Restoration of an origonal owner 73 Challenger Rallye

[73RallyeChallenger]

You are missing the license plate bracket thing? Looks very nice Darren!

[burdar]

One of the bodyshop pictures shows the triangular bracket on the rear valance.  When the car came home, the bracket was gone.  I don't know why it was removed.  I have one that I took off another valance.  I'll have to attach it with screws.   

[MOPAR FANATIC]

  Excellent job on that rearend.it looks like it could be sitting on a showroom floor.   

[burdar]

It looks like I have to pull the prop valve back off.  I had all but one of the valves inside taken apart after I soaked it in EvapoRust.  The valve I didn't take out is sticking.  This is going to be messy.  I'll work on it this weekend. 

[dutch]

glad you used dot5    I m glad i did....

[burdar]

Ya, this would have been a disaster if I'd used DOT3.  The valve that's sticking didn't come out easy so I just left it.  I didn't want to break anything since I've only heard bad things about the repop valves.  Hopefully this will just be a minor inconvenience.

[GranCuda1970]

i did not even know about dot 5  I have had to repaint in 2 areas so far due to unexpected leaks. but so far all of my prop valves have functioned properly.

[burdar]

A guy over on Moparts had one off of his 74.  He took it apart for me yesterday and posted a pic.  The valve should just pull out so hopefully I won't have to fight it. 

The master cylinder lid is also leaking.  I'll have to fab up second gasket so the lid is held on tighter.

[dutch]

my new master was leaking too. I bent the clamp a bit further. did the job so far...

[EB3-GranCoupe]

DOT5 is the way to go!

[burdar]

Well, the valve inside the combination valve was rusted in there.  It broke into pieces when it finally pulled out.  I'll need to find one that I can use for parts.  I had an extra one around here but I can't find it.

The input shaft seal on the power steering box was leaking so I changed it this morning.  It was an easy fix.  I also worked on the front rubber bumper guards.  I talked to a couple different bodyshops about how to go about refinishing them.  The best bet was to clean them very well and spray them with high build primer...so that's what I did.  They came out looking really good.  I used an adhesion promotor first, followed by the high build primer.  Finally I sprayed them with Trim Black.

[EB3-GranCoupe]

WOW!  those turned out really nice.  i wonder if, in the long term, the paint will start to flake.  i guess you can just re do them, like you did here.  looks fantastic!

[burdar]

One bodyshop said they didn't know of a filler product that would stick to rubber and to use high build primer.  The other place I talked to said the high build should work fine.  If there were some really deep pits that wouldn't be filled with a couple coats of primer, to try some Polyfill 411.  He said you could bend that stuff 180 degrees back onto itself without cracking.  Hopefully this will last for awhile.

One of the studs started spinning inside the rubber.  It took quite awhile but I finally got it drilled out to 1/2".  Now I'll be able to weld a 1/4" nut on the back side and use a bolt to attach it.

[blcd74]

Very nice ride and takes for sharing with us.

[joelson6]

The master cylinder lid is also leaking.  I'll have to fab up second gasket so the lid is held on tighter.

Darren, I had the same problem on my '72. watch these rebuilt master cylinders. i don't know what happens to them but the
top part of the master cylinder wasn't perfectly flat. so brake fluid ran out the front and on to the frame below it. all the paint
was gone, I WAS PISSED! i wish i had known about the DOT5 brake fluid. no matter what i did it wouldn't seal up right. i had
to replace the master cylinder twice till i found a good one. tried altering the gasket and making the lid tighter, didn't work.
if you can, have it machined flat, maybe take off .005 to .010 to get it right. don't know if there's new MC's out there.