My 71 Plymouth Duster Resto

[79JON]

Id figure Id go ahead and start up a thread about my restoration of my 71 Duster. Im 28 living in an apartment and working on this in a little carport at my brothers house. So the resto is going nice and slow haha Like everyone else im not rich and can only work on it when I get the extra money. I'm going to start off with a few pictures of it when I first picked it up. Its a Slant 6 Green on Green car that only had 99K original miles!! But.. its was sitting up a few years and didnt run when I got it.

 

[79JON]

She is at her new home in the carport where the tear down begins! Man I wish I could work on concrete but playing in the dirt and grass will have to do haha.

 

[Beatnik]

Cool! Good luck...what are the plans?

 

[mattsmopars]

Looks like you have yourself a nice project! Good luck and keep us posted.
Matt

 

[79JON]

Here im staring to disassemble the dash, engine bay area and Rear end. Lots of bagging and tagging going on here. Every nut and bolt coming off this thing.

 

[79JON]

My plans are to go with a 340 clone car. I really debated on what color combo I should go with because for some reason I thought that Green would actually look pretty good with the 340 stripes. But.. its just not what I wanted in the end. I have always loved the 71 Duster 340's in yellow and I think thats the route im going. Instead of a 340 Ill be using a 360 which I already have. Just make the whole car appear to be a 340 car with the blacked out hood and stripes. She will be a weekend cruiser so mechanically I wanted everything sound and new everything.

 

[ShowAndGoResto]

Very nice clean car to start out with..youre lucky

 

[79JON]

Here is a before and after shot of the Heater box. I used Detroit Muscle Heater box foam rebuild kit that I bought off ebay and it was great! Everything fit great and really seals it up nice. Also got a new heater core for it.

 

[79JON]

Has anyone seen this before?? Theresa from the factory felt like autographing the backside of the glovebox! To bad it was shot because id love to put that back in there.

 

[4spdragtop]

Looks good...that heater box looks sharp too!

 

[79JON]

Time for the slant 6 to leave its home!

 

[dusted72]

would defintely hang on to the glove box liner. You could always write it on the new one. To keep her with the car.

 

[79JON]

Here Im starting to get all the suspension out. Rear end, K-frame, Fuel and Brake lines. I bought a 73 340 duster parts car mainly to use all the 4.5 bolt pattern suspension and of course Disk Brake conversion. Everything came off really smoothly actually. Not one broken bolt or screw!:yawinkle:

 

[79JON]

Before and after shot of the new rear end Im putting in the car. I think down the road I will put a 8 3/4 in but for now this 8.25 will do. I have bought all new drum brakes and lines for it which I will install later when the rear goes back in.

 

[79JON]

Time to start grinding the K frame down. I'm still using the slant 6 K frame even though im putting a 360 in it. I bought some Schumacher Motor mounts and so it should all go in just fine. Later on which I found out.. I will have to cut an opening on both sides to put a 73 and up Sway bar in. When these pics were taken I didnt know that ](*,) No biggie.

 

[alleyoopmgv]

Very cool, Looks like a pretty solid car! Nice work your doing there!

 

[79JON]

This car wasnt totally undercoated just in the wheel well areas. Im not sure if that was standard on all of them but I wanted to keep it all like it came. So I just brush painted the the underside with Semi Gloss Rustoleum paint. As of now all that Ive got is what you see in the pictures. Im waiting to do the rest when I put my new AMD passenger floor pan in.

 

[79JON]

Thanks for all the compliments! I appreciate it.. I got real lucky by getting this car. Very solid with only having rust really in the passenger floor pan. Plus it has never been molested!!:angel7:

 

[79JON]

more undercarriage

 

[79JON]

Just want to show the rims and tires I bought for the car. They are American Racing VNT 70 R rims. In the second picture I had to mount the rear wheel on my brothers 73 Dart Sport to get an idea how she looked haha

 

[OneOfMany]

That's a real solid Duster you got. Those extensions and seams underneath look perfect. Coming along nicely, keep up the great work.

Grant

 

[340_dart_power]

Major progress, looking really good thus far.

 

[Plumcrazyfreak]

Kudoz.... WOW You did alot of work on this car. Looks really nice.

 

[grassy]

Great to watch someone else going throughthe same thing.

Is it better to buy the pre bent gas / brake pipes than buying a roll and bending them yourself ?

Grassy

 

[roadmouse]

well if someone asks what the cars name is... Theresa!