Charger

[1967 'cuda]

I originally posted the pictures of our 1968 Charger project in the Member Photo Gallery section, but thought maybe I should have put them here instead. I've been a gearhead all of my life. My son Spencer never expressed any interest in cars until after he joined the Army. When he graduated basics he came home and told me that he wanted to buy a Chevelle.

Although I tend to lean heavily towards Chrysler products (I've owned Chevys too) I was thrilled that he wanted a muscle car. We bought a 1968 SS clone big block and we drove it from Nebraska to his base in Georgia. After his first tour of Iraq he told me he really wanted to find a '68 Charger R/T that we could fix up. So we searched across the country for a candidate to restore when he came home on leave again. We didn't have much time to find a car he could afford, and we knew we were most likely going to have to travel to pick one up. That would take time too. He saw one advertized down in Oklahoma but there were no pictures of it. The guy told him it was rust free, straight, and in primer. It would take us a day to get there and we didn't have time to mess around. So we borrowed a friend's truck figuring that we'd rent a trailer after we got down there if the car was acceptable. Ignore the date stamps on the pictures, - they're inaccurate.

Thought I'd upload a few pictures of the Charger as it looked when we first got it back from Oklahoma. - Before the work began. Although we weren't sure what the body was like beneath the primer, there were indications of bondo all over. Previous owner claimed body was really straight and rust free. yeah, right.

We had borrowed Bill Wenske's truck to make the journey. The U-HAUL trailer rented in Oklahoma worked great.
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photo you can see how twisted/melted it was. The front blinkers were melted too.

Tires and wheels were scabs put on it just to get it to roll. Keep in mind there was no engine, transmission, drive shaft, radiator, usable interior, or almost anything else other than the shell. Half of the brake hardware was missing. Windshield was starting to fog around the edges. It was hard to find a whole lot of positive things to say about the car. But, serial numbers confirm that it is a true RT. Or at least what's left of one.

too bad we didn't get the factory wheel with the car. - as you can see it had air conditioning and it's needing a whole lot of TLC

inside rear shot shows surface rust, but is solid

Spence, Spence, Spence, I can\t wait for you to come home and start working on the car again

1st day we took off the doors, fenders, trunk, hood, bumpers, tail lights, glass, grill assembly cleaned out the rotted interior (carpet and headliner)and then took it to the car wash to try to get the smell out of the car

demolition was a lot faster than reassembly will be

 

[swinger340]

One of my favorite cars.

 

[1967 'cuda]

sitting under the tree. at least it's in the shade

The hemi would have fit, but we got enough headaches with the Charger without trying to shoehorn it in

the parts actually look better inside the shop than they did on the car

OMG

rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust rust and more rust

the rear valance is too mangled to repair. anything's fixable, but bent and rusted are a bad combo

previously owned by the Flintstones?

definitely got some rust in this lower rear quarter - once again, it seems minor, but won't know for sure until it's stripped

it looks like it's lurking behind the trees

I didn't hate the Dukes of Hazard, but I think it's ridiculous how many people decided to create their own clone car. As you can tell from the color, the previous owner was sending this car to the same fate. I feel like we rescued it

 

[1967 'cuda]

cheater slicks from the fremont swap meet mounted to check clearance

They're 12 1/2" wide - hopefully it'll hook up

I wouldn't have minded tubbing, but there's not much room for exhaust out the back if we keep a stock gas tank

those 10" long shackles have to go

with no weight in it, the back of the car is sitting higher than we'd want

passenger side view of the new tire/wheel combo

just another shot of the car

We won't be running these rims, but the offset seems to be as close as we can get to what we need

the cheater slicks fit, but they're tight

I still wish we had an extra 1/2" clearance inside and out

 

[1967 'cuda]

as the paint is coming off the left rear quarter, signs of bondo begin showing up. - so far, only light ding repair

it's even uglier under the dash - I wonder just how many mice lived in this thing

all the paint and undercoat needs to come off

sanding paint, rust, and undercoating off takes time - realized we're missing a lot of brake components here

