James' 68 Charger Restoration

[mopar_nut_440_6]

Hello,

I have been asked a few times to create a link showing the progress on my 68. I have finally succumbed to the peer pressure and here goes.

A quick history of the car. It is a 440 4 speed R/T  Track Pak car which I bought in 1986. I already owned a 68 I dragged but wanted a nice stock one to drive.  I sold the car to a good friend after about 10 years as I needed money to insulate a house I had just built. We made a deal, I would always have first dibs on the car if he ever sold it.

My friend then built a 69 Charger and also was working on my/his 68. Unfortunately he took many of the good parts from my car to use on his 69 so I am shy some parts and have many I will still need to replace. He had most of the metal replaced on the rear of the car trunk floor, valence, caps, frame rails, quarters, inner and outer wheel tubs. They did a pretty good job on it but there are spots I may have done differently. He also bought every part he could get new at that time from Year One. He also built a stroker for the 69 which ran 11.43 with 3.23 gears through stock manifolds and exhaust with the addition of slicks and 3800 stall. Not bad for a 4000 lb street car!

So times goes on, I end up being laid off, go back to school, relocate to a new town, save up and buy a house. Then I find the new town is too far away from my  kids, the new owners of the business I work for suck and I am tired of the town. I put my house up for sale and accept an offer. The following day my buddy calls up and asks me if I am interested in buying the car back with the stroker!  Timing is everything. To be honest I really did not want the stroker as the car left me with the number match engine which he sold with his 69 Charger. Bummer. It is an all or nothing deal so I buy the stroker as well. Time passes as the car is 500 miles away in another friends garage and I need to buy a place to put it. My new girlfriend and I take a trip and go and pic the car up. I get back to town and break my collar bone unloading one of the rear ends which came back with me! I put the car in a Costco tent where it sits yet again.

[mopar_nut_440_6]

More pics of pickup.

[mopar_nut_440_6]

My buddy pops by while I am picking the Charger up with the 69 that has my original engine in!

[mopar_nut_440_6]

Things work out well with the new girlfriend (Shari) and we buy a house with a garage which I quickly fill. We get married and I work on the house for the next two years and start a new detached double bay garage.

The garage did not get completed last year before winter but I get impatient and want to work on the car as it has been 3 years. I decide to finish building the rotisserie and get this car up off the ground. I can work on it in my unheated attached house garage with a small utility heater.

I officially started on the car on January 27th after modifying my rotisserie to use a gear reduction unit to turn the car rather than messing around with long bars  and locks. Now I can turn the car with one hand and it also stays in any position I leave it in without a lock.

[Charger-Bodie]

Thata Boy!! 

[69*F5*SE]

What is the black stuff on the bottom of the car?   Is that paint or other material?

[mopar_nut_440_6]

What is the black stuff on the bottom of the car?   Is that paint or other material?

The green/blue stuff is a type of zinc based primer and tough as nails. Extremely hard to sand. My friend did this as the car sat for quite a few years in a climate very hard on cars (side of the ocean, very humid, salt air)  ,even indoors things rust, so he wanted to seal the car up well while it sat.

He planned on painting the whole underneath with undercoating due to the elements so he wanted to paint it black first after the primer of course.

So now I have a bit of a mess as there is quite a bit of sandblasting sand stuck in all of the primer and many, many runs. My plan is to clean this up and sand out all of the runs and paint it to the factory look with a dark grey primer (I think this was the way it was in 68???) and then over spray as per factory look.

P.S. I have many more pictures to add as the shell has almost all of the bodywork completed and there is a new floor pan and inner fenders now as well. Pics are on my other laptop though!

[69*F5*SE]

Cool, glad it's moving along for you.     Ted

[tan top]

    good stuff 

[mopar_nut_440_6]

The first thing I did was replace the floor pan and inner fenders with AMD stuff. Almost a perfect fit. While the floor pan was out I cleaned up as much rust in the x members as possible and treated with POR15 before installing the new pan.

[mopar_nut_440_6]

Fender installs.

[mopar_nut_440_6]

There were about an additional 20 patches installed on the rockers, sail panel, dutch panel and LH door post but nothing too significant. I then stripped the majority of the paint on the shell and have been working on the bodywork. The shell is almost ready for the first coat of primer. I think I am making pretty good time since I only started at the end of January. I will be happy when the primer is on. I also ordered torque boxes and sun frame connectors from Autorust and USCarTools. Once these are installed I can prime the bottom of the car.

