up saving yourself thousands and thousands of dollars and save yourself from lots of headaches.  There's alot of honest sellers out there but on the flip side there's lots of scumbag sellers who will do and say anything to sell a car.  Pictures can be deceiving.  Also, bad sellers will always use pictures that make the car look better than it is and they will always downplay the problem areas of a car. 

[Jon Smith]

Mine was full of bondo but when it came off the only repairs needed were ones I already knew about, and some stuff which looked like it might be nasty turned out to have solid metal underneath, you might be lucky
be prepared for more work than you thought but dont get over worried about it, everything can be fixed
as far as buying a car goes I wouldnt spend that kind of money without looking at the car in person or getting it inspected properly, thats just common sense

[CB]

Yeah, it was a scarry and sad sight, those rotted Mopes sitting there.

I might be selling the Charger before it turns out it need far more work as I thought.
My budget is limmited and I won't be putting all my dough into body work.

the hype made it hard to find a good car.

[PocketThunder]

I say keep it.  Everybody is short on cash in this business.  And it says in your avatar that you love your 69.  and body work is the whole part of the job.  so i say drop the bucks on the paint and keep the car.

[CB]

no car can beat the body lines of a 2nd gen. That's why I love my 69.
the question is how far would you go on body work or how much would you invest?

When people talk about sinking 5-10K into their paint project makes me dizzy.

So I decided to get her running the best I can (has a new fuel pump and re-cored rad), 
adding a complete new TTi exhaust system, rebuilding/checking the trans because it leaks,...

Front floor pan will be done, inside floor pans painted and new carpet with sill plates.

[cudaken]

 CB, there is nothing wrong with car that has body filler as long as the repair was done right. My 68 Runner left door got creamed by Mom in 1969. Repair has never failed I even tho I have redone the Runner a couple times now I have never replaced the 36 year old body filler.

My 69 Charger body lines on the quarter panel's is all filler, Repops quarters lines are shit. Mine are nices, sharp and straight.

Only time filler is a bad thing is when it is used wrong. Filler to thick will crack with in 6 months. Rust holes filled with filler well bubble in about the same time frame.


                             Cuda Ken

[Just 6T9 CHGR]

Any chance you mentioned the registry to the shop/owners or even possiblly got picsd of the VIN/fendertag?

[Brock Samson]

took three 5 ga. Buckets of bondo outta mine and approx. cost $10 K in '89 to get mine right, sure glad i did though.. they did a great job...  and it was black too..                                                                                                          
one thing i learned though is get a great painter,. cause my second repaint to this current color was a b&^%tch...

[Big Lebowski]

 Don't feel bad, one of my resto customers bought a complete driver/bondo bucket '70 Road runner 383 4 speed car for $10,000. And were replacing the trunk floor, both Qtrs. (Goodmark) and the pass. side fender. The old front fender has 3/8 of an inch of bondo on it. No kidding.

  Oh and he bought a built new dynoed 514 HP 440 solid cammed monster for $3500 on ebay, and were $2000 into new resto hardware, etc, so were at almost $17,000 and the paint & body and interior will be $10,000 more. That's about $30,000 with all the SSBC disc brakes kit, and etc, and what have ya. Oh my.

[bull]

The best thing you can remember to do as you're leaving the house to go look at a car for sale is grab a flexible magnet off the fridge and see where it sticks to the body. If there's only a few spots where it will stick you've got trouble.

Use this one: http://cgi.ebay.com/Dodge-Charger-1968-American-Muscle-car-Fridge-Magnet_W0QQitemZ8012783740QQcategoryZ9895QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem