72 duster Build progress

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I finally got a go wing spoiler for my duster!!!!!

(a member here had one he was not using and worked out a really awesome partial trade deal with me on it)

and another member had a brand new set of mounting brackets for the spoiler that go on the under side of the trunk lid (I am guessing they will arrive mid this week) then I can drill my holes and test fit the spoiler.

the spoiler needs to be sanded and repainted but thats not a big deal......and all the hardware had surface rust on it (some screw heads were rounded off and froze in place and some bolt heads were busted clean off) so once I drilled out all the broken screws and bolts and dinked around with getting them removed (which I successfully managed to do lol) I then took all the rusted hardware and put it in a bucket of muratic acid for about 20 minutes.....and when I removed the parts they all looked like new!.

then I rinsed and dried it all, primed them,painted them and clear coated them so they wont rust up again.

(anyone who has rusty bolts,brackets,tools or whatever and you do not have access to a sand blaster....I highly suggest going to walmart or somewhere to the swimming pool or chemical (paint stripping,varnish and so on) section and getting a $5.00 gallon of muratic acid. The stuff works amazing on rusted parts! and cleans them up FAST and will slightly etch the metal at the same time to make for a good surface for painting.....I mix it about 70/30 with water and it does a great job (make sure to wear gloves and a face mask though because the stuff is nasty smelling and will burn if it gets on you.

I think i forgot to take before pictures and I have yet to take any after pictures but Ill post pictures soon.
 
Does muratic acid work on grease and old paint as well?

I honestly have not tried it on eithee but would assume it would break downnthe grease and atleast aid in the removal. I don't think it will do much for paint though.

I know it works great for rust, I know it works great for cleaning/etching concrete. I know it will melt a pop can on contact lol so avoid aluminum. Now sure if it would do anythinh to glass. I know its not reactive with plastic.
 
Thanks, anxiously awaiting the brackets to show up so I can get the spoiler installed.

pulled the duster out of the garage yesterday and cleaned the garage,got all my brake lights working and installed the tail lamps so I could get some shelf space back for now.

sanded down the passenger rear quarter panel and hammer and dollied my weld seam.

then put some duragass down.

then I call it a night cause I had been up for about 24 hours at that point lol.

my glass guy is coming out today to pull my windshield back out and reinstall/reseal it because it has a leak somewhere.......he just ran a strip of butyl tape on the very bottom portion of the windshield gasket and thats it......I am going to tell him I want butyl tape tucked in the glass channel of the gasket all the way around and that I want urethane adhesive all the way around the gasket in the channel of the car itself.....THEN it should be sealed .

thats whats going on here anyways.
 
This is what I started with for the spoiler brackets and what not.

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here are the busted studs in the pedastals that I ended up removing and then drilling out the pedastals and placing new nuts in and duraglassing in place (I forgot to take pictures of them all done but I will soon).
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here they are after muratic acid dip and painting (they have some porosity from where the rust was but they are still solid....my cellphone pictures make them look worse than they do in person)
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Backed the duster out of the garage yesterday so I could clean the garage and stuff (did a little burnout while I was at it LOL).

anyhow, took a couple of pictures of the duster while it was sitting there.....don't mind the calico paint job.....make it look like a hunk of crap lol, cant wait to atleast get it in primer so its one color for once.

Back end looks pretty tough

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yup......she is definitely calico complected lol
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and here is when I started sanding the passenger side rear quarter after I hammer and dollied out my weld seam some .

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here is where I took it down to metal and then cross hatched the metal with 36 grit to give the duraglass a little something extra to stick to.
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and here is right after I applied duraglass to my seam.....Ill post more pictures as I make progress.
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that passenger side quarter came out SWEEET!! Great work dude...
 
that passenger side quarter came out SWEEET!! Great work dude...

Thank ya!, I could have done without the bit of warping I ended up with on my weld seam but ohh well....about an hours worth of extra work bumping the panel and it still came out pretty dang close.

I started sanding the duraglass down today and its looking like its going to come out nice.

once I get it close ill hit it with some filler and start perfecting it.

then I still need to grind my plug welds down in the wheel wells and around the tail panel and I can work on finishing up the hole back half of the car and once thats done ill move forward to the rest of the car.

my hopes are to have it in primer by the end of august but even if i slack off a bit....as long as I get it in primer before summer is over ill be happy.

