Restoration of an origonal owner 73 Challenger Rallye

[73RallyeChallenger]

LCA's look great!

[Grec]

So... I did a quick test.

I have a set of needle nose pliers that I've been using to hold parts for RPMing... they have a good solid coating of RPM on them. I also buffed it to a shine, so the surface is waaaay smoother than my LCAs are.

The Eastwood Anti-Rust spray, which looks like a VERY close match to the original cosmoline, sticks just fine. I guess it's because this stuff isn't actually adhering to the metal like paint... That's kind of what I was hoping would be the case. :-)

[burdar]

I've heard some people have had success spraying a clear coat over that stuff.  It adds a little durabilitly to it since it doesn't dry all the way.  Try spraying some on your pliers now.

[usraptr]

Car is coming along great!    I was catching up on your recent posts and had a question regarding the driveshaft.  You said you took it to your father-in-laws to apply the heat marks where the end caps were welding on.  How exactly did you do that? 

[burdar]

My father-in-law has a torch with a very fine tip.  We just set the driveshaft on a milk crate and rotated it around as he held the flame on the welds.  It doesn't take much heat to put those marks back on the shaft.

[burdar]

Here's another update. I made some good progress on the K-member assembly this week. I had the K-member and swaybar brackets powder coated an 80% gloss. The powder coater was only supposed to blast the swaybar so I could darken it and leave it gray. He ended up powder coating it by mistake.
I put a pitman arm seal kit in the steering box and painted it with Eastwoods Extreme Chassis Black. It has a little less gloss then the K-member which I believe is correct. The rest of the suspension componants are bare metal.(except for the LCA that has a cosmoline looking paint on it) The dust shields are supposed to be galvanised but I bead blasted them years ago thinking they were supposed to be black. I stripped off the black paint I had put on them and lightly wire wheeled them. I still have to redo the end links and install them but for the most part, the K is done.

[usraptr]

The K frame looks good.    I'm going to save these pics for reference when I do mine.

[73RallyeChallenger]

Very nice work Darren! Did you use the safety roll pins on the strut arms? I was wondering what you were going to do with the steering box. Did you re-use your original or did you buy a rebuilt one from a parts store?

[burdar]

I have no idea where the roll pins went.  I need to find some.  The PS box is the original one.  It's date coded 2652 which is right around the same time as most of the other parts. 

I found the original split spacers for the front end links.  I also found all the original washers.  I can't find the bolts anywhere though.  They may have broken during disassembly.  The ones that came with the suspension rebuild kit were way too long.  I found some bolts to use but they are a little longer then original.  We'll see if the nut bottoms out on the threads when I tighten them down.  I have them soaking in acid right now. 

[73RallyeChallenger]

Safety pins:

http://www.jimsautoparts.com/steering_parts.htm

See SP-2578

[burdar]

The guy that did the bodywork and paint on the car lives about an hour away from me now.  A couple weeks ago I gave him my air cleaner, spare steel wheel and 4 Road Wheels to paint.  He is going to work on them in his spare time.  The air cleaner and spare wheel will be painted about an 80% gloss.  I'm not sure what paint we are going to use yet.  He said that he can add a flattening agent to the gloss paint BUT, if you clean/polish  the parts often, you will bring back the gloss.  He might look for a paint that is accually designed with less of a gloss.  I don't know how this paint stuff works...I'm just going by what he tells me.

The Road Wheels will be sprayed a semi gloss...a little less gloss then the spare wheel.  The spokes are being masked off so as not to destroy the original matte chrome finish.  He sent me a couple pictures of some of the blasted parts.

[73RallyeChallenger]

He did a real nice job blasting those parts. They still look like metal.

[Super Blue 72]

Looking real nice!  Thanks for posting so many pics and descriptions. 

[burdar]

I've been working on the trans the last two days straight.  I'm pretty bummed with how it looks.  I don't really have a choise though...I have to leave it as is.

I had the trans rebuilt in 98 and it sat ever since.  The shop wire wheeled the case because I said I wanted it clean.   I painted it with AlumaBlast probably 10 years ago.  I spent all day yesterday stripping the paint off of it because it looked awful.  Today I sprayed it down with oven cleaner hoping it would etch the case and make it look a little more new.  It didn't.  The main case really needs to be bead blasted to bring back the original look of the aluminum.  The tailshaft needs to be soda blasted.  Obviously I don't want to blast it since it's all together.  I'll post pictures of it soon.  I'm just upset that I have to leave it this way.  The trans is about the same color as bare steel...not light cast aluminum.

[Grec]

That's a tough call, considering how detail-oriented you've been with everything else.

Maybe just leave it alone until it drives you crazy down the road. Easy part to pull...