73 Duster 340 4sp resto

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Since the fenders, doors, hood and deck lid were all junk it took a while to round up some rust free replacements and the two front fenders that I had shipped to RI from Arizona were far from perfect but at least they were rust free, as were the doors, hood and deck lid that I traveled way more miles to find than I wanted to drive! At least the rust and rot were finally gone. Now the long process of getting all the panels ready for epoxy primer!
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Almost forgot that before i could lay down the epoxy i needed to deal with the couple dozen high heel divots that were in the roof, that really sucked!! Also had to dig out all the old drip rail sealer and lay down some new sealer. Then I was able to put down a couple coats of epoxy sealer on the inside. Finally!
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The right front fender that I got out of Arizona was off of a Scamp so the fender mounted directional light was not in the proper location (who knew) for the Duster fender so I had to plug the original holes and drill new ones, along with the holes from the Scamp emblem.
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nothing is easy. It was a big day when I finally got to lay down a couple coats of 2k epoxy sealer/primer. Finally what was left of the original gold poly paint was gone!
 
Wow! You have a lot of talent. You will have a lot of time invested when it's done, and your going to feel good about all you accomplished. 340-4speed-good save
 
Broke out the torch and scraped off all the old factory undercoating (messy and smelly)! Sprayed on a couple coats of sprayable body filler and let it sit for a few days. then it was time for some guide coat and weeks of block sanding the entire car (over and over again), good thing for decent tunes in the garage!
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Wow! You have a lot of talent. You will have a lot of time invested when it's done, and your going to feel good about all you accomplished. 340-4speed-good save
Thanks! 5 years on and off, I didnt work on it during boating season :thumbsup:
 
Nice work! I had one of these not too long ago...have a soft spot for sure keep up the good work.
 
Got everything seem sealed up and shot on 3 more coats of 2k high build primer and then more block sanding!
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Shot the entire interior (guess everyone knows the color now). I know, the factory color was gold with white 340 stripes and It took me a long time to decide on changing the color, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that I could never, ever sell this car (after all, it was a Christmas present) so I might as well paint it the color that I liked. Silver
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Then it was time to lay down 3 coats of base and 3 coats of clear. I know, I know, it`s not a good idea to paint a car in your garage, its not that safe, its not that good for you, and its a royal pain in the ***! Once the clear coat fog cleared it was lookin pretty good, no bugs, no runs, and only a couple small specs of dust to wet sand out.
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With the body painted it was time to move on to the suspension. I braced up the lower control arms by welding in some scrap pieces of steel, went completely thru the k frame and re-welded every seam, nook and cranny(factory does a pretty crappy job welding the k frame), then had it powder coated black. Replaced every front end part, all upper and lower control arm bushing, ball joints (tack welded the uppers just in case), sway bar links, power steering box and every brake part. Replaced the rear leafs with mopar XHD springs, and relocated the springs inboard .80 per side for extra tire clearance.
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Then it was time to lay down 3 coats of base and 3 coats of clear. I know, I know, it`s not a good idea to paint a car in your garage, its not that safe, its not that good for you, and its a royal pain in the ***! Once the clear coat fog cleared it was lookin pretty good, no bugs, no runs, and only a couple small specs of dust to wet sand out.View attachment 1714991750 View attachment 1714991751 View attachment 1714991752 View attachment 1714991753 View attachment 1714991754

Turned out nice! How did you keep the overspray from coating the floor? I just painted a few small parts in garage, covering everything with plastic like you did, but now I have purple over spray in funny patterns on my floor. I am thinking it was because there was no ventilation?
 
Turned out nice! How did you keep the overspray from coating the floor? I just painted a few small parts in garage, covering everything with plastic like you did, but now I have purple over spray in funny patterns on my floor. I am thinking it was because there was no ventilation?
Ya, overspray sucks! I made a complete enclosure out of plastic, put a couple of box fans on the garage floor facing out with filters, then put a dozen or so furnace filters in the plastic sheeting so the fresh air could get in. I don`t recommend it (someone on here will blame me for blowin up thier house or passing out and brain damaged) but I got away with it (your wife may not like the way you smell when you get into bed but mine got over it). I picked my days when there was very little breeze outside to minimize dust and lightly watered the floor. It would be harder to paint the entire car at once, I painted the doors , fenders , ect off the car then painted the rest of the car. I know, it`s not the way the pros do it, but i`m no pro either.
 
Ya, overspray sucks! I made a complete enclosure out of plastic, put a couple of box fans on the garage floor facing out with filters, then put a dozen or so furnace filters in the plastic sheeting so the fresh air could get in. I don`t recommend it (someone on here will blame me for blowin up thier house or passing out and brain damaged) but I got away with it (your wife may not like the way you smell when you get into bed but mine got over it). I picked my days when there was very little breeze outside to minimize dust and lightly watered the floor. It would be harder to paint the entire car at once, I painted the doors , fenders , ect off the car then painted the rest of the car. I know, it`s not the way the pros do it, but i`m no pro either.

That is what I figured. I was missing the fans, I didn't think i needed them because of the small parts, but I guess so! Thanks and car looks phenomenal.
 
Now it was time to get the dash put back together so that I could put the windshield and the rest of the glass in. The dash was just a disaster, i almost took the dash frame out of the Dart parts car I had but I really didn`t want to mess up the vin tag by having to drill out the rivets and riveting it back in the Dart frame (I know, it`s probably way easier then rebuilding this entire car but I just wasn`t sure if it would look correct afterwards and didn`t want it to look like someone tampered with the vin # ). Anyway, the dash frame was hacked up bad, the usual amateur stereo installer had butchered the radio mount, i`m guilty of doing it once or five times myself, and someone decided that a couple of 2 inch gauges would look awesome drilled right into the middle of the dash! WTF
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Seeing what you started with and where you're at now is AMAZING!!!!! Great work, looking forward to seeing how it all came out.
 
I stripped down the dash, welded in new metal to cover up the gauge holes. I was able to use the Deluxe dash panels out of the parts car to dress up the dash and to be able to put a stock AM radio back in. Also sound proofed and insulated under the dash, floors, roof, ect. Painted the dash frame black and installed a new black dash pad.
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