1968 Dodge Charger restoration

[1967 'cuda]

I've been a gearhead all of my life. My son Spencer never expressed any interest in cars until after he joined the Army. When he graduated basics he came home and told me that he wanted to buy a Chevelle.

Although I tend to lean heavily towards Chrysler products (I've owned Chevys too) I was thrilled that he wanted a muscle car. We bought a 1968 SS clone big block and we drove it from Nebraska to his base in Georgia. After his first tour of Iraq he told me he really wanted to find a '68 Charger R/T that we could fix up. So we searched across the country for a candidate to restore when he came home on leave again. We didn't have much time to find a car he could afford, and we knew we were most likely going to have to travel to pick one up. That would take time too. He saw one advertized down in Oklahoma but there were no pictures of it. The guy told him it was rust free, straight, and in primer. It would take us a day to get there and we didn't have time to mess around. So we borrowed a friend's truck figuring that we'd rent a trailer after we got down there if the car was acceptable. Ignore the date stamps on the pictures, - they're inaccurate.

Thought I'd upload a few pictures of the Charger as it looked when we first got it back from Oklahoma. - Before the work began. Although we weren't sure what the body was like beneath the primer, there were indications of bondo all over. Previous owner claimed body was really straight and rust free. yeah, right.

We had borrowed Bill Wenske's truck to make the journey. The U-HAUL trailer rented in Oklahoma worked great.

If you zoom in on the grill in this photo you can see how twisted/melted it was. The front blinkers were melted too.

Tires and wheels were scabs put on it just to get it to roll. Keep in mind there was no engine, transmission, drive shaft, radiator, usable interior, or almost anything else other than the shell. Half of the brake hardware was missing. Windshield was starting to fog around the edges. It was hard to find a whole lot of positive things to say about the car. But, serial numbers confirm that it is a true RT. Or at least what's left of one.

too bad we didn't get the factory wheel with the car. - as you can see it had air conditioning and it's needing a whole lot of TLC

inside rear shot shows surface rust, but is solid

Spence, Spence, Spence, I can\t wait for you to come home and start working on the car again

1st day we took off the doors, fenders, trunk, hood, bumpers, tail lights, glass, grill assembly cleaned out the rotted interior (carpet and headliner)and then took it to the car wash to try to get the smell out of the car

demolition was a lot faster than reassembly will be


sitting under the tree. at least it's in the shade


The hemi would have fit, but we got enough headaches with the Charger without trying to shoehorn it in


the parts actually look better inside the shop than they did on the car


OMG


rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust and more rust


the rear valance is too mangled to repair. anything's fixable, but bent and rusted are a bad combo


previously owned by the Flintstones?


definitely got some rust in this lower rear quarter - once again, it seems minor, but won't know for sure until it's stripped


it looks like it's lurking behind the trees


I didn't hate the Dukes of Hazard, but I think it's ridiculous how many people decided to create their own clone car. As you can tell from the color, the previous owner was sending this car to the same fate. I feel like we rescued it

 

[1967 'cuda]

cheater slicks from the fremont swap meet mounted to check clearance


They're 12 1/2" wide - hopefully it'll hook up


I wouldn't have minded tubbing, but there's not much room for exhaust out the back if we keep a stock gas tank


those 10" long shackles have to go


with no weight in it, the back of the car is sitting higher than we'd want


passenger side view of the new tire/wheel combo


just another shot of the car


We won't be running these rims, but the offset seems to be as close as we can get to what we need


the cheater slicks fit, but they're tight


I still wish we had an extra 1/2" clearance inside and out


as the paint is coming off the left rear quarter, signs of bondo begin showing up. - so far, only light ding repair


it's even uglier under the dash - I wonder just how many mice lived in this thing


all the paint and undercoat needs to come off


sanding paint, rust, and undercoating off takes time - realized we're missing a lot of brake components here


It's truly a shade tree project right now


@^%*&!!!! I couldn't believe we had a rust hole on the topside of the left rear quarter


finally got the fuel inlet cap/ring assembly off - filler tube is still in place


trying to put new black on engine compartment areas a they're stripped to keep surface rust from forming


drivers side door jamb stripped and reprimed


eBay box arrived with new white visors, chrome arm rest bases, and front blinker lenses


new gas tank sure is pretty


trunk floor is actually worse than this looks


even the dash had a lot of rust - stripped, descaled, sanded, prepped for paint


more dash pics


dash was in good shape after removing rust, wasp nests, mouse turds, etc...


another view of the dash


driver side door gutted, stripped, straightened, primered in background - passenger side (gray) waiting for its turn


dash topside view in primer


underside of dash in black primer


front valance panel is finally the right shape again

 

[1967 'cuda]

front valance panel still needed a slight skim of bondo after straightening


most of the old trunk floor is gone now


trunks much roomier now


new trunk floor halves


this is a picture of the 4" x 10" center dash speaker and one of the two 3 & 1/2" side dash speakers - had to replace them of course, and strip, descale the rust, and repaint the attaching brackets


this shot is of the dash partially re-assembled. dash pad has a crack in the center. I tried using a vinyl repair on it, but it's still very noticeable. - does not look bad, but noticeable. still no tach, light switch, plastic for the radio section, glove box liner, latch, or lock. still not certain of functionality of switches and gauges. it's getting dusty from being in the shop.


another shot of the dash. I set an old cd player in the dash to get an idea of how it would look. the gauges have become discolored over the years and I will probably put white overlays on and paint the needles fluorescent red. the white will make them stand out and tie in with the white interior that's coming.



