'69 charger r/t-se: Building my dream car

[tallhair]

The chromes looking beautiful already

 

[Propwash]

Nice job on the wiring and the trim work! Looks pretty slick man. Heck of a good job. Yeah, trim work...sure is a lot of hours for such small pieces of metal. Keep up the pace! You can't reason with hurricane season.

 

[conv67bdere]

Top notch work again there Speedy - thanks for the updates . . . I'm REALLY liking that Sparco wheel - will have to keep it in mind for later . . .

You've got to be getting close to getting it all wrapped up ! ! !

Oh wait . . . the last 10% always takes 90% of the time to complete ! ! ! ( smile )

 

[747mopar]

Boy did that come out nice, who would have thought. I know these guys don't know just how rough that thing was so let me tell them for you "Speedy's got skills". More great work

 

[usaroadrunner]

Boy did that come out nice, who would have thought. I know these guys don't know just how rough that thing was so let me tell them for you "Speedy's got skills". More great work

Really nice...just so happens I have a pile of trim laying around, maybe you can show me all these mad skills on my trim pieces....HEHEHEHE.

 

[PFG MOPAR]

Here's the schnizzle

This is on craigslist here !!
I remember these !! :love10: coolness..
You need this Speedy :headbang:

Mike..

 

[tallhair]

I don't think so PFG ... he's got the right wheel already

 

[Mr.SpeedFreak]

Nice job on the wiring and the trim work! Looks pretty slick man. Heck of a good job. Yeah, trim work...sure is a lot of hours for such small pieces of metal. Keep up the pace! You can't reason with hurricane season.

Thanks Prop and yeah I was just thinking that last night, the number of hours that have gone into this set of trim is a little crazy but "what can ya do?" Especially with Chargers the grille is kinda the centerpiece so everything's gotta be clean

Top notch work again there Speedy - thanks for the updates . . . I'm REALLY liking that Sparco wheel - will have to keep it in mind for later . . .

You've got to be getting close to getting it all wrapped up ! ! !

Oh wait . . . the last 10% always takes 90% of the time to complete ! ! ! ( smile )

Thanks 67! But I still got a loooong way to go, these last few engine bay odds and ends, putting the grille back together, brakes, shifter, headliner, cage, and then I'll probably be blocking the car down til July lol but hey hopefully Frankenstein will be back on the road in time for summer so that feels good!

Boy did that come out nice, who would have thought. I know these guys don't know just how rough that thing was so let me tell them for you "Speedy's got skills". More great work

Haha thanks 747 and huge thanks again for donating it to the Frankencharger Fund lol thought you'd get a kick out of how nice it came out, and now when your Charger is in the magazines I can point and say part of it found its way onto my car

Really nice...just so happens I have a pile of trim laying around, maybe you can show me all these mad skills on my trim pieces....HEHEHEHE.

Thanks USA! And yeah if you wanna hire me to clean em up for ya that'd be awesome! Shoot me a PM and I can give you my email if you wanna send some pics of the damage haha. Maybe I need to get a "Will resurrect mopar trim 4 food" sign :thinker:

Lol nice Mike, but yeah I think I'm stuck on my Sparco one

 

[Ron 73]

Speed, awesome job on the trim!! The guys are right you do have some good skills on all this!

 

[Mr.SpeedFreak]

Well I got that black emery yesterday and it definitely sped things up with the polishing! So now the I-beam and both end pieces are done, and I got the 4 straight pieces actually straight (those damn things were bent six ways to sunday) and ready to polish up tonight.

Just to get the grille stuff off the couch I put it all together loose and in place on the car, and had to take a few pics when I saw how it all looked. Think it'll be pretty clean once everything is done and bolted in :grin:




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Speed, awesome job on the trim!! The guys are right you do have some good skills on all this!

Thanks ron! It's a lot of tedious work but cool to see the end result, I got a new respect for those guys I see saving the trim on overhaulin and those other shows now haha

 

[tallhair]

Excellent work and results you sure did save yourself a pile of $ with your skillz. Very nice

 

[Chargerjase]

Great work as usual Mr SF. The saving of the trim is very impressive because I know how hard it can be. One last push to get her back on the road. Good luck.

 

[BigBlock61]

This is on craigslist here !!
I remember these !! :love10: coolness..
You need this Speedy :headbang:

Mike..
View attachment 171804

Ooh is that one of those steering wheels so you can drive with handcuffs on? LOL

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That grill is lookin sweet! Keep it up Speedy.

 

[usaroadrunner]

That's good to know speedy about my trim.... the grill looks fantastic and frankencharger looks mean sitting there, ready to tear it up.

 

[roadrunnerman]

Excellent polishing skills. Wiring looks good. Hope you got the carb worked out. Everytime I see one of those chainlink steering wheels, it reminds me of Cheech and Chong Up In Smoke.

