Mopars brought back from the dead?

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Back in the first part of 2014 I found my 72 Duster on Craigslist in North Carolina. He was asking $2500 or $2800 for the car, dad happened to be going through the area and I had him stop and look the car over, when he told me the car was as solid as it looked in the pics I asked the seller if he’d take $2,200 and he agreed. Borrowed Dad’s Acadia and a trailer from my boss and my wife and I made the 9 hour trip to go get the car.

The car had been a drag car in the 80’s but from what the seller could remember, the car hadn’t run in about 20 years. It had the numbers matching 318 and an 8 3/4 rearend but the center section was in the trunk and the intake, transmission and driveshaft were gone. Here’s how it sat under tarp from the time he brought it home, till I bought it about 5 years later.
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I put a new timing set in it and slapped an intake, carb, bellhousing and starter on it and got the engine running.
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Rusted freeze plugs ended up causing me to pull the 318 and swap in a 5.9 magnum.

So far I’ve swapped the 5.9 and a dakota 5 speed into the car, redone the dash, rebuilt the front suspension, rebuilt the rear drums and upgraded to 73+ discs up from. I still have a lot of mechanical and interior work I want/need to do and eventually I’ll do body/paint work but for now, I’m gonna ride the Ratty Muscle Car craze as long as I can! :D

These pics were taken a few weeks ago.
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75slant6 said:
Back in the first part of 2014 I found my 72 Duster on Craigslist in North Carolina. He was asking $2500 or $2800 for the car, dad happened to be going through the area and I had him stop and look the car over, when he told me the car was as solid as it looked in the pics I asked the seller if he’d take $2,200 and he agreed. Borrowed Dad’s Acadia and a trailer from my boss and my wife and I made the 9 hour trip to go get the car.

The car had been a drag car in the 80’s but from what the seller could remember, the car hadn’t run in about 20 years. It had the numbers matching 318 and an 8 3/4 rearend but the center section was in the trunk and the intake, transmission and driveshaft were gone. Here’s how it sat under tarp from the time he brought it home, till I bought it about 5 years later.
View attachment 1715168966 View attachment 1715168965

I put a new timing set in it and slapped an intake, carb, bellhousing and starter on it and got the engine running.
View attachment 1715168967 Rusted freeze plugs ended up causing me to pull the 318 and swap in a 5.9 magnum.

So far I’ve swapped the 5.9 and a dakota 5 speed into the car, redone the dash, rebuilt the front suspension, rebuilt the rear drums and upgraded to 73+ discs up from. I still have a lot of mechanical and interior work I want/need to do and eventually I’ll do body/paint work but for now, I’m gonna ride the Rattu Muscle Car craze as long as I can! :D

These pics were taken a few weeks ago. View attachment 1715168962 View attachment 1715168963View attachment 1715168964
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Looks cool. Nice stance. Being an autobody guy myself just looking at those pix , I'm itching to break out my DA sander and strip that thing to clean bare metal and put it in grey primer to give it the "in progress look". But thats just me. I'm not a fan of the ratty look. I call it the beat to **** look. Looks like your having fun, and saving a good oldie from the scrapper, plus by not spending your coin and time on the bodywork you were able to get it back on the road faster. I know lots of people cant afford to pay for body and paint sometimes they either they lack the skills to do it themselves, the space to do it themselves. The rat car look is a good alternative.
 
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moparmat2000 said:
Looks cool. Nice stance. Being an autobody guy myself just looking at those pix , I'm itching to break out my DA sander and strip that thing to clean bare metal and put it in grey primer to give it the "in progress look". But thats just me. I'm not a fan of the ratty look. I call it the beat to **** look. Looks like your having fun, and saving a good oldie from the scrapper, plus by not spending your coin and time on the bodywork you were able to get it back on the road faster. I know lots of people cant afford to pay for body and paint sometimes they either they lack the skills to do it themselves, the space to do it themselves. The rat car look is a good alternative.
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Yea I definitely want to do body and paint work sometime but I want to get my 67 valiant running first so I’m not without a classic to drive. And like you said, I could’ve tore it down as soon as I got it and started on body work or I could take that money and get it running and enjoy it. I went with the obvious decision.
 
