68 Charger PT build thread

[Stevearino]

i am definetly all ears on the quarter window delete.

what do you think i should do to get rid of that surface rust in between the roof and structure?

by the way your car is amazing.

I don't know of any way to eliminate the rust between the panels except separating the panels and doing it manually. I did not bother with my project because as I said the amount of rust is negligible and not worth the effort. And thanks for the compliment.

 

[Stevearino]

On the quarter window delete. Firstly let's talk about glass. In a standard vehicle there are two types of safety glass. One is tempered the other is laminated. Windshields are generally made of laminated glass which is two pieces of regular glass with a transparent rubber layer between them. When hit the glass all stays together. Tempered glass is the type that shatters into many pieces when broken. Generally the side and back glass of vehicles are tempered. Tempered glass is extremely strong and is the preferred glass to use when the glass has no frame around it as would be the case here for the door glass. Also it is important to note that the side glass in this car is curved. Unfortunately getting a piece of custom tempered glass made is extremely expensive. It can cost as much as $5000 per piece.
I don't know about you but that is out of my comfort zone. The less expensive alternative and the way I ended up going is with laminated glass. This is less than ideal though as it is not as strong and the edges are prone to damage if you are not careful. I am sure you have seen when a stone chips a windshield then it gets a running crack in one layer of the glass. It is also heavier and most window motors will lift the window slowly because of the weight. It is 5/16" thick because of the layers as opposed to the 3/16" thick tempered glass used in most vehicles today. I managed to get two pieces of glass made by a company that does glass for movie cars out in California called Cinema Vehicles. Their main business is supplying vehicles for movies but they bought a small custom glass business out recently. They have the molds that were used for the Dom's Charger that was used in the movie Fast and Furious 7. That glass cost about $1,000.00 per panel and I broke one on final installation so this is not for the faint of heart. The picture below shows the glass with the rear molding attached and with 1/16" rubber attached at the bottom of the glass.

 

[Stevearino]

I went through a lot of combinations to come up with the final arrangement but what I ended up using for window regulators was the regulators out of a 2010 Dodge Challenger. I had to switch the motors to the regular 2006 Dodge Charger motors because the Challenger has smart window technology and that added a layer of complexity on to an already complex modification. It is important to note that I did all my modifications with the outer door skin removed. I have no idea how you would do this with the door skin on. I was replacing mine anyway so it was easy to mount the inner door , brace it from twisting and do all my work that way. The front rail of the Challenger regulator is a bit longer than the door is tall so I had to make a pocket at the bottom of the inner door to fit it in. There was a ton of stuff in the front of the inner door that had to be cut away to clear the window travel also.

 

[Stevearino]

The other major issues with this modification are the window seals. A very tedious and long process of adjusting the angle of the regulator and window mounts so that when the window rolls down it does not bind on the inner door or the outer door skin where it comes up out of the door. Doing all that and making sure you don't break the glass can be very taxing. I am leaving a lot out here right now. I just wanted you to get a sense of some of what is involved to give you an idea if this is something you really want to get into. It was definitely the most frustrating aspect of my build.

 

[Lenny B]

also should i be spraying rust kill or equivalent on the metal after wirebrushing or just primer?

If it was mine, I would just clean it the best you can and then spray it with a 2K epoxy primer or just leave it as is. It looks to be just the light surface patina type rust that all 50 year old cars have. Unless you submerge it in the chemical stripping process, you are not going to get rid of it in the areas you don't have access to anyways. It took it 50 years to get that far. You'll be long dead and gone before it becomes a problem. Just do what most everyone else does and strip it the best you can, coat the bare clean metal with an epoxy primer (some guys use a rust encapsulator like "Eastwoods Rust Encapsulator") on it, paint if you like, then install the headliner, and move on. 50 or 100 years from now the next guy can decide whether he wants to dip it or not.