I have noticed that the center quarter panel body line is virtually straight on some cars and on others there is a slight upward curve above the wheel well. My NOS quarters have a slight curve. The AMD quarters look pretty straight in the pictures.
If someone has an original paint car, I would be interested in knowing if that line is straight or curved. Thanks!
Duster/Demon body line
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19Duster71
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Here a shot of my 72 Duster 20K original paint car.Looks straight to me
I looked at my Duster. The AMD quarter line is correct. It looks to me that the wheel well cutout is slightly different. Seems to be more “square” than the original.
Finally getting back to finish my quarters. After taking this body line down to the metal on my NOS quarters and my original quarters, it is clear that there is a slight arch in the line over the wheel opening in all 4 of them. The may have been done so the line looks straight when looking down from eye level at it. The line also levels out about 8 or 10 inches before the door in order to be continuous with the door line, which is dead straight. The area between the door and the wheel arch is a little tricky to block straight.
19Duster71, if you have photos of your 1/4's taken from the height of the line, and from the front and back of the car, I would be very interested in seeing them... TIA
The body line is straight, the quarters themselves bulge out a little bit over the wheel which makes it appear to be curved. The section right after the door, between the two body lines, is actually a little concave. That’s right from the factory and a result of the quarter flaring out a little.
Mine are definitely curved. I looked at many pictures of Dusters and Demons. Some look straight but a straight edge ruler proves they are curved.
ns1rm21
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I know this is an older post but I’m looking for some help. I’m building a 70 Duster and I’m starting to do the body work. I thought the rear middle body lines were straight BUT both my driver and passenger side has a 1/2” curve between the door and wheel well. After sandblasting the body on this mostly original paint car it’s the same on both sides. I see above some people say this line is straight and others say it bows….is it possible there were two different designs in the quarter panels?
I set a laser level shining on that body line on my 73 Dart Sport and my body line is straight.
They no doubt changed the quarter panel tooling when they changed the marker lights and then again when they added shock bumpers. And probably more frequently than that due to wear.
But the body lines are supposed to be straight. Thing is, if someone tried rolling the quarter lips or clearing some larger rear tires the push on the quarter panel will cause the body line to bow out further. Can’t tell for sure just based on that picture but the quarter lip flange appears to be modified.
And oh right, the body panels on these cars were never perfect, not even straight from the factory.
- Marvin -
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You may see it better on a (survivor) car with a side moulding - it is definitely straight:
ns1rm21
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I’m starting to think it’s a year thing. Many of the cars showing a curve are 70 and 71s. 72s and up are straight??? I looked at my car this morning for a long time and as I said before it was mostly original paint and I had it sand blasted ( by a guy that mostly chemically strips and then lightly blasts everything remaining off so there is no warping) and there is definitely a curve to it. I would have to add quite a bit of filler and hammer and dolly these quarter panels to make them straight.
The side molding may be straight but that doesn't mean the body line is straight. Is that your car?You may see it better on a (survivor) car with a side moulding - it is definitely straight:
- Marvin -
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Yes
- Marvin -
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Yes, exactly, and this is my Duster - the body line seems also to be straight:
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ns1rm21
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Ok, so I just blocked out my passenger quarter panel? My method on doing this is to block up to the body line and then down to the body line. With a light guide coat on the panel and you sand away everything else a line start to appear. Then I take pie striping tape and place it over the body line and sand to it making everything straight. This is what I’m left with. The yellow tape is a straight line from the tail panel to the door jam. The gray line is the body line. On my car this line is definitely has a bow to it.
ns1rm21
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For giggles I went to my driver side I laid out the pin striping tape over the body line and again laid yellow tape in the straight line and came up with the same results. The panel has been only sand blasted and a coat of sealing primer over it. No bodywork has been done to it at all. Look, I’m not saying they were all done this way but this sure looks factory to me. My car is a 1970 out of the LA plant if anyone is asking.
Right. So, the panel itself is curved in multiple directions. It curves front to rear and top to bottom. If you take a panel that has a straight line on it, and then bow the panel after that, what happens to the straight line? It’s bowed. No longer straight.
