Back in the first part of 2014 I found my 72 Duster on Craigslist in North Carolina. He was asking $2500 or $2800 for the car, dad happened to be going through the area and I had him stop and look the car over, when he told me the car was as solid as it looked in the pics I asked the seller if he’d take $2,200 and he agreed. Borrowed Dad’s Acadia and a trailer from my boss and my wife and I made the 9 hour trip to go get the car.
The car had been a drag car in the 80’s but from what the seller could remember, the car hadn’t run in about 20 years. It had the numbers matching 318 and an 8 3/4 rearend but the center section was in the trunk and the intake, transmission and driveshaft were gone. Here’s how it sat under tarp from the time he brought it home, till I bought it about 5 years later.
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I put a new timing set in it and slapped an intake, carb, bellhousing and starter on it and got the engine running.
View attachment 1715168967 Rusted freeze plugs ended up causing me to pull the 318 and swap in a 5.9 magnum.
So far I’ve swapped the 5.9 and a dakota 5 speed into the car, redone the dash, rebuilt the front suspension, rebuilt the rear drums and upgraded to 73+ discs up from. I still have a lot of mechanical and interior work I want/need to do and eventually I’ll do body/paint work but for now, I’m gonna ride the Rattu Muscle Car craze as long as I can! :D
These pics were taken a few weeks ago.
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