Dan's 69 Resurrection

[Dano 1]

Awhile back I posted up an intro thread for myself and my first Charger, a '69 I found that had been off the road since the early 90's:

http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,131811.0.html.





I wanted to start a new thread to document the progress I've made in the past year or so having the car. It's been pretty slow going but when I found the car I was not well prepared for another project having just completed a full engine build on another car and being very close to the limit on storage/work space.

Step one was to get the car into the garage, I initially wanted to leave the car in the driveway and just work outside but my paranoia about theft and frustration with the quality of covers I was getting for the car somewhat forced my hand into cramming it into the garage. It took some reorganization and purging of 'stuff' but I squeezed it in next to my truck. If anyone is in the Charlotte area then you're probably all too familiar with the 'garages' builders are putting up these days and how ill-suited they are for anything larger than a civic.





I spent a lot of time planning and thinking about where I wanted to go with the car and decided to take a page out of David Frieburger's book and the "Don't make it right, just make it run" mentality. I wanted to try to find a decent engine, 440 ideally, that I could drop in and fire up without a complete rebuild to get the car on the road as soon as possible and actually drive it. I enjoy taking a budget approach to things and shopping for used parts is all part of the fun so I put my Craigslist addiction to good use scrounging as many used parts as I could while meeting some pretty cool local Mopar people.

While I was shopping I figured I'd strip back the paint in a few spots to see what surprises were in store under the primer and previous maroon paint. I took the front left fender back to bare metal and found a little bit of bondo, not too bad and really just smoothing out some previous dings, no chicken wire or holes here thankfully.







It was pretty clear the rear suspension was totally trashed, it had hack-job lowering blocks in it when I found it and even with those removed the rear end still squatted really bad. I snagged a pair of lightly used OEM springs on Craigslist from a cool local Mopar guy who also had some killer vintage Moroso valve covers I just had to have. The springs got a fresh coat of paint with new shackles/bushings.



Someone put an aftermarket rear swap bar in at some point which I figured wouldn't hurt to keep so that got new mount and end link bushings along with some new shocks. I love a good raked look so I went with some old school hybrid coil-over Monroe shocks, if it rides like a dump truck they can easily be swapped out. I cleaned the rear-end housing and bolted everything back up, the rear stance is 100x better, even with random size roller tires and it should actually handle halfway decent now.





At this point I struck craigslist gold in the form of a complete carb to oil pan '71 440/727 combo from an Imperial. Story goes the engine came from a ~100k mile 'old lady's car' and was destined to go into a '68 Charger prior to the project being abandoned and the engine was stored for 5+ years. I borrowed a trailer from my neighbor and cannonballed from Charlotte to Raleigh and back one rainy Friday night after work but I think it was worth it. The engine is in really good shape despite being dirty/sludgy and came with every nut/bolt/accessory including the original carb, kickdown linkage, a/c compressor etc.





I did a pretty basic gasket/bearing job on the 440 since everything looked dirty but was otherwise serviceable. I pulled the heads and put in fresh head gaskets and took a look at the bores, not perfect but should be just fine for a cruiser while I save up for 'real' engine build. Once everything was cleaned up and refreshed it got a fresh coat of orange paint (Not 'right' I know, but just look at it  ), headers, holley 4-barrel, and some killer period dress up parts.









When I needed a break from scraping sludge I spent some time cleaning up the interior panels/parts for some instant gratification. The car was stored in a garage from 1992-2008 when it was moved outside under a tarp until I found it. All of the dash/interior parts were covered in mildew and I was pretty worried the vinyl would be trashed but with a light scrubbing things are cleaning up really nicely.

Before:



After:







The car's original 383/727 were long gone having been replaced by a '66 440/'78 727 combo which I pulled and put on the shelf. I actually found the air cleaner tin from the 440 under the rear seat cushion when I was looking for the build sheet which was a pretty neat find.



The engine/trans came out to make way for the 'new' 440 and a thorough powerwashing should help make working on this slightly more enjoyable.







