Hi everyone,
I took on a project this last month and its turned into well one heck of a job. I’m going to be keeping everyone up to date with the project, this is not a couple year job, we plan to get this beast back on the road within a year. Since I am already a ways into the project I am going to be writing a bit of a novel here to fill you all in, my spelling maybe a little bit off at times so please forgive me
. I have pictures to go along with it aswell.
My cousin bought what looked like a solid looking Challenger with a hopped up 360 under the hood. He had it for a couple months and decided to give it a complete overhaul. His Neighbor Rob (a great guy and mopar enthusiest) has a 70 duster that he had done years ago. This car gave my cousin the inspiration of what he wants his challenger to be like. (I will try and get pics of the duster later, its a show winning car and really would be a piece to feature in a mag)
Im a certified bodyman so my cousin asked me to take on the job. Just having finished doing a 74 AMX Javelin he knows up im for the task.
When I goto the car Guy (cousin) had already removed the interior, fenders, drivetrain and the car was sitting on the jack stands. Great! I was ready to tear into it. I began with the areas that had tell tail signs of trouble. Bubbling or cracking and holy chit, it was a MESS! Someone had the car done already and it was HACKED! First I went after the right rear quater panel. That panel was riveted and glued, glued with PLASTIC glue! Not structure glue so I pretty much just had to grind a couple very very bad welds and then slid a putty knife between the panel and the newish patch panel pulled it away enough to get my hands on. I just had to pull on it and the hole quarter panel came off!
That was pretty scary, so I figured it was time to get after the rest of the areas that showed trouble, there was bubbling on the passenger fender at the front. I grabbed my stripping wheel and went at it. I immediately found body filler right below the paint so I kept sanding away. It went down and down and after over an inch I finally found metal… THE INNER they had cut a hole where there must have been damage or rust and just filled the whole thing up with filler!! WTF! Well needless to say we just ordered a whole new fender.
So at this point we have a quarter panel replacement, and fender replacement needed. I figured I might as well see how bad the left rear quarter panel was. Well… it was a LITTLE bit better they actually welded a bit more on instead of using glue but it is STILL done so bad I have to replace that quarter panel as well.
Overall the car is in poor shape, the cowl on the driver side is rotted right through, the firewall just below the rotted cowl is mostly gone as well. The left inner fender is completely rotted where the battery tray USED to be. The trunk floor pan was patched underneath with regular sheet metal and proper patches were tacked onto the top, (shakes my head). The inner trunk floor pan to quarter panel inners are destroyed, patched with square sheet metal with sharp edges sticking out because they didn’t even bother to trim the metal to fit. The rear bumper mount cross rail is 25% missing from rot also and the right rear frame rail has holes in it from rust too.
I have ordered all the nessasary parts; some we are still waiting on. I have new quarter panel patch panels, complete trunk floor pan, new complete 70” left rear frame rail, new right fender, new left inner fender and battery tray, new lower driver side door skin patch. Waiting on the inner quarter to floor pan inserts, the firewall, cowl and a firewall to fender bracket.
I have to finish removing all the small things on the car and remove the driver side fender before it goes out for media blasting. Which the challenger has an appointment to have the media blasting done just after Christmas.
We are trying to locate Robs old Rotisary that he used on the Duster but if we can’t get it we are going to have to build our own.
My cousin want the underside of the car to be painted the same color as the body except the frame rails and mechanicals to be black. All clear coated and flawless. So the rotisary is a nessasary item to get this project done.
The one thing I need to convince my cousin of is to have the vinyl roof removed to see what is underneath, the rest of the car was so poorly fixed that I hate to see all this work done just to have something major happen to the roof.
That pretty much sums up the project to this point. I found this site and am very happy to see so many other projects and knowledegable people here. I hope everyone will check back often and please if you see anything or know of trouble areas etc… let me know, also if you have any questions to what I am doing or have questions about your own projects and you are not sure what I did etc… ask away! I am exited to be sharing this with everyone. I update my facebook page with content every time I come back from working on the car so if you want to see the latest news check it out.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/PPC-Customs/311024106505Pictures viewable at
http://www.ppccustoms.ca/images2/main.php/v/port/74challenger/ or at my facebook page.
Justin Pywell
