1973 Plymouth Duster Build
Well as the story goes - this car is definitely a bit rougher than I expected. I am super impressed by how clean the shell got from the dipping process at Restoration Specialists. A couple unexpected patches and minor rot spots were found, so definitely more work than I expected ahead of me. This is a original 340 car however, and at this point I am committed to being the caretaker of this car, and bringing it back to the best of my ability. I've also shifted my mindset that this Duster will become more of a resto-mod, with a stroked 340 under the hood. I likely will make the US Car Tool stage 3 investment as well to stiffen the chassis up further.
Onto the progress.
I've welded in some 1" steel square tube support structure connecting front/rear frame rails, front to rear on each door jamb, drivers side to passenger side at each door jamb and then from upper and lower support structures. My first goal was to replace the inner/outer rocker on the drivers side. It was toast. I was able to remove the entire inner/outer rocker panel as an assembly, but also found some rot in the base of the inner panel below the rear quarter window where the inner/outer rockers are sandwiched together with that inner panel. Luckily I have found a semi-local person who has that panel already cut out of a Demon and it appears to be clean, so will be picking that up this weekend.
Unfortunately AMD no longer makes the inner rocker panel for the Duster, but I was able to procure AMD inners for a Dart. This required some sectioning to shorten 3" and relocation of the seat belt nut. Drivers side turned out quite nice.
Next up: I'll be tacking in the drivers side inner/outer rocker assembly along with the replacement inner panel next.
Well as the story goes - this car is definitely a bit rougher than I expected. I am super impressed by how clean the shell got from the dipping process at Restoration Specialists. A couple unexpected patches and minor rot spots were found, so definitely more work than I expected ahead of me. This is a original 340 car however, and at this point I am committed to being the caretaker of this car, and bringing it back to the best of my ability. I've also shifted my mindset that this Duster will become more of a resto-mod, with a stroked 340 under the hood. I likely will make the US Car Tool stage 3 investment as well to stiffen the chassis up further.
Onto the progress.
I've welded in some 1" steel square tube support structure connecting front/rear frame rails, front to rear on each door jamb, drivers side to passenger side at each door jamb and then from upper and lower support structures. My first goal was to replace the inner/outer rocker on the drivers side. It was toast. I was able to remove the entire inner/outer rocker panel as an assembly, but also found some rot in the base of the inner panel below the rear quarter window where the inner/outer rockers are sandwiched together with that inner panel. Luckily I have found a semi-local person who has that panel already cut out of a Demon and it appears to be clean, so will be picking that up this weekend.
Unfortunately AMD no longer makes the inner rocker panel for the Duster, but I was able to procure AMD inners for a Dart. This required some sectioning to shorten 3" and relocation of the seat belt nut. Drivers side turned out quite nice.
Next up: I'll be tacking in the drivers side inner/outer rocker assembly along with the replacement inner panel next.
