'69 Charger Build - It moves!

[chaos52]

Well, I've finally decided to start writing some of this stuff down before I start forgetting it.  

I bought the car in June 2010 after selling my first car - a 1998 Mitsubishi Eclipse GST, pictured below. It was almost a dollar-for-dollar trade. I watched the Dukes of Hazzard a lot as a kid and always swore that I would have a General Lee. I had the money in hand, so figured it was a good idea to spend it before it disappeared.

I starting watching Craigslist and found a guy named Jeff in New Boston (Detroit) with several 68-70s for sale. He had a lot of parts too. There was one "69 Charger - Oklahoma Car" for ~$3000. I couldn't afford most of the other cars he had for sale, so that caught my eye. Dad and I took a trip down on a Saturday to look at it. We looked at the Oklahoma car first. It was sitting under a lean-to with the front end half buried in gravel and the rear sticking out at an odd angle. It looked very solid - not much rust - but BEAT. It had been T-Boned in the passenger side quarter panel, so one of the leaf springs was bent; the passenger fender was dented and the left-front frame rail was twisted into a pretzel. I was a bit overwhelmed and disappointed that I couldn't get something better in that price range. Jeff also had a 69 Charger R/T basket case for $5000 and a '68 and '70 for decent prices. Both the 68 and 70 were mostly complete cars, but very rusty. The R/T was out of my price range (besides being inappropriate for a GL project).

I decided to go with the Oklahoma car. I had some experience with collision work from my Eclipse (no I didn't smash it! I bought it that way.   ) and I liked the idea of starting with a solid car vs rust. Jeff included all the sheet metal and parts needed to get the car back in shape body-wise. (see photo below). I also picked up an extra fender and pieces that would help make sure everything was straight during the repairs - such as tail lights and bumpers. Dad was a great aid in deciding on that stuff.

Jeff offered to deliver the car for $1/mile. So, we settled on all the prices and I made a down payment. He delivered the car around 9am the next day - Sunday. After unloading everything Dad and I worked on getting the car limping around on 4 wheels. He had some A-body disk brake setups that we were able to combine with the existing suspension.

Most of the parts I got were damaged. One front fender was full of waves because Jeff had sand-blasted it. The other had rust holes and both were smashed on the nose and someone made a mess of both with a slide-hammer. The hood was pretty rusty. The deck lid was dented from the collision. BUT the doors were beautiful, rust-free and straight.

I wonder sometimes if I would have saved myself a lot of headache by waiting and looking for a more complete car. Around the time I bought the Oklahoma Charger I found a complete, garage-kept '69 at an affordable price on Craigslist. I never went to look at it, so it could have been a scam. But, that's all just speculation and I've learned a lot from working on this one.

Strangely, I didn't work much on the car very much that summer. I suppose it was pretty overwhelming at that point - "Ok, I bought my dream car...now what the #$@! am I going to do with it!?" I replaced the bent leaf spring and bought new U-Bolts. Dad and I did a lot of 'bench racing' on what the car was going to be and the best ways to approach the repairs. I suppose that counts.  

I headed back to college in the fall and the Charger retired to a bed under a tarp in the back yard.

Next post - Christmas frame repairs! - Coming soon    

[chaos52]

 

[chaos52]

 

[chaos52]

 

[lukedukem]

you gotta start somewhere, i like how you said that the r/t is "inappropriate for a GL project"
if mine was an r/t it would be close to factory. but its not so its now a "death proof" clone.
zippidy bop

luke

[chaos52]

Fast forward to Christmas break 2010...

We pulled the car into the shop and let it thaw out before beginning work.  The first step was to pull the K frame and suspension and get the car in a level, immobile position before starting to cut the car apart. The shop floor was not level so we ended up shimming the jack stands with small pieces of strap steel.

We figured that someone jumped the car and it landed hard on the front drivers wheel. The impact pushed the K frame into the other frame rail, bending the K frame, both frame rails, both inner fenders and the cowl. Thankfully the cowl and passenger side pieces could be straightened with some work and did not need to be removed or replaced.

The first step was to get out the spot weld drill and pull the bent core support and drivers inner fender. The drivers frame rail was toast, but an extra was included in the original purchase. I bought another K frame when we discovered it was tweaked, so we were able to use that as a guide when installing the new frame rail. **A big thanks to Aero426 for sending me unibody dimension charts for the Charger.** We couldn't have done it without them. After measuring and leveling, twice, thrice and to infinity and beyond, everything came out to +/- 1/8". I think that's pretty good considering how crude these cars could be from the factory.

We were able to straighten the existing drivers inner fender and weld it back in. It was bent at such an extreme angle that it tore in one spot, but still came out ok in the end. I came down with the flu for a week, so the car was still on jack stands with the floor cut out when I headed back to school in January. Dad volunteered to finish that part of the repair. For some reason he wanted his shop space back.  He started out by fabricating pieces and welding them in, but found that it was easier to straighten the bent pieces and weld them back in.

