My boy's first Mopar!

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bellhp

Daddio
Joined
Oct 18, 2014
Messages
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Location
Ponchatoula La.
Hello all , My name is Richard ... My son Vaughn and I are starting on the restoration of his 1974 Plymouth Duster.
Vaughn is 13 and he has scraped his nickles together to buy this car himself with the promise from dad that I will foot most of the bill as long as he put's out the effort to work on the car to the best of his abilities.
That being said here's the history on the car ... twenty something years ago while searching a wrecking yard for parts for my Charger I spotted a new mopar sitting in line for the crusher , I asked the yard operator "Robbo" what's the deal with the Duster? he said that the kids that hang around the yard had been doing donut's all morning in it trying to blow the motor ... well turns out that this particular mopar slant six wasn't ready to die yet and they had given up there destructive ways for the time being. Long story short the car had a title and I bought the car for peanuts and took it home. The car drove fine but ran a little rough but after a friend and I replaced the cracked vacuum line from the manifold to the brake booster she purred like a kitten . I toyed with the idea of putting a v8 in it and going racing but we decided the little 6 needed to stay ...I let my friend have the car and he titled and drove it for years . We both work offshore in the oil industry and eventually we both started families and such so the car sat unused and the gas went bad from sitting and the car never moved under it's own power again .fast forward to now ... my son decided that old Duster was just too cool so he said that's the car he wanted and he paid a grand total of $150.00 to my old buddy for the Title to the car and here we are .
Day 1... vacuum out the dirt , leaves and varmint nests :burnout:
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I went offshore for a month and my wife gave me the updates... Vaughn comes home from school ,does his homework and then starts sanding with the DA .
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I took a door off for him before I left... hinge was so rusty it about fell off on it's own!
all hardware bagged and stowed ... Vaughn sanded it to bare metal and primed exposing old body work . no problemo , easy fix.
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more to come..
 
Cool story. Just gotta keep the intrest up. Maybe keep him from it a day a week. Love my slant 6. Good luck with the project.
 
While I was home I set up a small parts blaster and we cleaned up the surface rust inside of the drivers door and took care of some light rust on the window mechanisms . Somehow I forgot to bring pics of the finished product but here are some progress pics .
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I'm offshore right now so I will have to ask Vaughn to send me some more pics but after derusting the door we applied Eastwoods rust encapsulator to all bare metal except the guide tube on the window regulator which I plan to Zinc plate .

Our plan at this time is to repair this door , paint with epoxy and store it as a unit so as to minimize lost parts during the restoration . Then do the other door ... hood ... trunk lid...you get the idea.
 
Yep , he's a good kid ... get's good grades in school and love's him some MOPARS... here's a pic of him and his buddy at cruisin' the coast in front of my friends 50 Plymouth "casper".
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I love a slant six too , but I'm not sure this one is gonna stay ... she got flooded out during a hurricane a couple years back . Engine is probably salvageable (top end looks ok) but I'm pretty sure the 904 is toast and possibly the rear too. Vaughn says he wants 500HP:sign5:
specifically he wants a small block 440 super commando !!!
I'm currently on the hunt for a donor car for the drivetrain .
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Congratulations!
I have a similar story with a car resto done with my son. We started when he was 14 and finished when he was 19. All those pics show him growing up - in more ways than one! The car we restored was an old Pontiac that I had bought when I was a kid and had kept.
When we finished I tossed him the keys and said it was his, I was going to find an old Mopar...
C

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Awesome job on the firebird ... I'm hoping that if a kid has some sweat equity into his first car he might be a little less inclined to tear it up like say the old family beater . Any truth to this or am I kidding myself.
So far so good Stan , I know I'm having fun working with him too ... and it's easier on the knees than paintball and he just kicks my but at video games .
 
many gret life lessons learned, and yes, he will appreciate the work that goes into it ( and hopefuly the costs)!
some were just born with heavier feet than others!????
 
That cool, what is weird none of any of my other a bodys have had one, but my current duster.
Me and my now 14 year old kid are restoring his first car, we have been working on it for four years now.
It is also a duster.
 
Awesome job on the firebird ... I'm hoping that if a kid has some sweat equity into his first car he might be a little less inclined to tear it up like say the old family beater . Any truth to this or am I kidding myself.
So far so good Stan , I know I'm having fun working with him too ... and it's easier on the knees than paintball and he just kicks my but at video games .

Cant speak for your son but when I was young I would fix it up tear it up and fix it again. Just a fact of being a young man growing up.
 
ESP47 ... let's just call it "Octane booster" Haha
Sireland67 ... Cool got a build thread going on your duster?
Chryslerfat ... biggest issue I see w/ my son's work ethic is that he likes to go from point A to point Z with things ... he see's the end product , but not so much what it takes to get there . I bought a 47 ford coupe when I was 15 ... had big plans for it ... never finished it though , got a hand me down station wagon that I abused till I traded it for my first Mopar , a Dodge Charger . It wasn't till I got the Charger till I had the tools and skills needed to make something that I could be proud of.
 
Cool pics of your son and his Duster. Let him know that a lot of guys are pulling for him to keep up the good work.
 
Will do 'cuda ... I'm offshore at the moment , waiting on some more pics from home . Vaughn is supposed to be cleaning up and taking pic's of some Chrysler Sebring convertible seats we have that he doesn't want to use in his car , so we can sell them or trade them . He has decided he wants to keep the stock bench seat , want's to keep as much as possible "Old school" , Ha . Also I tasked him with removing the taillight assemblies and boxing those up.Want to see how he fare's on his own with some simple disassembly tasks.
 
let him get a little experience, and " ;oan" him out to some of us guys!!!.
makes me proud of him and I don't even know ya guys!!!
 
As years go by no matter what happens to the duster you will know you worked together on this project. It's a way to connect while you're not home and that's priceless.
 
I have a bench in my Duster and loved it while dating and didn't mind it until I went Auto crossing. Manual steering and a bench is a beotch!

If I had to start from scratch for an engine think I would be looking for a late model hemi with and overdrive trans. Great power and totally driveable
 
let him get a little experience, and " ;oan" him out to some of us guys!!!.
makes me proud of him and I don't even know ya guys!!!

I agree with you barbee6043! I could use a little helper to help me out at time's. Maybe my projects would get done faster:D!
Kids around here care more about screwing off on skateboards and dang video games. That stuff make's their brains soft.
 
My son and I, and all of my kids for that matter have been working on a 74 Duster. Started it when he was 14. He's 17 now and still totally into the project.
The car is in the paint shop right now and that's making him nuts that she's not out in the garage right now.....
Enjoy your time with him....
 
Hey Dusterdaddy , I replied on your build thread earlier this evening ... I read every post in it start to finish when I got off shift today . Your process of working on things that can be done yourself and with hard work instead of standing back and throwing fistfulls of money at it is an inspiration, Thanks
 
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