Good job man! And your Duster still looks sweet multicolored. lol


HAHA thanks.....atleast one of us thinks so. I hate backing it out of the garage or showing it to people because normally the first impression is...people see multi color and primer and bare metal in spots and they automatically think "junk".....they don't get the whole "work in progress" thing.lol
 
Man, just finished reading your whole thread.
I've been reading it for quite a few days actually...
Great work, great car, and great will and determination, congrats for all that!I know what you mean about motivation, my car has been sitting for almost ten years now.
Funds, time, family, room...it all can be a pain sometimes.
Congrats on your new kid, I haven´t got any yet, and still can´t manage to work on the car...lol

I will have two weeks off of work late July, hope to get all the pending work on my cars parts done and let it all ready to be just bolted on.

Keep the work coming, its trully inpirational.
 
man, no way that says "junk". it says rough, tough, and independent. I'd love to ride around in a well built piece of "junk" like that, let some fool think its junk then blow him away with performance. I think you tend to be too concerned with picture perfect (shiny engine etc.), I respect capabilities more than appearances, though you might not guess this from my car, but surely striving for perfection is admirable.

the back does look mean, keep it up. :bball:
 
Alex "Berkowitz";1438273 said:
Man, just finished reading your whole thread.
I've been reading it for quite a few days actually...
Great work, great car, and great will and determination, congrats for all that!I know what you mean about motivation, my car has been sitting for almost ten years now.
Funds, time, family, room...it all can be a pain sometimes.
Congrats on your new kid, I haven´t got any yet, and still can´t manage to work on the car...lol

I will have two weeks off of work late July, hope to get all the pending work on my cars parts done and let it all ready to be just bolted on.

Keep the work coming, its trully inpirational.

Thanks.....yeah, family,funds and other day to day stuff sure does slow down the process of the project alot....for me anyhow. I am sure if I made a bunch of money I would have been done long ago....or if I had a crew of people to help or pay to help finish it......but just going at it by myself so I try to accomplish what I can and when I can. I have had the duster 2 years in august and I didnt touch it at all for the last 2 winters so I technically only have a few months worth of actual work into it.....when you look at it that way I guess the progress isnt to bad. Ill get it done sooner or later though....hoping to have paint on it in the spring and to be driving it and fine tuning things next summer.

. Your Duster is a thing of beauty. I'm sure you inspire a lot of FABO members with their projects

Well thank ya......I sure hope I have given some folks here inspiration and motivation for their own projects.

man, no way that says "junk". it says rough, tough, and independent. I'd love to ride around in a well built piece of "junk" like that, let some fool think its junk then blow him away with performance. I think you tend to be too concerned with picture perfect (shiny engine etc.), I respect capabilities more than appearances, though you might not guess this from my car, but surely striving for perfection is admirable.

the back does look mean, keep it up. :bball:

Thanks......I am not so much set on picture perfect and everything has to be "shiny" and what not........but I guess what bothers me the most is that most people that see it judge it by what it looks like from the outside and can't understand the amount of money and physical time I have invested into the car.......I know I know "who cares what they think" lol but it still bugs me when some people see it in the stage its in. Ill get it further along though and then things will be different.

And I personally do not think my car is "junk"......It wasnt even junk when I first bought it......it was just in need of attention lol....and I have gave it alot of attention. looking back,the car has came a long ways from where it was and the lsit of things to do has considerably been shortened.

I am going to try to get as much done as I can in the next few months before cold weather starts to come and then HOPEFULLY all Ill be looking at for the most part is paint and little details.
 
Went to the hardware store today....got some stuff I needed to put my spoiler trunk lid brackets on,spoiler and some other stuff.

got the spoiler mounted down (temporary....still need to get mounting gaskets and of course primer and paint) but it least it keep it off my garage floor or work bench lol.

I like it.....I think it changes the hole looks of the *** end of these cars ....makes it look tougher.

also spent some time jacking the car up and pin pointing a tranny leak I have had for awhile and I THINK I fixed it....if not considerably slowed it down.

I had a cap on my speedo housing until I got around to installing my speedo gear and cable and the cap must have had a crack in it and was the big contributor to the leak it had....I finally installed the speedo gear and cable and so far no leaks.

other than that it looks like there was a little seeping from a couple pan bolts...so I snugged them up.......we shall see if there are any drips.

even if it slows it down to a small spot on my garage floor until I get around to fixing it.....ill be happy.....before it would drop about a quart of fluid in a week of sitting all over my garage floor lol.

going to get back on body work soon....just waiting for some cooler days...it has been in the 90's with the sun beating down almost every day and one thing I do not like doing is sweating my *** off and getting covered in filler/primer dust....lol.

here are some pics of the spoiler sitting on the duster.

