Restoration of an origonal owner 73 Challenger Rallye

[burdar]

I sent out the original carb to Scott Smith for a factory correct restoration.  He sent me a couple pics of the finished product earlier this week.  It looks so nice I'm not going to want to run any gas through it. 

Before pic...
 

After...

[burdar]

I posted this pic of the rear axle at the begining of this thread.  I painted the entire assembly(except the drums)with POR-15.  The center section was then painted with cast blast paint.  I've wanted to redo it for a long time now and finally got it done.  Again, this is the before picture.


The first thing I did was have a look at the original center section.  The car originaly had 2.76's but I had a working 3.23 sure-grip so I decided to use it.  The 3.23 sure-grip was a factory option for a 318 Challenger in 73 so at least it's correct for the year.


After cleaning off the caked on grease, not much was visable.  I did find an orange mark...
 

...and a little white mark on the side.


I had some used up EvapoRust and decided to soak the center section to see if anything else would show up.  After soaking, two yellow dots showed up on the bottom.  Two yellow dots stands for 2.76 gear.


The white mark on the side really became visable...

[GranCuda1970]

 

[Topcat]

Looks freakin awesome Burdar.

Scott does awesome work. And the diff looks really nice.

[burdar]

Yah, the carb looks pretty amazing.  It was expensive but I think it's worth it.  I figured I would send off some of the larger items in the engine comp since they are so visable.  So far I've sent off the carb, brake booster and wiper motor.  I'll be boxing up the alternator this weekend to send to Dixie Restorations.  After that, the only expensive things left to buy are tires and bumpers.

[burdar]

Next, I removed the axles, backing plates and lines.  I bolted on some wood pieces to the ends of the housing to seal it up and had the entire thing sand blasted.


I darkened the center section to get rid of the blasted look.  Then I traced the white stencil from the side of the original center section onto a piece of transparent paper.  I used some trasnfer paper(I forget what it's called...the purple stuff) and made an outline onto the other center.  I filled it in with white model paint.  I should have had a stencil made so it would look more correct but it is what it is.  I also put back the two yellow marks on the bottom and the orange mark on the top.
 

After RPMing the center section and installing a new dust cover, I think the center turned out pretty good.

[burdar]

I had the housing powder coated but I wasn't happy with how it looked.  I thought the powder would have hidden the pitting in the tubes but it didn't.  I ended up taking the housing to the guy that painted the car.  He scuffed the housing...sprayed it with a high build primer and sanded most of the pitting out.  Finally he sprayed it with a sem-gloss black.  It looks a lot better then it did.

Previously I had the backing plates paint black.  It turns out they are suposed to be natural or phosphated.  The plates were pitted pretty bad so I decided to paint them instead of leaving them bare.  I don't know if that was a good choice or not.  I used three different paint colors to get them looking like they do now.

I looked at new brake drums at a few part stores and didn't like what I saw.  One of the drums I looked at had a huge "CHINA" cast into the face of it.  It would have been visable through the spokes in the Road Wheels.  I decided to just use the originals.  I blasted them, painted the faces an orangish red and RPMed them.  I don't know how close to correct the red color is...I could have boughten RestoRicks paint but I need to save money where I can.  If it ends up being way different, I can repaint it down the road.

The only other thing I'm considering is painting a yellow or white "J" on the center of the housing.  It looks like the "J" stood for 1973.  The housing was way too rusty to see any original markings.  I don't want to add marks that the car didn't have but the "J" looks to be a pretty safe bet.  I havn't decided yet.

Here's the finished rear axle assembly...

[burdar]

I picked up my new MP leaf springs on Sunday.  They were already starting to rust between the leaves.  I took one of them apart last night.  It came apart easy.  They were sprayed black after they were assembled so there isn't a whole lot of paint to strip.  I'll be busy coloring easter eggs with my son tonight but should be able to start work on the springs Thursday.

[ShelbyDogg]

I picked up my new MP leaf springs on Sunday.  They were already starting to rust between the leaves.  I took one of them apart last night.  It came apart easy.  They were sprayed black after they were assembled so there isn't a whole lot of paint to strip.  I'll be busy coloring easter eggs with my son tonight but should be able to start work on the springs Thursday.

I bought some of those MP extra heavy duty leaf springs from Mancini, a few years ago.  They were saggy as soon as I put them on and were softer than my original 6 and 7 leaf factory springs. Very cheap mexican steel started to bend backwards at the front eye mount.

[burdar]

The factory springs only had 4 leaves.  These have 6.  From what I've read, no one in the USA makes leaf springs any more.  They are all made in Mexico.  I'm aware of the MP springs reputation for sagging.  That's fine with me.  They are designed as a replacement for BB springs.  I'm guessing the car will be sit little too high in the beginning.

[ShelbyDogg]

The factory springs only had 4 leaves.  These have 6.  From what I've read, no one in the USA makes leaf springs any more.  They are all made in Mexico.  I'm aware of the MP springs reputation for sagging.  That's fine with me.  They are designed as a replacement for BB springs.  I'm guessing the car will be sit little too high in the beginning.

Don't throw away your old springs.  It'll be funny when you tell us that your old 4 leaf springs sat higher than your brand new XHD MP springs.  I used the old main spring on the new set to correct the "bending backwards" problem. I also moved them to my lighter convertible and no longer use them on my hardtop.

[burdar]

I'm not throwing away any of the original parts from this car.  The original springs have an extra leaf added so the car sat about an 1" higher then stock.  The originals were sagging very low.  I looked into rebuilding the orignal springs but there wasn't a good way to do it.  I would have had to install the old springs, get the front end setup at the correct ride height, then measure the rear....Take the springs back off and have them re-arched.  Even then, the driveline shop said they would most likely sag right back down.  The MP springs are the only ones that look close to the stock ones.

I'm not going to tighten the front spring eye bolts(or the shackles) until the car is at the correct ride height.  Hopefully that will ensure there isn't any extra stress on the springs.  Thanks for the heads up though.     

[burdar]

I'd like some opinions on tire selection.  I'm getting close to ordering them and want to make sure I'm going to be happy.  Ultimately it's my choice but I keep going back and forth.  They're not cheap, so I'm only doing this once.  Last week I spent about 20 minutes cleaning up the original spare tire.  It needs a lot more work but it's looking better.  The tread still has a lot of dirt in it as well as many small rocks.


I'm either going to go with F70x14 Polyglass WSW or Polyglass RWL.  The original spare will be displayed in the trunk so if I go with the RWL there will be an obvious mismatch.  The RWL tires just look so good though.  You rarely see these cars with WSW so that would make the car stand out.  I just don't know if I'll be happy with that look.  If I had the money, I'd get the WSW's for the original Road Wheels...and buy a repro set of chrome 15" Magnums with the 70-71 size Polyglass tires.  I'd be able to switch them around depending on my mood.  That's not going to happen though.

Here's the two original pics I have of the car wearing WSW..............thoughts? 




I really like the look of this car but the white walls are thicker then the factory tire.  Looking at the above picture next to this one, the white wall looks the same thickness.  That pic was taken in 1975 so those probably aren't the original tires.


I love this look too...

[ChallengerHK]

I'm definitely a raised white letter kind of guy, but then originality means practically nothing to me. Whitewalls look great...on 50s cars.

[Topcat]

Dare to be different was advice given to me on painting my car by a member here.

And I agree with that saying many times.

Go WSW.