From start to finish. My 72 Demon build.

[Coyote Jack]

I am pretty much finished rebuilding my Demon. I thought it might help some of the fellow Mopar owners here to see what is involved to do a total resto. This is by no means a be all, end all thread. My car is not perfect, and there are many things I will do differently next time. So lets get started.
I bought the car 3 years ago. This is what it looked like whne I got it home.

Jack

 

[Coyote Jack]

The 1st thing I had to do was build a new garage to build the car in and then store during the long winter months we have here. I was able to build the garage for about $4000 Can. It is 20 by 30 and is heated with a woodstove. It only has 110V power, but that was enough. If there was anything I would change about it, it would be to add more lighting.

 

[Coyote Jack]

After 6 months of building the garage and doing my regular life, I was able to start working on the car. I took the car completely apart except for the rear window. There was not a nut or bolt left on the car when I finished. I would highly recommend that if you do it this way to have lots of plastic baggies with ziploc tops and mark every bag with whats in it in marker that does not wash off. It will make reassembly much easier. I did not catalog a few parts and it came back to bite me later, as there were a couple of things that I could not remember where they went. Also, take lots and lots of pics if you have a digital camera.

 

[Coyote Jack]

I will add here that I will not do this type of project again without building a rotiserie to put the car on first. There are plans all over the net to build your own and the materials only cost about $250 for a decent one.
Another tip, You may have noticed in the previous pics, and you will see it better in some upcoming pics, that I removed part of my rad support. By doing this I was able to get the engine and tranny in and out easier and I was also able to work on the engine bay much easier. When I was done I just fabbed a couple brackets and reattached the support.

Jack

 

[Coyote Jack]

After the car was taken apart, I raised it in the air about 3 feet. I had a good look at what I was dealing with rust wise. The first thing I had to do was get rid of the undercoating. I tried lots of ways as it was over a 1/2" thick in places. What I found worked best was a propane torch and a putty knife about 1 1/2" wide. You run the torch a couple of inch's ahead of the knife and the undercoating peels off. It is a very dirty job and time consuming. Once the undercoating was off, I sandblasted the underside, the inside and the engine bay. NEVER SANDBLAST THE EXTERIOR OF YOUR CAR!!!!! You will warp the panels and ruin the car. Forget about siphon feed sandblasters, I used a pressure feed blaster with 2 compressors and it just did the job. I used 00 silica sand and it seemed to work good. If I do another car, I will sandblast it to. The nice thing about sandblasting is, you will find all the weak spots in your car and be able to replace them. The sand does get everywhere though and you cannot wear enough protection when doing it. The 1st and last of these pics is the same area before I started and after I sandblasted.

 

[LowDart]

Look's that you had a lot of work,It was a preety Rusty Demon.how is he looking now?

 

[Coyote Jack]

When the sandblasting was done, I had lots of cleanup to do and then it was on to primer. I used an epoxy primer for over bare metal. It is a 2 part primer and goes on very nice. A word of caution here though. Epoxy primer is very nasty stuff. Make sure you have a good respirator or don't use it. It can kill you if not used properly.

 

[Coyote Jack]

You can see from the last pics that I welded in lots of patch's. Unfortunately I had a computer crash and I lost that series of pics. What I replaced was, spare tire well, floor sections, and lower 1/4's and trunk extensions. I also replaced the fenders with a couple of rust free ones from a Swinger. Thank-You Josh, (snowymountianman).

Jack

 

[Coyote Jack]

The next step was to cover up the primer with some rust paint. I used a Canadian brand called Tremclad and put 2 coats on. Tremclad would be very similar to Rustolium or any of those types of paint. I sprayed it on with my compressor and spray gun. One word of caution here is that it takes at least 30 days to cure and is better to let it sit 60 days. Mix it with about 15% mineral spirits and it does a good job.

 

[Coyote Jack]

The next job was to clean all of the parts going back on the car. Every part, nut and bolt got cleaned or replaced. This job took days to do, but it is a must. There is no sense in putting rusty nuts and bolts back on a car. Believe me when I say it was very tedious.

Jack

 

[Coyote Jack]

Then the start of reassembly. I started with the frontend. I changed the brakes from a drum/drum setup to a disk/drum setup. I also changed to the large bolt pattern in the process. The entire front end was rebuilt. All bushings, tierods and such were replaced with new parts. I figured I would do that now while everything was apart as I will probably never have to do it again.

 

[Coyote Jack]

I finally got to the part that I really like doing on cars. Bolting parts together. I was lucky enough to score a 360/727 combo for free. I had decided early on that I would try rebuilding the tranny myself. I would highly recommend the book by Carl Munroe if you want to try this. It was very easy to follow and to the point. There were only 2 tools that you might have to pick up due to the assembly and checking of clearances. They were a dial indicator and a slide puller. I made the puller myself. I went with an A&A manual reverse valve body with low band apply and a complete overhaul kit from TCI. I was really surprised at how easy this was to do. As of this date all is well with the tranny.

