Willow Springs, Spring Fling, MATS 1600 mile road trip

[HemiOrange70]

Careful.....then the interior comes out, then the rotiserie comes out, then the.....

[ntstlgl1970]

I dont know what it is but I have seen several cars with damage to that same exact spot and my car is one of them. It is a royal pain to get it right when you have a dent that extends from one panel to another with a compound bodyline like the Challenger has. Looks like you really put forth a lot of effort on getting the metal close and the fit right. Great job.

Well effort yes - went over the edge with that, more pics to come. I think the cuda is a little harder to make the bodyline correct because it is so subtle compared to the challenger - but I'm not a professional body guy

Your work is looking great!!  Keep the pics coming.  All that because you wanted to fix a small oil leak??  

I *really* hate oil leaks and I had talked about getting the car painted for a long time, but this was the point where I (with some encouragement) finally dove off the deep end

Careful.....then the interior comes out, then the rotiserie comes out, then the.....

already close to that point, not sure on the rotisserie though. Not much rust on my car so no need to go completely crazy

replaced/repaired the door hinges first since my lower was worn pretty bad on the driver's side.

[ksierens]

Careful.....then the interior comes out, then the rotiserie comes out, then the.....

Yup, happens everytime, but it's so much fun!    I had a 1960 Thompson Wood boat that I thought I would replace one piece of decking that was de-laminating ten years later ... it was done.

[ntstlgl1970]

well, that was the end of session 2 (didn't take any pictures of the first attempt). After levelling, it turned out I didn't have the door aligned quite right so.....back to bare metal, then filler then.....

[Street_Challenged73]

Your progress is looking great!  That car is going to be extremely straight after you're done with it.

[ntstlgl1970]

Your progress is looking great!  That car is going to be extremely straight after you're done with it.

I hope so because I can't afford to have someone do it for me.

Try #3 at the door, after getting a 4 foot straightedge to help me figure out if the door was following the quarter panel - I found out it wasn't. Best $11 I've spent so far. Also showed me how much I was going to have to fill to get the door "straight" at the body line. Since the straightedge showed how "low" the body line was, I thought I would try one last time to pull the body line area up and  - well - take a look at the close up pic. That's when I knew I had gone as far as I could go and I had to just work with filler to make it straight. I welded the hole shut and went back to mixing filler...got a couple of layers on there and then re evaluated

[ntstlgl1970]

Some additional info on my problems with the original door are in this thread
http://www.cuda-challenger.com/cc/index.php?topic=36263.msg377009#msg377009
At this point it looks like things are starting to look up. Well I decided that before I put a final coat of filler on the door I would put the fender on and see how things lined up....Turns out that the front of the door was about 1/4" lower than the fender. UGH! So since I had another door and I was sick of using so much filler (after 3 coats there still wasn't enough built up to make a body line out of. Probably would have taken 2 or 3 more to make it "right") I decided to spend some time on the spare to see if it was any better than the one that came with the car. Turns out it was banged up too, but not to the extent of the door that was on the car. Probably spent about 3 hours on this door then put it on the car. What a difference! Things actually lined up the first time!

[FY1Cuda]

Looking good!  You're correct that the subtle lines of the Cuda make it harder to do body work.  I did mine by using a straight edge like you're doing and it helps you see the lines a lot better.   Mine turned out alot straighter than anticipated, and you look like you're getting some serious progress done.

[miketyler]

Looks good - BTW, what wheel and tire size combo are you running? I noticed the long studs, how much spacer are you running out back?

[71bigblock]

Wow.   

Soooo.... when you coming to do mine?   

Looks great.   

[ntstlgl1970]

Looks good - BTW, what wheel and tire size combo are you running? I noticed the long studs, how much spacer are you running out back?

17x8 245/45R17 in front and 17x9.5 305/45R17 in back with a 3/4" spacer. There is more about it in the wheels and tires sticky http://www.cuda-challenger.com/cc/index.php?topic=19470.msg212061#msg212061

Wow.  

Soooo.... when you coming to do mine?  

Looks great.  

There is no way I could do this as a real job, it's just so frustrating at times....

[MOPAR FANATIC]

  Looking awesome.oil leak huh. 
Check out my avatar pic.all i was going to do was change my oil.7 yrs later and i still haven't fired her up yet.
J/K.  YUPE i know it's very easy to get carried away with these cars but in the end it's worth every penny and muscle ache.gotta start hitting mine again now that it cooled down hwere in st paul.  great job so far. 

[miketyler]

I'm running weld EVO's 17x8 front and 17x9.5 rear on my car with 245/45R17's front and 305/45R17's rear. The front wheels are 5.7" backspace and the rears are 5.9". Super Stock springs and offset spring hangers in the rear, longer studs and a 3/4" inch wheel spacer. Would have liked to have a different offset, but choices were limited when I bought the wheels. I have a set of ET Streets for the track, 28x11.5 on 15x8 centerlines with 4.5" back spacing, no spacers.

Cool - thanks for refreshing that thread. Its too bad that most all the pics there are gone. It's a great reference thread and pics really help illustrate things.  I assume you are running spacers on the front with the 5.7" BS?  Any driveability issues? I like the ride height too. How much is it lowered and how did you get there?

   

[ntstlgl1970]

Cool - thanks for refreshing that thread. Its too bad that most all the pics there are gone. It's a great reference thread and pics really help illustrate things.  I assume you are running spacers on the front with the 5.7" BS?  Any driveability issues? I like the ride height too. How much is it lowered and how did you get there?

   

I was surprised to find many of the pictures gone on that thread too. I am not using any spacers in the front though I think it would look better with a 1 inch spacer, the wheels sit too far in. Making a u turn can cause the inside edge of the front tire to rub against the frame if not careful. In the back I had cut (I know I know, but I was in high school when I did it) the wheel well lips short on both sides so the sidewalls wouldn't get cut up with the centerlines I had at the time (with the wrong offset) The only place the tires rub in the rear is on the upper part of the wheel well if you have a full tank of gas and 3 or 4 people in the car. I used 3" lowering blocks in the back because of the huge arch of the S/S springs and just adjusted the ride height in the front the normal way. Used the moog problem solver offset upper control arm bushings to get more camber adjustment and to allow me to run 6 degrees positive caster. Once I get the car back together, I'll have some springs made with the correct arch so I don't have to run the blocks.

[IMNCARN82]

Looking good!!!!  It's really easy, to get in really deep, really quick.   Keep us posted! n' Keep the dust flying!!