1969 Charger R/T - Have the shell, now the fun starts....

[JHyatt14]

Alright fellas... it's been about three weeks since my last post. What a headache I went through regarding the intake / air cleaner clearance. I see that H2E is currently going through a similar issue with the RPM intake. I really wanted to use the stock dual snorkle air cleaner to give it that original look so I just said the hell with it and replaced the intake. I sent back the RPM High Rise and ordered a Torker. Unfortunately, when the Torker got here it was a manual choke set up and did not work correctly with my Holley 750 Double Pumper with electric choke. The fuel rail was hitting the base where the manual choke sets up on this particular intake. Soooooooo I had to send that one back and get the correct one. She's all back together now with plenty of clearance for the stock dual snorkel air cleaner and although it was a pain in the *** I am glad I did it.

We fired her up and she ran strong. Honestly I'm not too impressed with the Dynomax mufflers in comparison to the Flowmaster 40's I'm used to using on my other builds. I hope they sound better outside the garage once they are broken in. I ran a Lunati cam in this build and they send two different springs with the cam. You have to run the motor with the single spring for about a half hour to break in the cam.. if you run the motor with the double spring it will wipe out the lobes in the cam according to the folks at lunati. So we ran it, took the valve covers back off, took the rockers off, pulled the springs one at a time, inserted the second spring, and reattached. She's all buttoned up now and ready to go. I will be posting a video and some photo's soon.

While we were playing the waiting game with the intake we got the seats all upholstered. Now just waiting on a local guy to install the headliner so we can start cracking on the interior. Stay tuned, pics to follow.

 

[Ron 73]

The first pictures you posted looked great, Looking forward to your next ones, love that black and it looks so solid! Sounds like some headaches, it will be worth it after its all sorted out, Good luck!

 

[JHyatt14]

Okay fellas. Here is the engine bay finished except for the air cleaner as I am going to be doing the final timing check and tune on the carburetor today. Also attached are photos of the interior finished. Keep in mind this car was just a shell with no motor / tranny / interior when I started. This was a hell of a project and one of the more difficult builds I've done. After doing some research on the cars history after I bought it I found out that the car was actually at one time in a junk yard. This would account for so many random parts that were missing that you wouldn't think would be missing from a normal rebuild. For instance, yesterday we went to take her out on the maiden voyage and as we pulled out of the driveway we heard a loud disturbing noise in the rear end. We backed right up back into the garage and after checking the exhaust and shocks we found that the rear shakles/ leaf springs had no bushings.... just metal on metal.... so back on the lift it went. We got that straightened out this morning so hopefully we can actually get out of the driveway today haha.

With the help of a lot of you guys on this website, eBay, and some local Mopar guru's I was able to acquire all the necessary parts to complete this build. I will be posting photos of the exterior of the car once I get it washed, wet sanded, and buffed. All things considered I don't think 5 months is that long considering the problems I ran into.

All thats left now is figuring out why the gas gauge isn't working.. new gas tank / sending unit. All the other gauges are working properly. Annoying that I have to pull the dash again but oh well.. need that gauge to work. Stay tuned, I'll try to post a video also.

 

[steved033]

make sure your tank and/or sender is grounded properly before you tear the dash apart...

sjd

 

[JHyatt14]

Yeah Steve, we've been down that road already. Trust me, the last thing I want to do at this point is pull the dash out. Thanks for the advice though.

make sure your tank and/or sender is grounded properly before you tear the dash apart...

sjd

 

[JHyatt14]

After pulling out the dash we found that the nuts that hold the gas gauge in place were loose and they were not making contact with the circuit board. Tightening them up and cleaned up the connection.... good to go.

 

[747mopar]

Nice work, that engine compartment is looking good.