Are the dents in your picture of the panel factory original?
Look, my point is unless you drove this car off the lot and have its entire history, you don’t know if those quarters are bowed out more than they were originally. Lots can happen in 56 years. If at some point someone put a little more bow in the quarters to fit some more tires, well, that bows the body line too.
And also, the factory did not implement that level of precision. So yeah, it very well could have changed from one set of tooling to the next, or been altered when the tooling had to be repaired, or whatever. It may have gone back and forth multiple times over the whole production run.
If it bugs you that much, you have some bodywork to do. If the quarters are original and relatively equal I don’t know why anyone in their right mind would mess with it, but I guess some of those concourse original show type people aren’t in their right mind. I’d drive the **** out of it.
Also true. I posted about the later stick on molding not following the body line in another thread, it was all over the map on my car.
1973 Dart Custom side moulding question
The curve in the body line does not come from the panel being bent or bowed for tire clearance. That is clear when looking at them as these photos show. I was not happy with how they looked here so they were taken down to bare metal and redone before paint but the tape accurately shows the body line. I am assuming they made some panels with a straight line based off the responses in this thread.
ns1rm21
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It’s funny. I’m watching an episode of Roadkill garage and the “crop buster” is a 1970 Duster and it definitely has a bowed body line. Funny
It’s very possible that the wheel wells are bowed up a bit but for both sides to be equal…..I’m not sure.
Anyways thanks everyone for your feedback.
It’s very possible that the wheel wells are bowed up a bit but for both sides to be equal…..I’m not sure.
Anyways thanks everyone for your feedback.
- Marvin -
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I'm sure, that on the drawing board of the Duster - designers there was a straight line from front to rear.
But in production because of the bowed quarters the line was 'deformed' .
Looking from the side on my cars I see a straight line from front to rear - this was the designer's intention..
Looking from any other angle the lines deform according to the perspecitvity
But in production because of the bowed quarters the line was 'deformed' .
Looking from the side on my cars I see a straight line from front to rear - this was the designer's intention..
Looking from any other angle the lines deform according to the perspecitvity
WymanV
..you said "member"...
This FTW.
I put aftermarket quarters on my '72 back before AMD was a thing. Got everything ready to weld up and to wrap things up I clamped the wheel well openings down to the inner fender and zapped the quarters on. It was after the first time I painted it when I saw what it did. The quarter around the openings stuck out farther than the inner well and clamping it together made the space between the line in question and the opening buckle in and the area above that line pop out, causing the line to go up and around the wheel opening.
Oops...
When round 2 of this project came around I cut the welds holding the wheel well and quarter together and pulled the quarter out as best I could. Better, but still not perfect. But since this nonsense has been going on long enough (41+ years now) I've decided it's just not worth worrying about any more. It's hard to tell and if anyone does notice I'll have a lesson to share with them.
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That curve in the body line is exactly where the quarter itself has the most curvature. That’s not a coincidence.
This isn’t hard to understand. A straight line on a curved panel will not appear straight from some angles. A curved line on a curved panel may appear straight from some perspectives. The curved panel throws the whole thing off because how straight that body line appears and how straight it actually is are two different things.
So what was the designer’s intent? It was probably a straight line when you’re looking at the car. On a curved panel, that’s not necessarily going to be a laser level straight line on the panel itself.
And it’s a silly thing anyway. Unless you’ve personally seen the tooling for those quarters from that year how the hell are you going to know? Look at a bunch of 56 year old cars and make assumptions about which ones are original enough to make a wild *** guess?
Exactly.
And if you measure the quarters on a bunch of these cars you’ll find the frame rail to quarter lip distances vary by a good 1/2”. I know this because I literally have dozens and dozens of members here that have contacted me about what wheels and tires will fit their cars and I ask for those measurements quite a bit.
Sure, on average most of them are fairly close. But a 1/4” one way or another is COMMON. And if you pull or push the quarter panel that much it changes the curvature of the panel and, well, that body line may be straight or bowed. So was the body line straight or curved? Well it was probably intended to be straight. But that doesn’t mean it was on every car.
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