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That wing does change the look of it alot.

I was thinking about adding a wing but still not sure.

The car is looking great though, I am hoping for cooler days, but it still has not come..

Keep up the good work.
 
That wing does change the look of it alot.

I was thinking about adding a wing but still not sure.

The car is looking great though, I am hoping for cooler days, but it still has not come..

Keep up the good work.

Thanks!

yeah for the last few weeks its been pretty dang hot.....everyones grass is brown because of all the heat and the lack of rain.

there is rain in the forcast this week though so hopefully it will cool down a bit so its not so uncomfortable to mess around with the duster.

And I personally like a good ole spoiler on these old mopars.....sure if everyone did it ....it would look a little less appealing....but to me I think it helps make the car.

I kind of like the gull wing spoilers.....I don't like the direct connection spoilers really but I love the go wing spoilers!

you can always mess around with photoshop to see what your car would look like with a spoiler prior to taking the plunge.
 
Great!!!! love the Go Wing looks killer I do love the the wing on all Mopars, so you got my vote. Really give's it that lets kick some "***" look :)
Brad
 
I always thought the 'go-wing' really looked good on the Duster/Demon body style. The fast back seemed to flow into the wing and looks right at home on that body style.
I'm not quite so sure about the Swinger/Scamp body though. Almost looks like it is just bolted onto the deck lid as an after thought! I say that only because I still haven't made up my mind as to whether I want to put one on my 70 Swinger or not?!? Ben.
 
Love the wing!!! I always wanted one of those go wings.. but it would never look right on a 69 Dart.. .Looks awesome on your Duster!
 
Great!!!! love the Go Wing looks killer I do love the the wing on all Mopars, so you got my vote. Really give's it that lets kick some "***" look :)
Brad

I always thought the 'go-wing' really looked good on the Duster/Demon body style. The fast back seemed to flow into the wing and looks right at home on that body style.
I'm not quite so sure about the Swinger/Scamp body though. Almost looks like it is just bolted onto the deck lid as an after thought! I say that only because I still haven't made up my mind as to whether I want to put one on my 70 Swinger or not?!? Ben.

Love the wing!!! I always wanted one of those go wings.. but it would never look right on a 69 Dart.. .Looks awesome on your Duster!


Thanks guys. I for sure like the looks of the wings on the dusters and demons and dart sports and what not.....I don't think they look to bad on darts and stuff either.

well, I had planned on messing with the duster today......BUT didnt happen!

My wife left the moonroof on our jeep open and we had a huge storm and it soaked the dash and when it did it short circuited the climate control center and turned the blower motor on and ran the battery down.

it also soaked our in dash dvd/touch screen navigation stereo and it stopped working.

I ended up putting a charger on it, ripping apart the dash,pulling the stereo and climate control unit out.

pulled the climate control apart into a bunch of pieces and dried everything as well as I could and put it back together and it worked still luckily.

finally got the battery charged but when I would start the jeep it would immediatly stall out.

I tried starting it a few times with the same result......and then I remembered having a dodge ram that did the same thing once after the battery died and I remembered I had to do a trick to get it running again which was start it and hold the throttle at 1500 rpm for around 60 seconds.....which by doing so gives the computer time to relearn the perimeters and it stayed running after that and runs great like normal.

I left the radio out so I could take it all apart and dry it out because my wife had to go to work and I had to hurry up and wrap up what I was doing.

anyhow.....thats how my day went lol....hopefully when I put the radio back in it will work fine too.
 
Wing looks good! Remember that your car, even in its current state, is way cooler than anything sold today!
 
Thanks.

Well.....yesterday rain stopped me from getting anything done with the duster because my wife left the moonroof open on our jeep and it messed all the electrical up.

today I have not been able to get anything done on the duster OR finish up fixing the jeep because water has screwed me once again!!!!

went to take a shower just to find there was no hot water......so I went down to the basement to find about 4" of water pooled up down there.......it looks like the return hose for our washing machine come un done and my wife went down stairs and turned the washer on and then left and it had been filling the basment for a few hours instead of filling the washer tub.

AWESOME......if I didnt have bad luck I wouldnt have any it seems lately.

between my wifes layoff and bills stacking up and things breaking everytime I turn around and all the while having to worry about another little one on the way.....it gets overwhelming.

anyhow guys.....if I don't do any updating on the duster for a little bit.....thats why.
 
Wow your tail panel and rear lights look awesome. The interior looks great too! Alittle late to the show but hey your car looks great!
 
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