It took a lot of work to redo the grill. The replacement one I purchased had over twenty cracks in it, but was repairable using parts from the grill we got with the car. A special 'welding' glue (expensive) was used on the fractures. The factory correct ARGENT SILVER paint was applied to the outer ring and a semi-gloss black applied to the grill and headlight doors, - gloss black on the steel surrounding structure. I pieced together the best pieces of the aluminum trim from the two grills. They were dull, pitted, and had over-spray on them, but were straight. - Couldn't get them to take a decent polish. but I think they still look good. I re-polished and repainted the RT emblem, but I can't seem to find the grill's CHARGER emblem.


Another shot of the rebuilt grill project. I still need to finish sanding down and repaint the vacuum actuators, their brackets and arms. Hood latch is done, but not attached yet. - Same with the hood pop-up spring. Wiring and vacuum lines will be re-attached after the rest is done. All metal had surface rust. The plastic was faded. - And everything was coated in grease/grime.


One more shot of that grill assembly. Here you can see the headlight doors are open. The headlight buckets are galvanized and were covered with corrosion and grime. - Used a scuff pad to remove the corrosion and polished the lights. These grills are supposed to have silver paint on the leading edges of every fin, but I chose to black it out instead. A lot of people (including myself) think they look better this way.


Good news!! The 8 3/4 posi is out of the car, -been stripped of grease, grime, rust, and undercoating. Bad news??? Turns hard and doesn't seem to have any oil in it.

The shop is getting better organized. Charger parts are now shelved.

The 283 and 331 stroker are still waiting on their engine stands.

Still have some lumber/parts to put away.

Test fitting the new floor.

Looks like it'll be a good fit, but I still need to trim a bit more and spray the frame first.

If it looks too difficult to stitch it down by myself, I'll wait until Spence comes home to give me a hand.

With the car on the hoist, it's time to remove all of the rust and crud from the undercarriage.

Another shot of the underneath.

- And one more.

 

[1967 'cuda]

with the passenger side lifted, the special chassis black paint begins to go on

the inside ceiling gets the same treatment

another shot of the passenger side undercarriage having the chassis paint applied

finally the driver's side is lifted

tried to take several photos of the progress on the undercarriage

another of the driver's side

most of the interior will get the chassis black to prevent future rust


the inside of the trunk will be coated too

One of the trunk floor halves coated with POR15

After the decision was made to coat as much as possible with the special anti-rust coating, much of what was already black will have to be stripped again.


I hate stripping paint from all the crooks and crannies.

Gradually the paint is coming back off.

The car looks much better with a floor in it.

The Charger should be very solid when done. Pop rivets hold the floor in place temporarily and will be re-drilled out and replaced with spot welds when done.

Even the trunk floor is shaping up. The new trunk floor extensions (drop-offs) have been fitted, along with the painted floor halves.

Another shot of the trunk.

I haven't ordered the new rear quarters yet and am skeptical about attaching the entire floor until we get them. - Just want to make certain everything fits. The trunk floor extensions needed quite a bit of tweaking before they would line up.

Well, this is it as of 9/10/10.

Yesterday I transferred the cheater slicks onto the 15x10 Keystone Klassics. Today it's time to see how well the tire/wheel/axle assembly fits under the car.

Although the rear end is not attached to the Charger, I centered it beneath the car and lowered the body down over it.

 

[1967 'cuda]

Way too little clearance. Despite the fact that both sets of rear rims were supposed to have the same offset, they are different.

I purchased some used 15" tires for the front Keystones so we could roll the car around on them and try to determine what size we'll be buying later. I won't know for sure until the front sheet metal goes back on, but I suspect that these have too low a profile. We'll most likely buy a 70s series tire later. These are 60s.

After placing the rear under the car and checking clearances, it looks like we'll need a rear end that's 6" to 7" narrower. The next step will be to price the cost of narrowing this rear end and compare it to the cost of purchasing a different rear the width we need. I'll check out other 8&3/4 Mopars, Dana 60s, and Ford 9" rears. I measured the current rear and it's 60" between the rims. So, we apparently need to be 53" to 54" to fit properly.

picture of extended wheel well from the internet

With the inner wheel wells cut out, now the tires have plenty of clearance.

The ride height for now is controlled by the overhead hoist.

Shot of the driver's side missing inner wheel well.

The salvaged inner wheel wells waiting to be ground straight and re-installed.

POR-15 sells a lot of different products. - One of which is a 2 part epoxy that can be used to fill holes. It is supposed to dry as hard as steel and be capable of being sanded, drilled or tapped just like steel. In this picture you can see it being used to fill in the rust holes that were around the rear window opening. After it sets up, I'll grind it smooth. AS with all POR-15 products, it's expensive. Hope it works.

9/21/10 I got a coat of POR15 on the roof now. Repaired rear window channel looks good.


Another shot of the roof with the anti-rust sealant on it.

After seeing what was beneath the bondo, it's not a difficult decision to order new quarter panels. This is the left side that is poorly patched with almost an inch thickness of body putty in spots.

The right side had dings in it that would have been patched if it wasn't for the rust. Might as well order a pair of quarters.

This shot is of the patchwork that was inside the left rear quarter. Originally we couldn't see it because it was tucked behind the trunk extension. It'll be comforting to know this won't be hiding there anymore.

Inside view of the right rear quarter is just as ugly as outside view. When the new quarters go on we'll coat the inside with POR15 to keep rust from returning.

Today I coated the roof with that self-etching primer that POR15 makes. Fogged it on beyond the black rustproofing. Directions say I must wait a minimum of 24 hours before any spot putty can go on.

Another view of the car with the roof in primer.

The new quarter panels are here. I test fit the left side to see how well the body lines match.

Another view of the test-fit quarter panel.

The right rear quarter leaning against the wall. I love it when big boxes show up.

 

[1967 'cuda]

One of the purchases from the Fremont swap meet was the air cleaner/scoop pictured on top of the Hemi. I wasn't really in the market for this yet, but then I realized we were going to need it in order to figure out how to cut the opening in the hood.

