Project “Ghost Duster”, 1970 Duster Corner Carver
All hell breaks loose.... I noticed the splash shield on the bottom of the frame rails had a bit of Swiss cheese on them, they are steel on a 1970. I took them off only to find fist sized holes in the bottom of both frame rails, hidden by the shields. I wish I took pictures of the holes but I didn’t. My irritation wouldn’t let me. I checked the parts car Duster hoping that I could use the rails. I knew it was a pipe dream because the torsion bar cross member was rusted in half. When I checked, the frame rails were “braced” with angle iron.....I checked with goodmark, they don’t make a-body front frame rails. I checked with AMD, they don’t make a-body front frame rails. On to the inter webs and Tony Defeo. He had some nice solid rails in Tennessee. We agreed on a price and he shipped them to buddy’s place in Michigan for me to pick up.
This is where I went from cheap, quick fix, driver to “I’m in this deep, I’m building exactly what I want.” This car is going to turn, stop, cruise, be comfortable, reliable and safe. Looking the rest of the car over while I had it in the air, I decided the torsion bar cross member was too weak for what I had in mind, the inner fenders were more work to repair than to replace and the front floor pans had been patched by Ray Charles himself. The snowball started.
All hell breaks loose.... I noticed the splash shield on the bottom of the frame rails had a bit of Swiss cheese on them, they are steel on a 1970. I took them off only to find fist sized holes in the bottom of both frame rails, hidden by the shields. I wish I took pictures of the holes but I didn’t. My irritation wouldn’t let me. I checked the parts car Duster hoping that I could use the rails. I knew it was a pipe dream because the torsion bar cross member was rusted in half. When I checked, the frame rails were “braced” with angle iron.....I checked with goodmark, they don’t make a-body front frame rails. I checked with AMD, they don’t make a-body front frame rails. On to the inter webs and Tony Defeo. He had some nice solid rails in Tennessee. We agreed on a price and he shipped them to buddy’s place in Michigan for me to pick up.
This is where I went from cheap, quick fix, driver to “I’m in this deep, I’m building exactly what I want.” This car is going to turn, stop, cruise, be comfortable, reliable and safe. Looking the rest of the car over while I had it in the air, I decided the torsion bar cross member was too weak for what I had in mind, the inner fenders were more work to repair than to replace and the front floor pans had been patched by Ray Charles himself. The snowball started.