It's truly a shade tree project right now

@^%*&!!!! I couldn't believe we had a rust hole on the topside of the left rear quarter

finally got the fuel inlet cap/ring assembly off - filler tube is still in place

trying to put new black on engine compartment areas a they're stripped to keep surface rust from forming

drivers side door jamb stripped and reprimed

eBay box arrived with new white visors, chrome arm rest bases, and front blinker lenses

 

[1967 'cuda]

new gas tank sure is pretty

trunk floor is actually worse than this looks

even the dash had a lot of rust - stripped, descaled, sanded, prepped for paint

more dash pics

dash was in good shape after removing rust, wasp nests, mouse turds, etc...

another view of the dash

driver side door gutted, stripped, straightened, primered in background - passenger side (gray) waiting for its turn

dash topside view in primer

underside of dash in black primer

front valance panel is finally the right shape again

 

[1967 'cuda]

front valance panel still needed a slight skim of bondo after straightening

most of the old trunk floor is gone now

trunks much roomier now

new trunk floor halves

this is a picture of the 4" x 10" center dash speaker and one of the two 3 & 1/2" side dash speakers - had to replace them of course, and strip, descale the rust, and repaint the attaching brackets

this shot is of the dash partially re-assembled. dash pad has a crack in the center. I tried using a vinyl repair on it, but it's still very noticeable. - does not look bad, but noticeable. still no tach, light switch, plastic for the radio section, glove box liner, latch, or lock. still not certain of functionality of switches and gauges. it's getting dusty from being in the shop.

another shot of the dash. I set an old cd player in the dash to get an idea of how it would look. the gauges have become discolored over the years and I will probably put white overlays on and paint the needles fluorescent red. the white will make them stand out and tie in with the white interior that's coming.

It took a lot of work to redo the grill. The replacement one I purchased had over twenty cracks in it, but was repairable using parts from the grill we got with the car. A special 'welding' glue (expensive) was used on the fractures. The factory correct ARGENT SILVER paint was applied to the outer ring and a semi-gloss black applied to the grill and headlight doors, - gloss black on the steel surrounding structure. I pieced together the best pieces of the aluminum trim from the two grills. They were dull, pitted, and had over-spray on them, but were straight. - Couldn't get them to take a decent polish. but I think they still look good. I re-polished and repainted the RT emblem, but I can't seem to find the grill's CHARGER emblem.

Another shot of the rebuilt grill project. I still need to finish sanding down and repaint the vacuum actuators, their brackets and arms. Hood latch is done, but not attached yet. - Same with the hood pop-up spring. Wiring and vacuum lines will be re-attached after the rest is done. All metal had surface rust. The plastic was faded. - And everything was coated in grease/grime.

One more shot of that grill assembly. Here you can see the headlight doors are open. The headlight buckets are galvanized and were covered with corrosion and grime. - Used a scuff pad to remove the corrosion and polished the lights. These grills are supposed to have silver paint on the leading edges of every fin, but I chose to black it out instead. A lot of people (including myself) think they look better this way.

 

[j-miller]

Nice Charger project going on! The '68 Chevelle SS clone looked nice too.

 

[1967 'cuda]

Good news!! The 8 3/4 posi is out of the car, -been stripped of grease, grime, rust, and undercoating. Bad news??? Turns hard and doesn't seem to have any oil in it.

The shop is getting better organized. Charger parts are now shelved.

The 283 and 331 stroker are still waiting on their engine stands.

Still have some lumber/parts to put away.

Test fitting the new floor.

Looks like it'll be a good fit, but I still need to trim a bit more and spray the frame first.

If it looks too difficult to stitch it down by myself, I'll wait until Spence comes home to give me a hand.

With the car on the hoist, it's time to remove all of the rust and crud from the undercarriage.

Another shot of the underneath.

- And one more.

