My "new" '74 Duster- or why I need a project like a hole in the head

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Wow, I can't believe I just noticed this thread. First of all, nice work! I knew you were working on the Duster but I'm glad to see the work you've done. I especially love your interior from your dash, seats, pistol grip, and stereo mount in the rear. The wheels also look really good on your car and I'm glad to hear there is no rubbing so far.

A couple questions...
1) What seats do you have? Are they the procar seats from Scat?
2) I noticed some engine bracing that was done 2 or so pages back, did Grandma do that?
 
You and I are on nearly identical build paths with our cars. I also started with a '74 Duster, same color combo as yours except mine was a 318 with the factory fold down rear seat and snake skin 1/2 top, all of which have been eliminated (mini tub). Fantastic fab work on that rear seat by the way. I have a stout 360/iron cased OD/narrowed 8 3/4 for motivation but went crazy with a triangulated 4 link rear suspension. Also saved myself a lot of fab/aggravation by changing out my dash with a rally frame out of a 69 Dart and building up a custom bezel set up with Autometer gauges. Your post on installing the earlier rear bumper has me looking at the banged up '70 I picked up years ago to do this exact mod but I ended up just pulling the stock bumpers in on both ends because they were in such good shape. Just hate how they stick out past the body lines without the filler panels from the crash bumpers. This was a long winded way of asking if you could post some front/rear pics of your car with the new tires and rims? Love the car and your work, keep the updates coming!
 
rapom65 said:
You and I are on nearly identical build paths with our cars. I also started with a '74 Duster, same color combo as yours except mine was a 318 with the factory fold down rear seat and snake skin 1/2 top, all of which have been eliminated (mini tub). Fantastic fab work on that rear seat by the way. I have a stout 360/iron cased OD/narrowed 8 3/4 for motivation but went crazy with a triangulated 4 link rear suspension. Also saved myself a lot of fab/aggravation by changing out my dash with a rally frame out of a 69 Dart and building up a custom bezel set up with Autometer gauges. Your post on installing the earlier rear bumper has me looking at the banged up '70 I picked up years ago to do this exact mod but I ended up just pulling the stock bumpers in on both ends because they were in such good shape. Just hate how they stick out past the body lines without the filler panels from the crash bumpers. This was a long winded way of asking if you could post some front/rear pics of your car with the new tires and rims? Love the car and your work, keep the updates coming!
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rapom65 would you happen to have a topic or any photos of your duster you can share? sounds very appealing to me :)
 
Fez, I've been meaning to start a build thread on my Duster for like... over a year now. Maybe your prompting will git me off my dead azz and finally do it. I have been documenting the progress with pictures pretty steadily so far... stay tuned.
 
rapom65 said:
Fez, I've been meaning to start a build thread on my Duster for like... over a year now. Maybe your prompting will git me off my dead azz and finally do it. I have been documenting the progress with pictures pretty steadily so far... stay tuned.
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oh! now i really want to see it. would love to see a tread on your duster! please. reading on all these threads gives newbies like me inspiration to work on our cars :D
 
MuuMuu101 said:
A couple questions...
1) What seats do you have? Are they the procar seats from Scat?
2) I noticed some engine bracing that was done 2 or so pages back, did Grandma do that?
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1. Summit Sport Seats

2. Uh, NO. That would have been me. It now has frame connectors, torque boxes, J bars, tubular radiator support, fully seam welded and reinforced K frame, and gusseted torsion bar anchors. Plus the extra bracing I did for the fold down seat conversion. Most of that is covered in the thread.