[chaos52]

 

[chaos52]

 

[Wicked72]

welcome to the site and congrats on ditching the RICE!!! lol 

[Bulldog69RT]

I'm lovin' it!!! Keep the pictures coming!  Looks like we're at about the same stage of our build. Good choice on ditching the plastic car!

[charger chris]

 

[tan top]

 that took a fair ole hit , even the trosion bar got bent by the looks of it , keep the pictures coming

[Benji]

Wow, you have got one huge project there.

Benji

[chaos52]

Yeah, I know the Eclipse was ricey, but I loved that car to death and it was a BLAST to drive! Handled just like a go-cart, except much faster. 

tan top - yeah, the torsion bar got tweaked too. I have a new set to install now.

[bill440rt]

Love threads like this! 

Welcome to the 'site!      There's a wealth of info on here. 
Kudos to you for tackling such a big project. Keep the project pics coming.

[lexxman]

Things are looking good. Keep the updates coming.

[Dino]

Handled just like a go-cart, except much faster. 

If that is a feeling you would like to retain, you may want your next step to be installing frame connectors and torsion boxes and add disc brakes, firm feel steering, new shocks and bigger sway bar to your to do list.  These cars don't exactly handle like go karts, more like a stubborn drunk trying to find his way home!   

I don't know what you paid for that thing or how much more work you'll run into, but you're saving a car that many people would've left behind and I commend you for that.   

[chaos52]

If that is a feeling you would like to retain, you may want your next step to be installing frame connectors and torsion boxes and add disc brakes, firm feel steering, new shocks and bigger sway bar to your to do list.  These cars don't exactly handle like go karts, more like a stubborn drunk trying to find his way home!   

Naw, I'm not looking for good handling in this car. I plan to have new shocks and disk brakes however.

[Dino]

It's not as horrible as many old cars, the narrow tires nd loose steering are the worst by far but I can still throw that sucker into corners without feeling it's the last thing I'll ever do.  An Eclipse on the other hand is like riding on tracks and that's not exactly the feeling you get in the Charger.

[chaos52]

Wow, long break from posting. Fortunately that means I've been getting a lot done on the car!  

Sometime after Christmas break in 2010/2011 Dad emailed me that a friend of his was looking to sell an engine for $1000. It was a NOS 1978 400. The guy, Dave, bought the long block brand new (it still has never been fired) and rebuilt it. My memory is pretty fuzzy on what exactly he did when he rebuilt it. It may have 440 heads on it, but I know he put a bit bigger cam in it (see spec sheet below). I picked up the engine the following summer. It is set aside on a stand until the time comes to drop it in.

My original plan for the car was a 440-6 pack, 4-speed setup. I still may do that, but have also been playing around with the idea of stroking the 400. Regardless, this is a good (cheaper!) way to get it on the road in the meantime.

Next up - summer 2011 quarter panel work and finding a parts car!  

[chaos52]

So, summer 2011...

My first priority was to remove the eye-sore that the passengers quarter panel was. The second priority was to straighten the tail panel. The impact creased it clear back to the area between the tail lights. Our method of attack was to brace the car against the bumper of the truck with blocks of wood and use a come-a-long to pull the panel back into place. Crude, no doubt, but it worked! It sounds easy in writing, of course, but there was a lot of tapping, pulling, dollying, etc to get it straight. There were also some mistakes that would come back to bite me later...(more on that in future posts) Dad thankfully had the foresight to suggest I buy tail lights and a rear bumper when I got the car. These proved invaluable when making sure everything was straight.

The trunk extension was folded up pretty good from the impact. I cut it out where it joins to the trunk floor, then cut it again at the bend. After straightening both pieces I welded the horizontal piece back onto the trunk floor, then bent a long, thin piece of metal to fit on the inside of the bend of the trunk extension. This gave me something substantial to weld to and a lot of material to work with when it came to shaping that edge with the grinder.

I also did some miscellaneous work early that summer such as stripping the drivers quarter, the roof and doing some wire brushing and paint on the floor and inner room. The drivers quarter had some bondo in it. The rear was rotted out obviously, but there were also 2 dents above the wheel opening and some rust holes in the front too. I debated about patching the quarter or buying a skin--ultimately deciding that the skin was the best way to go. The skins are cheap enough that the extra work to patch wouldn't be worth it.

It was soon after that that we moved again--the 3rd time in 5 years. I lost a lot of time with all the related chaos involved with that. It was sometime in July that we stumbled across a junk yard called "Mostly Mo-Power" about an hour from home. We stopped and talked with one of the owners, Steve, who was nice enough to sell me a '70 charger from the yard. That purchase helped with a lot with parts I was missing to complete the car.

Toward the end of summer I finally got back to work on the actual car. I separated the quarter skin from the rest of the quarter panel that Jeff included with the original purchase. We used that partial quarter panel to replace the horizontal portion of the quarter panel, the trunk gutter and the part of the sail panel that were smashed. The very end of the original quarter panel was unusable and the same part was rotted away on the quarter Jeff included with the car. I decided to cut what I needed off the '70 and use that. Having a piece that I knew was straight helped to make sure everything else was straight.

[chaos52]

 

[chaos52]

 

[chaos52]

 

[chaos52]