 

[1967 'cuda]

with the passenger side lifted, the special chassis black paint begins to go on

the inside ceiling gets the same treatment

another shot of the passenger side undercarriage having the chassis paint applied

finally the driver's side is lifted

tried to take several photos of the progress on the undercarriage

another of the driver's side

most of the interior will get the chassis black to prevent future rust

the inside of the trunk will be coated too

One of the trunk floor halves coated with POR15

After the decision was made to coat as much as possible with the special anti-rust coating, much of what was already black will have to be stripped again.

 

[1967 'cuda]

I hate stripping paint from all the crooks and crannies.

Gradually the paint is coming back off.

The car looks much better with a floor in it.

The Charger should be very solid when done. Pop rivets hold the floor in place temporarily and will be re-drilled out and replaced with spot welds when done.

Even the trunk floor is shaping up. The new trunk floor extensions (drop-offs) have been fitted, along with the painted floor halves.

Another shot of the trunk.

I haven't ordered the new rear quarters yet and am skeptical about attaching the entire floor until we get them. - Just want to make certain everything fits. The trunk floor extensions needed quite a bit of tweaking before they would line up.

Well, this is it as of 9/10/10.

Yesterday I transferred the cheater slicks onto the 15x10 Keystone Klassics. Today it's time to see how well the tire/wheel/axle assembly fits under the car.

Although the rear end is not attached to the Charger, I centered it beneath the car and lowered the body down over it.

 

[DFX 340 Duster]

I have always liked the '68 best of all the Chargers. Great job and progress. You should have a tv program on your restoration.

 

[1967 'cuda]

Way too little clearance. Despite the fact that both sets of rear rims were supposed to have the same offset, they are different.

I purchased some used 15" tires for the front Keystones so we could roll the car around on them and try to determine what size we'll be buying later. I won't know for sure until the front sheet metal goes back on, but I suspect that these have too low a profile. We'll most likely buy a 70s series tire later. These are 60s.

After placing the rear under the car and checking clearances, it looks like we'll need a rear end that's 6" to 7" narrower. The next step will be to price the cost of narrowing this rear end and compare it to the cost of purchasing a different rear the width we need. I'll check out other 8&3/4 Mopars, Dana 60s, and Ford 9" rears. I measured the current rear and it's 60" between the rims. So, we apparently need to be 53" to 54" to fit properly.

picture of extended wheel well from the internet

With the inner wheel wells cut out, now the tires have plenty of clearance.

The ride height for now is controlled by the overhead hoist.

Shot of the driver's side missing inner wheel well.

The salvaged inner wheel wells waiting to be ground straight and re-installed.

POR-15 sells a lot of different products. - One of which is a 2 part epoxy that can be used to fill holes. It is supposed to dry as hard as steel and be capable of being sanded, drilled or tapped just like steel. In this picture you can see it being used to fill in the rust holes that were around the rear window opening. After it sets up, I'll grind it smooth. AS with all POR-15 products, it's expensive. Hope it works.

9/21/10 I got a coat of POR15 on the roof now. Repaired rear window channel looks good.

 

[1967 'cuda]

Another shot of the roof with the anti-rust sealant on it.

After seeing what was beneath the bondo, it's not a difficult decision to order new quarter panels. This is the left side that is poorly patched with almost an inch thickness of body putty in spots.

The right side had dings in it that would have been patched if it wasn't for the rust. Might as well order a pair of quarters.

This shot is of the patchwork that was inside the left rear quarter. Originally we couldn't see it because it was tucked behind the trunk extension. It'll be comforting to know this won't be hiding there anymore.

Inside view of the right rear quarter is just as ugly as outside view. When the new quarters go on we'll coat the inside with POR15 to keep rust from returning.

Today I coated the roof with that self-etching primer that POR15 makes. Fogged it on beyond the black rustproofing. Directions say I must wait a minimum of 24 hours before any spot putty can go on.

Another view of the car with the roof in primer.

The new quarter panels are here. I test fit the left side to see how well the body lines match.

Another view of the test-fit quarter panel.

The right rear quarter leaning against the wall. I love it when big boxes show up.