rapom65 said:
You and I are on nearly identical build paths with our cars. I also started with a '74 Duster, same color combo as yours except mine was a 318 with the factory fold down rear seat and snake skin 1/2 top, all of which have been eliminated (mini tub). Fantastic fab work on that rear seat by the way. I have a stout 360/iron cased OD/narrowed 8 3/4 for motivation but went crazy with a triangulated 4 link rear suspension. Also saved myself a lot of fab/aggravation by changing out my dash with a rally frame out of a 69 Dart and building up a custom bezel set up with Autometer gauges. Your post on installing the earlier rear bumper has me looking at the banged up '70 I picked up years ago to do this exact mod but I ended up just pulling the stock bumpers in on both ends because they were in such good shape. Just hate how they stick out past the body lines without the filler panels from the crash bumpers. This was a long winded way of asking if you could post some front/rear pics of your car with the new tires and rims? Love the car and your work, keep the updates coming!
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rapom65 said:
Fez, I started a thread, search "Rapom's Rocket". Sorry to highjack your thread '72.
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Does sound like are cars are pretty similar. I decided not to go with the mini-tub because I wanted the fold down seat. Strictly for utility. It was a lot easier decision to make too when I started to think I could get 295's in the back without the mini-tub.

I've got this picture of the rear so far, I'm still tweaking the ride height and alignment in the front so I haven't had it out to take a lot of pictures of the front. I still have '74 Duster bumper up front though, no point in converting it to an earlier Duster bumper since I'm going to change the whole front clip over to a '71 Dart for the Demon clone.

IMG_5301_zpscb687e81.jpg
 
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I'll match your tires and raise you one! Sorry for the crap pic. This is why I went mini tub. Narrowed 8 3/4 requires seriously shallow back space (deep dish) rims. I want to go 18s but right now the budget isn't supporting the massive cost of custom rims and big azz tires. If I hadn't started with my current axle I would have used a B body like you did. But I'm not redoing all that I've gotten done.

I keep looking at my current bumpers and it's giving me fits the way they stick out. I could easily change the rear to the earlier model I have on the shelf but I would have to narrow the front to match. Not difficult to do but the chrome is in really good shape on it so then I'd have to get them both rechromed. Mo money , mo money, mo money. Ought to be my theme song. Painted bumpers would look out of place with my planned paint scheme.

Those 18s sure do look good.....
 

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rapom65 said:
I'll match your tires and raise you one! Sorry for the crap pic. This is why I went mini tub. Narrowed 8 3/4 requires seriously shallow back space (deep dish) rims. I want to go 18s but right now the budget isn't supporting the massive cost of custom rims and big azz tires. If I hadn't started with my current axle I would have used a B body like you did. But I'm not redoing all that I've gotten done.

I keep looking at my current bumpers and it's giving me fits the way they stick out. I could easily change the rear to the earlier model I have on the shelf but I would have to narrow the front to match. Not difficult to do but the chrome is in really good shape on it so then I'd have to get them both rechromed. Mo money , mo money, mo money. Ought to be my theme song. Painted bumpers would look out of place with my planned paint scheme.

Those 18s sure do look good.....
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How wide is that rear end? There may be some off the shelf options for you if you can use an offset between 10 and 20 mm.

As far as the front bumper, I'd just get an earlier one. The frame mounts are the same. The only question would be how it would line up with the lower grill panel, but I'd be willing to bet you could work something out with it. I mean, it would be hard for it to look worse than the current front bumper right?
 
Hadn't given an earlier front bumper much thought because of the peaked front end on the '74. I'll have to look into that a bit deeper.

Damn I can't recall the axle width off hand but its narrow. Those are 15x10 3 3/16" back space Centerlines on it now and I have a 1/2" spacer in there to push them out more. Don't know why I keep looking at new rubber and rims. I've got tons of work to do on the car before I can even start it.
 
rapom65 said:
Hadn't given an earlier front bumper much thought because of the peaked front end on the '74. I'll have to look into that a bit deeper.

Damn I can't recall the axle width off hand but its narrow. Those are 15x10 3 3/16" back space Centerlines on it now and I have a 1/2" spacer in there to push them out more. Don't know why I keep looking at new rubber and rims. I've got tons of work to do on the car before I can even start it.
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Yeah, unless you get the custom wheels from somewhere, the only company I know of (through Summit) that sells 18x10" wheels with that backspacing is Weld Racing at almost $600 a wheel.
 
