Worst fixes you have seen on a charger?

[h76]

Kind of wondering what are some of the ridiculous and terrible attempts at repairs you have seen on some chargers?
I know have had a couple guys tell me they have seen frame rails that are like paper meche(fiberglass&paint). I saw one charger that somebody riveted old discarded license plates over holes on fenders and deck lid. I even saw one years ago that tried to shoehorn  a 3rd gen charger grille on a 68? Let's just say it was a hack job! I'm sure you guys out there have seen some interesting and just plain weird fixes.

[XS29L9Bxxxxxx]

Lots of bad repairs of rear window channels

[Silver R/T]

I know a guy who put 1/4 panel on with what looked like oxy/acy welder. Besides that he wanted to replace trunk and trunk extension AFTER he had put on 1/4s

[HANDM]

Carpet padding stuffed into the holes in the lower quarters covered in a half inch of bondo.....

Golf ball sized chunks of bondo in the rear window corners....

Lets just say when the dust started flying, it didn't stop till there was a thick coating on everything in the shop

[Cooter]

20" wheels on a 2nd Gen Charger.

[Brock Lee]

After seeing several TV show General Lees, I could write a book. I seen one that had a quarter tack welded and bondoed over another quarter.

[DC_1]

20" wheels on a 2nd Gen Charger.

....I don't see the problem 

[Ghoste]

I once saw a sheet of cardboard about 7 inches by 15 inches bondoed into the top of a fender to cover rust.  They didn't even sand or paint the bondo.

[BigBlackDodge]

I once saw a sheet of cardboard about 7 inches by 15 inches bondoed into the top of a fender to cover rust.  They didn't even sand or paint the bondo.

Well at least I used 'structural' cardboard!....and I was to tired to sand and paint after the bondo work.



BBD

[lasvegas69charg]

When my car was in the body shop, the body shop called me down to look at something he found on the car.  When I got there he showed me that someone stuck a rock the size of a golf ball stuffed in a hole of rust covered with bondo. I couldn't, believeit because my dad was the only one to ever work on the car....that night I brought the rock over to his house and showed him...he just grinned...

[bill440rt]

When I stripped my '70 I found patches brazed on the car. The fenders were warped so badly from the lousy braze job I had no choice but to replace them.
There was a lower patch in one of the 1/4's that looked like a piece of washboard & bondo'd over, had to be 1-1/2 inches thick of bondo.

Also found a crushed soda can in the right 1/4 on my '69. 

[Indygenerallee]

Mine was virgin, so all I found was rust..... 

[Dino]

Anything from hlpag or whatever they are called now.

I've seen plenty lousy repairs but the worst were not on chargers.  Frame rails repaired with chicken wire and newspapers comes to mind.  Another had the rails filled with expanding foam.  In some places it expanded so much that the rails crumbled so some doofus textured the foam to look like a frame rail.   

The craziest I saw was this old Euro sports car that looked mint on the outside but when I stuck my head in the trunk I could see the inside of the quarters...about half a foot to far inward.  The entire outside was bondo, gallons of it and the weird thing is, it looked great!  Lines were sharp, correct curve to it and all.  Made me wonder, if they could do such a good job shaping bondo, couldn't they put a little more effor in the metal work?  People are strange...   

[Hudson Hornet !]

My Car had sheet metal riveted to the floors and then tarred over, but the bad part was that i found CARDBOARD sandwiched between the metal.  Also, the guy had used plastic butter dish lids cut to make the body plugs on the car.  " I can't believe it's not Butter"!!!!!

[moparguy01]

Not all on chargers, but I've seen rear windows held in with bathroom chalking, entire floors covered with 1/4" of fiberglass resin to seal pinholes everywhere, 2" of body shims aligning a front fender. Man the list goes on and on.

[Dino]

Not all on chargers, but I've seen rear windows held in with bathroom chalking, entire floors covered with 1/4" of fiberglass resin to seal pinholes everywhere, 2" of body shims aligning a front fender. Man the list goes on and on.

