Project Silver Fox AWD Updated 7/1

[motorcitydak]

Spent this Thursday with 2 buddies picking up the body of my 1968 Charger and grabbing the hood that's on it now. Its a fiberglass lift off with a six pack scoop. The car is not that bad, but I have not started to get into it yet. Just want to show off and stare at it for rite now. The plans are for a 440 stroked to 512, a A-618 overdrive, Ford 9 inch rear 4 linked and either air bags or coil overs, 325 rear tires, tubular front control arms and reinforced lowers with better shocks, frame connectors and torque boxes. Ill be mounting it to a rotisserie and pulling the suspension. Should I leave in the K member for support or does it not need it? Total cost so far is $3150, I was told I have every piece except the seats, windshield and center console, none of which Im worried about. Please excuse the crappy cell phone pic.

[68RRFlyer]

Ahhhhh, the excitement of bringing home a new project car!   Nice start and good luck with your project.  On the contrary, take the k-frame out along with the suspension, engine, and transmission all as one piece!  Makes life pretty easy that's for sure.  But if you decide to strip it down piece by piece, there's no need to keep the k-frame attached to the car.  Take it off, blast it, and reinforce the factory welds.  Expecially if you're going to have enough torque to alter gravity 

Cheers 

[1969chargerrtse]

Let the fun begin.  Keep us posted with many pictures.

[skip68]

    Looks great. 

[motorcitydak]

Ooo, thats cool that I can just pull the K frame and the front suspension comes out like there, Im assuming except the torsion bars. The motor and trans were pulled before I got it, but I have them. Im just not going to use them. The first thing Im going to do is lift it up and mount it to a rotisserie that I will build. Im know Ill catch flak for it, but Im going to use 4x4's. Hey, if they can hold up a house, they can hold a car. Im going to use a worm drive stolen from a winch to mount on one end so I can spin the car and not have to prop it up some other way. It will be on there for the install of the frame connectors, torque boxed and just about all the body work including what ever I need to replace (floor, pass. sail panel, hole in the grill in the cowl, etc...), the rear suspension too, what ever I end up going with there

You can also see that I had to be like everyone else as soon as I got my car. I had to start using it as a shelf and packing stuff on top of it. Thats a blown piston sitting on the hood there, just a start

[LeadfootBob]

The unofficial rules of car restoration state that each new project must be admired, stared at, gazed dreamily at and shown off to neighbors/friends/family at least ten times in total before you can actually do anything to it. Stacking stuff on top is optional (who am I kidding?).
Do it once, do it right, and above all have fun doing it 
Those pistons make great ashtrays, btw. I think we have a complete set of .030 over chevy 454 pistons around here used exclusively for that purpose :-)

[motorcitydak]

Haha, that is exactly what my dad said. But that one is completely cracked in half, the only thing that may hold it together is some of the rings that are not destroyed

[b5blue]

I submit additional obligatory OOOOH's and AAAAHHH's and request more photos and plan details!!! Good Luck!! Some super glue will fix that ashtray!

[mopar73]

Ahhhhh, the excitement of bringing home a new project car!   Nice start and good luck with your project.  On the contrary, take the k-frame out along with the suspension, engine, and transmission all as one piece!  Makes life pretty easy that's for sure.  But if you decide to strip it down piece by piece, there's no need to keep the k-frame attached to the car.  Take it off, blast it, and reinforce the factory welds.  Expecially if you're going to have enough torque to alter gravity 

Cheers 

I like the lift

[ACUDANUT]

 Your not keeping the drum barkes are you?. 

[68RRFlyer]

Yup, that's one of the good things about these cars is that the front all comes out as one piece.  Pretty handy.  The drums on that 68 you see are history in favor of disks.  How about you Motorcity, since this is your thread?  What are your plans?  4 wheel disks or just front?  Drilled, using a kit or are you going the donor route?  Do tell! 

Cheers     

[ACUDANUT]

Even with front disc brakes, it all comes out together. Loose the front drums...trust us. 

[bull]

What did you use to lift the front of the car?

[motorcitydak]

Well I went out there and messed around a little more with the car today after about a month of it sitting idle. I think one of the previous owners may have been a roofer because someone applied that trade to my car. The floor boards in the front pass. and drivers side foot wells and rear pass. floor boards were rusted out fairly bad. The worst was the drivers side. Well, that was all repaired with aluminum sheet metal and covered with tar and tar paper. I was out there torching it all up then scraping it off to find the tiny sheet metal screws they used to hold it all together. After that fun fest, I took too finishing up my removal of the k member. All I had left was the torsion bars. I could not figure out how they came out last time I was out there so I did some research and they came out no problem after I knew how. I just released the keys and since I had the k member unbolted, I just hit that forward instead of trying to push the t bars back. Then I just giggled the bars a little bit and they pulled out no problem thanks to some guy years ago giving them a half gallon of grease. After that I just played with the rotisserie I built. You can see I made the pivot a lot different than most guys do. I wanted to try and keep it balanced and it worked out quite well. The worm gear winch on the front, not so much. Here is a pic of how it is sitting rite now, one of the old t bars is holding up the side. This is about as far as I can go, now its time to actually start fixing stuff...



BTW, the rotisserie is made up of 4x4's, 2x2 angle iron and about 20ft of fence pipe. Also, there is no way I would trust 4 wheel drum brakes to stop anything in today's traffic, let alone my prized '68 that will be sportin' a 512

[MoparManJim]

The first photo isn't crappy at all. What the heck are you talking about?

   Looks great. 

Ah, he just got it and hasn't done much to it yet 

[motorcitydak]

Just that I took it with my phone. Have not taken any good pics of it with my digital camera

[motorcitydak]

Also, I have no idea why someone decided to do this, but I need something to fix it. If you know of a junk car that may have a part I can weld in this, please let me know. Thanks

[tan top]

Also, I have no idea why someone decided to do this, but I need something to fix it. If you know of a junk car that may have a part I can weld in this, please let me know. Thanks

seen that  before , but not cut quite as close !! only way to repair  ! it the grill if  damaged !! very difficult to get looking right other wise , 

[motorcitydak]

what was the reason someone would do that? I just do not understand it

[dodgecharger-fan]

It was likely damaged and they cut it out to repair it..

That's the only thing that I could think of that would make any sense to do that..


Cool project. Keep going and keep us posted. 

[motorcitydak]

here is a few pics of the way I did the back of the rotisserie. The piece that goes thru the trunk and to the frame rails is removable, but will most likely stay until the car comes back off it. Ill just have to wait to put in the trunk floor.





Here are a few of my floor, you can see how bad the drivers side is. All the black stuff is just where I burned up the tar

[PocketThunder]

Good God man that takes me back to when i performed surgery on my 68.  I never want to do that again.. 

Does it snow alot where you are located?  Will the shed roof hold up for the winter?

[Charger440RDN]

A chemical dip might be the best way to clean up every nook and cranny and start the metal work. Heard some bad stuff about the chemical dip though, like left over residue that you can't get out that can harm the new paint, not sure how true that is.

[ZSmithersCharges]

A chemical dip might be the easiest way to clean up every nook and cranny and start the metal work. iI have heard some bad stuff about the chemical dip though, like left over residue that you can't get out that can harm the new paint, not sure how true that is.

Id think it could easily.  Thats what the guys at the local auto body store told me too.

[motorcitydak]

The roof holds up fine, it has for the last 2 years when it had my brothers old truck in there. The floors mite look a little worse than they really are just because there is still some burnt tar on em that I will be taking care of soon with more fire and an abrasive wheel. Obviously they will be replaced with new sheet metal anyway