Don't freak out Spence. But it's time to start cutting off those old quarter panels. I'm being very conservative on the first cut.

More will be trimmed off later. At this point, the trunk floor halves have been pop-riveted in place. The inner wheel well halves will be easier to re-attach after the quarters are off. The rear lower corners of the quarters are a separate piece. We'll have to inspect and probably repair them before the new panels go on.

While the left rear quarter is off, it's a good time to clean up and rustproof the inside of the structure. It also gives me a chance to inspect and if need be repair the rear quarter window operating mechanisms.

The rear quarter windows never operated smoothly. After cleaning up the window tracks, I discovered a broken plastic roller wheel that was at the root of the problem. If the Charger is going to be as nice as we want, this will have to be fixed or replaced. I haven't been able to find the correct replacement part yet, so I may attempt to rebuild this piece with epoxy.

Photo shows more POR15 being applied to the inner quarter structure.

Drivers side quarter pop riveted on

Passenger side quarter removed, descaled, sanded, prepped and rust-proofed

Dash with white face gauges. - Still no tach.

picture from internet of wheel well being widened and spring hangers moved.


another pic from internet of spring hanger being welded on after frame was notched.


thinking about having some under the hood and trunk bead roll work done similar to this pic.

SPENCE IS BACK!! He hasn't killed me for the mishap with the Chevelle. Here he's checking out how well the supercharger fits on a 400. The motor was a freebie from a friend (Jamie Richards). - Still not 100% certain we'll use this engine, but we needed a big block to use as a guide for cutting a hole in the hood.


Another shot of Spence next to the Charger. So far since he's been back we picked up an engine and tranny, swapped a guy an old Schwinn bicycle for a pair of motor mounts, and checked into possible rear seat cores and replacement hoods.


From this angle you can see Spencer has just finished checking the repaired trunk lid for fit.


Not sure yet, but this 400 may end up being a 512 stroker when we're done. We may not have a functional engine in there yet, but it's nice to be able to see how everything will clear the firewall, hood (when we get it cut and installed), and to see how much the driver's vision might be blocked.


One of the other things we wanted to make a decision on was what the final color would be that we were going to use on the motor. Our first test color is a silver engine enamel. Spence says he wouldn't mind black but is concerned about using a color that absorbs rather than reflects heat. I know a lot of racers that have avoided black for that reason. - Still considering Hemi orange, gold, a brighter silver, red and haven't totally ruled out going with the black. We spent a lot of time sanding the cast supercharger components and it'll be awhile before we will get them to the stage ready for polishing.


The scoop has reversible butterflies that can be either red or black. Although the red are shown here, Spence is leaning towards setting it up with the more subtle black exposed in part because it will match the car.


We haven't got our carbs yet, but needed to mock up the scoop at the right height so we can cut the hole in the hood correctly. The hood that came with the car is nasty. Someone had previously cut a hole in it and then patched it. The bottom structure is badly rusted and we haven't determined yet if we want to try to salvage it or start on another one. It will be a good hood to do experimental cutting on. We spent yesterday looking at other hood replacement candidates in Rising City. A guy there has six of them that although rough, are better than the one we have now. Fiberglass is still being considered.


alright Spence, what do you think about Chrysler Hemi Orange for the color?

 

[1967 'cuda]

Experimenting with the orange on the engine, I haven't bothered to paint the valve covers in an effort to simulate aluminum covers later.

Another shot of the motor painted orange.

We did decide on a replacement hood. The $100 price tag was more than reasonable.

Another day, another color on the motor. Spence is leaning towards yellow as the color of choice now. SBC valve covers (although they obviously don't fit) are placed on the engine to help us decide whether or not we want to use chromed or polished aluminum later.

Another pic of the engine in yellow. The blower housing has been further polished, but still has a long way to go.

As nice as the replacement hood may have been, it needs to be "air-conditioned" for the supercharger clearance. Here Spence is drilling the first pilot hole to drop our reciprocating saw into.


Polish, polish, polish. Dirty, time-consuming, boring, etc... etc... Probably not what most guys on military leave look forward to doing with their time off.


The expression on Spence's face says it all. - Nothing like having cotton fibers and buffing compound in your eyes, ears, nose and everywhere else.


It's not perfect, but it's looking better.


The hood was in good shape for the most part, but it had an arch in it that kept it from aligning with the grill. Here Spence is using a small propane torch to heat the center of the underside infrastructure. Once we had it hot enough we laid it down on the floor and put pressure on the topside. After repeating a few times, it fit perfect.


Alright, I'd planned on removing the quarters in order to do the panel adhesive prep, - no problem. But Spence wants the insides stripped and then coated with POR-15. Like my back isn't aching enough already.


The blower looks pretty shiny now. I set it back on the Hemi for now. Who knows, maybe we'll still try stuffing it in the car.


Sorry to all you restoration fanatics out there, but we really needed to have a hole in this Charger hood.


The finned aluminum valve covers from eBay look good. - Not a whole lot of progress on the car during winter.


The rearend came back from Spider assembled (less axles) and in primer. I'll have to dress up the welds on the narrowed housing and strip the primer off before re-applying a new coat of POR-15.


The Moser axles are ready for installation after we get the disc brakes installed. According to Spider, we'll never break these shafts. The jack is aluminum with a 3000 lb capacity. I think it'd look great mounted in the trunk.


We found this tunnel ram intake on ebay. Although this setup is for a Chevy, it comes with a lot of what we need.


The carbs are Holley 660cfm #4224's. -Center squirters with the added second sets of metering blocks and center hung float bowls.


This pic shows the carbs mounted sideways with the correct linkage we wanted.


Another detail shot of the carb linkage.


