1972 Duster, 340/4, black on black (the endgame)

For anyone following along, I dropped the block, crank and rods at the machine shop yesterday ( Engine Rebuilding: Bozeman, MT: Engine Machine & Supply, Inc. ) They did the heads for the bike so I'm going with them on this build too. The cleaning process will pit the cylinder walls so boring them out is required-no way around it. What a shame-if it wasn't for the rust he would've honed them and kept it stock.

I'll know more in a week.

And it's back:



Clean, buff and magnaflux block.
Bore and hone cylinders .030.
Installed cam bearings.
Line bore crankshaft main journals.
Block engine deck.
Pressure test block.
Complete connecting rod rebuild.
Clean and grind crankshaft .010.

And, of course, effin' wetsanding continues on that pile in the background. Picked up some more primer so I can get it all leveled out.

Was reading through the Barn Find 72 340 Duster thread and as I neared the end I noticed the dates didn't really correspond with the posts remaining and was wondering why while not wanting to admit what I already knew... Godspeed Tim and glad your devil found a good home.

Had my own mortality slap me in the face a couple years ago when my eating habits of a 16 year old caught up to me and one of the arteries returning blood from my lungs decided that was enough of the saturated fat and shut down (95% clogged). One stent and 2 days in recovery later to consider my life's choices and just how close that was, the pressing item that made the top of the to-do list when I got home was getting this. *******. car. DONE. The 20th marks 39 years I've been nibbling away at this and the past couple of years has been an attempt to achieve a level of perfection that would have pissed off any of my restoration shop bosses of old. Enough was enough-I fixed a couple of obvious issues, primed the quarters, blocked them out, reprimed them, final sanded the car in 600 and hit the wall looking for a place to spray paint. I don't have a window in my workshop here so there's no ventilation-certainly not enough for urethane basecoat/clearcoat in an apartment building full of sensitive elder tenants. I can barely get away with the priming I've been doing or spraypainting parts in my role here as the building maintenance guy. A friend of a friend of the building's owner has a body shop not far from here and after meeting with him came to a deal for me to paint it in his booth over Memorial Day weekend. I called him the weekend before to touch base and he backed out (don't have time...nope-don't have time. Too busy). I then got to the point where I was willing to pay someone else to do it just to get it done and the only shop in the area that would tackle something that's not insurance work was 2 years out... I was lamenting the fact at work one night that I just need a place to spray paint to get this done when a co-worker piped up and said "bring it over-we have a garage". One car insulated attached garage at a house on the edge of Bozeman rented by a couple of guys I work with on the night shift at Gibson.

(sprayed the ***** Labor Day Saturday)

A coat of sealer, two coats of Tamco TX9 Basecoat (had to have them find a formula for it as they didn't list it on their site) and three coats of their high solids Euro Clearcoat through a 1.4 tip (two coats and a 1.2 tip was their recommendation but I'm not buying another spray gun...) and it's DONE.










Wetsanded the roof Saturday and will hit it with the buffer Sunday.

Meanwhile, the motor is at this stage:



The headers are just hanging there for effect-they still need a coating. Also still need a carb, new water and fuel pump and a clutch plate and it's ready to drop in. Once the buffing is done I'll get the brake and fuel lines in (new tank is already in) and the wire harness in the engine compartment. Would also like to replace the bearings & seals in the transmission before it goes together and ideally, find someone with a dyno willing to do the cam break-in and give it a couple pulls to see what it can do. The machine shop that reconditioned the block closed and sold their equipment to someone who ONLY does diesels and won't touch this so the search is on.

Meanwhile, there's plenty to do. It's finally going together.

Nice , many have left sitting for nothing , so never give up looks good

Great job so far

Beautiful car, keep at it. You are soon getting to the point that the progress is harder and harder to see but takes more effort. That is the point I typically get a bit discouraged. Make a list put it on the wall and knock it out!

Perseverance sure paid off...

Thanks all. There is progress but much of it is in support-namely, a blast cabinet I picked up on ebay for refurbishing hardware. It's assembled and I finished last weekend with sealing up the gaps and seams giving it the week to set up. Meanwhile the flooring and carpet is in. Short term goal is to get carpet, headliner and dash in the car so I can get someone in to install the glass. And mixed in with this is prepping the trunk lid which is just about ready for paint.

72 always did need that rally dash...looks like now it's a Super 72....for sure!!!!

Is that 4-speed you have a OD unit?

My lord you cant get a break! Good for you. Stick with it.

sireland67 said:

Is that 4-speed you have a OD unit?

Click to expand...