75slant6 said:
Yea I definitely want to do body and paint work sometime but I want to get my 67 valiant running first so I’m not without a classic to drive. And like you said, I could’ve tore it down as soon as I got it and started on body work or I could take that money and get it running and enjoy it. I went with the obvious decision.
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It's nice to finally get them back to one color. But in the meantime I think it looks cool. I see some very expensive fake jobs trying to make that look at car shows. And they always look like just that. Fake.
 
zkx14 said:
It's nice to finally get them back to one color. But in the meantime I think it looks cool. I see some very expensive fake jobs trying to make that look at car shows. And they always look like just that. Fake.
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Yup, a lot of work to make fake rust lol. What do you call fake jobs like that Fauxtina? I mean that look takes decades of carelessness and abusive ownership to create.
 
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Currently trying to at least. I'm in the middle of a complete suspension overhaul and disc brake conversion.
 
moparmat2000 said:
Cool, been watching youtube vids of this very car being redone. Any plans on unsticking the numbers matching 383 and putting it back in.

I heard M body disc brakes will retro fit to B body cars as well.
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Yes the 383 will go back in eventually. And I actually got a conversion kit to do the whole thing from Summit. I think it uses M body spindles and calipers in the kit. Definitely worth the price from Summit.
 
Kinda curious, what do they get $$$ wise for the kit. I did my M body dealio along with caliper mounts for 'doba rotors x2 for both of my A's out of the junky. About $100 each setup. Swapped the 'doba caliper brackets and rotors onto the M body spindles then brought em up to the front to pay. I then had rotors turned, repacked wheelbearings, and rebuilt the calipers using rock auto closeout parts, added new raybestos pads. I'm prob into 2 front disc brake setups for about $150 per set including new grade 8 lower ball joint bolts and brake lines . All my rockauto stuff was on closeout including caliper pistons and seal kits lol.
 
moparmat2000 said:
Kinda curious, what do they get $$$ wise for the kit. I did my M body dealio along with caliper mounts for 'doba rotors x2 for both of my A's out of the junky. About $100 each setup. Swapped the 'doba caliper brackets and rotors onto the M body spindles then brought em up to the front to pay. I then had rotors turned, repacked wheelbearings, and rebuilt the calipers using rock auto closeout parts, added new raybestos pads. I'm prob into 2 front disc brake setups for about $150 per set including new grade 8 lower ball joint bolts and brake lines . All my rockauto stuff was on closeout including caliper pistons and seal kits lol.
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Right Stuff Detailing Front Disc Brake Conversion Kits MDC62DC
Here's a link to the kit I have. I paired it with a super suspension rebuild kit from PST. I believe the only difference between the A and B body kits is that the A body one comes with a new upper control arm, so I don't know if the price is any different.
 
Thats a nice complete stock looking kit, especially if the junkyard stock has dried up in your area. I still have dozens and dozens of M body cars out by me in the local junky. Got one set of big rotors and brackets off a 79 cordoba, and one set of rotors and brackets off a 78 magnum. A body stuff is getting a little thin out here but i managed to get a set of BBJ upper arms for the 69 notch, and for the 67 notch i bought raw unpainted tubular uppers minus joints and bushings from john dillinger when he was custom making them.
 
Pretty much all the special interest cars in the family have been brought back from the dead:

The 1970 Charger we got from a friend as a rolling shell. The friend bought it in the late 80's, realized the car was in terrible shape, parted everything off of it and got a new body. He was going to scrap the chassis until my dad stepped in and said he'd redo it. So we brought it home in early 2000's and he has been collecting parts for it and working on it ever since. It is THEE car that got me working on cars. We got it on the road last October.

The 68 Dart convertible in my avatar was sitting in a warehouse basement. Was initially bought to repair the 68 convertible GTS (383) the owner had that took a telephone pole in the left corner (he eventually sold the GTS, we are still trying to locate it and hopefully get it). My dad talked him out of my car and brought it home. I remember helping him to go and get it, We finally got it in the garage and I climbed behind the wheel in the dirty interior, crud covered windshield, with the shrinking black top and thought to myself "This could be a fun car". Following morning before we left for a family function I was cleaning the windshield and scrubbing the interior. Restored it for my high school graduation project, been on the road ever since.

I picked up a 67 GTS from a member here 2 years ago and have been working on it since. Finally got the engine and transmission installed and broke it in last fall. Unfortunately it has been put on hold the past couple months due to me buying and moving into a house, studying for the PE and getting the rear end issue worked out in the charger. But hope to get back onto it next month!!

Then the 2 Packards that are in the family were also brought back from the dead (in the process of doing it again to them..)
 
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