Father/son 1972 charger restoration project

[oldrock]

My 15 year old son and I wanted to do a muscle car restoration for his first car. I had a 1969 mustang as my first car as a teen so thought it would be appropriate to get him one as his first car. After several looking at several cars that ended up being major disappointments, we drove over 2 hours to see a 1972 charger that the owner said ran and drove and was selling at a good price. When we got there, the run part was true but the drive part was kinda a stretch. The car needed alot of work to be ready for a real drive (other than a hundred yards to test the motor, etc).

So the car needed work but the good news was it was pretty clean and not all rusted out like so many of the others we had seen.


here is my son when we first saw the charger


car needs work but not bad

After talking about it, we decided to pull the trigger and brought the car home. It was a very exciting day for my son and we did alot of inspecting to see what we needed to do and get a game plan

[oldrock]

After looking the car over we made a list of things that we felt would need to be done to get the car ready to be a daily driver by Fall when school starts back. Here is our first hitlist of things to do:
1. replace plug wires
2. reaplace spark plugs
3. change all fluids
4. flush radiator
5. install radiator overflow tank
6. install carb kit
7. perform tune up
8. replace bad tires
9. repair or replace dragging front brakes
10. Inspect and adjust back brakes/parking brake
11. replace damaged windshield wipers
12. replace missing trunk lock
13. get keys for doors
14. sand down rust (mainly on roof)
15. paint car
16. repair broken brake and turn lights

now we track the process with lots of photos so Josh will have a record of his first car to share with his kids some day!

[oldrock]

when we got the car, the first thing we had to do was re-install the drive shaft since the owner had taken it off for us because we planned to use a dolly to drive it the 2 hours home. However, we couldn't rent the dolly so ended up paying the owner to deliver it to us on his flatbed trailer. He only charged us an extra $100 to drive it the 2 1/2 hours each way so we thought that was more than reasonable.

When we got under the charger to install the drive shaft, we leaned the owner had lost some of the bearings in the U-joint linkage so off to the auto store for the first of many trips for parts. U-joint was in stock so not a big deal. Maybe one hour and we had the new u-joint installed.

So of course we wanted to drive the new to us charger to test the new u-joint. When we backed it up, we noticed the brakes seemed to stick but figured we would sort that out later. We planned to tackle cosmetic and mechanical projects. My thought was the cosmetic ones are fun and I thought it would help keep Josh motivated for the mechanical stuff which can be harder and not so fun.

So next thing we did is look over the motor and first step was to get the filter back on that carb. Luckily the breather was in the trunk but really rusted and dinged up so we had to spend about an hour carefully hammering out the dents and some time sanding off the rust. Then I let Josh decide what color to go with and he decided Red.


shot of the painted breather installed with a fresh air filter

[oldrock]

next up we decided to clean up the front grill. Here is the before shot after we wiped it down but that is about all.


and then a shot after we used 4x steel wool to strip off all the faded paint to bring it back to black

grill has red paint fill on the faded arrow emblem and dodge. notice the blue antifreeze jug for temp rad overflow

next up was some general cleaning of the interior. The original stuff was sorta there but very, very dirty. It all got a serious scrub down and vaccuum out. We also fixed a few simple things such as fishing out the original shoulder belts and adding screws to the glove box.

still needs alot of work cleaning up the interior but that will have to wait

Then we moved on to another mechanical issue. We put car on jack stands and learned all brakes were all in need of work. The back drums just needed some adjustment but the front discs were sticking and we decided they both needed to be replaced so off to the auto store. This time we had to order them but in a couple of days we got the newly rebuilt calipers and installed them. About $70 and Front brakes work much better now!

[oldrock]

So next we decided to go to work on the back light surrounds. Since they were metal, we decided to sand them down and paint them black to match the front grill. At the same time we took off the brake light lens covers to clean them up. THey were both cracked so that was epoxied up and some bulbs were burnt out so needed to be replaced.


We also did some searching around for tires to replace the dry rotted mismatched crap ones that came with the car. After alot of hunting, we decided to pick the two best tires and move them to the front and buy a pair of fatter tires for the back. Up front is 215-70-15" on stock steel wheels which we painted black to help match the new black steel 15x8" wheels we added to the rear. For rear tires, we went with a pair of BFG TA radials 255-60-15" which fit really nice on the 8" rims. Tires were used but still had about 30-40% tread life left and we got the pair of new wheels with tires mounted and balanced for under $150 which helped out with the limited funds Josh has to spend. We also leaned when installing the new rear tires that the charger had a working set of air shocks on the rear! Pumped them up to 75 psi and it really helped with the angle of the car and also stiffened up the rear considerably.

[oldrock]

NExt up we needed to change fluids so changed oil, power steering, transmission  and brake fluids. All went smoothly except the brakes were a bit of a pain but eventually we got brakes working pretty good. We also had to tighten the cable so the parking brake would hold. Even tightening the nut all the way down was still loose so we added some spacers and now parking brake is working. Only leak we have is transmission fluid and it is a slow leak so we will probably wait on that one.

After that we moved back to the interior and decided to do a quick fix on the ripped front bench seat. Went to the local walmart and found a really close tan match for the front passenger seat and taped it up with the color matched duct tape. Not a permanent fix mind you but was cheap and will work for now. Back seat had no tears and drivers seat only had a small seam tear on the upright. Really good for such an old car. Dash is another story, it is really cracking bad but Josh won't have money to fix it short term so probably going to just put a dash pad on it for now. Headliner is also missing in sections but we are also going to probably wait on that.