I have both but the OD is going in it. My daily commute is 24 miles down I90 at 80 MPH so anything I can do to make it easier will help. The standard 4 speed can go in when I feel the need to play. The bellhousing is opened up about 3/32" to fit the smaller bearing retainer I picked up for it so it's all good.

Amazing story and great to see the progress. Car is looking real sharp.

Thanks for that. It's far from concours quality but it was never meant to be more than a daily driver.

So, to catch up because it's been a while since I did here: The shell is painted, buffed and reassembly is underway (the tail lights are just set in place).



Sound deadener is in and I added extra jute padding in the footwells to make it a bit more comfy. I laid the carpet out in it, put the car cover on it, a space heater inside it and let it run for the weekend a couple weeks ago. Most of it settled nicely but the area directly behind the shifter hump is not laying down well. I got at it with the heat gun and it sat down a little better but not as much as I'd like. And since bucket seats are going in that's a hi-vis area so I'd like to get it to fit-especially without cutting it.






I'll have to keep working on it. I'm on the long waiting list for seat vinyl anyway so no real hurry here.

I also replaced that falling apart steering coupler with a universal coupler. Cheaper and I like the idea anyway.



So as mentioned earlier the immediate goal is carpet, dash and headliner. The headliner is actually laid out on the bed right now and it can live like that until I tackle that next week. Remember-'72 and up didn't have the cloth headliner so there's an interesting project coming up. Meanwhile I started assembling under the dash and to really get on with that I need to refurbish fasteners. And since it's been (holy hell) 15 years or so since I blasted them, enter my own blast cabinet:



After entering a discount code this was $97 shipped on ebay and I couldn't make one for less than that. And it's not terrible. Assembly was required and almost everything is held together by metric machine screws & nuts. The only real miss I can fault them for here is the lid hinges which were sheet metal screws into holes that are too big-it's a loose fit and the hinges move about. But I can and will replace them with more machine screws & nuts. You'll see a rectangle on the back wall of the cabinet, on the upper left behind the light. It's a shielded opening that I covered up the outside with a computer fan filter. The cone-like filter on the right wall has an opening in the side that just fits the hose to my small Craftsman shop vac. When I close it up and fire up the vacuum cleaner it sucks it down so well you can't open the lid. NO dust-great visibility. Also note the new squirrel cage in the lower right of the pic as well as some nuts I already caught-the four that hold the wiper linkage in place under the dash. AND-Eastwood's zinc plating system to the left of the cabinet. I'll get all this fired up tomorrow after the Raider game and we'll see how it goes.

It's not much but I'm happy to have one of my own. I won't be blasting engine blocks but it's ideal for the specialty fasteners and small bits I need done. That includes some new lower control arm parts I recently acquired which is a tale to tell of B Body heaven in Oregon that I'll share another time. Meanwhile, assembly continues and the beat goes on...

When you refurbished the dash, did you airbrush the Alclad and where did you buy it?

banzaibullitt said:

When you refurbished the dash, did you airbrush the Alclad and where did you buy it?

Click to expand...

Airbrushed with a Badger 150 and I get Alclad at hobby shops.

With Gibson shut down for the holidays I get some serious shop time and here's how the year ends.

Headliner is in:





There's still some shine on there from the heat gun and the sails still need some work-I'll wrap those up when the trim parts are in so I know just how much is exposed. And a scuff pad should take that shine out. Some observations for a first time headliner install-

