Too bad there isn't an automotive tech school near you. You may be able to work out some type of deal with them.
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- Thread starter Mason Moran
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Wyotech is 2 hours north.
Local high schools
Local high schools
Come on guys, where is your sense of adventure. Thinking as a young man buying an affordable A Body, not everyone has 10 grand to throw out on a fixer upper, so you fix what you find.
Get her up on jack stands, back off the torsion adjusters 5 turns, support the tranny.
Drop the bolt in center trans cross member. Now cut off the end of that rusted torsion boxing off clean at the torsion bar casting and the bottom rust, leaving the torsion assembly in.
Now floor Jack and a block of wood, easily jack that torsion assembly back up in place with the tension off the torsion bars. Now weld in the clean replacement crossmember tip to the torsion assembly, and bolt in the trans cross member to support the trans again. He has access to parts car at pick and pull and batt power sawsall.
Worse case senario just rebuild the crossmember tip with 1/8" flat mild steel pieces and weld that back in. Can make some carboard templates off the other side for the pattern pieces.
Down on her wheels driving again.
ChargedDart75
Well-Known Member
While I agree with what you're saying, all of the rust above the torsion bar box needs to be addressed at the same time IMO to do it right.
Exactly!
ChargedDart75
Well-Known Member
Plus it looks like there is a lot of rust where the bolt in cross member mounts are.
I would say half of the A Body owners on here have had to patch their floors in some fashion. There are plenty of posts from members on here on how they have done the next step.
You could put it on a hoist but it may fold in half. Parts car!
ChargedDart75
Well-Known Member
Again, I completely agree with you on this part too. Then the next step is making sure there aren't any other problem spots that need to be addressed ASAP. I personally would like to see him fix it, and there is plenty of knowledge on this board to help him fix it. But with him being in school, that may not be an option at this moment, and this will only become worse of an issue.
If the OP, young owner . . was closer to my shop I would fix that torsion box section for him.
Would have it done by lunch, 50.00 in materials and supplies.
Good Times
Bring 'em back, Don't Crush them . . .
Would have it done by lunch, 50.00 in materials and supplies.
Good Times
Bring 'em back, Don't Crush them . . .
You better have a fully equipped shop to do the metal replacement. The photo above isn't the only area that needs attention. Let's see, a college kid living in Colorado where it snows 6 month of the year. Go to college, get a good job/career, pay off your student loans then you can buy a decent car to have fun with.
I put full rear floor pans in mine, plus made some extensions to weld on the front of them because the rust went further front of where the new rear pans ended. Were I a younger man, I would say the job was easy. I will say it wasn't extremely difficult, although my knees didn't like it, even with gel filled knee pads. But I got the job done.
You had something to weld to though! LOL
Yup. While I agree with trying to save as many as we can, I don't know that saving "this one" is the best choice for "this owner". Unless maybe he can find someone who is willing to help. I mean......if it was a 340 car.........
That's very true. And now except for the driver's side rear outer wheelhouse, the little car is really solid.......and that's next on the list. lol
diymirage
HP@idle > hondaHP@redline
only problem with that is...by the time he pays of his student loans, there may not be any A bodies left
I'll sell him mine.
Armchair quarter backing is easy to do.
Folks who have experience fixing cars with similar or worse rust than what’s been shown so far probably didn’t do while going to college, living in a state with winter for 6 months and no garage to store it in while it’s on blocks. No mention if he has another car to drive while the Duster is at the curb on blocks under a foot of snow. Is his priority getting through school or fixing a beater so it’s at least road worthy? It’s hard to have both as top priorities.
Sure, now that you’ve got experience, you can do the job quite efficiently. However, the first time you welded, did it take a little longer to do from inexperience? This guy has limited welding knowledge and no garage to keep the car in while he learns. And the limited knowledge is ok since we all had limited knowledge in everything once upon a time. Suggesting that he roll up his sleeves and ‘just get it done’ is easy with experience but not going to be easy for him. Suggesting it’s a $50 fix makes it seem like a 1hr job which it won’t be with limited experience.
Folks who have experience fixing cars with similar or worse rust than what’s been shown so far probably didn’t do while going to college, living in a state with winter for 6 months and no garage to store it in while it’s on blocks. No mention if he has another car to drive while the Duster is at the curb on blocks under a foot of snow. Is his priority getting through school or fixing a beater so it’s at least road worthy? It’s hard to have both as top priorities.
Sure, now that you’ve got experience, you can do the job quite efficiently. However, the first time you welded, did it take a little longer to do from inexperience? This guy has limited welding knowledge and no garage to keep the car in while he learns. And the limited knowledge is ok since we all had limited knowledge in everything once upon a time. Suggesting that he roll up his sleeves and ‘just get it done’ is easy with experience but not going to be easy for him. Suggesting it’s a $50 fix makes it seem like a 1hr job which it won’t be with limited experience.
Hey Guys
All this talk about rebuilding the Torsion Bar Boxing at the trans crossmember mount area, i remembered I had these professionally made pattern templates here.
Trying to remember who I got these from.
Think it was the meticulous owners of the '69 Satellite I got ahold of a few years back. The guy did some custom classic car sheet metal fabrications on the side. He built a nice Stainless Steel battery tray for the Satellite to catch the battery acid. These people were extreme fussy with their stuff.
Any how these correct dimension and thickness templates are patterns for the front and rear side of the box section torsion repair.
The front side you just fold 90° at the 2 slots, then that welds to the forward extending box section too, making it really strong.
These could be easily traced on to thin carboard and shipped out to people that could use them. Paying tribute to the skilled mopar man that made them, as he is passed away now.
Interesting what comes up in these discussions . . .
All this talk about rebuilding the Torsion Bar Boxing at the trans crossmember mount area, i remembered I had these professionally made pattern templates here.
Trying to remember who I got these from.
Think it was the meticulous owners of the '69 Satellite I got ahold of a few years back. The guy did some custom classic car sheet metal fabrications on the side. He built a nice Stainless Steel battery tray for the Satellite to catch the battery acid. These people were extreme fussy with their stuff.
Any how these correct dimension and thickness templates are patterns for the front and rear side of the box section torsion repair.
The front side you just fold 90° at the 2 slots, then that welds to the forward extending box section too, making it really strong.
These could be easily traced on to thin carboard and shipped out to people that could use them. Paying tribute to the skilled mopar man that made them, as he is passed away now.
Interesting what comes up in these discussions . . .
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I read what you’re typing and agree that parts/solutions exist to fix the car in question! In fact his entire Duster can be fixed. I don’t think anyone is disputing that.
Implementing the solution/installing the parts is the issue in this case. The owner doesn’t have a place to have the car sit while he’s making the repairs and nor does he have to tools available to cut/bend the metal available for the one of many repairs needed to get the car road worthy. The issue here is the time/tools/funds/covered area that the owner doesn’t have, not if the parts are available.
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