I got the engine dropped in (forgive my janky engine support) over Christmas/New Years, and I'm pretty excited about how it came out.



I cracked open the 727 that came in the car, it decodes as a '78 400 HP unit and it appears to have been rebuilt at some point. It looks to be in OK shape, the fluid looked reasonably good and there were no obvious signs of carnage so I figure it's worth giving it a shot as-is. I have a fresh gasket/filter which will go in and it'll be ready to bolt into the car.



The previous owner said he thought it had a shift kit or other modification and he was right, it looks like a Cheetah 17156 full manual, reverse pattern valve body. This should be an adventure to drive on the street but if I get sick of it I have the other 727 that is bone stock and can be freshened up and swapped in.



That's the summary of the past few months with the car. It's been somewhat slow going but I'm chipping away at it nights and weekends. Next steps all revolve around getting the engine ready to fire: wiring, fuel system, cooling, driveshaft etc. Stay tuned for updates as I check items off the list! If anyone is on Instagram I usually post updates on the car there as well @dchev01.

[6pkrtse]

Progress is looking good.

[kent]

Great update Dan! Thanks for taking the time to fill us in!

[timmycharger]

Nice! Love seeing builds like this! 

[WHITE AND RED 69]

Nice! Love seeing builds like this! 

  Got the right idea to just get it running. That way you can enjoy it while making it perfect.

[Bronzedodge]

Nice car!  Even has A/C.  Great work.

[orange383]

Great build thread. I'm looking forward to more updates!

[Dano 1]

Thanks guys, hopefully this thread will help keep me on track and moving forward. Stay tuned!

[Stevearino]

Great looking piece Dan. We are practically neighbors so I hop to see it soon at some local cruise in's.

[Dano 1]

Thanks, Steve! Hopefully this thing will be semi-road worthy by the spring and I can hit a couple cruise-ins, I've been down here for 7 years and still haven't brought a car over to Kannapolis. It'd be great to meet up and I'd love to check out your car in person it's an incredible build.

[nvrbdn]

Looks like a fun project. I like the idea you are following. I bought my 70 Charger in 1996. Worked on it for 16 years on and off to get it where it is today. So even though I have been cruising it for a few years now, I missed out on quite a few years of driving. Keep up the great work.

[Dano 1]

Small update on progress, I've mostly been doing very un-glamorous work getting the trans, shifter linkage, starter etc. all hooked up and installed.

I went with an OEM late model mini-starter and it worked awesome, I still can't get it in or out with the header in place but it is significantly smaller than the original and should hopefully last a good while. I can recommend DEI's 010384 starter wrap, it fit the mini starter great and should provide an extra layer of protection.



Another little project I've been working on when I need a break from laying on cold concrete is re-keying my ignition. When I bought the car the PO only had one key which only worked the doors. I pulled the ignition switch/barrel and re-keyed the lock cylinder to match the door key I had so now I'm on one key. I need to do the trunk next but at least I now have a function ignition. To get the switch out you need to un-thread the chrome trim ring from the front then pull the switch out the back. I got the ring off with a slotted screwdriver but it wasn't a great method and was asking for trouble. I whipped up a quick CAD model for a tool to engage with the slots on the ring and accept a 3/8" square drive extension. I had some 2.5mm dowel pins sitting on my desk from another project and as luck would have it they fit the slots in the trim ring perfectly.



A quick 3D print later and I have a tool that works great with no risk of damage from trying to tighten the ring with a screwdriver and hammer.







I picked up a Holley 750 at the Autofair swap meet last fall and finally got around to plumbing it up. I've never been a fan of the pre-made hardlines for Holley dual-feeds so I made my own for cheap. I used a 1/2" phenolic spacer for some clearance and kept the rubber to a minimum, this should work pretty nice and be compact enough to clear the distributor etc. (yes there will be hose clamps I just didn't have the right size when I was mocking up)



Thanks for following along, hopefully I'll have all the little jobs buttoned up soon and can actually fire this thing.