1. There are a bazillion videos on youtube about putting bow headliners in. Watch them all, regardless of make & model. You'll pick up something different in many of the videos as no one out there covers every aspect of this job.
2. Don't try to get it drum tight. You can't. And you shouldn't. It's not supposed to be. Focus on making sure you don't have any stress creases or folds and work out the wrinkles as best you can knowing a heat gun can get the minor ones out when you're done.
3. I have seen much ado made about the bows-the colors on the ends and which goes where. The set I had were pretty faded-it was hard to distinguish the difference between orange & pink, green & blue. But when it comes to your Duster, it doesn't matter. She's got a fat ***, and the roofline tapers toward the front. The two long ones obviously go in the back and if you stand the rest of them on end you can see each one is somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2" shorter than the next. Put them in with the longest one to the back and shorter as you go forward. If you struggle to get it in or it falls out it's in the wrong place.
4. We know the cloth headliner was discontinued in 1972 so this car was not set up for one. Some stuff was there as the parts carried over-the teeth around the windows to hold the cloth in place and the rearmost 2 bows had the 3 hole pattern punched in the side supports. I was not going to go with the bows that slip into clips as that would entail cutting rectangular holes and that could've been ugly. So I started this by drilling holes in the center of the rectangular "pockets" stamped into the side roof supports and test fitting the bows. The bows should come awfully close to the roof skin so they don't rattle and in dry fitting I drilled a second set of holes about 1/2" below the first. Once I started hanging the headliner for real it gave me some flexibility for best fit:
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. I also made sure to get screws in place for the visors, mirror and dome light so I could easily find them later. I skipped the seat belt and "suit hook" because the hook location is quite obvious (had I known I might have cut them out when it was on the rotisserie) and for the seatbelt hole I marked the channel around the window openings-it's also a pretty easy find when all's said & done. Then I made the retaining "clips" (wires, really) for the back. I started by getting that end bow in the best place and measuring the distance between the slots in the roof frame (which were also present) and it came out around 1 1/2". I made them out of good ol' clothes hanger wire:
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. With the back bow clipped in place I pulled the headliner forward and once it was all up and looking good I started gluing it to the teeth around the windshield. Once it was secure and relatively snug I pulled the wire clips I made out and pulled it all to the back window. I pulled them out because they go in through the cloth pocket in the headliner the bow goes through and I didn't want them to interfere with pulling the sides down and taut-those wires would've locked the headliner in place on the bow and there wouldn't be any 'give' when it came time to pull it down the sides. I did indeed test this when I dry fitted the headliner and it was a thing. For the moment I only glued down the rear opening along the top, leaving the sides for later.
7. Once the front and back were glued in (DAP Weldwood cement, but it seems any kind of rubber/contact cement will work for this application), I started on the sides. From the center to the front, switch sides, then to the back, switch sides. Patience, work it, don't rush it. If it's too tight the stress creases pop right up so back off and let it be wrinkled. It'll come out in the wash. Sails were last and of course this is the trickiest part with the plastic nut for the trim piece retaining screw as well as those hangers.

So it's in. And I like it soooooooo much better than the factory cardboard headliner-especially with the deluxe interior and the woodgrain on the dash.

Speaking of which-the dash & steering column are also refurbished and in:





The instrument cluster is just set in place for the photo op (and it's a safe place for it). The steering column was already assembled but it was just slammed together so I could steer the car around the shop and over the course of prepping for paint it got scratched so it came apart, got repainted and reassembled. The only thing I really missed last time was the spring for the key lockout collar which was missing. Ace hardware sells a spring assortment that had a few in it that worked. And I have a new signal switch on the way-the original one was probably still functional but the flasher 'knob' was broken and that's not replaceable. I have to replace the whole assembly.

So the headliner is in, the dash is in and it's ready for glass I still need to get the gaskets for the windows but this time I'm definitely farming out the installation. Let the pros do it-glass is getting expensive and it's hard to ship. Meanwhile I'll start assembling the firewall/dash bits and finalize the front suspension.

Hit a milestone moment on this yesterday (Tuesday) and that's justification enough for an update on The Progress So Far:

Been working pretty steady on lil' Taz when I have the time and while most of it hasn't been photo worthy plenty got done. One of the biggies was replacing the lower control arms. The ones I saved over the years were out of a '76 Scamp and the sway bar mounts on '73 through '76 were different. I found a stablemate on Craigslist in Oregon-a TX9 '72 Duster 340/4 speed that was being parted out (no title) and road tripped to spend a day stripping it. Not much-beyond the LCAs I got the engine compartment harness, beat up tail lights and door panels as well as plenty of reference pics. Took them to my local welding/fab shop and they blasted them and installed new urethane bushings. Fun fact-Proforce bushings DO NOT FIT. Too big-they collapsed when he tried to press them in. The correct ones come from Andersen Restorations and come in a set with two lowers and four uppers.

And they're in-and without much trouble either:



Then came a bunch of stuff that wasn't really photo-worthy. The heater box is rebuilt and reinstalled. I wanted to use the original heater core but it was showing evidence of leaks and to fix it probably would've been close to the cost of a new aluminum one which weighs half as much. Glove box is in but I don't have the right striker for that older Barracuda style push button latch. Might have to make one to force the missing one to turn up. Parking brake is in. New fuel and brake lines are in. Adding the subframe connectors meant making new lines to fit and while I was at it the fuel line is now 3/8" instead of 5/16" and the vent to the canister is 5/16" instead of 1/4". That one is probably overkill but in an emergency it can be swapped for the fuel feed if needed. I replaced the disintegrating cardboard barrier between the back seat and trunk with a piece of plywood doorskin veneer. Probably the same cost and I can hang amplifiers off the plywood so I don't have to drill more holes in the body-and they'll be up & out of the way. Tail lights are in-they'll probably come out again but for now they're out of the way and somewhere safe like the instrument cluster.