 

[fez440]

nice project! good luck on your build! im subscribed

 

[1967 'cuda]

One of the purchases from the Fremont swap meet was the air cleaner/scoop pictured on top of the Hemi. I wasn't really in the market for this yet, but then I realized we were going to need it in order to figure out how to cut the opening in the hood.

Don't freak out Spence. But it's time to start cutting off those old quarter panels. I'm being very conservative on the first cut.

More will be trimmed off later. At this point, the trunk floor halves have been pop-riveted in place. The inner wheel well halves will be easier to re-attach after the quarters are off. The rear lower corners of the quarters are a separate piece. We'll have to inspect and probably repair them before the new panels go on.

While the left rear quarter is off, it's a good time to clean up and rustproof the inside of the structure. It also gives me a chance to inspect and if need be repair the rear quarter window operating mechanisms.

The rear quarter windows never operated smoothly. After cleaning up the window tracks, I discovered a broken plastic roller wheel that was at the root of the problem. If the Charger is going to be as nice as we want, this will have to be fixed or replaced. I haven't been able to find the correct replacement part yet, so I may attempt to rebuild this piece with epoxy.

Photo shows more POR15 being applied to the inner quarter structure.

Drivers side quarter pop riveted on

Passenger side quarter removed, descaled, sanded, prepped and rust-proofed

Dash with white face gauges. - Still no tach.

picture from internet of wheel well being widened and spring hangers moved.

 

[1967 'cuda]

another pic from internet of spring hanger being welded on after frame was notched.

thinking about having some under the hood and trunk bead roll work done similar to this pic.

SPENCE IS BACK!! He hasn't killed me for the mishap with the Chevelle. Here he's checking out how well the supercharger fits on a 400. The motor was a freebie from a friend (Jamie Richards). - Still not 100% certain we'll use this engine, but we needed a big block to use as a guide for cutting a hole in the hood.

Another shot of Spence next to the Charger. So far since he's been back we picked up an engine and tranny, swapped a guy an old Schwinn bicycle for a pair of motor mounts, and checked into possible rear seat cores and replacement hoods.

From this angle you can see Spencer has just finished checking the repaired trunk lid for fit.

Not sure yet, but this 400 may end up being a 512 stroker when we're done. We may not have a functional engine in there yet, but it's nice to be able to see how everything will clear the firewall, hood (when we get it cut and installed), and to see how much the driver's vision might be blocked.

One of the other things we wanted to make a decision on was what the final color would be that we were going to use on the motor. Our first test color is a silver engine enamel. Spence says he wouldn't mind black but is concerned about using a color that absorbs rather than reflects heat. I know a lot of racers that have avoided black for that reason. - Still considering Hemi orange, gold, a brighter silver, red and haven't totally ruled out going with the black. We spent a lot of time sanding the cast supercharger components and it'll be awhile before we will get them to the stage ready for polishing.

The scoop has reversible butterflies that can be either red or black. Although the red are shown here, Spence is leaning towards setting it up with the more subtle black exposed in part because it will match the car.

We haven't got our carbs yet, but needed to mock up the scoop at the right height so we can cut the hole in the hood correctly. The hood that came with the car is nasty. Someone had previously cut a hole in it and then patched it. The bottom structure is badly rusted and we haven't determined yet if we want to try to salvage it or start on another one. It will be a good hood to do experimental cutting on. We spent yesterday looking at other hood replacement candidates in Rising City. A guy there has six of them that although rough, are better than the one we have now. Fiberglass is still being considered.

alright Spence, what do you think about Chrysler Hemi Orange for the color?

 

[1967 'cuda]

Experimenting with the orange on the engine, I haven't bothered to paint the valve covers in an effort to simulate aluminum covers later.

Another shot of the motor painted orange.

We did decide on a replacement hood. The $100 price tag was more than reasonable.

Another day, another color on the motor. Spence is leaning towards yellow as the color of choice now. SBC valve covers (although they obviously don't fit) are placed on the engine to help us decide whether or not we want to use chromed or polished aluminum later.

