New to A-Bodies, buying my first!

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mopower76

mopower76

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Joined
Jan 18, 2010
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Location
Queen Creek Arizona
Hello all!
I am purchacing my first A-Body this Saturday! I own an e-body and a couple of b-bodies,but am new to A-Bodies.
I will be posting some questions about the '70 340 Duster I am buying this weekend.
I hope I'm not getting taken on the car, but it seems like too good a deal not to jump on.
It is basically a '70 340 auto disc brake car that is B5 with a black bench interior. It does need completely restored, but has had a 440 installed and fender-well headers installed by the previous owner. The main things going for the car is that it is fairly complete and solid with the VIN and fender tags never being removed.
Anyway, I hope to find some insight and lots of help from your community.
Thanks for having me!
 
Welcome to fabo . And incase you don't already know the price of admission is you gotta post pics when you get that Duster ! J/K welcome aboard and Have Fun !!!
 
Welcome to the best Mopar site there is! Good luck with the Duster tomorrow ... we're all waiting to see it.

Make yourself at home and enjoy.
 
Well, here it is in all of it's disassembled glory, some of you may remember seeing the Duster listing on E-Bay 2 weeks ago.

No sooner did we unload the car into the garage did I jump into the musty-dirty interior to search for a broadcast sheet. I was thrilled to find a almost perfect broadcast sheet behind the back seat!

What was not thrilling was the amount of trash under the back seat!
I have never in my time taking apart old mopars have I seen so much crap under a seat!

After I found that I decided it's Sat. night, why not get the rest of the interior out?! Then that was so much fun. . . let't just take the rest of the car apart!

By 2AM we had disassembled 80+% of the car! All I have left is the dash pad- heater box- and window trim so it will be ready for stripmasters in Decatur on Wednesday.

I hope the pics post correctly. . .

under duster seat.JPG

duster disassembled.JPG

under duster seat.JPG


duster disassembled.JPG
 
Would anyone know if 67-69 Valiant hood would work on the 70 Duster?
I may be chasing my own tail with using a stock flat hood with a M1 intake and a 440.
anyone know if this combo will work with a flat hood?
Thanks for the warm welcome!
 
mopower76 said:
... What was not thrilling was the amount of trash under the back seat! I have never in my time taking apart old mopars have I seen so much crap under a seat!. . .

View attachment 124772 ...
Click to expand...


You aren't kidding, that's a lot of crap! Hopefully it's hiding pristine floor pans and spotless original paint. :-D

Bought an old Nova once for $300. While cleaning out the car, I found a big old bag of change under/behind the back seat. There was enough in there to almost pay for the car!

Don't be too hasty throwing all that crap away though. You might find some ancient car-tifacts in there. Just discovered an old USC Parking Pass buried inside my console a couple weeks ago after disassembly for restoration.

Have fun with the disassembly!
 
I wish they were pristine, after getting the (damp/moldy) carpet out I went scraping the scaly rust off the floorboards and the scraper went through the floor-pans in a lot more spots than I really was expecting. the drivers side front and rear floor is going to have to be replaced.

The crappy thing is when we looked at the car prior to purchase from the underside it looked super dry and solid!
The spare tire well had a spot about the size of a half dollar.

I will be needing to find dr. side floor pans and a spare tire well bottom if any one has an extra laying around!

I knew the car had some rust in the quarters, but I wasn't expecting to replace the interior floor pans.
Other than that and until it gets back from Stripmaster there could be more surprises to come, I have my fingers crossed!
 
Welcome to FABO Mopower and to ownership of a 70 Duster 340.

You could go used, rust free for spare tire well and floor pans or aftermarket. Auto Metal Direct makes high quality floor pans and misc body panels. Most of their sheet metal is for the B's and E's but the A's are starting to get some love. May be easier to just drill out the old spot welds and weld in the new.

Typical rot areas to look for in the Dusters are the aforementioned spare tire well, front floor pans (due to crispy wiper pivot seals and poor windshield to cowl sealing), rear torsion bar mounts (floor pan rotting from standing carpet moisture - the result of crispy wiper pivot seals and poor windshield to cowl sealing, Lol), inner fender top connections at the cowl and the radiator yoke. The rear rocker/quarter panel seams can be suspect at times. Stress cracks around the door latch striker area are semi common. Inner and/or outer rear wheel houses develop rust where they meet at the trunk extensions.

Good luck with the Duster!
 
Hey Derek - welcome to FABO! Looks like you've got a great project on your hands. Keep those pics coming.
 
Thanks again for the warm welcome everyone, I will post more pics as they come!
The duster keeps suprising me with more and more sections that are bad. :(
I'm a little worried it'll come back from the media shop in a bucket! We'll see, It should go (weather permitting 40mi. drive) thursday.
 
MOPOWER76 send a pm to crackedback.....he has everything you need.....at half the cost of new....complete 1 piece floor pans all cut at the spot welds...
 
Welcome to this great site, Looks like you have one of my old Challengers in your Avatar, Ever been to a small town called Paw Paw ?
Keep us updated and enjoy
 
mopower76 said:
Would anyone know if 67-69 Valiant hood would work on the 70 Duster?
I may be chasing my own tail with using a stock flat hood with a M1 intake and a 440.
anyone know if this combo will work with a flat hood?
Thanks for the warm welcome!
Click to expand...

Yes, you can use the flat hood with that combo however, you'll need a drop down lower plate air filter and only 3" tall filter element. Even then she's going to be dicey with +/- 1/2" clearance. Then you got to consider is that 440 going to be able to breath properly and that flat hood is going to hold in a lot of engine generated heat.
 
A 69 Valiant hood will work just fine with the stock 70 Duster grille, if you use the 67 or 68 hood with the "beak" you'll need the same year Valiant grille to go with it, or it sure will look odd. 69-72 Valiant or Duster hood is the same, and the aftermarket sells them that way.
BTW, Dart hoods wont work, unless you change to the Dart grille too.
Hope this helps,
Alan
Cool find, by the way! Hope nothing bit you cleaning it out!
 
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