And of course, we were going to have to purchase the fuel line kits also. They are listed as included with this auction. Hope we win it.


Rear disc brake kit ordered for the Charger. We'll cross drill the rotors before we mount them.


Grant steering wheel #991 ordered and on it's way. Best price I found was from a place called Streetside Auto.


While I was at it I went ahead and ordered the steering wheel adapter kit too.


And of course the new steering wheel was going to need a signature horn button to top it off. - Ordered one from Summit.


I hope these seats turn out to be ok for the car. We searched online for white buckets, and there weren't many to choose from. The price seemed good and we liked the design. The company is called ULTRAREV and they're located in New Jersey.


Tunnel ram/carbs came today. UPS had delivered them to the wrong address and some guy dropped them off here afterwards. In this pic you can see damage that the back carb received in shipping. The vertical tube opposite the choke horn is off and there is a small chunk of the housing that has been broken off. It looks like it will be repairable, but I'm pissed at UPS.


seats arrived 1/20


set the repainted steering column next to the seats


new steering wheel with repainted column

 

[1967 'cuda]

Setting up the carbs on the blower, I find that we'll need carb spacers in order to have clearance for the carb linkage.


Added the spacers and am starting to worry about the height of the assembly. It's starting to look very tall.


A back view of the manifold, blower, carb spacers, carbs, and scoop.


Although we had considered buying a factory tic toc tach (combo tach/clock), we really wanted a tach with a built in shift light. The 3&3/4" diameter should allow us to build this one into the original dash tach location. It's on it's way. - Another eBay purchase.


Trying to detail as much of the car as possible, red and black were decided on as carb colors.


This is one of the new front brake calipers. I ground the outer face of the rough casting smooth , applied red caliper paint and vinyl DODGE emblems.


The factory dash plastic we had was of three different types and didn't match. The instrument cluster was from a '69 that had the woodgrain aluminum panel over the leather grain. The radio section was also from a '69 but without the woodgrain covering. The piece above the glovebox door was the correct '68 vertical engraved lines.


In order to get all 3 dash pieces to match, we're attempting to cover them with a brushed stainless steel look. First we made templates of the dash pieces out of construction paper.


The next step was to use the construction paper templates to make a stiff backing out of formica.


This is a roll of (brushed stainless steel finish) vinyl. It was too thin to apply directly over the non-smooth dash pieces without showing all the bumps underneath.


In this photo all of the dash pieces have been covered, but not sure yet if I'm satisfied with the results or if I want to redo.


We're still unsure that we'll need the wheelie bars, but I cleaned them up and detailed them out just in case.


After doing some research on headers for the project, we found the general consensus amongst Mopar B body owners seemed to be that TTI made the best product. Apparently they fit better than Hooker and provide much more ground clearance.


We found this set of used TTi headers online at a site called www.racingjunk.com. They are nickel plated. They were located in Ohio.


After checking into the overall cost of converting our automatic transmission Charger to a newer Viper 5 or 6 speed, we decided that we had more practical options. We found this A833 4-speed in Alabama. A company called PASSON PERFORMANCE sells conversion kits that should be able to turn this into an almost indestructible overdrive that still delivers great overall performance.


Nothing better than a decent multi-spark ignition system to fire things up. This 6 BTM from MSD utilizes a remote switch that will adjust (retard) your ignition timing on a supercharged motor as boost increases. Thus preventing pre-ignition as combustion pressures increase. Awesome. It's another eBay purchase. This one coming from Georgia.


Spence didn't care for the red, blue, orange, red, white and black sticker emblems that were on the MOPAR PERFORMANCE valve covers we bought. So we affixed some chrome R/T's to the area those stickers had been.


We purchased a Lakewood blowproof bellhousing (new) off eBay and saved about $100. Still need lots of other tranny parts to complete the conversion.


In order to switch to a 4-speed we were going to have to change pedal assemblies. The picture on the left is of one we got off eBay that is supposed to be out of another '68 Charger. The right picture is of the same assembly after starting to clean it up.


The blower is back in the car again so that the hood could be further trimmed (now that the carbs are actually there) The brake booster looks like it will need to be replaced. - Didn't realize it before, but 3 of the 4 mounting studs for the master cylinder are broke off.

 

[1967 'cuda]

The rearend is now repositioned under the car complete with the new rear discs. Our old 15x10 Keystone Klassics didn't clear the calipers and it looked like we were going to have to run 1&1/4" wheel spacers. The new 15x10s have plenty of clearance though, so we should be OK without.


We ordered a new transmission floor 'hump' for the 4-speed. Here it is after the floor was cut and the new piece welded in place.


The engine is back out of the car again. I did a trial fit on the headers and felt it might be easier to figure out pulley alignment with it on the stand.


From this shot you can see that the bottom blower pulley needs to be spaced a few inches further out. That's fine because we still need to add a couple of v-groove pulleys behind it.


This is our main problem right now. We don't have enough clearance around the distributor. Here you can see that the cap is right up against the bottom front corner of the supercharger, the intake manifold, and the valve cover. In this photo the distributor cap is not actually centered on the distributor because of the insufficient clearance.


Another pic of the distributor's lack of clearance with the blower.


The original heads are still on the engine, but I painted them silver to imitate the aluminum heads that we'll be installing. We installed a billet electric water pump in a new aluminum water pump housing.

We still need to re-polish the areas we ground out.

This is another pic of the areas ground for distributor clearance.

As you can see from this shot, the new MSD distributor barely clears after grinding the other parts.


From this angle the modifications to the intake and blower are almost invisible.

Another shot of the engine with the new front cover, alternator, distributor, and oil pan.

New side view shot of the motor with the new extras on it.

This is a 'before' picture of the headlights on the Charger. We purchased a set of halogens to replace these at the Wahoo swap meet.

