James's 71 Demon

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gardnerjamesw

gardnerjamesw

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2017
Messages
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Location
Silver Spring, MD
Well, Better late than never.... It all started about 19 years ago. Being around Mopars my entire childhood and 15 years old, what could be better than an old rusty Demon sitting in a neighbors yard. Gutted to nothing, brushed with house paint, all the glass broken out and it still looked cool to me (when the only thing that actually worked on it was the 225 under the hood) I dragged it home and over the course of a few months did some super shotty body work had the neigborhood body man throw in what must have been mixed wrong school bus paint, pulled out the reliable slant six, dropped in a 318 and I was set. Thinking I was about as cool as it gets the first drive made it straight to the school parking lot with a friend riding shot gun followed by multiple doughnuts and then driving past the cops with more smoke in the car then if we had Cheech and Chong in the back seat.

Then I parked it in that friends barn until two years ago.... We will pick the story up from there...
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Knowing that pretty much every panel on the car needed to be replaced had most of the car soda blasted to see what could be salvaged with the doors and what condition the roof and pillars were in....
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sjaweet
that looks like it was supposed to be EL5 paint on there...my favorite
 
Thanks for sharing !
I look forward to watching your car progress !
 
i believe ya, im just saying...with all that extra dust, it looks like EL5
i sure hope you will paint it that
 
I've been trying to figure out whats the best way to catch up on two years of work so Im just going to start unloading on ya...
The next step after ordering all new sheet metal (quarters, front fenders, fiberglass trunk, fiberglass hood, front valance, rear tail panel. (I opted for two solid doors from someone at the Nats I believe... hey it was two years ago) was to dive into the chassis and front and rear suspension.
I was lucky enough to have an 8 3/4 housing laying around and picked up a third member at (once again I think the Nats show) along with new rear springs, front and rear shocks, hangers, all new front suspension, and the right stuff big bolt pattern conversion kit.
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Bodywork.....
Never again... well thats probably a lie, but man what a pain in the arse. Now lets just be clear... I'm no body man. Besides spray bombing my bike 15 times as a kid and the occasional little fix here and there I have no real clue what the heck I was doing.

Surprisingly think it all turned out pretty well. Patching in the new quarters and new tail panel weren't really that tough. just extremely time consuming... cut, weld, filler, sand, filler, sand , filler, sand, filler sand, filler.... you get the idea..
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After hanging the new quarters, I really struggled with what to do as far as wheel wells go. I had already purchased a set of factory inner and outer wheel housings and figured I'd just mini tub them and be done with it... as time went on I changed my mind and opted for steel wheel tubs. With lots of patience and cardboard templets I finally got them where I wanted them...
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those wheel wells look great
are you gonna bring the hides in under the quarters a little or leaving them out there...as a little street attitude ?
 
Definetly has a nice attitude like that...ill see if I can dig up a pic of my ginger wearing her N50s
 
Moving on to a ten point Roll Cage and dynomat... I ordered a cage from jegs that was all pre bent. Figured it was the best choice as I was doing it myself and at home in the garage.
I had a few main concerns while installing the cage... 1. No holes in the dash. 2. Have enough room to get the factory headliner back in the car. 3. Be able to put the back seat in the car. After lots of cutting grinding I got everything i was looking for.

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Final Primer... I've always been comfortable laying down a coat of primer. Not knowing exactly what order I wanted to put the car together (running then paint or paint then running) I figured I'd go ahead and prime it all that way it wouldn't rust up on me sitting around in the garage. It also gave me the excuse to go through all the small parts on the car and get them right.... I'll dive into that on the next post.
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Well, Im finally to the point of where I broke down and sent the car off to the bodyshop. I figured it didn't make sense to put all the glass back in the car get it running, only to tear it all apart later.
With the car being gone I started to focus on some of the small things. Rebuilding the quarter windows, refurbishing the grill, repaint the inside door emblems all that silly stuff....
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And through the magic of the internet we are almost caught up to present day!...got the call just before the Labor Day weekend that the car was done... I'm sure you could imagine how I felt waiting over the long holiday weekend to go pick it up. Finally Tuesday rolled around and BAM (see below) I have to give a HUGE shout out to Advanced collision in Beltsville, MD not only did they go above and beyond but the knocked it out ahead of schedule. I was very very impressed to say the least. Craig and Gary... If you ever run across this posting THANKS A LOT!
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Catching up on some of the small stuff. Quarter windows put in, window felt, hood pins after taking 5 hours aligning the hood, trunk weatherstripping (although now my perfectly aligned trunk sits to high, I'm hoping that the weatherstripping will eventually compress.
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Spent a little time in the garage last night and got the headlight buckets in, hung the front grill, and installed the window trim clips... it took me about halfway through the installation to realize there were two sizes but all good!

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