[timmycharger]

Nice work on that tool!  Great to hear you got the door/ignition keys squared away, you may already know this but just in case, the trunk used a separate key with a round end vs the penta star   

Loving this build!

[Dano 1]

*Update time*

It's been a while but a lot has been happening, albeit a bit slowly.

With the engine physically in the car, accessories and wiring were next up. I spent some quality time with wiring diagrams and a label maker pinning out the engine bay harnesses since nothing was connected or labeled when I bought the car.



Amazingly the original harnesses were remarkably intact, there were a few crimp connections that needed to be replaced and I converted to electronic ignition at the same time. I have a thing about not drilling holes in original sheet metal so I whipped up a mounting plate for my ignition module that used two existing holes on the firewall, not my best machining work but it'll do.



Front accessories were another adventure. The engine itself was a 71 c-body unit with factory air and since I'm not running the factory a/c setup I quickly learned that non of the alternator brackets would work. I ordered up a new set of a/c delete brackets only to discover that the pulleys were also different. I'm sure this is common knowledge to some but this is my first Mopar so I'm still learning. I snagged a non-a/c water pump pulley off of ebay then subsequently also had to order a 440-source crank pulley. The belts STILL didn't line up (I suspect my ebay water pump pulley is not correct for a big block) so being sick of ordering parts and paying/waiting for shipping I decided to fix the problem myself.
I 3D printed a spacer to move the water pump pulley forward ~1/4" to get the belts lined up and came up with an adapter that would sleeve over the water pump alignment pin and extend it to keep the pulley and fan clutch all aligned.





My spacer setup required the ID of the pulley alignment hole to be opened up so over to the lathe I went. Once the pulley was bored out a hair everything lined up great and is now spaced correctly. In hindsight I should have just ordered all new 440-source pulleys from the start but it was fun to come up with my own solution.





With the accessory drive sorted the radiator, fan, clutch, and coolant hoses could go in. I also made up a set of plug wires from scratch for the first time which was not nearly as difficult as I was expecting and was actually pretty fun. I'm not sure I'm totally thrilled with the routing I came up with but it'll work for now.





It took way longer than I was hoping to get the engine ready to fire but I wanted to try and do things right the first time vs. rushing through it just to try and start it only to have to go back and clean everything up later. I made up my own oil pump priming tool to pre-lube the engine and hooked up some spare mechanical gauges to monitor things and cranked it over. I was getting good fuel pressure, and had spark but absolutely no catching or firing at all. One good back fire through the carb (right in my neighbor's face - oops) and I realized I had the distributor 180deg out DOH! Flipped it around and bam she fired right up. Held good oil pressure, came right up to 180deg and stayed there as long as I dared run it in my neighborhood with open headers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD7hg3eeEhk



There's a few oil leaks I need to sort but otherwise I couldn't be happier with how it runs. I still have some carb tuning to do as it's running pig rich right now but it idles smooth and doesn't smoke, knock, tick or anything else thus far.

I'm really happy with the wiring, it's usually not my strong suit but so far so good. I fired it up initially with a remote trigger switch so I could run the carb etc. but once I had it warmed up I tried the key and it started right up, not bad for a car that last ran in 1993  .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58T2b40gff8

Amazingly enough the parking brake warning light came on.



While all of this was going on I spotted a deal on a used sure-grip unit so I snagged it. It's a rebuildable clutch style currently in a '742' case with 2.76 gear so my plan is to rebuild my '489' center section with this sure-grip and a 3.23 or 3.55 gear.



Next up is exhaust so I can actually run the car without going deaf or being arrested, then I think I'll tackle the front end rebuild, stay tuned!

[darbgnik]

Good progress! And unique problem solving, with the 3D printer. 

[Dano 1]

Thanks, it's fun for me to use modern technology which I'm lucky enough to have access to, to solve problems on these old cars.