MOPAR JOHNS B5 DAYTONA RESTORATION!!

[moparstuart]

worlds of fun is still there and less then 5 miles from where you got your daytona's .

[69rtse4spd]

Hi John, great story,I take it the N.O.S. drive shaft fit OK. Did you & Denny ever come to any kind of deal on his drive shaft yet. There was a guy down in Fortville, Ind. that had 3 Dayton's back in the early 80s. I sold him some 70 Charger stuff for them, one was a red with black wing, a blue with black wing & a f6 green with white interior. The red & blue cars were done & the green one needed done. The red one was an auto & the blue one was a 4-speed if I remember right, also one had cruise control. He sold everthing in the late 80s & always thought of where they went. Just thought you might have heard of them. I did find the last N.O.S. big block drive shaft I have if you still are looking for the bird. The cool thing is it has Detroit  cast into the rear u-joint. Any way love the story & looking forward to the rest of the story. Great meeting you & take care, Jeff. 

[Mopar John]

Jeff,
The NOS driveshaft is perfect!! I have pm'd you on the other for the Superbird. The date coded correct logo drivers door glass is way better than the one I have in it also!! I was going to mention all the help I received from the forum members when I got to the resto part. In addition to you Jim maxwell wedge came up with a correct part number and good date code NOS horn relay. A fellow Moparts member came up with a pair of NOS date coded torsion bars. I also bought an NOS owners manual set and a correct part number and date coded NOS oil sending unit off EBAY.  So the car will be a lot more correct the next time out! Like I say it will never be done! Every chance I get to remove reproduction or upgrade original parts I am going to do my best to do so! I am going to redo my want list on the parts wanted forum. I think it fell off the bottom of the forum.  Thanks all for the comments and help!

[nascarxx29]

There was a guy down in Fortville, Ind. that had 3 Dayton's back in the early 80s


Guy in Fortville IN Dewayne Liebrant  69 500 s dad

[Mopar John]

                                                            DASH PLAQUES
Between work and snow plowing my driveway the last week or so didn't leave much time to post. But the mind was working! I was wondering were we went next for our 1984 NATIONAL MEET? I wasn't real sure and didn't want to mess this up. In my absence I thought of all the dash plaques that I had thrown in the console of the Superbird from all the shows it had been to. I have attached a picture of it about three inches full of dash plaques, race tickets and parade lap credentials! I sorted them all out on the floor of my den and took another picture. My first dash plaque was given to me by Monroe Schellinger at the 1978 Milwaukee meet. I have it pictured. Monroe actually gave me two! One to stick on the dash and an extra for collecting purposes. And yes, I actually stuck the first few to the dash @#$%^&*()! I thought that's what you were supposed to do! Rick Edwards ( talkie mopar )
has been to as many national meets as anyone and did stick all his to the dash and there still there! I was also the events director for the HOOSIER MOPARS CLUB in the early 90's and developed a dash plaque for our annual show. It had a Superbird on the plaque and we changed the color of it each year! Speaking of Monroe Schellinger he did so much for us in the AERO car hobby. Me personally even more! The first years that I owned the Daytonas I was on the hunt for the rare Daytona specific parts that I needed. For the two cars I needed 1 hood, 1 right fender, 1 left fender, 2 trunklids and 2 wings!! Early on Monroe sold me a right fender, a hood, a trunk lid and a wing all at a resonable cost!! He got these parts off of at least 2 Daytonas that were parted! Again I say, how many are we really looking for??

[Mopar John]

                                             1984 NATIONAL SUPERBIRD MEET
In 1984 we went back to Indianapolis for our 1984 NATIONAL MEET. Dave Jones was setting these up as part of the HOOSIER AUTO SHOW and swap meet. I have a picture of the 1984 dash plaque and a picture of the wing cars doing a lap on the famous INDY 500 track! This was another family vacation and there is a picture of Matthew my youngest and another of Mike by the orange bird. You can see many of the other cars at the meet in these pictures. When I won the third place trophy in 1982 I asked Dave Jones if he could get a copy of my judging sheet? He asked me what I wanted it for? I explained that I wanted to go over the points and see if I could make my car better! He understood and told me that a copy would be available after the show. Dave was true to his word and gave me my sheet. I studied it and improved the car where I could and expected to do better. Here is what I learned from that experience. The playing field is not the same from year to year. New cars show up and fresh cars show up. If it has wide valve covers you better be 10 to 15% better to hold your own. It's just like our wing cars when we get dumped into a 69 or 70 B Body class at a smaller show! We have the advantage. Now let me talk about judges. If you don't get the same judge things change. One guy might be a chrome guy and nit pick all over the car on chrome. Another guy might be a body and paint guy and check for runs, panel fit, dirt nibs etc. Yet another might be an original part date code kind of guy. In the end for what ever the factors were I didn't place with what I thought was a much better entry in the class??