Funny you mention the resin.  When I went to look at the car I eventually bought, the po told me his dad had welded a small patch under the rear seat.  Somehow the floor got hit by something and it started to rust.  They did a real nice job welding it and they covered the entire floor in epoxy.  Except for a tiny spot, the size of a quarter, near the gas pedal there's really no rust on those floors to speak of and the epoxy sure does protect that floor!  Great insulator for noise and heat as well I might add.  It's easy enough to remove but I see no reason to do so.

Sometimes it just works out!

[FastbackJon]

I know a guy who put 1/4 panel on with what looked like oxy/acy welder. Besides that he wanted to replace trunk and trunk extension AFTER he had put on 1/4s

I think I might know who you're talking about.

But come on Max, post a picture of what your car's driver's side quarter panel looked like when you bought it....

[c00nhunterjoe]

I could post pictures of my car but you guys would make serious fun of it...... I'm no bodyman, just rying to keep it from rotting away.

[68X426]

Remember this one? Not metal work, but still laughable.

There was an e-bay Charger for sale last year that was posted up here on several threads. Asking big dollars for a car with lots of issues.

It was the bungee cord holding down the battery that everyone had a great time commenting on. The seller was pissed, because he saw nothing wrong with a bungee cord holding down a battery. Wouldn't change it.

[aussiemuscle]

i've done my share of backyard bondo. my charger had so much in it's rear quarter the car had a lean 

[c00nhunterjoe]

I replaced the horrific patches in my 1\4s with real metal but its just as wavy as when I started......lol at least its metal now. The holes had been filled with so much expandafoam that the 1\4 glass didn't roll all the way down..... they smeared newspapers\fiberglass and bondo over that. I swear it was over an inch and a half thick before I hit newspaper. 

Most would call my repairs "halfass" but its better then what I had and the car has no rot holes in it anymore. Its cruisable until I can build a garage for a full resto done properly.

[skip68]

I would have to say Jeff's car with the fiberglass frame rails that BK automotive did.   That's just crazy chit.   

[Ghoste]

The BK car was almost a textbook example of everything bad a "restorer" could possibly do to any car. 

[Dino]

The BK car was almost a textbook example of everything bad a "restorer" could possibly do to any car. 

I must've missed that story, what happened?

[nh_mopar_fan]

The BK car was almost a textbook example of everything bad a "restorer" could possibly do to any car. 

I must've missed that story, what happened?

YGBFSM.

It's the story that will not die.

[Dino]

The BK car was almost a textbook example of everything bad a "restorer" could possibly do to any car. 

I must've missed that story, what happened?

YGBFSM.

It's the story that will not die.

Did a quick search, I recall seeing the thread but never attempted to browse the 206 pages, now I'm curious enough to do so.  I stopped coming here in '07 and only returned in '11 so I missed a few things.

[XS29L9Bxxxxxx]

Remember this one? Not metal work, but still laughable.

There was an e-bay Charger for sale last year that was posted up here on several threads. Asking big dollars for a car with lots of issues.

It was the bungee cord holding down the battery that everyone had a great time commenting on. The seller was pissed, because he saw nothing wrong with a bungee cord holding down a battery. Wouldn't change it.

Yeah, the Avro Arrow  Wanted 30 odd grand, and there were obvious shortcuts, etc.

Funny thing, the other day while getting the trash can from the curb, I found a bungee cord in the street... I checked for a Chrysler Part Number to see if it was an original, but to no avail. 

[nh_mopar_fan]

The BK car was almost a textbook example of everything bad a "restorer" could possibly do to any car. 

I must've missed that story, what happened?

YGBFSM.

It's the story that will not die.

Did a quick search, I recall seeing the thread but never attempted to browse the 206 pages, now I'm curious enough to do so.  I stopped coming here in '07 and only returned in '11 so I missed a few things.
[/quote

Good way to piss away a couple hours....or days.

[Dino]

The BK car was almost a textbook example of everything bad a "restorer" could possibly do to any car. 

I must've missed that story, what happened?

YGBFSM.

It's the story that will not die.

Did a quick search, I recall seeing the thread but never attempted to browse the 206 pages, now I'm curious enough to do so.  I stopped coming here in '07 and only returned in '11 so I missed a few things.
[/quote

Good way to piss away a couple hours....or days.