The rear of the new lights were too large to fit into the headlight buckets. I had to enlarge the opening in the buckets by about 1/4" diameter. The headlight rings were also too small in diameter and I had to split the rings to make them fit over the new lights. The molded tangs that were on the new lens housings were too large to fit into the recesses in the buckets, so I ground them down.

New fenders from AMD. - They're not aligned yet but transferred the small parts from the originals and hung them.

For Christmas I picked up some tool boxes for Spence.

I white-washed the walls to try to make the inside of the shop a little brighter. While I was at it I re-organized the tools and parts.

Winter just never seemed to end and it really slowed production down on the car. It doesn't look that much different now than it did six months ago.

Another picture of the re-organized shop.

 

[1967 'cuda]

The engines are now moved out of the way of work on the car. We're still waiting for another blower idler pulley bracket from BDS. - Don't want to attempt to set up alternator or power steering brackets until we've got the supercharger belt set up.

This photo is of the notch made in the frame on the passenger side. This is where the new front leaf spring hanger will be welded in.

IT ROLLS!!!!! - With the rear end re-attached the Charger is finally on all fours again.

The decision was made to weld all new seams solid in the flooring. The reasoning behind it was to make the car as solid as possible to help withstand the torque produced by the coming blown 512 stroker motor.

- just a partial list of things yet to be purchased...

We got a rear seat core from Zimmerman out of Rising City. It will still have to have it's frame modified to mate with the new widened wheel wells before going to the upholstery shop.

In this photo you can see the passenger side's front spring hanger welded in place.

Once the widened wheel wells have had their welds ground down and a sealing coat of POR-15 applied, it will be hard to tell from inside the trunk that they've been modified.

Either we're good or really lucky. The tires seem to be perfectly centered in the widened wheel wells. New Keystones clear the new disc brakes. After the long winter, progress is finally starting to show again.

After coming home from 4 years in the Army, one of the first things Spence did was start working on the Charger again. We stripped off the upholstery and padding from the rear seat we'd gotten so that we could modify the frames to fit against the newly widened wheel tubs.


In addition to having to cut and re-weld the frames, we had to descale all of the rust off of them


Here the frames are after being modified and coating them with paint. The next stop for them will be the upholstery shop.


The housing for the heater core/air conditioning has finally been removed from the interior. The decision to eliminate the air conditioning meant those components needed to be taken out of this housing.


Tucked up behind the air conditioner was another mouse hotel. This should be the last remnants of the Oklahoma mouse housing project.


Of course, there were openings through the firewall that accommodated the air conditioner. We'll have to weld and fill these.


In this pic, the holes have been welded. A little body filler and you'll never know they were there.


We scored another piece from Zimmerman (from Rising City). This should be the correct 4-speed transmission crossmember. It was entirely covered with rust, but after 40 minutes with the wire wheel and some black paint, it looks good as new.


Fiberglass mat is cut into strips that will be used to seal every weld seam in the car. The factories used a caulk-like seam sealer that would harden after a few years. By layering the POR-15 anti-rust paint with this fiberglass we should have a permanent seal.


Working on the seams inside the trunk, first the welds are scoured with degreaser and then a metal prep is applied to give the POR-15 good adhesion.


Once the welded areas are prepped, a coat of POR-15 is applied followed by a strip of fiberglass and then another coat of the POR-15.

 

[1967 'cuda]

After studying the new idler bracket we realized that we needed to make the hole in the hood bigger.


We welded 5/16 brake line around the perimeter of the hole and boxed the inner hood skin to the outer shell.


It still needs some glazing putty and to be block sanded, but this is the hood roughed in.


The covering for the wiring looms that are located beneath the carpeting next to the sill plates were both rusted out and had to be re-fabricated.


Here you can see the before and after photos of the wire covers.


The sill plates are really nasty. Even after polishing, they're still far from pristine.


It's hard to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.


The ceiling gets treated to some sound deadening insulation. This is a lightweight foam filled style that won't end up sagging over time.


The floor is also covered with insulation. This style is jute backed and foil covered.


We were lucky to have a friend Greg Fiala that has a '68 Plymouth Fury parts car that we've been able to rob some small pieces from for the Charger. We volunteered to clean up the alternator of his '70 Camaro project car. This is the before picture.


- Hope G. Fiala is happy with the results of the polish job on his alternator. It took close to 8 hours to get it into this shape from what it was. We cleaned out a mud wasp nest from the inside, repaired one broken wire to the armature, cleaned out some of the inner corrosion, and inspected the brushes before re-assembling.


No, it's not snowing in our shop. This small hand-held sandblaster is ideal for removing the last traces of paint from the vent grill on the Charger.


We picked our seats back up from the upholstery shop this last weekend and did a quick install to see how we liked them. We had issues with some wrinkles in the back seat and with the black inserts not being straight. The upholsterer assured us she will correct any problems.


We had R/T emblems embroidered on the front seats. Overall we are happy with the interior so far. - But the rear seats will still have to be fixed.


We hung the dash back in last weekend. White steering column/wheel look good with this interior.


The dash pad cover came in black but will probably be dyed yet to give it a darker appearance.


We decided to insulate the inside of the trunk to make sure the car will be as quiet as possible (except for engine sounds).


Another shot of the trunk being insulated.


We got the rear seat back from the upholstery shop today. She fixed the issues we had with wrinkles and straightened and re-aligned the black inserts.


We also had the shop change the color of the piping from black to white. - Looks much better this way.

 

[1967 'cuda]

The new coil and coil bracket arrived this week.


We ordered the largest volume mechanical fuel pump we could find. It's supposed to pump 120 gph and should be enough to keep both carbs full.

Reproduction battery tray assembly made by AMD. Test fit perfect.