[Michelle]

Great story daddy and especially great pictures of your amazingly beautiful children....

[maxwellwedge]

Working on next Christmas dad!   

[66chargerkid]

I was wondering where the stories went.
Everyday I would check here and read a new story. All of this is VERY fascinating. Knowing some of the people you are talking about personally also gives some great back round.
Keep it up!

[Mopar John]

Michelle,
Welcome to the site and now I will call it our story. As my children grew up they knew every year we would be going somewhere with the cars. Michelle I hope you enjoyed all the places we went! Michelle and the boys have been to as many wing meets as most. While I'm thinking of Michelle, she was the one who always went with me to the swap meets. I would display and price all the parts and Michelle would watch the booth while I would walk around looking for parts. It cost me a hotdog and a pop but it was well worth it for her company and the great times we had on those trips. As she got older I think there might have been a small commission involved???

 66chargerkid,
I'm glad your enjoying the post! It's great when someone can connect to the event or some of the people and
cars in the pictures.
Mopar John ( DAD )

[Mopar John]

                                                       1985 NATIONAL MEET
If I don't have my wires crossed here I remember the 1985 NATIONAL MEET as part of the CHRYSLER CAR CLUB CONVENTION or now known as the MOPAR NATIONALS. We were returning to the CHRYSLER PROVING GROUNDS near ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN. Also there were arrangements made for drag racing at nearby MILAN DRAGWAY for the entrants that wanted to race their cars. It had been a while since that scarry run at US 30 DRAGSTRIP and I was getting the courage to run the 1970 GTX again. You probably figured something eventually was going to happen with the new picture of the BITTER LIME in my signature thanks to Cody! The MILAN track was newer and had a better shutdown area. I had also gone over all the brakes and emergency brake! The GTX was now called the "BITTER LIME" ! The last year at US 30 my wife had the car professionally lettered with graphics by a local artist for my birthday!  Back then if you raced at US 30 your car had to have a name! After some thinking about the color name LIME GREEN, I came up with the BITTER LIME logo. The artist painted a picture of a lime doing a burnout with big slicks and headers. The lettering was done in the period correct gold leaf lettering. I had done some testing and tuning at a local track so I would be competitive at Milan. We ran good and won a couple of rounds! Years later my nephew John spotted a picture on the internet of one of the runs at Milan and forwarded it to me. I was now trailering the BITTER LIME but the picture shows the old tow tabs below the front bumper brackets. It also has the old steel hood and the narrow but heavy four inch CRAGAR mags and VOLKSWAGON front tires. I've attached a picture of the dash plaque from this event, the picture that my nephew found and one of my run card with car number. ENJOY!

[Mopar John]

                                      1986 and 1987 SUPERBIRD NATIONAL MEETS
Life sometimes gets in the way of the fun things! I believe that the club went to WASHINGTON DC in 1986 and to FLORIDA in 1987. I'm sad to say that I was unable to make those meets! But I was ready for the next one! It was 1988 and our first trip to TALLADEGA! That will be the subject of my next chapter in this story! Stay tuned!

[moparstuart]

Michelle,
Welcome to the site and now I will call it our story. As my children grew up they knew every year we would be going somewhere with the cars. Michelle I hope you enjoyed all the places we went! Michelle and the boys have been to as many wing meets as most. While I'm thinking of Michelle, she was the one who always went with me to the swap meets. I would display and price all the parts and Michelle would watch the both while I would walk around looking for parts. It cost me a hotdog and a pop but it was well worth it for her company and the great times we had on those trips. As she got older I think there might have been a small commission involved???

  66chargerkid,
I'm glad your enjoying the post! It's great when someone can connect to the event or some of the people and
cars in the pictures.
Mopar John ( DAD )

john  66chargerkid and my other two sons have grown up the last 12 years going to national wing meets as our summer vacations . just like your kids did   

[hemi68charger]

                                      1986 and 1987 SUPERBIRD NATIONAL MEETS
Life sometimes gets in the way of the fun things! ...

Boy, ain't that the truth !!!!!

