73 Duster 340 4sp resto

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RIBOATSERVICES

RIBOATSERVICES

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My wife had seen me scanning Craigslist a few times looking at some cars and decided that she would buy one for me for Christmas. She never told me she was going to do this and on Christmas morning 2011 she and our two kids handed me a folder with the title and a few old receipts for a 1973 Plymouth Duster. Wow! Best Christmas ever! My wife had a friend of mine sneak the car into the garage the day before. She told me it was going to need a "little" fixing up and wow, she was right!
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As I looked around the car I was overwhelmed at the amount of work it was going to take to try and bring this car back. The floors were completely gone and half the firewall was rotted thru. The trunk floor was gone and the pass side trunk gutter was toast. The tail panel as well as the trunk drop offs were gone. Both front fenders, both doors and both quarter panels were completely rotted. The bottom of the rocker panels were caved in from someone jacking the car up by them a few dozen times over the years. The pass side front frame rail had a crack 16 inches long and both door jambs were rotted out at the bottoms. The front inner fender were shot and the left front frame rail under the battery you could see your hand thru! Then to top it all, someones wife or girlfriend must have gotten pissed off and did a tap dance on the roof in high heels.
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RIBOATSERVICES said:
As I looked around the car I was overwhelmed at the amount of work it was going to take to try and bring this car back. The floors were completely gone and half the firewall was rotted thru. The trunk floor was gone and the pass side trunk gutter was toast. The tail panel as well as the trunk drop offs were gone. Both front fenders, both doors and both quarter panels were completely rotted. The bottom of the rocker panels were caved in from someone jacking the car up by them a few dozen times over the years. The pass side front frame rail had a crack 16 inches long and both door jambs were rotted out at the bottoms. The front inner fender were shot and the left front frame rail under the battery you could see your hand thru! Then to top it all, someones wife or girlfriend must have gotten pissed off and did a tap dance on the roof in high heels.View attachment 1714991357
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A little bondo and buff it out, You're good to go!!!
 
RIBOATSERVICES said:
As I looked around the car I was overwhelmed at the amount of work it was going to take to try and bring this car back. The floors were completely gone and half the firewall was rotted thru. The trunk floor was gone and the pass side trunk gutter was toast. The tail panel as well as the trunk drop offs were gone. Both front fenders, both doors and both quarter panels were completely rotted. The bottom of the rocker panels were caved in from someone jacking the car up by them a few dozen times over the years. The pass side front frame rail had a crack 16 inches long and both door jambs were rotted out at the bottoms. The front inner fender were shot and the left front frame rail under the battery you could see your hand thru! Then to top it all, someones wife or girlfriend must have gotten pissed off and did a tap dance on the roof in high heels.View attachment 1714991357
Click to expand...
With my wife and the kids so excited about the car there was no way around it, i was going to have to try and fix it. Honestly, this car should have been turned into beer cans 10 years ago but it was a 1973 Plymouth Duster factory 340 4 speed with 323 sure grip and the space duster/fold down rear seat option
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I ended up buying a 75 dart for a parts car and cut the firewall pieces out of it to transplant into mine. Once that was done and the floor tacked in i completely disassembled the car, every last nut, bolt, screw, and wire. Cut out the rotted trunk, drop offs and tail panel.
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Next it was time to tackle the rotten trunk gutter and the part I was really looking forward too (not) the quarter panels !
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Once I had the quarters off, surprise (well, not really) the rockers had big holes below where the water drips down the rear qtr windows and the lower lip that holds the qtr windows in place was completely rotted out! What next!
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Once I finished cutting off the quarter panels it was time for the rotten door jambs, I cut out a couple hundred more spot welds and tossed out the old jambs. I have to say the AMD replacements were a pretty close match! Sorry, some of these pics dont open completely.
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Next it was time to test fit the new AMD quarter panels. They are not bad out of the box but definetly not perfect. Be prepared to do some tweeking but thats to be expected.
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Tacked in the new sheet metal in the back. I was sure glad to get thru that stage! But still a LONG way to go. Found some rot in the front a pillar`s and some in the door hing area so that was cut out and new metal welded in.
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Now it was time to take on the rotten frame, the rotten front inner fenders, and not to my surprise a big rot hole in the drivers side radiator support. After drilling out another couple hundred spot welds and cutting out the rot it was time to tack in the new pieces!
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Now it was time to go back and finish welding up a few thousand plug welds on all the new sheet metal. You can see that after lining up the quarter panels the only place that they just wouldn`t fit correctly was at the top edge of the doors. I have read that this is a common problem with the AMD panels and sure enough mine had the same issue. You can see that you could put your thumb between the quarter and the door at the top (the middle and lower door gap was fine. Instead of pie cutting the area and stretching it out and welding in a piece I decided to just build up the area using pieces of welding rod. Worked out good!
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