A Charger Reborn

[Coelacanth]

Hi guys, since I imagine nearly all of us are "car guys"--the only thing differentiating us is our choice of makes & models--I thought I would invite you to follow the restoration of my 1970 Charger. It hasn't run in over 12 years and the engine--although rebuilt back in the 80's with maybe only 10 or 15K miles on the odometer--is in a pretty sorry state. But, I've set my goal of firing up the ol' slumbering dragon this spring. If all goes well, in 3 or so weeks, the neighbors will be wondering WTF is roaring in the garage next door (or two doors down, even), and I'll record a YouTube fire-up vid.

Hope you enjoy the fun 'n' games...and fortunately not share in the blood, sweat & tears!

http://www.1970chargerregistry.com/mboard/index.php?topic=1288.0

[scr8p]

if you're posting pics over on that site, i guess you have to be a member to see them.

[Coelacanth]

if you're posting pics over on that site, i guess you have to be a member to see them.

Hmm...sorry about that. That's not very nice of them, is it? What's the good of a forum if it forces people to join just to see the pictures? Maybe I'll take it up with an admin there, I know of other forums like that and I don't really see the point of that policy.

[scr8p]

i'm pretty sure rc10talk is like that too ( i don't remember). if pics are attached to a post through the board and not something like photobucket or whatever, if you are not a registered member, you can't see them.

[Halgar]

i'm pretty sure rc10talk is like that too ( i don't remember). if pics are attached to a post through the board and not something like photobucket or whatever, if you are not a registered member, you can't see them.

Since Clodtalk is, it's a pretty darned good bet that 10Talk is too. It has to do with bandwidth. When someone links to an image on another site, it costs the hosting site bandwidth that can get expensive if limits are reached, which is easy to do.

[markbt73]

Pics or no pics, good luck with your rebuild! I rode to school my entire freshman year in the back of a lemon yellow '69 Charger, thanks to a friend's older brother. Good memories...

Out of curiosity, what engine is in it?

[Coelacanth]

Pics or no pics, good luck with your rebuild! I rode to school my entire freshman year in the back of a lemon yellow '69 Charger, thanks to a friend's older brother. Good memories...

Out of curiosity, what engine is in it?

383 Magnum that was rebuilt as a mild street engine back in the 80's, it only has maybe 10 to 15K miles on it. It's been bored out .030. It'll be great to hear it running after all this time!

[Diggley]

Oh,
come on....

WE NEED PICTURES!

[Coelacanth]

It's unfortunate that nobody can see the pics I uploaded there unless they register...and I don't want to re-write & re-post everything, but I'll repeat a few of the more recent goings-on.

Before shots of the engine bay. Looks pretty sad, doesn't it? At the point when these pics were taken, I'd only replaced the dried-up, cracked heater hoses with nice silicone ones. Since then, I've installed a new fuel pump, sent a bunch of parts to be chromed (waiting for them to be finished in a week or so), removed & cleaned & polished the Edelbrock Performer carb, bead-blasted & POR-15'd the battery tray and some areas where surface rust was appearing...and recently purchased parts still sitting on the shelf are a cap & rotor, 78-amp alternator, Accel coil, new plugs, and I have some custom-fit 8mm ignition wires on order. Also waiting on a stainless fuel line set to arrive, I was previously just using 3/8" fuel hose which worked but didn't look too cool. Also needed to buy a correct female inverted flange 5/16" fitting for the carb to mate the fuel line, waiting for that too. Got a new engine harness on order. Hopefully the parts will start rolling in next week and I can really dig in.

In the meantime, I did an oil change and removed a bunch of parts to bead-blast them at work and repaint them. The headlights & light buckets & retaining rings are removed, as is the headlight motor assembly. The whole interior is gutted. I rebuilt the shifter a month ago, it's smooth as butter after a guy at work welded a new part to fix a broken one. So much work to do...all you can do is not look at the horizon, but focus on the baby steps.

Like removing the paint overspray and guck from the headlight rings, and discovering that they still look great after all these years...not even any rust on 'em. They sure don't chrome-plate things these days like they used to.

For the last 3 weeks or so, I've been putting in 2 to 4 hours' work each night hoping to make things right!

[GJW]

lucky man, that is super cool. love to have the one in "bullitt"

[Coelacanth]

Thanks, this car was my first car, I think I bought it when I was 19. My parents had no luck trying to convince me to buy a more "practical" car, I was a Mopar fan from my earliest days. The guy (I believe was the second owner) was selling it for $2400, I took it home for $2200. It was puke-green & rusty in all the usual places for a Charger. Within 5 or so years, the body was re-done (on the cheap, unfortunately, but the outer sheetmetal was all straight) and I had the engine rebuilt.

Of course, I never had the knowledge, experience or attention to detail then as I have now, and the car aged not-so-gracefully. I did some stupid things that I'm going to have to undo now, like cutting up the center dash piece to install a pull-out stereo that was the big thing back then, cutting holes in my rear package tray to Mickey-Mouse-mount some 6 x 9" speakers there (there was only provision for one, as the car came with a rear window defroster on the other side, it being a Canadian-made car)...wired in a cheap alarm system...oh well, now's the time to put things right.

I was almost too embarrassed to show those "before" engine bay pics, but in a few weeks, the contrast after the engine bay is mostly finished will be pretty amazing. Gotta love before/after's.

[uniquenamehere]

Awesome, I've always loved Chargers... my neighbor had a 1968 when I was an impressionable kid.

That is primarily the reason I am the way I am... a massive gearhead.

[slapshot1979]

No need to be embarassed by the before pictures as thats how we see all the work you put into it. Gotta love the mopars..
A friend and I restored a 73 barracuda into a 340 cuda' sub-lime with hockey stick stipe, years and years ago. beautiful car, miss it lots.
Good luck.

[Coelacanth]

Thanks for the motivating comments! Nothing arrived in the post today so I'll be doing some more bead-blasting after work. If I can't get back on the engine resto, there's definitely no shortage of other things to work on.

[Coelacanth]

Headlight buckets treated with POR-15, pop-up headlight motor cleaned up, miscellaneous related parts bead-blasted & POR-15'd along with the headlight covers, and got the headlight assemblies put back together.

Baby steps...so many baby steps...