You are not kidding!  I went through the first few pages and I had to stop as I was about to throw up.  Unreal...

[AirborneSilva]

The BK car was almost a textbook example of everything bad a "restorer" could possibly do to any car. 

I must've missed that story, what happened?

YGBFSM.

It's the story that will not die.

Did a quick search, I recall seeing the thread but never attempted to browse the 206 pages, now I'm curious enough to do so.  I stopped coming here in '07 and only returned in '11 so I missed a few things.
[/quote

Good way to piss away a couple hours....or days.

You are not kidding!  I went through the first few pages and I had to stop as I was about to throw up.  Unreal...

Well now I'm curious to check out that thread 

[Cooter]

I replaced the horrific patches in my 1\4s with real metal but its just as wavy as when I started......lol at least its metal now. The holes had been filled with so much expandafoam that the 1\4 glass didn't roll all the way down..... they smeared newspapers\fiberglass and bondo over that. I swear it was over an inch and a half thick before I hit newspaper. 

Most would call my repairs "halfass" but its better then what I had and the car has no rot holes in it anymore. Its cruisable until I can build a garage for a full resto done properly.

I wonder how many perfectionists on here that clearly offer an opinion on "Hack jobs", would if they could go back in time to the assembly lines and tell each engineer/assembly line worker that designed and built these cars with incorrect door/fender/trunk lid/quarters/ etc. gaps that they built the Worst Charger they've ever seen?

The question I love to hear at Cruise nights is "Hey man, nice car. Any "Mud" in it?" WTF? Show me a barn find that doesn't have some sort of filler in it. ALL these cars have some kind of filler be it plastic, lead, sealer, etc.

[Ghoste]

What does assembly quality have to do with poorly done repairs? 

[Cooter]

I was replying to Coonhunters post....NOT poor repairs. He claimed some would think his work was "poor"..Well, these cars were POOR fitting, water leaking, ratchety, rickety, gas fumey, POS when brand new....I was just wondering how many would think that right off the assembly line.

[Ghoste]

I getcha now.  Good point too and something I se at auctions all the time is people appraising a mass produced car by door and hood gaps.  A buddy of mine worked at the Windsor assemmbly plant back when they were running Plymouth B-bodies out of there in the early 70's.  One of his first jobs when he started in 1971 was on the body mating part of the process where they drop the car down onto the engine and K frame.  He said on the Hemi cars he had to wedge a two by four between the inner fender and the valve cover of the engine and then pry on it as the car was dropped.  A Chrysler approved process?  Hell no.  An assembly worker process to get the car over the wide engine in one shot and keep the line going?  Oh yeah.  But he chuckles to this day when he hears people talk about gaps because he says they never lined up from the moment they were made.

[h76]

I getcha now.  Good point too and something I se at auctions all the time is people appraising a mass produced car by door and hood gaps.  A buddy of mine worked at the Windsor assemmbly plant back when they were running Plymouth B-bodies out of there in the early 70's.  One of his first jobs when he started in 1971 was on the body mating part of the process where they drop the car down onto the engine and K frame.  He said on the Hemi cars he had to wedge a two by four between the inner fender and the valve cover of the engine and then pry on it as the car was dropped.  A Chrysler approved process?  Hell no.  An assembly worker process to get the car over the wide engine in one shot and keep the line going?  Oh yeah.  But he chuckles to this day when he hears people talk about gaps because he says they never lined up from the moment they were made.

:2thumbs:I totally agree! Good point.

[Mike DC]

 
Its the same with paintjobs, the standards have crept.  The 1960s factory original orange-peeled semigloss finishes would be unacceptable from even a mediocre body shop these days.

That's one of the things that I notice when I see the past being portrayed in TV/movies.  The vintage cars always seem to look glossier than you see them looking in real pics from the era.  (That, and there are way too many bright-colored 2dr musclecars and not enough puke-green station wagons.)

[Steve P.]