High torque MSD mini starter arrived this week also.

I gave the blower intake a quick re-polish and sprayed some clear enamel on it this time to keep it from tarnishing. These old Weiand 383/400 supercharger intakes are super rare and hard to find. The blower studs and gaskets also arrived this week.

The decision was made to make the car's suspension as tight as possible with all new components. (ball joints, bushings etc...)

Red polyurethane was chosen to add a bit more detail to the suspension while improving the ride over the stock rubber components.

A Wilwood clutch master cylinder arrived. We still haven't ordered the hydraulic throw out bearing.

Remote billet aluminum reservoir was an extra $80. It should look nice in the engine bay but I think it was overpriced.

New chrome power steering pump should look good installed.

The blower studs are red anodized aluminum with 12 point hardened steel nuts. We're new to this supercharger stuff so we weren't originally aware we were supposed to run aluminum studs. Apparently they're meant to break off in the event of a blower explosion. - Sounds spooky...


People reading this thread might get a bit confused by the timeline and some of the captions. I had begun taking photos of the project in an effort to to keep my son (who was stationed in Iraq) up to date on what was going on with his car. He is pictured in some of the photos when he was back. It was my way of keeping in touch with him while he was away.



Edelbrock aluminum heads arrived today! We got a fantastic cyber-Monday deal on them through Streetside Auto. Only 3 days since ordered and they're here already.

We had debated whether to go with heads from 440 SOURCE or to go with the Edelbrocks. Although 440 SOURCE has a good reputation for unbeatable prices and good support, their heads are machined overseas and there are some concerns about QC. The price break we got on cyber-Monday made the decision to go with the US machined Edelbrocks easier to make.

We still need to decide on which rocker arms to order. Harland Sharp has excellent aluminum ones, but we want as close to 1000 hp out of this motor as we can get. No engine is "bullet-proof" but for strength I think we'll go with chromemoly steel. We're looking at some from COMP CAMS.

We decided to go with the chromemoly rocker arms from Comp Cams. They seem to be the strongest adjustables on the market and although we're not planning on mega-RPM, we are still concerned about breaking parts on an engine we're trying to tweak close to 1000 horsepower out of.

The factory 8-track player was no longer in the Charger when we purchased it and it really wouldn't be our first choice for the Charger's sound system. We opted for this touch screen CD/DVD unit from JVC. - Customizable background images, iPod input and several other options. It should look good in the dash.

When we purchased the 4 wheel disc brake conversion from "RIGHT STUFF DETAILING" it included a new master cylinder. Unfortunately our old brake booster was in poor shape and needed replacing. It took several months to find a replacement. Although it was a rebuilt unit, it was severely pitted from rust which we had to fill with primer and glazing compound. After experimenting with greys, silvers and black we tried this gold finish.

New 4-core aluminum radiator arrived today. Hopeful that this will keep the stroker running cool.

The radiator came with a pair of electric fans. - Like most of our purchases this was an eBay find.

Although it's difficult to see in this photo, we bought new 5-point camlock racing harnesses for the car. - Needless to say, the original seat belts had to be replaced.

We're considering switching our 'Mopar Performance' valve covers to 'Mickey Thompson's instead. It all started when we came across pictures of rare Mickey Thompson valve cover breathers.


This is a pic of our current Mopar Performance valve covers with R/T emblems on them.

This is a pic of those hard to find Mickey Thompson breathers.

Although this pic is not of valve covers that fit our engine, it does show how the Mickey Thompson valve covers look with the M/T breathers attached.

Another shot of the M/T breathers on M/T valve covers.

The B&M launch control solenoid arrived today.

When we decided to delete the windshield washer reservoir from the engine compartment, we also decided to make sure that all dash controls were functional. So we ordered this latching push button switch from Australia to replace the momentary contact washer switch. This will control the Line-Loc.

We did end up purchasing a used pair of M/T valve covers off of eBay. They were primered and had to be stripped, sanded and buffed out. Here you can see the one of them way they came and the other after polishing. We also purchased 4 billet aluminum push in breathers and a pair of those rare M/T finned breathers.

Finally got around to taking the dremel tool to the M/T valve covers. It seems a shame to start cutting on these freshly re-polished covers but we have to in order to attach those rare M/T breathers.

Hard to believe they'll be better looking when they're done.

One side has been finish ground and has the M/T breather in place. Next - doing a little experimentation with emblems. Still haven't decided which emblems we might want to use. Or if we want to use any at all. Also pictured here are our new 10.5mm spark plug wires from Taylor. - And the spark plug wire looms. Because the looms weren't made for such a large diameter wire, I had to drill/hone the clamps out to work.

 

[1967 'cuda]

