72 Duster Resurrection

moparmat2000 said
Not sure. Get a tape measure on em. Good thing is if they are 10" drums, the master you need, can be used w a mopar disc brake conversion.

Not sure if you read thru my pros and cons of the mopar vs scary bird disc conversion yet. Its pretty lengthy.

Just did a google search of wrecking yards in houston area. Theres a thread talking about the best 30 wrecking yards in the houston area. 30!!!! **** we have only 5 and only 2 of em are any good.

I did read through your post on brakes, scare bird, 80's M body swap, etc. Holy cow there is a whole world of brake stuff that I did not know. Thanks so much for the write ups, they will be invaluable to my project. I expect I will need to read through them several more times.

Off the top of my head, I agree with doing the M body conversion for sure based on the scarebird limitations and problems. And I do like the idea of factory mopar stuff.

moparmat2000 said
Well i let my fingers do the walking in houston area junkyards this morning. The websites are clunky and slow, the people i did call were rude to me, and when asked if they knew of a yard who had those parts, they said, no!!!

I guess i'm used to it here where people are friendly, and if they dont have what you need, they will happily point you in the direction you need to go to get what you need. If fhe rest of that town is that way, i will never visit.

I can see now why you would want to do a scary bird conversion. Duster captain, if you decide on mopar parts and M body brakes, come on out to abilene after my back is healed up, like late november, and i will take you out to our big boneyard for some M body brakes. We will have to pull them ourselves. I have a spare set of M body rotors that have been turned on a brake lathe, and coated with cosmoline so they dont rust, i upgraded to 12" cordoba rotors and caliper brackets so i dont need them. i can sell those to you fairly cheap, all you would need to do is clean and repack the wheel bearings in them and put in new dust seals.

We can pull the rest from an M body car in the salvage out here. Without the rotors they will probably want $50-$75 for everything. Calipers, caliper brackets, dust shields, spindles. Stop at my local bolt place and get the grade 8 bolts and nuts, or if you come up on a saturday, i can get the bolts and nuts ahead of time for you.

My local yard lets me drive my pickup truck up and down the rows and i work off the tailgate. Makes it easier when buying stuff especially when its 10 acres of stuff.

Let me know if your game to do this. If you get the parts now while you can, they dont go bad sitting in the corner of your garage or storage shed until you can rebuild and use them.

Pic of my truck below at the 10 acre yard, i'm pulling parts from a 71 valiant/scamp, and the warning sign

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Now you feel my frustration. Houston is a gigantic city and a major hub for big business, shipping, etc. There are tons of auto parts yard and pick a parts.

But is it still hard to find older car stuff in those places. Its always a bunch of rough locals running these yard who only know about 1990 and newer parts for people replacing stuff on their cars. I have gotten the same blank expression "no idea" response when asking if they knew of yards with older stuff.

But dont let that ruin your view of Houston! I've lived here my whole life and the people are awesome! There are some classic car meetups I go to that are chock full of all kinds of different people who live and breathe old cars and love helping each other out. I think the guys that run the auto yards in the......rougher..... parts of town are just a bit salty and only care about making money off people that need new taillights on their Honda civics...they just dont know/care about anything else.

But again, its a huge city, Im sure I just have not found the right places. There are bound to be some "older" part yards on the fringes.

Thanks for the offer to show me around up there man, I really appreciate it! My plan right now is to get these drums refreshed and functional so I can drive the /6 around while I plan my next move. Pretty much what you said earlier.

Once I get tired of the /6 and want to go V8, I might take you up on your offer to help me find M body stuff up there, sounds like the price is right and I will bring my snake boots!

I have no real idea an a timeline for that. I have a freshly rebuilt 318 sitting around that I bought off another mopar guy but I know that's going to be a bit of a project. Like you mentioned, I need a v8 trans to replace the /6 904 I have now. And new engine mounts, driveshaft, accessories, etc....

I'd just like to get her driving good and functional for now so I can cruise.