Rocker's 1973 Duster "Clara"
Something I didnt mention before was that my wife is totally supportive of working on the car, as long as it doesnt take too much time away from the family. I usually work on the car after the family goes to bed around 9pm and stop at midnight. Then every other weekend I spend a Saturday working on the car. All together, I have a lot of time for the car, but only two of those days I could really do some grinding outdoors. It was time to tackle the engine bay.
So here I am at the start All excited
Grinding in the July heat got old quick. I did make great progress, but I needed something a bit faster as well as get into the places the grinder couldnt reach. I opted for the aircraft stripper Nasty fun stuff! While working on the engine bay I decided I should do this right as I only intend to do it once I purchased a four speed transmission hump from Brewers that day.
I thought it was pretty cool to see that 30+ year old steel emerge from under the layers of paint.
Just about done.
So when I purchased the car, I knew it was in need of suspension work, and the torsion bars were torque down quite a bit. As I loosened up the front I began to notice the rear dip severely on one side. I assume a PO adjusted the front end to compensate for a failure in the rear suspension. Perhaps the ghetto shackles that were on the car messed something up. I will be addressing the rear end of the car in the future, so I am not too worried atm. The picture below shows how it was sitting.
Guess the license plate applies right?
Heading off to my painter!
The painter also was awesome enough to weld in my four speed hump for me.
Below are the shots of the painted engine bay. Now before anybody jumps on me for not removing the shock top hardware, this will all be replaced when I install the V8 front suspension. The overspray on the slant K frame suspension has pretty much wiped off as it was still pretty greasy.
A few shots in the sun.
Getting closer to current, but there is still more
Something I didnt mention before was that my wife is totally supportive of working on the car, as long as it doesnt take too much time away from the family. I usually work on the car after the family goes to bed around 9pm and stop at midnight. Then every other weekend I spend a Saturday working on the car. All together, I have a lot of time for the car, but only two of those days I could really do some grinding outdoors. It was time to tackle the engine bay.
So here I am at the start All excited
Grinding in the July heat got old quick. I did make great progress, but I needed something a bit faster as well as get into the places the grinder couldnt reach. I opted for the aircraft stripper Nasty fun stuff! While working on the engine bay I decided I should do this right as I only intend to do it once I purchased a four speed transmission hump from Brewers that day.
I thought it was pretty cool to see that 30+ year old steel emerge from under the layers of paint.
Just about done.
So when I purchased the car, I knew it was in need of suspension work, and the torsion bars were torque down quite a bit. As I loosened up the front I began to notice the rear dip severely on one side. I assume a PO adjusted the front end to compensate for a failure in the rear suspension. Perhaps the ghetto shackles that were on the car messed something up. I will be addressing the rear end of the car in the future, so I am not too worried atm. The picture below shows how it was sitting.
Guess the license plate applies right?
Heading off to my painter!
The painter also was awesome enough to weld in my four speed hump for me.
Below are the shots of the painted engine bay. Now before anybody jumps on me for not removing the shock top hardware, this will all be replaced when I install the V8 front suspension. The overspray on the slant K frame suspension has pretty much wiped off as it was still pretty greasy.
A few shots in the sun.
Getting closer to current, but there is still more
