WymanV
..you said "member"...
Hi all!
My name is Ken and I'm a long time A-Body owner. My first was a '70 Duster 318 4-speed which had a bad front end. While working for a salvage yard in my hometown Dalton WI, I accumulated about 10 Dusters between 1970s through 1972s.
One of the ones I acquired was a '72, formerly owned by the local gearhead. Black on black (with the white stripes) factory 340 4-speed car. When I was 16 I thought it was the sexiest car I had ever seen. I picked it up in Sept. '84 with the intent to strip it for parts but after I dropped it off in the salvage yard, I saw in it what I saw when I was a kid and decided I better save that one. Today it's the only one I still have.
His ex wife pulled out into an intersection and got nailed in the right front. He took the car to a "garage bodyman" who stripped the front clip and let it sit for about 2 years. Bob (the gearhead) got the car back, sold the original 340 (to someone I know and I might-just-might be able to get it back) and the remaining shell to a friend of his. I bought the shell from him for $25.
Over the years I accumulated parts and putzed around with it and moved it from home to home. Around 1998, I decided "one of these days" had come. I picked up some aftermarket quarters, trunk floor and trunk extensions and did it up. The floors got a liberal dose of epoxy coal tar and the rest a half gallon of black urethane. The next day the paint started to bubble up. I'm guessing Wisconsin humidity got in the pin holes and evaporated after paint :disgust: . Not only that, but as I looked at it I realized that I clamped the wheel openings too tight to the wheel wells and along with the body line disappearing around the wells they also have a decidedly sunken look. Since then I moved to California and the car had sat for 5 years in a storage unit in Oshkosh. Until last Monday.
Here it is on the way home, in Laramie Wyoming:
I also grafted the gas cap metal from the quarter of a '68 Barracuda, so it'll have a flip open cap when it's done.
Or rather, redone.
I've been in restoration and collision repair for the better part of 20 years and my current job is restoring ground support equipment for Lockheed aircraft; air conditioners, munitions loaders, etc. Since I run the paint shop I now have access to the facilities to do a full blown rotisserie restoration on it. It'll get stripped to the shell one more time, get the quarters squared away, go up on the stand and get the full deal; reblast and strip the paint, clean up the bodywork and those wheel openings, etc. I know I also have to replace the left front floor pan as I just patched it last time with a chunk of the old quarter. The bench is long gone, replaced with a pair of buckets from a Charger. And be it the original or one I buy elsewhere, it's getting a 340 put back in it, bolted to a 3 speed wi/OD.
Anyway, I'll be starting a thread in the restoration section before long and altho progress won't be real fast (I'm also restoring my '77 Sportster), this time it's gettin' done :thumbrig:
Ken
My name is Ken and I'm a long time A-Body owner. My first was a '70 Duster 318 4-speed which had a bad front end. While working for a salvage yard in my hometown Dalton WI, I accumulated about 10 Dusters between 1970s through 1972s.
One of the ones I acquired was a '72, formerly owned by the local gearhead. Black on black (with the white stripes) factory 340 4-speed car. When I was 16 I thought it was the sexiest car I had ever seen. I picked it up in Sept. '84 with the intent to strip it for parts but after I dropped it off in the salvage yard, I saw in it what I saw when I was a kid and decided I better save that one. Today it's the only one I still have.
His ex wife pulled out into an intersection and got nailed in the right front. He took the car to a "garage bodyman" who stripped the front clip and let it sit for about 2 years. Bob (the gearhead) got the car back, sold the original 340 (to someone I know and I might-just-might be able to get it back) and the remaining shell to a friend of his. I bought the shell from him for $25.
Over the years I accumulated parts and putzed around with it and moved it from home to home. Around 1998, I decided "one of these days" had come. I picked up some aftermarket quarters, trunk floor and trunk extensions and did it up. The floors got a liberal dose of epoxy coal tar and the rest a half gallon of black urethane. The next day the paint started to bubble up. I'm guessing Wisconsin humidity got in the pin holes and evaporated after paint :disgust: . Not only that, but as I looked at it I realized that I clamped the wheel openings too tight to the wheel wells and along with the body line disappearing around the wells they also have a decidedly sunken look. Since then I moved to California and the car had sat for 5 years in a storage unit in Oshkosh. Until last Monday.
Here it is on the way home, in Laramie Wyoming:
I also grafted the gas cap metal from the quarter of a '68 Barracuda, so it'll have a flip open cap when it's done.
Or rather, redone.
I've been in restoration and collision repair for the better part of 20 years and my current job is restoring ground support equipment for Lockheed aircraft; air conditioners, munitions loaders, etc. Since I run the paint shop I now have access to the facilities to do a full blown rotisserie restoration on it. It'll get stripped to the shell one more time, get the quarters squared away, go up on the stand and get the full deal; reblast and strip the paint, clean up the bodywork and those wheel openings, etc. I know I also have to replace the left front floor pan as I just patched it last time with a chunk of the old quarter. The bench is long gone, replaced with a pair of buckets from a Charger. And be it the original or one I buy elsewhere, it's getting a 340 put back in it, bolted to a 3 speed wi/OD.
Anyway, I'll be starting a thread in the restoration section before long and altho progress won't be real fast (I'm also restoring my '77 Sportster), this time it's gettin' done :thumbrig:
Ken