And the milestone? Tuesday afternoon Mountain Mobile of Livingston MT spent an hour putting the glass in






It's been almost 40 years since this car has had glass in it. You forget it's a fastback with that back window out for so long. It's so cool to have it back in again that once again, after I hit "post reply" I'm going back down to the workshop to look at it again before bedtime. To me, it makes it feel like it's finally coming together for real.

The trunk lid is ready for paint-Gibson has their annual end-of-fiscal-year-shutdown for inventory and maintenance next week so I have a 5 day weekend coming up to knock that out and start on the doors. The stainless is all ready to polish & install. I have a hotknife coming so I can trim and final fit the carpet. The upholstery for the front seats showed up so those can be done. I work with someone who's contacting the dirt track racers he knows to see if anyone local has a dyno that can do the cam break-in on the motor as I'm not doing that in the basement. And the wire harness lurks in the corner in a box, waiting...

Assembly is the best part of a project car. And-the glass is in

Congratulations on the milestone. Your car looks great.

Hitting some good mile stones great to see it coming together.

getting close to putting in my windshield an glass soon,,,great milestones on yours

WymanV said:

Thanks for that. It's far from concours quality but it was never meant to be more than a daily driver.

So, to catch up because it's been a while since I did here: The shell is painted, buffed and reassembly is underway (the tail lights are just set in place).

View attachment 1716162436

Sound deadener is in and I added extra jute padding in the footwells to make it a bit more comfy. I laid the carpet out in it, put the car cover on it, a space heater inside it and let it run for the weekend a couple weeks ago. Most of it settled nicely but the area directly behind the shifter hump is not laying down well. I got at it with the heat gun and it sat down a little better but not as much as I'd like. And since bucket seats are going in that's a hi-vis area so I'd like to get it to fit-especially without cutting it.

View attachment 1716162437

View attachment 1716162439


I'll have to keep working on it. I'm on the long waiting list for seat vinyl anyway so no real hurry here.

I also replaced that falling apart steering coupler with a universal coupler. Cheaper and I like the idea anyway.

View attachment 1716162438

So as mentioned earlier the immediate goal is carpet, dash and headliner. The headliner is actually laid out on the bed right now and it can live like that until I tackle that next week. Remember-'72 and up didn't have the cloth headliner so there's an interesting project coming up. Meanwhile I started assembling under the dash and to really get on with that I need to refurbish fasteners. And since it's been (holy hell) 15 years or so since I blasted them, enter my own blast cabinet:

View attachment 1716162440

After entering a discount code this was $97 shipped on ebay and I couldn't make one for less than that. And it's not terrible. Assembly was required and almost everything is held together by metric machine screws & nuts. The only real miss I can fault them for here is the lid hinges which were sheet metal screws into holes that are too big-it's a loose fit and the hinges move about. But I can and will replace them with more machine screws & nuts. You'll see a rectangle on the back wall of the cabinet, on the upper left behind the light. It's a shielded opening that I covered up the outside with a computer fan filter. The cone-like filter on the right wall has an opening in the side that just fits the hose to my small Craftsman shop vac. When I close it up and fire up the vacuum cleaner it sucks it down so well you can't open the lid. NO dust-great visibility. Also note the new squirrel cage in the lower right of the pic as well as some nuts I already caught-the four that hold the wiper linkage in place under the dash. AND-Eastwood's zinc plating system to the left of the cabinet. I'll get all this fired up tomorrow after the Raider game and we'll see how it goes.

It's not much but I'm happy to have one of my own. I won't be blasting engine blocks but it's ideal for the specialty fasteners and small bits I need done. That includes some new lower control arm parts I recently acquired which is a tale to tell of B Body heaven in Oregon that I'll share another time. Meanwhile, assembly continues and the beat goes on...

View attachment 1716162442

Click to expand...

I'm looking into a table top sand blaster similar to yours but I can't get the answer I'm looking for , maybe you can help me? First of all , Amazing build and beautiful Duster! Very impressive. I only have a 20 gallon Compressor , would that be sufficient to operate a small blaster like that? I'll only be using it for small brackets , bolts etc. noting big. Hope this isn't a bother. Thank you!!

Geez, what a build! I only wish I had as much patience as you do....lol Looks fantastic!

67_Slimer said:

I'm looking into a table top sand blaster similar to yours but I can't get the answer I'm looking for , maybe you can help me? First of all , Amazing build and beautiful Duster! Very impressive. I only have a 20 gallon Compressor , would that be sufficient to operate a small blaster like that? I'll only be using it for small brackets , bolts etc. noting big. Hope this isn't a bother. Thank you!!

Click to expand...

Mine's a 5 hp 20 gallon roll-around that does the job.