When I was fresh out of high school I worked at a spring shop. We did everything from golf cart springs on up to big truck springs.. I mostly worked on cars. Being in Upstate NY with all the heavily salted roads, I deal with rusted out crap all the time and lit many on fire torching out the front perch bolts. I think my record was 9 cars I lit up in one week..

Anyway, people would cover up rot hole with anything. Cardboard, street signs, beer cans you name it. I remember one car that someone had put what seamed like hundreds of layers of aluminum foil over the hole and just held it in place with the back seat...

The crazy thing was that the foil kept the seat from getting wet and holding water and the foil was no match for the torch, so that car went up in a NY second and really torched the back seat before we could put it out.. That car left a 3 seater... 

[kikgas01]

Does this count?


REAR VALANCE

Trunk extensons











But ya know what? I will probably fix it. Not to mention it was hit in the pass side and the quarter top and part of the lower roof I could go surfung on!

[Mike DC]

 
Hey, if the work is bad enough then it starts to look like a real Warner Bros GL, right?  Especially hacked up & riveted '68 taillight panel conversions.


That car looks like a lot of fun to play with as long as you don't dive into a huge resto right away.

[Cooter]

It is funny how a "Real" General Lee that was clearly "Hacked" by most standards here, can and usually do sell for way up there....Yet, anybody that pays for the same basic "Hack job" from a lesser hacker tends to be frustrated at being screwed over.

Wonder why it is that if the GL "Hackers" did it, it is considered worth it, but anybody else, and it's a "Hack job"?

[kikgas01]

I love the way mine is. I drive the snot out of it. I drive it everyplace. Just did a 5 1/2 hr trip with it. I love the fact it looks like a W/B car, that is why I bought it. I have having a trunk floor and driver side rear frame fixed this winter. I have boat loads of 68-69 Charger parts... Just takes time. The tail panel is staying as well as the dash and so on. I LOVE the fact it`s a 68 too. I always like a 68 conversion on a general if done the way W/B did it.
Here is my garage lol.

[Ghoste]

It is funny how a "Real" General Lee that was clearly "Hacked" by most standards here, can and usually do sell for way up there....Yet, anybody that pays for the same basic "Hack job" from a lesser hacker tends to be frustrated at being screwed over.

Wonder why it is that if the GL "Hackers" did it, it is considered worth it, but anybody else, and it's a "Hack job"?

What exactly do you mean Cooter?  Do you mean within the GL community itslef or the Charger community at large?  I ask because I guess I don't know which "hacks" you are talking about to make a GL.

[Wicked72]

got a place called lowes automotive. a couple years ago they got in a 72 charger. i took a good look at it. start with poking the fresh undercoat. come to find monkey hair bondo filling the rails. then picked at a chip of new paint which ended up yanking out a larger chunk that was a pad of steel wool in the rocker panel that was coated in bondo... they didnt try to fix the swiss cheese floors. and the entire car is bondo. decoded the the vin and its nothing special just a standard 318 car. so the owner comes out while im shaking my head wallking away and asks if im interested..well i laughed and he begins to tell me hes selling cheap. he said 10 at first and i said yeah ill give you 10 bucks. he wanted 10k for the piece. i said its not worth anything so he tries to say its an original r/t and id never find a charger in better shape for that price. i said yeah i paid $1500 for a rust free big block car so that must be worth 60k at least right. he was pissed and then i showed the vin decoded and explained that only a sucker would fall for his bs. two months later my friend stupidly bought a Porsche boxster and it caught on fire 2 days later and lowes said oh well to bad... 

[XS29L9Bxxxxxx]

Any new examples of poorly "fixed" Chargers? 

[alfaitalia]

Just as well I'm not putting mine up until it at least "looks" fixed. You guys standards are just too high to display a" budget" build like mine. Don't want any of my repairs in this thread! Body parts are virtually unobtainable in the UK if you need then in a hurry....and massively expensive if not in a hurry and you order from the US due to inflated shopping costs and import taxes to the UK from outside Europe......guess it will be the same from inside Europe too soon...LOL! Although filler will be minimal just where it needs to be....minor imperfections and ripples, the odd joint...there is quite a bit of metal going in (as well as I can weld it!.....im and ok metal burner) that was never destined for a car! New body panels are out of my budget with what else Ive got planned. If its rust free, solid, safe and passes the 20/20 test (looks good at 20 yards at 20 mph!) then I will be happy. Gonna spend the limited cash on a planned fast...ish engine and handling. Once the body looks good enough for the fresh paint (the ONLY job I'm not doing myself) I will get on with the running gear.....maybe come back to the body work in the future....if/when funds allow.

