Building a Duster for the wife.

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Rd2Scamp

Rd2Scamp

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Well come February it will be 2 years ago I bought a 1971 Duster to build for my wife. But she doesn’t know that it’s going to be her’s. I started on it last spring and was starting to make some progress and then we had a wedding in August for my step son and vacation (Power tour) in late August and then I got Covid the 1st of September and now recovering from Surgery on December 15th. So things have kind of stalled. I hope to get back to work on it sometime in January.
My plans for the car is to put either a 318 or 360 in it. Duster came with a /6. I want it to be a 340 clone with FM3 paint and the blacked out hood. Black interior and a few upgrades like bluetooth radio an usb port to charge your phone and A/C. I would like to have it done late September for her birthday. Fingers crossed.
Here are some pictures of what I started with and my progress so far. I had been posting some videos on YouTube and plans for more. https://youtube.com/user/brianwil89

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You are ambitious for a September completion. Be safe and have fun!
 
I am curious about something..... Why not let her know and be involved with it? Having been down this road before there was absolute transparency about the ex-wife and the car we built for her. She got to make most of the decisions so that she could have it the way she wanted..... Just throwing that out there...

Either way awesome of you to do this and with less than a year you will definitely need to get real efficient. If you need interior parts from Legendary put your order in today from I am reading. Major wait time.

JW
 
SLOPAR72 said:
I am curious about something..... Why not let her know and be involved with it? Having been down this road before there was absolute transparency about the ex-wife and the car we built for her. She got to make most of the decisions so that she could have it the way she wanted..... Just throwing that out there...

JW
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We’ve been together for about 25 years now. I’ve been into cars since I was 16. She has never wanted to come to the barn and work on anything with me. As far as she knows I building it to sell it.
 
Rd2Scamp said:
We’ve been together for about 25 years now. I’ve been into cars since I was 16. She has never wanted to come to the barn and work on anything with me. As far as she knows I building it to sell it.
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Just set realistic goals about this. Who knows, it might light that fire in her and she kicks you out of the shop lol....

Good luck,
JW
 
I have about the same plan for this slant 6 original fm3 car.
What is your plan for the under side ? I'm thinking spray bedliner Looks like yours is an A/C car also. Do you plan on going back with it?

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I will probably do the bed liner on the under side as well. I did that on my Scamp.
 
Why does every one want spray bedliner under their car? I bought a car with it on there and it is not any good, it sucks. Try to remove it, good luck.
 
413 said:
Why does every one want spray bedliner under their car? I bought a car with it on there and it is not any good, it sucks. Try to remove it, good luck.
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When you say "its not any good" how do you mean? Poor adhesion? Some bedliners are better than others, A catalyzed urethane on a properly prepped surface should last for my ever.
 
Good luck on your goals!
Interior shots bring back memories. From a been there done that point of view, inspect the T-bar socket area in the crossmember carefully. In the rust belt, the crossmember tends to rust from the inside out and the vertical wall metal can get pretty thin. I added extra metal on the inside like straps from the top of the sockets to the bottom of the crossmember. It's all hidden on the inside but I doubled up on the outside welds too. Nothing worse than driving down the road snd BANG! Your front end drops down as the socket twists out.
 
I’m glad your doing some videos. I’m hoping to start work on my Duster soon, but when soon is, IDK, LOL!
A lot of what your doing I’ll need to do as well.

PS - I subscribed
 
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Got a little work done on the Duster. Got the old door skin off and the new one just hanging in place. I was also able to get the old firewall out and new one set in place. Both need some fine tuning before I make them permanent.



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Been ordering same parts the past few weeks so I have them on hand when I need them. A few of them are of course on back order until May and a few have shown up. Trying to get the higher priced things out of the way. And man have prices gone up. I ordered a Shark’s tooth grill complete also interior door panels front and back. Ordered a headliner too along with carpet. The carpet and the gas tank I ordered showed up this week. I also ordered a new set of rallye center caps for a 71. Trying to stay ahead of the game with parts so I can spend more then a few hours a week on the Duster when it warms up. God please warm up !!!
 
Well I’m starting to get worried about my goal. I’m not making much progress on the car. The weather has been crap and now I’m just getting over Covid for the second time in 7 months. I’m also having trouble getting some parts with back order problems. I did have one show up yesterday that I ordered back in February. The nee grill.

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COVID twice in a year???

Oh my Lord! GOD bless.

Sit back and relax. With the way things are now, it’s just a lot of sit and wait. Stuff just dribbles I these days. You get to it when you get to it. It’ll get done but not in the timely fashion you hoped for.
 
rumblefish360 said:
COVID twice in a year???

Oh my Lord! GOD bless.

Sit back and relax. With the way things are now, it’s just a lot of sit and wait. Stuff just dribbles I these days. You get to it when you get to it. It’ll get done but not in the timely fashion you hoped for.
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May have to aim for next year? Guess well just do what I can do.

Yes two times. First time was the worst. Spent time in the hospital. This time not so bad. Good thing I got that shot, right ?
 
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