[Mopar John]

              1988 DSAC NATIONAL MEET 20TH ANNIVERSARY TALLADEGA MOTOR SPEEDWAY!!!
There is going to be quite a bit from this meet! Up till now my favorites were the CHRYSLER PROVING GROUNDS and the INDY 500 TRACK meets! This was a new venue and it was hosted by a guy named Tim Welborn and his wife Pam. The first couple of times down there the meet headquarters were in Birmingham, Alabama. This meet was the farthest I had driven to a meet and it came with it's share of unexpected problems! My oldest son Mike now eleven made the trip down with me. We drove the orange six pack bird which was now running 4:10 gears! The rpm's were quite high on the interstates! All was well till we got down south in the late July heat. The first thing to go wrong was we heard a pop and flapping sound from the right rear! The car was still driving ok but we pulled over to take a look? We had blown the sidewall off one of the original F60 X 15 Polyglass tires @#$%^&*()! I had never seen anything like this before! We changed over to the spare and went to the next Goodyear tire store that I spotted. We had the spare tire switched over to the rally wheel. I should have kept that tire! Mike and I made it to the headquarters hotel without any more problems. At the hotel they had my favorite drivers current car on display for us. It was the #12 of Bobby Allison! Don't beat me up too bad, he did drive the #22 Daytona for a while! Each day we would line up in the hotel entrance drive for our caravan to the days activities. The attached pictures will give you an idea of how awesome this looked! You should have seen the line going down the expressway and my tach @#$%^&*()!! No one was going slow and they wern't waitin for ya either! Go or blow! ENJOY!!

[hemi68charger]

Awesome pics and story...........   

[Mopar John]

                                                      1988 TALLADEGA PART 2!
On the first official day of the meet we had a car show at the motel parking lot. The things I remember most was the number of people hanging around the pool, the number of HEMI daytonas present and how hot it was! Even cruising without air was uncomfortable! I have attached some pictures of the show at the hotel. For this meet some of the pictures are mine and some were sent to me afterwards by fellow AERO enthusiast Wayne Wooten from Virginia.

[Aero426]

That '88 meet was incredibly hot. 

[Mopar John]

                                                    1988 TALLADEGA PART 3!
The car show at the hotel was Friday and Saturday was off to the museum near the track. The pictures of the cars lined up in part 1 was the lineup getting ready to leave for the musuem. There had to be around 100 wing cars there! What a sight going down the interstate. When we got to the museum we parked in the same area as we do now but I don't remeber a panporamic photo from this one. Speaking of panaoramic photos I went and got an estimate of getting that 10 X 51 photo framed today @#$%^&*(! WOW! Once to the museum there was a great show of just our cars! But inside were many race cars old, wrecked and current on display! My son Mikes favorite driver was Richard Petty and I got a photo of him by one of the Petty Chargers. There is a photo of the #71 K & K INSURANCE car a 1969 Daytona. There is another photo of my favorite driver Bobby Allisons car and last a picture of the #47 Ramo Stott Superbird. I think it was owned by Jeff Bobst out of Iowa at the time. If I remeber correctly he bought it from Ramo. ENJOY!

[Mopar John]

AERO426,
For those of us that were there to remeber it 22 years later it was hot! I will talk more about it on part 4 from Sunday the day of the race!
Mopar John

[69_500]

                        1982 PART 2 ORANGE SUPERBIRD WINS TROPHY AT INDY!!
By now all of you have seen how bad the Orange six pack Superbird was when I bought it. You also saw a picture of it being repaired. I finished repairs and repainted it myself. I did everything that I could to the car. Our 1982 Superbird national meet was held in INDY in the infield of the Indianapolis 500 track. It included a judged car show. swap meet and track laps on the 500 track. I drove the Superbird on the track and entered it into the judged show to see how it would do? There were 28 Superbirds there and a lot of them were entered in the wing car judging. I stood and watched nervously as the judge went over my car. At the end of the meet they called all the participants to the trophy awards ceremony and always started with third place. When they got to the wing class they called my name for third place!! I was so happy I almost cried! I had taken a rust bucket and repaired it myself and won third place at a national meet. It is one of my proudest accomplishments to this very day! I have attached a picture of the trophy, another of me holding it by the Superbird and last a picture of me with the trophy and the kids. You will notice that my family has now grown to three children @#$%^&*! Matthew our second son was born in Septmeber of 1981. So he was about a year old in the picture.

I was just looking in my garage last night after I got home from Michigan and noticed the same plaque hanging in my garage. I turned it over and there was a note on the back listing the people and their cars who were 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in 1982. 1st went to Dave Jones for his HEMI Daytona, 2nd was to my father for his HEMI 500 and then Third was you. Just thought that was interesting.

[69_500]

Hi John, great story,I take it the N.O.S. drive shaft fit OK. Did you & Denny ever come to any kind of deal on his drive shaft yet. There was a guy down in Fortville, Ind. that had 3 Dayton's back in the early 80s. I sold him some 70 Charger stuff for them, one was a red with black wing, a blue with black wing & a f6 green with white interior. The red & blue cars were done & the green one needed done. The red one was an auto & the blue one was a 4-speed if I remember right, also one had cruise control. He sold everthing in the late 80s & always thought of where they went. Just thought you might have heard of them. I did find the last N.O.S. big block drive shaft I have if you still are looking for the bird. The cool thing is it has Detroit  cast into the rear u-joint. Any way love the story & looking forward to the rest of the story. Great meeting you & take care, Jeff. 