Another pic of the engine in yellow. The blower housing has been further polished, but still has a long way to go.

As nice as the replacement hood may have been, it needs to be "air-conditioned" for the supercharger clearance. Here Spence is drilling the first pilot hole to drop our reciprocating saw into.

Polish, polish, polish. Dirty, time-consuming, boring, etc... etc... Probably not what most guys on military leave look forward to doing with their time off.

The expression on Spence's face says it all. - Nothing like having cotton fibers and buffing compound in your eyes, ears, nose and everywhere else.

It's not perfect, but it's looking better.

The hood was in good shape for the most part, but it had an arch in it that kept it from aligning with the grill. Here Spence is using a small propane torch to heat the center of the underside infrastructure. Once we had it hot enough we laid it down on the floor and put pressure on the topside. After repeating a few times, it fit perfect.

 

[1967 'cuda]

Alright, I'd planned on removing the quarters in order to do the panel adhesive prep, - no problem. But Spence wants the insides stripped and then coated with POR-15. Like my back isn't aching enough already.

The blower looks pretty shiny now. I set it back on the Hemi for now. Who knows, maybe we'll still try stuffing it in the car.

Sorry to all you restoration fanatics out there, but we really needed to have a hole in this Charger hood.

The finned aluminum valve covers from eBay look good. - Not a whole lot of progress on the car during winter.

The rearend came back from Spider assembled (less axles) and in primer. I'll have to dress up the welds on the narrowed housing and strip the primer off before re-applying a new coat of POR-15.

The Moser axles are ready for installation after we get the disc brakes installed. According to Spider, we'll never break these shafts. The jack is aluminum with a 3000 lb capacity. I think it'd look great mounted in the trunk.

We found this tunnel ram intake on ebay. Although this setup is for a Chevy, it comes with a lot of what we need.

The carbs are Holley 660cfm #4224's. -Center squirters with the added second sets of metering blocks and center hung float bowls.

This pic shows the carbs mounted sideways with the correct linkage we wanted.

Another detail shot of the carb linkage.

 

[1967 'cuda]

And of course, we were going to have to purchase the fuel line kits also. They are listed as included with this auction. Hope we win it.

Rear disc brake kit ordered for the Charger. We'll cross drill the rotors before we mount them.

Grant steering wheel #991 ordered and on it's way. Best price I found was from a place called Streetside Auto.

While I was at it I went ahead and ordered the steering wheel adapter kit too.

And of course the new steering wheel was going to need a signature horn button to top it off. - Ordered one from Summit.

I hope these seats turn out to be ok for the car. We searched online for white buckets, and there weren't many to choose from. The price seemed good and we liked the design. The company is called ULTRAREV and they're located in New Jersey.

Tunnel ram/carbs came today. UPS had delivered them to the wrong address and some guy dropped them off here afterwards. In this pic you can see damage that the back carb received in shipping. The vertical tube opposite the choke horn is off and there is a small chunk of the housing that has been broken off. It looks like it will be repairable, but I'm pissed at UPS.

seats arrived 1/20

set the repainted steering column next to the seats

new steering wheel with repainted column

 

[1967 'cuda]

Setting up the carbs on the blower, I find that we'll need carb spacers in order to have clearance for the carb linkage.

Added the spacers and am starting to worry about the height of the assembly. It's starting to look very tall.

A back view of the manifold, blower, carb spacers, carbs, and scoop.

Although we had considered buying a factory tic toc tach (combo tach/clock), we really wanted a tach with a built in shift light. The 3&3/4" diameter should allow us to build this one into the original dash tach location. It's on it's way. - Another eBay purchase.

Trying to detail as much of the car as possible, red and black were decided on as carb colors.

This is one of the new front brake calipers. I ground the outer face of the rough casting smooth , applied red caliper paint and vinyl DODGE emblems.