 

[Coyote Jack]

Here is a match made in heaven. One 360 and one 727. I bought the 360 as a new rebuilt from somebody. As it turned out there was a problem with it and I wiped out 2 cams before I could figure out what it was. The engine is now fine with a little more horsepower than what it had when I got it.

 

[Coyote Jack]

I managed to get a 8 3/4 housing and axels from Evilscamp, (thanks Kev), and the 489 center section from BossVega V8, (thanks Rory). I also got a set of 4:10's from one of the members here, sorry, can't remember everybodies name. And I had a local Mopar mechanic install the gears and spool into the center section for me. I got a set of Yukon axels from Outrageously Vintage, (thanks Bob and CiCi) along with the backing plates I needed. I installed all new brake hardware and then set the rear in place. I also got a set of SS springs from Mancini and mounted them to the rear and car.

 

[abodyjoe]

looking good man...

 

[Coyote Jack]

I now started to run some of the plumbing. This is definitly the time to do this as mounting brake lines and gas lines can be a real pain in the butt after the engine and tranny are in. You might notice that in the 1st pics I have a power brake booster and then I swithed it out for a manual master cylinder. I did this to gain a little more room as the Magnum valve covers are quite high. I also installed the line loc at this point.

 

[Coyote Jack]

It was now time to give this baby a heart. I ended up installing the engine and tranny together. I did this by removing the center link of the steering and removing the torsion bars. This allowed me to have the headers mounted along with the starter. After I figured this method out, it went very smoothly.

 

[Coyote Jack]

I'm going to take a break from entering all of this right now. I will be back later to finish inputting the pics and commentary.

I will ask that you keep the comments to a minimum until after I finish the inputting as it will make for a better thread for people to look at. I will be glad to answer all questions at the end.

Thanks
Jack

 

[Coyote Jack]

Once I had the engine and tranny in, it was time to go back to the body. I had to replace both lower quarters with some patch panels. A word of advice here is, only use as much of the patch panel as you absolutely need. The thickness of metal in the patch panel is not even close to the metal in the car. I only put the guages and one seat in at this point as the car was going to a bodyshop at a later date. I converted the ignition system over to a MSD 6AL box and dizzy. It was also time to re-install the rad support that I had cut out. I cut a triangular hole in the hood for the scoop to feed fresh air to the engine bay and trial mounted the scoop.

 

[Coyote Jack]

Before I sent the car off to the bodyshop there was a ton of other things to do, exhaust was one of them. From the headers back is all Flowmaster 2 1/2". I installed the X-pipe kit, 40's and their universal tailpipe kit. If you ever go this route make sure you get 2 tailpipe kits as one only does one side. Other than that it was a very easy install and is all mandrel bent. Unfortunately these were also some of the pics I lost.

Jack

 

[Coyote Jack]

Now it was off to the bodyshop. This is an area where you better do your homework. I got quite a range in prices. I didn't go with the cheapest or most expensive. I asked lots of questions and talked to other car guy's in the area before I settled on who was going to do the job. He ended up putting 2 coat of primer, 1 sealer, 4 coats of base and 3 coats of clear. I am really happy with the job.

 

[Coyote Jack]

I got the car back about 3 1/2 weeks after the body guy took it in. I couldn't resist and mounted a little chrome for a couple of pics. I also had the stripes and windshield installed while it was at the bodyshop. Believe me when I say that was $150 well spent.

 

[Coyote Jack]

It was now time to put the sound deadener in. I used a building product called Blueskin. It is asphalt based and a peel and stick product used for wraping heating ducts. It is 26 mil so I used 2 layers to bring it up to about the thickness of dyna-mat. It seems to work quite well as most of the noise I hear is coming from the rolled down windows. There is a smell to the stuff when you first put it in but it seems to be going away over time, even on hot days. I did the doors a little while later.

 

[Coyote Jack]

I had a guy come in and install the headliner. I would strongly recommend having this done by a pro. It was a hard job and even though it was expensive, I know I would not have been happy if I did it myself. While he was doing that I blacked out my grill. I used a black bumper paint and it turned out good. I then started to install my new carpet. This went very well. If you do this yourself, remember to install the back first and start in the center and work your way to the edges. I had to make up brackets for the RCI seats and adjustable tracks. I just used some 1" by 1/8" flat bar and bent it to the size I wanted and drilled and bolted it to the floor.

 

[Coyote Jack]

This is how the car sits today. My insurance takes effect tomorrow and then it is off to get safety inspected and licensed. There are still a few issues to be resolved but nothing major and I am very happy with my first total build. More importantly, the wife is happy with it to.

There are alot of areas I did not cover in this thread as it would just get to long to cover everything. I hope it helps some of you guy's that are thinking of doing something similar. I had a ball doing it, but I have to say it is alot of work. The most important thing I leaned in this is, don't get depressed at the slow progress. Once you get to where it's going for paint, it gets real fast after that.

Good luck to all who try it, and don't be afraid to ask questions on this site. There are alot of good people here who are more than happy to help.

Jack