[RCCDrew]

The car I bought was owned by a previous member on here. The missing trunk floor was replaced with cardboard and tape and the space above the rear wheel wells was filled with pillows and old clothes to keep exhaust fumes from going into the passenger compartment.
The car was leaning because a torsion bar adjusting bolt came out of socket. The PO fixed the problem by adding air to only one rear air shock.
The front sway bar is off the car because the PPO broke the sway bar mount to the KFrame. He then attempted to solid weld the sway bar to the K member. 
My car used to have Ford 9" rear axle.
That's just the tip of the iceberg on this gem. At least I knew what the car was before purchase.

[Magnumcharger]

Back in 1991, I traded a very nice 1969 Road Runner for this POS Charger R/T. Sorry to say, I was young and very naive.
Many years later, and many thousands of hours of work, it's still not done.

But, this post is about crappy body work.
This Charger arrived in my driveway with severely cracked bodyfill on both quarterpanels.
Being slightly OCD, I pried on the filler with a screwdriver and the filler fell off in huge chunks, roughly a foot square on each side.
It turns out the bottom of the quarterpanels were replaced with those shitty home-made 1/2 panels you used to get in the 1980's from Cross Canada and Sherman and Associates.
If I was smart, I would have immediately sold the car.
But I had a dream (Maybe a nightmare?) where I had a blue 1968 Charger R/T. So I kept it.
The rear corner caps looked suspicious too. I have them a quick tap with my body hammer and they both fell in.
It turns out they were both constructed of body filler over a base of wadded up newspapers. In fact, I un-wadded one of the newspaper balls and it turned out to be a 1986 copy of the Brandon Sun (local rag). So I knew when the last bodyjob was, almost to the exact date.
Sure...great repair.

[c00nhunterjoe]

I was replying to Coonhunters post....NOT poor repairs. He claimed some would think his work was "poor"..Well, these cars were POOR fitting, water leaking, ratchety, rickety, gas fumey, POS when brand new....I was just wondering how many would think that right off the assembly line.

Oh no, mine is 100% poor. I have no problem admitti g that i am not a body man.

[cooldude]

I once was in high school, way back. My learning curve on Mopar fixing, was a poor old, 1967 Barracuda , slant six notch back. I bought it for 300 bucks, and my parents didnt even know. We kept it at a buddies farm and drag raced it down a gravel road, just boys having fun.

Well, us high school boys, well, you know how that goes. We found all sorts of ways of keeping that car going. Who needs actual parts if you can buy a $2 tube of RTV sealant, right?

I suppose the funniest thing was that the wiring harness was toast. But one of my buddies attempted to wire it back with dynamite wire. It didnt help. The wires under the dash were just a blob of meltedness. You could turn on the flashers, and the wipers would come on, and so it went.

And I drove that car around for a while before I went to the Army. I came back and drove it some more. I finally traded it on a 69 Valiant.

I kinda wish I had that old car back. It took so much abuse, and just kept on going.

[67440chrg]

When I was young a family member was looking at a car and stuck his knee through a front fender while leaning on it looking under the hood that was bondo and chicken wire.

[kab69440]

I heard there was a guy on here that (decades ago) converted a 69 to four speed using mostly cannibalized truck parts from the pedals, linkages and all. Apparently he posted a picture of his slightly "custom fitted" truck frame bracket that holds the outer Z-bar ball and it was the source of much consternation and hilarity.

[Chargen69]

one of my quarter panels had soo much bondo in it that the made a 1/4 ledge over the side marker

[cbrestorations]

i had a car with house carpet nailed to the floor, it looked like a Porcupine under the car. oh and it was hit in the right rear so they replaced the right rear quarter with a 69 cut off but the body was a 70 and they didnt fix the frame damage so one side was a 69 the other a 70. the wheel on the 70 side sat 1" farther forward in the wheel well than the 69 side.