72bluNblu can i make a request. any chance you could post a photo of your car showing the back and side of the car i would like to see how the tires looks around the quarter. been debating what i would like one day on my car.
 
rapom65 said:
Damn I can't recall the axle width off hand but its narrow. Those are 15x10 3 3/16" back space Centerlines on it now and I have a 1/2" spacer in there to push them out more. Don't know why I keep looking at new rubber and rims. I've got tons of work to do on the car before I can even start it.
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Oh wow. So that's a major offset in the opposite direction from most.

Honestly, I'd put a different rear end in it. B body housings can be had for under $200, and new axles will only set you back about $300 from Dr. Diff. Swap your current pumpkin and brakes. Yeah, you'll have to re-weld the tabs for your 4 link, but compared to the price of custom rims you'd be ahead.


fez440 said:
72bluNblu can i make a request. any chance you could post a photo of your car showing the back and side of the car i would like to see how the tires looks around the quarter. been debating what i would like one day on my car.
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I can do that. I'm guessing you want to see how far the tires stick out compared to the lower parts of the quarter?
 
72bluNblu said:
Oh wow. So that's a major offset in the opposite direction from most.

Honestly, I'd put a different rear end in it. B body housings can be had for under $200, and new axles will only set you back about $300 from Dr. Diff. Swap your current pumpkin and brakes. Yeah, you'll have to re-weld the tabs for your 4 link, but compared to the price of custom rims you'd be ahead.




I can do that. I'm guessing you want to see how far the tires stick out compared to the lower parts of the quarter?
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yes you are correct
 
fez440 said:
72bluNblu can i make a request. any chance you could post a photo of your car showing the back and side of the car i would like to see how the tires looks around the quarter. been debating what i would like one day on my car.
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Here ya go!

IMG_5307_zps52234569.jpg


IMG_5312_zps28bb4178.jpg


IMG_5318_zps652bc8f9.jpg
 
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1970Duster said:
No center cap for the wheels?
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Not yet. The rears aren't a problem, but the fronts are. I had the front rims machined to clear the hubs, so the usual caps will be too small for the new hub bore diameter. Plus they wouldn't have been deep enough to cover the grease cap anyway. I've got a few ideas, just haven't got anything finished yet.
 
Awesome! thank you for sharing those photo, i appreciate it . those wheels fit perfect!
 
fez440 said:
Awesome! thank you for sharing those photo, i appreciate it . those wheels fit perfect!
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rapom65 said:
Nice job on tire/rim selection. You nailed it.
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Thanks! I did a ton of research, kept a spreadsheet of wheel sizes folks were posting up, did a bunch of math etc.

I'm pretty sure the 275/35/18's in the front and 295/35/18's in the back are as big as you can go without serious modifications. There's more room in the front than in the back, but I'm not sure a 285 would fit. Would probably depend on the car.
 
I think you nailed it. One thing I have never liked about the Dusters is how the rear tires tuck in so far (been my goal to get them close to even front to back) and it looks like you did just that.

Nice job! I like it!
 
DionR said:
I think you nailed it. One thing I have never liked about the Dusters is how the rear tires tuck in so far (been my goal to get them close to even front to back) and it looks like you did just that.

Nice job! I like it!
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Thanks!

The B body rear really helped with that, unless you really go crazy in the back like I did you can use the same offset front and rear. You could run 18x9's or 9.5's with 275s all around and pretty much be square with the 68-70 B-body 8 3/4.

Hopefully I'll have another update on here soon. I didn't put it on this thread because I had the "lash cap" thread going, but my Harland Sharp rockers were pretty much wiped out. Pretty sure that was a combination of having valve springs that were too light and running the lash caps, the guy that did my heads said they'd work and unfortunately I just believed him instead of double checking everything myself. First big engine build I've done myself and I've definitely learned a couple things the hard way.

I pulled the heads and had them cut for double springs and new seals, so that part is fixed and I've got the heads back on. Now I just need to set up the Crane ductile rockers and get it back on the road. I'll probably need a new set of pushrods, I still need to measure for those but that should be it.
 
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