It's hard to say when we think we'll get done. We keep getting side tracked with other projects. Since my son finished with the service, we've bought the '70 Roadrunner that we've been working on. We had to go through the clutch, installed a new stereo, converted to fuel injection, repaired brakes, etc... Since the start of the Charger project I had to do body repair on his '68 Chevelle that someone ran into. This last year I bought an AAR Cuda clone that needed work. It ran like crap and had other issues. I replaced the carb, installed a COMP cam kit, installed an MSD billet distributor, a REV-N-NATOR ignition box, put on brand new 15" rallye wheels and tires, rewired the car, replaced the starter, replaced the door, trunk, and ignition locks, replaced the door strikers and door springs, and then went through and fixed every loose screw throughout because it had tons of rattles. There were other things on it I fixed as well. I really liked that car, but I sold it after someone made me an offer on it I couldn't refuse. I've also been working on my '67 Barracuda. This last year I stripped it down, replaced the rear quarters, installed a fiberglass front, added disc brakes, reupholstered the interior, added an MSD ignition & distributor, put in an aluminum radiator, changed K-members, installed a new stereo, tach, tires, wheels, etc... I'm getting ready to switch out the 904 to a 727 and install a Dana 60 that I had narrowed for it. And then there's the black '69 Chevelle that I'm fixing up for my fiancee. And I've got my '79 Lil Red Express tying up the shop right now. - Doing a full resto on it too. And of course there's still the '72 Duster that I need to get race ready this year. - It should run in the high 9s to low 10s. Too many irons in the fire. I doubt I'll ever get to the funnycar. When we first saw the Charger in Oklahoma it was being stored in a shed with the ceiling falling down. We literally had to scoop garbage out of and off of the car just to see it. No wonder the guy hadn't had pictures of it. I thought that $6000 was an insane price for it and advised my son against buying. But we didn't have enough time (while he was on leave) to search for another R/T. I let the decision up to him. Although I cussed a lot while working on it (every time I found a new problem) I have been enjoying the build. This build is pretty disorganized. I tend to jump from one facet of it to another based on what parts we have. Our shop is an old one room schoolhouse which is why there are some blackboards on the walls. I'm sure there are folks out there that are shaking their heads at how crudely we've done some things. We've got some nice vehicles but none are show winners. We build everything to be a driver. The workmanship and attention to detail some of you folks have is incredible. We're more in the category of shade tree mechanics. - Guys who, if we were smarter, would say no to some of these projects and focus on life outside of the garage. I guess I shouldn't have spent so much time reading CARtoons when I was growing up. I've never actually been a 'Mopar or no Car' person. Don't get me wrong, I love my Mopars. - And I genuinely would tend to choose a Chrysler product over others. But I owned a '69 & a '70 Camaro. One of the first vehicles I ever drove was a '67 El Camino. And the 283 on the engine stand is for a T-Bucket. I'd love to have an early fastback 'Stang someday. But I've got a special place in my heart for Mopars. The company that was willing to get a little more 'nuts' than the rest. - The winged cars, the high optic colors, pistol-gripped 4-speeds, etc, etc... and of course, the Hemi. Someone had to be a little crazy to name a car Roadrunner and then put a 'beep' 'beep' horn in it. I think the American automotive world would have been damn near boring through the sixties and seventies if it weren't for the impact Dodge and Plymouth made. In my mind, this picture embodies what it feels like to me to drive a Mopar!

 

[1967 'cuda]

When the idler pulley bracket finally showed up from BDS, we took the supercharger to Mark Kinser in Iowa to have everything freshened up on it. The Weiand snout had to be re-machined to accept the idler bracket so we had him do that too.

I polished the runners and combustion cambers on the Edelbrock heads. The camera we used to take the pictures didn't work very well, but this is a before picture of one of the combustion cambers.

And this is a picture of it afterwards.

The head ports were a very close match with our intake and headers. It didn't take much grinding to make a perfect match. I was surprised though how rough the port passages were. It took several hours to make them smooth. I remember hearing years ago that guys would smooth the ports until they could pull nylon stockings through them without snagging. If that's a good test, ours would pass now.

The 400 block had very little cylinder wear. I deburred the oil galley and started smoothing all of the inside surfaces of the block. I don't know if this would count as stress relieving it or not.

Eventually all of those layers of paint that we had experimented with were going to have to come back off. Decided to try dressing up the outside of the block as well. Any rough castings were removed.

When we're done, the machine shop should be pretty happy. They'll have very little garbage to cook off when they hot tank.

These aluminum shocks from QA1 are supposed to be the ultimate in adjustability for standard mount replacements. They're dual adjustable. The bottom of each has 2 knobs. One to control the valving of compression. - And the other to control the valving of extension. I hope they work because they were close to $250 a pop/$1000 a set.




Standard Big Block Chevy (for stroker combinations): Center-Center Length: 6.535" Rod Type: H Beam Journal Size: 2.200" Wrist Pin Size: .990" Big End Width: .994" Bolts Used: ARP 8740 190,000 PSI Approx. Weight: 770-780 Block Type: B Series: BBC

pic of one of the connecting rod caps complete with ARP rod bolts

The 512" stroker crank arrived from 440 SOURCE.

another shot of the new crankshaft

Billet aluminum rear seal is built wider than factory originals to aid in better sealing

Billet aluminum main caps should help to strengthen the bottom end

We needed a windage tray that would clear the longer stroke crank


I don't know if we're being realistic or not, but we're hoping to pull around 1000 HP out of the motor. According to testimonials on the 440 SOURCE website a lot of guys were making 750-800 HP with this stroker kit on normally aspirated engines. We are hoping it will be reliable enough to still be a daily driver. Some of the components we chose to go with (such as the chromoly rockers) were picked for strength and reliability over horsepower potential.

We called up COMP cams for technical advice on camshaft selection. After telling them the details on the engine, car weight, gear ratio, etc.. they custom ground a new shaft for us.

With what research we had already done, their cam specs sounded like they were right in the ballpark of what others recommended. We could have gone with a roller but we aren't planning on flogging this motor. I doubt we'll take it over 6000 RPM. Depending on how it runs, we may change our mind.

Obviously, we matched the lifters with the cam.


There was a pair of front buckets that came with the car when we bought it. Although they were nasty, they were good enough to use as cores to reupholster. We had decided to go with aftermarket seats because we didn't like the 'feel' of these. They are very flat and you have a tendency to slide in them if you corner hard. The ones we went with have some side support to them and are pretty comfortable. We kept the seat tracks from the originals to use with our aftermarket seats and sold these for $80 to recoup some of our expenses.

The gas cap that was on the car when we bought it was pitted. Because it's located on top of the rear quarter we figured we had to go new. I'm so glad some of these parts are being 'repopped'.

Another pic of the new gas cap.