The gentleman in Fortville Indiana is my father, Dewayne Liebrandt. Did you bring the parts for the 1970 Charger to Fortville? Just curious because I know that when we lived in Fortville he also had a blue 1970 HEMI Charger RT/SE. Depending on how early it was in the 80's there might have been the Q5 Charger 500 there as well, and a Red 1969 Boss 429 Mustang. I know we sold the Mustang right before we moved to Woodburry Indiana (abou 8 miles away). Which is when he purchased 2 more Daytona's along with 2 superbirds.

[Mopar John]

69_500,
     Thanks for the added info on the awards from the 1982 meet! I'm glad that it's bringing back memories and helping those along who were not able to be there. I remeber your father from the meets but never made a trip over to your home. Could you post a picture of the HEMI 500 that won the award? I am fairly new to this site, do you have an aero car? Does your dad still have any of his?
Mopar John

[Mopar John]

                                         1988 TALLADEGA PART 4 RACEDAY!!
The excitement for raceday and the parade lap was building all weekend! Everyone was up early getting something to eat and getting the cars ready. I don't remeber getting up as early as we do now. The caravan to the speedway was another awesome display of wing cars and horsepower. By now all the dust was off the higher RPM section of my factory tach @#$%^! When we got to the track we lined up in the same area as we do now. I had a big surprise for every one. I had bought four 15 inch steel wheels and some period correct GOODYEAR EAGLE stock car tires. I got the tires from a local racer and had them all mounted and tested before we left on the trip! My son Mike who made the trip with me and I practiced in the driveway taking the rally's off and putting the stock car tires on as quick as possible! We could have filled in for Petty in a pinch we were that good at it! I would loosen the lug nuts and place the jack. Mike would lift the car while I loosened the next wheel and remove the lug nuts. I would then bring the stocker around and have him tighten the nuts. I would put the rally away and then drop the car and do the next. People were starting to gather and watch! It was a lot of fun! We finally got lined up on the track and got to take pictures like we do now. Then was the parade lap and there were a lot more fans there because it was closer to race time. While all this was going on someone in a stock car painted in Winston colors was lapping us at pretty high speeds. That kept everyone down low!! I had heard about the banks at TALLADEGA but never visualized how steep they were! I don't think you could walk up the track in the curves! Now it was time to park the cars and walk to our seats. I don't think the Bobby Allison grandstand was there on the back stretch in 1988. We had to walk over a mile to the front straightaway near the exit of pit road! Good seats but a long walk and it was getting very warm already. The race was called the DIE HARD 500 then. As the race went on we were told that the temprature was 106 degrees @#$%^&*!! It was so hot that Mike was going under the stands in the shade to cool off. I am sad to remeber our leader Monroe suffered a stroke form the heat. This time it was a real one not the kind from me throwing 5 gallons of water onto his Superbird from the second floor!!
When the race was over it was so hot that Mike and I made it about half way back to the car and had to stop and cool off from just walking. I bought us two giant COKES and we sat on the ground in the shade of the fifth wheel of a concession trailer! We then walked the rest of the way back to the Superbird and sat in the shade. We still had to switch back to the rally wheels and take the stock car tires off @#$%^&*! Well it didn't go as quick as when we put them on but we did it and returned to the hotel. I have attached some pictures including one of me and Mike with our Superbird with the GOODYEAR EAGLE stock car tires on it! ENJOY!!

[69_500]

69_500,
     Thanks for the added info on the awards from the 1982 meet! I'm glad that it's bringing back memories and helping those along who were not able to be there. I remeber your father from the meets but never made a trip over to your home. Could you post a picture of the HEMI 500 that won the award? I am fairly new to this site, do you have an aero car? Does your dad still have any of his?
Mopar John

My dad does not have any of the aero cars anymore, he actually sold all 5 of the Daytona's, 2 Superbirds and the 2 C500's along with the house and everything else we had in 1988 and we moved to Chiang Mai Thailand so that he could start a church for the deaf. They are now back here in the states after working in Thailand for 20 years and he now resided in Greenfield Indiana still making 3-4 trips annually to Thailand as well as to Columbia South America among other countries.

I do have a 69 Charger 500, its nothing fancy just a decent driver car. I took it down there to Talladega this year, it was the R4 red one with the white interior and white tail stripe. 440 AT car. I looked your blue Daytona over pretty well down there at Talladega, very nice car. You didn't have any more problems with the car down there did you, I think it was on Friday night you were having trouble getting it started at the Welbourne's house. I'll take a picture of the plaque and post it a little later on. Trying to entertain the 6 year old while I try to read some of the stuff on here right now.