The factory dash plastic we had was of three different types and didn't match. The instrument cluster was from a '69 that had the woodgrain aluminum panel over the leather grain. The radio section was also from a '69 but without the woodgrain covering. The piece above the glovebox door was the correct '68 vertical engraved lines.

In order to get all 3 dash pieces to match, we're attempting to cover them with a brushed stainless steel look. First we made templates of the dash pieces out of construction paper.

The next step was to use the construction paper templates to make a stiff backing out of formica.

This is a roll of (brushed stainless steel finish) vinyl. It was too thin to apply directly over the non-smooth dash pieces without showing all the bumps underneath.

 

[1967 'cuda]

In this photo all of the dash pieces have been covered, but not sure yet if I'm satisfied with the results or if I want to redo.

We're still unsure that we'll need the wheelie bars, but I cleaned them up and detailed them out just in case.

After doing some research on headers for the project, we found the general consensus amongst Mopar B body owners seemed to be that TTI made the best product. Apparently they fit better than Hooker and provide much more ground clearance.

We found this set of used TTi headers online at a site called www.racingjunk.com. They are nickel plated. They were located in Ohio.

After checking into the overall cost of converting our automatic transmission Charger to a newer Viper 5 or 6 speed, we decided that we had more practical options. We found this A833 4-speed in Alabama. A company called PASSON PERFORMANCE sells conversion kits that should be able to turn this into an almost indestructible overdrive that still delivers great overall performance.

Nothing better than a decent multi-spark ignition system to fire things up. This 6 BTM from MSD utilizes a remote switch that will adjust (retard) your ignition timing on a supercharged motor as boost increases. Thus preventing pre-ignition as combustion pressures increase. Awesome. It's another eBay purchase. This one coming from Georgia.

Spence didn't care for the red, blue, orange, red, white and black sticker emblems that were on the MOPAR PERFORMANCE valve covers we bought. So we affixed some chrome R/T's to the area those stickers had been.

We purchased a Lakewood blowproof bellhousing (new) off eBay and saved about $100. Still need lots of other tranny parts to complete the conversion.

In order to switch to a 4-speed we were going to have to change pedal assemblies. The picture on the left is of one we got off eBay that is supposed to be out of another '68 Charger. The right picture is of the same assembly after starting to clean it up.

The blower is back in the car again so that the hood could be further trimmed (now that the carbs are actually there) The brake booster looks like it will need to be replaced. - Didn't realize it before, but 3 of the 4 mounting studs for the master cylinder are broke off.

 

[Abodybomber]

Unreal.And subscribed. Just ,Bad ***. Love the fact,you didn't quit.

 

[1967 'cuda]

The rearend is now repositioned under the car complete with the new rear discs. Our old 15x10 Keystone Klassics didn't clear the calipers and it looked like we were going to have to run 1&1/4" wheel spacers. The new 15x10s have plenty of clearance though, so we should be OK without.

We ordered a new transmission floor 'hump' for the 4-speed. Here it is after the floor was cut and the new piece welded in place.

The engine is back out of the car again. I did a trial fit on the headers and felt it might be easier to figure out pulley alignment with it on the stand.

From this shot you can see that the bottom blower pulley needs to be spaced a few inches further out. That's fine because we still need to add a couple of v-groove pulleys behind it.

This is our main problem right now. We don't have enough clearance around the distributor. Here you can see that the cap is right up against the bottom front corner of the supercharger, the intake manifold, and the valve cover. In this photo the distributor cap is not actually centered on the distributor because of the insufficient clearance.

Another pic of the distributor's lack of clearance with the blower.

The original heads are still on the engine, but I painted them silver to imitate the aluminum heads that we'll be installing. We installed a billet electric water pump in a new aluminum water pump housing.

We still need to re-polish the areas we ground out.

This is another pic of the areas ground for distributor clearance.

As you can see from this shot, the new MSD distributor barely clears after grinding the other parts.

 

[moparisbest]

rayer: love the 68 charger , subscribed was wondering do they sale a off set dizzy for bb mopar for this reason ?