 

[1967 'cuda]

Spence decided he wanted one of these oil filters from 440 SOURCE. The billet aluminum should look good on the motor.

One of the advantages to this filter is that it can have the filter element changed and/or cleaned. Although most folks might not think that's such a good deal, it will allow us to inspect the filter for contaminants whenever we change oil. I'm curious what all will be in it after the break in period.


I had originally purchased the blower for my funny car back in the 70's. The person I bought it from ran tractor pullers. Before we were going to use it we decided to have it freshened up. We had a hell of a time finding a machine shop experienced in supercharger clearancing. The closest place we could find was in Iowa. A guy there (Mark Kinser) that used to run alcohol funny cars did the work for us. It wasn't cheap. We damn near could have bought a new blower for what it cost us.

These are just some of the pictures we took of it before we had the work done.

Originally we were told it would only take a few weeks to get it back. It ended up taking almost a year.

The front blower snout had to be machined to accept the idler pulley bracket we got from BDS. The Weiand snout had a taper to it and we needed it cut straight.

I had picked up one of those Weiand reinforced rear bearing covers for the blower years ago. The two pockets on the inside are where the rotor bearings ride. It had to be machined for proper bearing location to give the right rotor to case clearance.

After sitting 30 some years on the shelf, a lot of the parts showed their age. Everything looks shiny and new after getting it back.


I know that the dash was all covered in dust and dirt when this photo was taken. - So it doesn't look the best here. In this picture you can see the cracks that were in the dash pad. I had hoped that one of those vinyl repair kits would work. The dirt on the dash seems to make the cracks stand out more. It didn't look this bad when it was clean. - But you can see that after the attempt to fix it with the repair kit, it still sucked. We ended up putting a dash cap on over it.




The major purchases in a restoration get the most attention. It's easier to remember how much you paid for the quarter panels and fenders than it is to remember how much you had to put into all the small parts. I sometimes think that we've spent more on the small stuff than we did on the major components. If the pictures of some of these smaller parts seem uninteresting, I apologize. But keeping a record of where our money had gone seemed to have helped us to be more realistic in the planning phase of subsequent projects.

Chromoly pushrods from COMP CAMS

Brass freeze plugs

A new oil slinger

New intermediate shaft

new Melling high pressure/high volume oil pump

new oil pressure sending unit

new water temp sending unit

new bushing for the intermediate shaft

Billet steel timing chain set has 9 - way adjustable keyways. - nicest set I've ever seen

We've tried doing as much research as we could to find the best components for this Charger build. Hopefully the choice of POR-15 engine enamel will be right.

The body work has been a slow go. Between weather conditions and other projects cropping up, there always seems to be delays. The quarters are now roughed in. The passenger side door had a series of door dings right along the body line.

The door gaps look pretty good. - Still a little tight on the right side.

There was some quarter panel distortion from body twist over the years. Most notably was a dip behind the right sail panel and a split on the topside next to the door jam.


A few more pictures of the Charger.










We made the mistake of not welding our frame rail connectors on BEFORE we glued down the floor insulation. Not a huge mistake, but we'll have to peel it off before attaching them. If I understand correctly, a person is supposed to weld them on while the vehicle has the weight on the suspension to get them right. I don't know how critical that is. It would be easier for us to jack up the car. We started looking into a lift solution, so we could have room underneath to work and still have that load on the suspension.

The big Taylor 10.4 Thundervolt wires should work out well. We never buy any pre-made wire sets. I think it's worth the time to custom make the lengths to keep them tidier.

Unfortunately we've been robbing some of our parts off of the Charger whenever we came across a need for the same stuff on our other projects. We purchased another chrome alternator to replace the one that ended up on the Roadrunner.

Although we haven't welded the new subframe connectors in yet, we did test fit them. We had to do some minor grinding to get them to fit tightly against the underside of the floor. Spencer snapped these photos while lying under the car. One of the things that we were scoping out was the paths for our fuel and brake lines. We wanted to make sure these connectors would work with the new lines we had yet to install.

 

[1967 'cuda]

While Spencer was going to school at Milford Technical College (studying electrical/mechanical) he thought he'd take the 4-speed with him and rebuild it there. The instructors were willing to walk him through the process and assist him.













With all of the other projects that we've had going, progress really slowed down on the Charger. It seems like I'm always 'robbing Peter to pay Paul' around here. When we needed another water pump housing for the Roadrunner, the Charger had to cough it up. The Edelbrock heads are on now.

The engine remains mocked up on a stand. Although we've got almost everything we need for it, We won't be sending it off for machine work until we're done figuring out the pulleys.

The supercharger has been completely re-machined now. At least we don't have to worry about it anymore.

 

[Photon440]

That IS a lot of work going on. You're spending more time uploading pictures and writing descriptions than I am working on my own car! Great stuff. When do you hope to have it done? (So you can get working on the road runner

 

[1967 'cuda]

That IS a lot of work going on. You're spending more time uploading pictures and writing descriptions than I am working on my own car! Great stuff. When do you hope to have it done? (So you can get working on the road runner

My son is pretty happy with the Roadrunner as it is now. He figures that he can use it as a daily driver without having to worry about getting any chips or door dings. Chances are that we'll finish the Charger first. - And before it, the 'Lil Red Express and the '67 Barracuda. The Roadrunner really isn't that far from completion. It's a blast to drive as is. We're still hoping on finding an air grabber hood for it before we have the body finished.

 

[Basketcase]

that Charger is gonna be killer!
and Thank your son for his service!

 

[Budnicks]

Allot of great projects, Love the 68 Charger I had a few of them over the years, in 1974 my 1st real car was a 68 Charger R/T I got from a single mother/neighbor lady, for $350, still wish I had that car, such is life... good work, looks like your a really extremely busy dude !!