Now back to engine, we wanted to get that goofy antifreeze jug overflow deal out of there so found a generic overflow bottle at the auto store for under 10 bucks and mounted it up on the right side front. Not factory but was cheap and looks decent so probably will be all we need for a while at least. We also did some work on the engine area and first thing we did was inspect the hoses. Several were just sitting there not attached to anything so we pulled them and will do some research to see what is needed. Most were tied into teh part on teh front left of the engine housing. Some sort of vapor recovery deal.

[mopar_nut_440_6]

Looks like a great father and son project. Thanks for sharing!

[oldrock]

Ok, I am getting caught up to where we are so far on the car. We are now working on prep work for painting the car white. The roof needed the most attention since it originally had vinyl and was getting pretty rusty. We sanded off the worst of the rust and then used that rust neutralizing stuff to treat what rust was left. Then we sanded that down to 220 and taped the roof for primer. Just this afternoon, we shot primer on the roof. Went with 2 coats and let it dry a few hours before we started our sanding. We sanded it down to 500 grit tonight. Here is a shot of the roof which in the flash looks white but it is actually grey primer.


We still have lots of stuff to do to the car and of course have alot of painting to do but slowly we are getting there. Since we don't have the inspection yet, we are only driving it around the neighborhood but are starting to look forward to getting it inspected so we can venture out more. Course still several things to do before we can go for the inspection. One big issue is we don't have any blinkers working yet. Haven't even looked yet to see what that is about. WHen we apply the blinker on column, nothing happens at all so might be missing the blinker module, might be disconnected or who knows.

So that is where we are on Josh's Charger restoration on a budget as of today. We will continue to share pics as we are no experts on chargers so feel free to give any advise or suggestions as we go. Just keep in mind we are on a pretty tight budget here.

[CB]

Welcome and thanks for sharing your project with us!

Keep the safety factor in mind and also check the front end bushings/joints when you are checking the brakes. 


Good luck with the Charger! 
CB

[tricky lugnuts]

Charger's looking good guys. Sounds like a fun project and should be a sweet first car!

[bull]

Yea, per CB's recommendation I'd have a look at the front end parts to make sure they're not shot. I know a $500 front end rebuild and alignment might not be within a teenage kid's budget but it would not only make it safer it would make it feel a lot better going down the road.

[mopar73]

Great father son prodject, keep up the good work!

[oldrock]

Thanks guys and i will have a look at the front end. I know it is kinda loose steering which I can live with but sure don't want it to be unsafe. I'm not an expert on that stuff though so might take some closeup pics so you guys can take a look and tell me what you think.

[CB]

Thanks guys and i will have a look at the front end. I know it is kinda loose steering which I can live with but sure don't want it to be unsafe. I'm not an expert on that stuff though so might take some closeup pics so you guys can take a look and tell me what you think.

good idea!! 
CB

[2Gunz]

Looks awesome.

keep posting your progress.

[TruckDriver]

Nice car, and nice project to start with.  


And not to take anything away from this forum, (because this IS a awsome forum with excellent knowledgeable  people).


But a few years ago, I started a all third generation Charger forum called 1971-1974dodgecharger.com Check it out and you should find more specific help for you car, links to buy parts, and parts for sale occasionally. We also have '71 to '74 specific tech info.

[mikesbbody]

Great looking 72  like Pete said, check out the third gen site 

[oldrock]

just a quick update that we got the rusty old roof finished today. Not trying to make it look perfect, just decent. Sanded down the worst of the rust, applied 2 coats of that rust converter stuff then 2 coats of primer, 4 coats of paint and finally 2 coats of clear gloss overcoat. We still need to do some buffing and waxing but looks 100 times better than the original.


Now we need to get the rest of it painted white to match

[Silver R/T]

Cool project. Its nice when you have time and will to restore a classic car with your son.

[oldrock]

One more section painted this afternoon. Hasn't been wet sanded/clearcoated yet but now starting to give us a better idea of what it will look like in white. Probably going to add a horizontal black stripe to the rear as a low cost way to dress it up a bit.

Car had quite a few dings and dents but Josh can't afford to have body work done now and wanted to get it painted before school starts in the fall so all we are doing is a little rough body work to smooth out the worst of them and leaving the rest. Won't look perfect but should still look pretty nice and make a very cool first car for a 16 year old.

[Foreman72]

One more section painted this afternoon. Hasn't been wet sanded/clearcoated yet but now starting to give us a better idea of what it will look like in white. Probably going to add a horizontal black stripe to the rear as a low cost way to dress it up a bit.

Car had quite a few dings and dents but Josh can't afford to have body work done now and wanted to get it painted before school starts in the fall so all we are doing is a little rough body work to smooth out the worst of them and leaving the rest. Won't look perfect but should still look pretty nice and make a very cool first car for a 16 year old.

do you mean like the R/T or superbee stripe of the 2nd gens?

if the money is available, may i suggest going with a wraparound stripe instead...

a black stripe would look great on there

great work btw

[ACUDANUT]

 Put a 71 R/T stripe on it. 

[oldrock]

he wants one of those fairly wide stripes that goes across the back of the trunk and runs straight down both sides passing thru the rear side marker lights. I think it is called an R/T stripe.

[ACUDANUT]

71 R/T stripes is the ones you want. 

[BIRD67]

Man the car is looking really sharp! What type of paint and clear coat did you guys use? Also, it appears that the car is sitting abit low in the rear, just my opinion.