Rapom's Rocket - just another Duster build thread

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rapom65

rapom65

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After a request for more info on my car I have finally decided to do a build tread. My friends christened her “"Buttercup"”, a ’74 Space Ruster with snakeskin top. I guess we’ll stick with that moniker until I can come up with a project name that’s a little more “manly”.

I'’ve always had an itch for a nasty stick shifted A body. More than a few years ago I got the opportunity to get started with the purchase of this Duster shell and a pile of speed parts as a close friend was revamping his street/strip car into a 9 second strip beast.

This one is getting a complete attitude change my style. It will be a “jack of all trades” with heavy emphisis on improved handling. Planned mods: snotty 360, 4 speed OD, chassis stiffening, mini tubs, front suspension upgrades, triangulated 4 link, narrowed 8 ¾, brake upgrades, Firmfeel Stage III power steering and a fuel cell for starters. We’ll see how it turns out in the end.

Here's our starting point after getting it off the trailer and an initial wash to knock off the dirt, algae, fir needle accumulations and dog poo in the tire treads.

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Unfortunately the car sat in the wet at my friends house for over a year while I pulled an overseas tour before I could get it in my hands. Our NW climate really took a toll on it in short order. Initial assessment: trunk floor gone, interior completely missing, front passenger floor pan sketchy, drivers fender needs lots of work. What was I thinking?

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What were you thinking?
Well, i'm thinking that AMD panels will fix up the rust issues in the trunk and the floor no problem.
Can't wait to see more!
 
First thing I did before pushing it in the shop was to strip the vinyl off the top to see what lurked below. Happily the roof skin was mint but the seams at the top of the pillars was ugly. Frick!!!
 

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Not sure if you found this yet, but SMS Auto Fabrics seems to be only guys with repro snakeskin - I am about ready to drop the $500~ on the material to get our Gold Duster back to correct look - its in Members Restoration too. Good luck - looking good.
 
Parts gathering continued: Junk yard bucket seats. Needing money for his drag car project my friend offered up these damaged, ported, Edelbrock RPM heads and a set of Crane Gold rockers. Can you say “buddy deal”? I sent them off to Brian at IMM for inspection. They needed resurfacing, a couple of new valves and springs and a complete valve job. Sweeeet!

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Dartnut - I don't need no stinkin trunk floor! Passenger pan yes. Stay tuned.....

'74 Duster - Not going back to the vinyl roof, got something else in mind, although that is great info for someone looking for it. Thanks for the interest guys.
 
1st order of business was to lay out some rear suspension reference lines on my freshly epoxied garage floor and the top of the wheel wells. This is prep work for the mini tub and triangulated four link rear to come. This was done with the axle and springs still installed.
 

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Before removing the structural support of the K member/engine/trans assembly I wanted to get the radiator cross member replaced. The stock flimsy stamping does nothing for front end integrity under the stresses of a hard charging corner carver. Besides I had to do some restructuring for something to follow. Spot welds drilled, stamping removed and the aftermath found underneath. Yeck! The sheet metal at the bottom of the core support was paper thin from the corrosion between the panels. Notice how many spot welds had actually attached to the end of the frame horns. Two on the pass and one on the driver side. Hmmmmm…. Makes you wonder about the rest of the car’s construction.

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I built a new cross member out of .120 wall 2x3 tubing. The uprights are cut to form fit around the frame rails and mimic the placement of the stock sheet metal stamping on the front. Detail of how the bends are made((thanks to “Blue Missle” for this idea). In the last pic notice I added small wings to provide enough material to cover/weld to the frame horns and that the opening is about 2" lower. More to come….

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After some head scratching I came up with a plan to contend with the rotted out core support bottoms. Using some sheet metal supports I removed from the fold down rear seat area I made up a couple of filler panels for where I had cut out the rot. I also removed a strip from the drives side of the radiator opening so it would conform to my new 28"” wide aluminum radiator (Speedway). The stock opening was offset to the passenger’s side just like the motors are. After welding it all together, grinding, sanding, priming, and seam sealing I painted the core support area a semi gloss black.

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Although far from perfect I decided to replace the drivers front fender with one off another friends parts car rather than expend the effort trying to beat my original back into shape. Ditto with the trunk lid. All the rust you see is from the inside out. The seams were all full of cancer. To bad, it was cherry on the outside. It came in handy latter and is still part of the car in a weird way. More on that latter....

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nice job on the rad support! and thanks for starting this thread :) i look forward to seeing you and and maybe learning some stuff along the way
 
Now the fun starts. Some major rust removal was needed in prep for building a fuel cell cage and access for performing the mini tub. Not that the stock fuel tank couldn'’t be made to work with the forthcoming tri 4 link rear but it severely restricted routing for an over the axle exhaust which was going to be a royal pain in the rump with the new rear suspension already. Time to break out the “Cleaver” and get busy. There’s no need for finesse at this point. Unfortunately the rot in the floor pan went all the way to the tail panel so the resulting sheet metal work just got a bit more involved.

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Oh, okay.
Now i see what you are doing with the trunk floor.......
You picked a perfect car to do the modifications and what you intended for your end result.
No use chopping up a rust free car.
This is going to be a great thread!
(Nice fabrication so far BTW)
 
With this much structure being removed it’s a good idea to support the weight of the rear of the car. Prior to all this I placed the car on 4 jack stands, 2 under the frame at the front spring pockets and 2 under the frame just ahead of the torsion bar mounts, then shimmed until the rocker panels were level for/aft and across the under carriage at several points. You will see that I left the rear axle and springs installed and supported with jack stands but when I removed it I placed a pair of stands under the end of the frame rails, at the tail panel, to give support to the structure. I performed one mini tub at a time to keep as much structural integrity as I could. There are many threads on how to do a mini tub so I’ll just show a few in progress shots. Its amazing how ate up the trunk area was. Both wheel tubs were rust free.

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More. The filler panels were cut out of the skin of the replaced trunk lid. I used a flanger/punch air tool to step all the edges and provide holes for spot welding. By the time its smoothed, seam sealed and painted/undercoated the panels will nearly disappear.
 

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And the last few. Wash, rinse, repeat on the passenger side. After some filler work I shot it with some rattle can black primer just to protect it until all the other fab work is done.
 

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Dartnut said:
Oh, okay.
Now i see what you are doing with the trunk floor.......
You picked a perfect car to do the modifications and what you intended for your end result.
No use chopping up a rust free car.
This is going to be a great thread!
(Nice fabrication so far BTW)
Click to expand...

Thanks. Yeah this car turned out to be a perfect candidate for my planned mods. Rusty in all the right places. Well, except for the passenger foot well...I hate to see perfectly solid cars getting chopped up. There are plenty out there in the shape mine was that are better for this kind of "surgery".
 
These are pictures of my old '72 440 Demon that I was fortunate enough to sell a couple of months before the "economic downturn" started. This is similar to what the goal is for the trunk area on the '74. To say I'm Jones'n to get this thing done is an understatement.
 

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