72 Cuda g-machine - 2016 update

[certifiablecuda]

Glad you found the "right guy" to paint your car, that's got to be a big relief! I'm thinking of doing all the little stuff you did before mine goes in (if and when) as well.
I have the same problem CB has too...setup and cleanup leaves little time to get stuff done in a small garage....

The only good news on the other project front is that I have a couple days coming up that I am taking off from work.  The wife will be away as well, so it is hopefully going to be 2 full days in the garage so the overnight from 1 day to the next I don't ahve to worrry about cleaning up!!!!!!

[GoodysGotaCuda]

Lookin pretty sharp!

[HemiDog]

That is looking really sweet! 

[Travis72]

Thanks all for the comments.  The body guy will have the car at least 2 months.  Hopefully he won't have to re-do too much of the work I've done.   It's obviously not going to be a 35k show quality paint job, since I'm not paying for that, so I'm trying to set my expectations to a reasonable level.  I've had friends who had 5k paint jobs who complain about the quality because it's not 100% perfect and I'm trying to not be that way.

I'm very lucky in that I have a 3 car garage.  It's actually shaped like L (previous owner of the house added on the 2 car part).  So my wife can still park her Jeep in the 1 car and the 2 car garage is dedicated to the Cuda.  When I first started in to rebuilding the Cuda I had the same problem that I was spending too much time moving stuff around just to work on the car.  I know for me that finally getting the garage organized so that I could just go out there and start working on the car made a big difference in my motivation.

So I pushed the car out of the garage and took some pictures.  The front body panels are not aligned that well since I was doing it by myself, the passenger side fender is all dented and the doors don't have any weatherstripping so they are pushed in too far.  But it's still exciting to see it since it's the first time all the body panels have been on the car in a couple of years and with the bumper and spoiler on it's starting to look more like the rendering. 









Travis
72 Cuda

[Grancoupe]

Do you have any plans on the interior? this is going to be one heck of a ride.

[CHUCKS71]

this is going to be one heck of a ride.

  It's looking great!

[wally426ci]

 

[the_engineers]

How do you plan to stay out of trouble with the cops right across the street?

[IMNCARN82]

      

[Travis72]

Time for a long overdue update.  I posted these pictures inline to make it easier to see what I'm talking about.

Well the front rims and tires on the car are only temporary to clear the brakes and allow me to push the car around.  One problem with them is they don't have enough backspacing so they stick out all the way to the fender edge  (17 inch rims with 4" of backspacing and 255/45/17 tires).  This caused them to fit the front wheel lip edge and not even come close to clearing before it even got half way to full lock.  I remember back when I tried to put 245's on the front of the Cuda before and had the same basic problem.  In fact both of the original front fenders were damaged from tires that didn't fit right.  I don't know if "special" Hemi or AAR Cuda fenders actually exist, but I'm betting just the individual tolerances of each car allow some people to run 245's while others can't.



So on the original passenger fender, I needed to go ahead and weld up the tear in the metal in the wheel lip.  So I bent it back to it's original shape (more or less, but the very bottom is rolled in more then the repo fender, however I don't know which one is actually correct) and then welded up the tear both by the front valance and on the wheel well lip.



Given the damage I decided to go ahead and notch the front fenders for tire clearance.  I used this old Car Craft article as inspiration:

http://www.carcraft.com/howto/1043/index.html

So in this picture you can see how much I rolled the lip over.



I then trimmed the lip back down to size using tape as a guide.



At that point the tire cleared, but just barely.  Since I would like to try and run 275's up front, I decided to take a pie cut out of the very bottom for more clearance.



So I welded that up.



Then ground down the welds.



And now it clears!



Here's how it looks with the tires straight ahead.  Amazing how much clearance it has going straight.



Here's how it looks directly to the side.  I think the natural curve of the wheel well arch still looks pretty good!





I also put all my body weight on the front fender to ensure that it would still clear with the suspension slightly compressed and it was still OK.  My only worry is with the engine in the car and all the other weight that I'll lose some clearance, but I think everything should still clear.

Travis
72 Cuda

[Travis72]

It was one thing to cut and re-weld a fender that was already damaged and needed repaired and re-welded, but it was another thing entirely to cut up a brand new $600 repo fender.  However, even with my limited skills, after seeing how the passenger side came out I decided to go ahead do the drivers side.

When I started this thread I told myself that I would use it to post both good and bad things that happen while rebuilding my car so that others can learn from my mistakes.  This is one of those times.  I decided to not hammer and dolly the edge over and instead just take a big pie cut out of the edge.  The first thing I did wrong was I didn't measure twice, cut once.  So the cut didn't end up providing a nice gentle curve like the other side.  I needed to step back from the car and look at it before I cut.  So after cutting it looked like this (I know... awful).



I was pretty mad at myself, so I didn't actually take very many pictures of the process, but I ended up having to splice back in some of the metal and reshaping it.  After much welding, grinding, re-welding, more grinding it finally ended up looking like this and providing this much clearance.





It actually doesn't look too bad from the front angle.



However from the side, there is a definite spot where you can see it angles to the front.  I just didn't make the angle gentle enough.  I'm going to have the body guy look at it and see if he can blend it in more.  I thought about cutting up higher and trying to blend more, but I figured I would just end up cutting higher and higher before I ended up at the top of the wheel well.  So I decided to quit while I was ahead.



Anyway, just something to consider if your car is in bare metal and you want more tire clearance in the front.

Travis
72 Cuda

[The Cuda Guy]

Looking good bro.  I always enjoy checking in on this thread!  Im very excited to see the finished product!

Don

[CHUCKS71]

Looking good bro.  I always enjoy checking in on this thread!  Im very excited to see the finished product!

Don

It's going to be one sweet ride! Once it's painted I bet no one will notice the reshaping.

[MoparCar]

It's going to be a great ride. Looks good Travis!
Wes

[go-fish]

  I remember back when I tried to put 245's on the front of the Cuda before and had the same basic problem.  In fact both of the original front fenders were damaged from tires that didn't fit right.  I don't know if "special" Hemi or AAR Cuda fenders actually exist, but I'm betting just the individual tolerances of each car allow some people to run 245's while others can't.

I have an original big block car, the Alter-k-tion's track is wider but my 17x8's with 245/45's fit fine. I don't know if it is your fenders or your wider track is messing you up. Are your wheels 8" wide?

 My only worry is with the engine in the car and all the other weight that I'll lose some clearance, but I think everything should still clear.

I set the suspension up before the engine (360 block) was in and didn't have to touch anything after. The coil over fronts seem to be able to be set up w/o engine and not change much at all when installed. You could probably set it up about one inch higher than your desired height. I know mine didn't drop much at all.
Pics are before and after. I wish I had the same profile of the car for the with and w/o pics but maybe this will give you an idea of how much droop it has with engine in.

Even though my car is running and driving I think you are going to beat me to the finish line. I still need to do some work to it before I tear it down for paint.
Maybe we should start a Cuda w/ Alter-K and Air Bar, 5 speed, 3G Hemi/LA engine club. LOL