[70B5Cuda]

It wasn't a Mopar, but my first car was a horribly rusty 66 mustang coupe. I got underneath the car to degrease it and realized that the PO had cut up a lawnmower deck and screwed it down as the "new" driver's floor pan.

[timmycharger]

I bought a parts car 68 Charger off of a friend a few years back who had the car since High School, he "repaired" the drivers floor with a confederate flag license plate (now on my wall on display) and an old intake valley pan. 

The best part is that he dropped the accelerator pedal somewhere on the road as there was nothing really holding it in other than the carpet that finally gave out.

The car had a really nice grille however that I still own and putting on my car soon.

[303 Mopar]

The trunk floor in my '71 Challenger had an aluminum flashing material laid down with undercoating over it.  I paid for a car inspection instead of going to see it in person.  The report stated it was a "solid car with only minor rust on the quarter panels."

[VegasCharger]

The trunk floor in my '71 Challenger had an aluminum flashing material laid down with undercoating over it.  I paid for a car inspection instead of going to see it in person.  The report stated it was a "solid car with only minor rust on the quarter panels."

WOW! You need to red flag that inspection service. Lazy MF'ers sounds like it. Probably didn't even get down on their hands & knees to inspect the under carriage. Or put the car on a lift. Probably just did a walk around with their stupid clipboard.

[JR]

I heard there was a guy on here that (decades ago) converted a 69 to four speed using mostly cannibalized truck parts from the pedals, linkages and all. Apparently he posted a picture of his slightly "custom fitted" truck frame bracket that holds the outer Z-bar ball and it was the source of much consternation and hilarity.

That sounds just like one of the General Lees that live down the road from me. One is pieced together with a 360 engine and a 3 speed tranny setup cobbled together from various trucks and vans. The auto car isnt much better off.

Im not saying all general lees are held together with duct tape and pop rivets, just 3 of the 4 that reside close to me.

No offense to the GL guys here.

[Baldwinvette77]

This old shop sign in my 68 covered in fiberglass 

although i was fully aware of it before i bought it.

[Kern Dog]

Where is that 69 or 69 Charger with the road sign riveted to the fender to hide the rust through? Red car... stock-ish wheels...

[XS29LA47V21]

On 69 Charger I had about 15 yrs ago had aluminum sheet metal riveted to the lower rear valance which with dis-similar metals and volumes of bondo did not hold up well.

A friends factory black 57-2 door 210 in my yard this week for temp storage... not that bad an old driving car he hopes to sell had some HVAC aluminum tape under thin bondo then painted.....  that is just straight trying to hide something...

[70 sublime]

I had this old 70

Trunk floor was just covered over top of what was left of the original floor with flat steel
They had welded 2X2 tubing in for frame connectors and used the same floor in the main cabin part of the car ( they seemed to think it was necessary to mold the floor down around the new connector)

Just a little bondo in the car also    

Car had been many colours started out orange then blue think there was a red next then sublime green then pink

[Derwud]

Are we talking my fixes when I was poor in the 80's, or the fixes that were done to the car by the P.O. in the 70's? Or the shit I am doing now?

[Kern Dog]

I've done some mediocre work on some cars. I'll admit it. I've used Bondo thicker than 1/8". I've used "off brand" oil filters, tune up parts and such. Sometimes I've used regular 87 octane gas as well.

[sccachallenger]

Remember seeing an AAR Cuda back in the '80s.
Could see sheet metal screw in the doorjamb and wheel opening on one side?
I guess a new 1/4 panel was installed, looked fine with the door closed

[Derwud]

My car was in an accident some time between 1970 and 1979, Right rear qtr was replaced POORLY and Bondo'd like a mad man..
My brother and I hacked a 69 Charger harness into the car after an engine compartment fire caused a melt down.
Used one of those Cool Glass fuel filter, well it broke and Woosh went my car..
Used a non factory Bungee cord for my battery, worked fine..