[RECHRGD]

Nice work!!! Love the color   If it wasn't for the 4 speed, that could be my original R/T I bought in '68.  Bob

[mopar_nut_440_6]

Nice work!!! Love the color   If it wasn't for the 4 speed, that could be my original R/T I bought in '68.  Bob

Thanks Bob. To be honest I was thinking of changing the color but recently talked myself out of it as I want to keep the stock look. What happened to your R/T?

Cheers,

James

[RECHRGD]

Nice work!!! Love the color   If it wasn't for the 4 speed, that could be my original R/T I bought in '68.  Bob

Thanks Bob. To be honest I was thinking of changing the color but recently talked myself out of it as I want to keep the stock look. What happened to your R/T?

Cheers,

James

I traded in my original for a VW bug (I know, I know) in late '69.  I wish I knew if it still existed.  Anyway, I found my current car (original 318) about 12 years ago and cloned it back to the R/T of my youth.  There's nothing original about it, so I can have tons of fun driving it and feeling 20 again.   Bob

[PocketThunder]

Nice work!!! Love the color   If it wasn't for the 4 speed, that could be my original R/T I bought in '68.  Bob

Thanks Bob. To be honest I was thinking of changing the color but recently talked myself out of it as I want to keep the stock look. What happened to your R/T?

Cheers,

James

James, that yellow is the best color out there..     

What happenen to your original engine?  Did you get it back?   

[mopar_nut_440_6]

Nice work!!! Love the color   If it wasn't for the 4 speed, that could be my original R/T I bought in '68.  Bob

Thanks Bob. To be honest I was thinking of changing the color but recently talked myself out of it as I want to keep the stock look. What happened to your R/T?

Cheers,

James

James, that yellow is the best color out there..     

What happenen to your original engine?  Did you get it back?   

No sir, the engine is still in the black 69 in the pictures above. I will keep bugging him and maybe one day I can get it back. In the meantime I have picked up a couple D code blocks so I guess that is the next best thing.

[PocketThunder]

I'm sure you have offered him a trade of some sort to replace his existing engine with one of equal value at your cost... ?

[mopar_nut_440_6]

I'm sure you have offered him a trade of some sort to replace his existing engine with one of equal value at your cost... ?

I offered him the stroker I have. No deal. I will get it back. It has taken me a bit to get back on my feet. I can now afford to make a decent offer and will start to pursue it. It would be nice to get back.

[bull]

When you did the floor pans did you use your old four speed hump or buy a new one? Did AMD offer any measurements to help you locate the right placement for the hump? Also, did you reuse the reinforcement plates on both sides of the driveline hump?

[tan top]

nice work James  ....................

[The70RT]

Moving right along 

[mopar_nut_440_6]

When you did the floor pans did you use your old four speed hump or buy a new one? Did AMD offer any measurements to help you locate the right placement for the hump? Also, did you reuse the reinforcement plates on both sides of the drive line hump?

I reused the hump and the buddy seat brackets. I did two things, sprayed black paint I had laying around, around the parts I thought I would need to remove so I could use as a guide later. I also measured all brackets and wrote the measurements on the pan for reference prior to removal of the pieces. I reused the hump and the buddy seat brackets. I had no seat to bolt in to ensure perfect fit but my measurements helped here. The side to side was the worst to line up but the AMD pans have such a close fit to the contour of the originals that I think they are almost dead on. There is almost only one way the can fit side to side but I wanted to be exact! I also leveled the body and used a level to ensure the brackets were level. I guess I will find out how close I am when I get a buddy seat. (I am looking if anybody has one for a 68, I can trade for a 71).

The hump was very easy once it was removed as it really will only fit in one spot due to the contour of the floor pan. I also had measurements anyway to double check. Measure twice, cut once; I say. If unsure measure again!

The reinforcements on either side of the drive line hump came on the new AMD floor pan. It also came with the clip which fits below the drivers seat to hold the speedo cable as well as new bracket for the emergency brake cable which fits in front of the LH rear seat and the plates for the front seat belts. These do not come installed and need to be welded in.

Thanks guys for the kind words, these make a guy want to keep moving along and posting pics.

Cheers,

[Silver R/T]

nice job on Charger.

[mopar_nut_440_6]

A couple more pictures to post.

I finally got the sub frame connectors and torque boxes installed. I am just finishing up a few loose ends on the bottom of the car and am hoping to have it in epoxy primer early next week. After that I can take the car off the rotisserie as I am planning on leaving the bottom in primer to imitate the factory look as closely as possible. Then I will get the outer skin of the shell in epoxy and start on the doors.

I have been a bit slow lately due to the bodywork. It is definitely not my favorite thing to do and takes me much longer than the pro's on this site!

I will post more pics once the body is a bit further along!