 

[747mopar]

Excellent polishing skills. Wiring looks good. Hope you got the carb worked out. Everytime I see one of those chainlink steering wheels, it reminds me of Cheech and Chong Up In Smoke.

Haha, "this is captain hardass" I loved that part of the movie. Great feeling putting the grill back in even if temporarily, for me that's what makes the 69 the baddest of them all. More motivation "right".

 

[Mr.SpeedFreak]

Excellent work and results you sure did save yourself a pile of $ with your skillz. Very nice

Thanks man! And that's for sure, something like 200 bucks for an I-beam amd 500 for a full set of grille trim if I remember right? A lot of work but well worth it!

Great work as usual Mr SF. The saving of the trim is very impressive because I know how hard it can be. One last push to get her back on the road. Good luck.

Thanks Jase! Yep, gonna be a busy next couple months getting ready for summer tire-burning season haha

That's good to know speedy about my trim.... the grill looks fantastic and frankencharger looks mean sitting there, ready to tear it up.

Yeah no problem USA just let me know if you ever want it done! And thanks man, definitely had one of those "semi-obsessive mopar guy" moments and had to just stand and stare at it for a minute hahaha

Lmao @ bigblock, rrman and 747, it reminded me of Up In Smoke too. I gotta go rent that one and watch it again now, too classic

And 10-4 on the grille 747! Ya know it's funny when I first got the car I kinda wished it was a '68 or '70 so it'd have either "open" grille, but it took me about a week for the '69 grille to grow on me and now it's my hands down favorite. Good motivation indeed haha

 

[CHARGERSTEVEN]

Hey speedy your grill looks great i know how you feel about the tedious job on the grill. It took me about a full week to complete this task and im glad its out off the way. I guess i wont know what it looks like till installed in car. Keep up the good work n pics. Besides i have nothing else to do with 3 feet off snow still on the ground.

 

[Ron 73]

I haven't seen the shows you mention Speedy but ive done some of my own trim and know how much work and time it takes, You get this Charger finished ill give it no more then 6 months and you'll be ready for the next "project MOPAR" The quality of work you've put in this will be strong when your done, looks like a beast now sitting there! i love the stance of it...

 

[Mr.SpeedFreak]

Success! Kinda

Had a pretty busy weekend but as always I managed to make a little time for the Charger! Got the toe-in adjusted better which had been a PITA when we were trying to roll frankenstein onto the trailer to get the exhaust done, and after a little work I got the steering wheel in place and turning free. :icon_thumleft:



Also since I first fired off the car I noticed none of my gauges were lighting up or working, took a couple minutes poking around to realize 2 fuses were missing from the block and the long skinny plug on the back of the cluster wasn't on quite right. Sorted those out and ran my tach wire (which was for some reason missing from my new engine bay harness), and whattya know- everything lights up and works great!



Also got that insert done for the curb idle speed, got it in place and it works perfect! Had the car idling nice for quite while around 8/900, sounded awesome and it looks like my valve covers sealed up finally.





So here's where the "kinda" comes in.. tonight I went to try and get that exhaust video for you guys, fired the car off and let it warm up a bit, but this time didn't really wanna idle below 1100 rpm. So I loosened the distributor a little and tried rotating it just a bit either direction to find a sweet spot for the timing, but got to the point where now it wouldn't even run. Bumped the starter til the dampener notch showed 10 before TDC, pull the cap and see the distributor is somehow now 180 out. "What the hell?" So I flip it around, try to fire it, and it gives a cough back through the carb. "Ok.." so I bump the starter over again to 10 before TDC, pull the cap and AGAIN it's 180 out. So I'm not sure if it's a noob mistake on my end or what, but I'm gonna ask the guru's tomorrow and see if I can't get this figured out. :shruggy:

Hey speedy your grill looks great i know how you feel about the tedious job on the grill. It took me about a full week to complete this task and im glad its out off the way. I guess i wont know what it looks like till installed in car. Keep up the good work n pics. Besides i have nothing else to do with 3 feet off snow still on the ground.

Hey thanks Steven! Definitely a mountain of work goes into those grilles, I bet yours will look great. And man, 3 feet?! Most of the people around here thought we had it bad with a few inches and a little ice lol but I hear ya, I think we're all counting the days til tire-roasting season

I haven't seen the shows you mention Speedy but ive done some of my own trim and know how much work and time it takes, You get this Charger finished ill give it no more then 6 months and you'll be ready for the next "project MOPAR" The quality of work you've put in this will be strong when your done, looks like a beast now sitting there! i love the stance of it...

Thanks Ron! :icon_thumleft: I still need to machine the lowering blocks for the rear end one of these days, looking at Redstripe's car and Mr.Angry have me thinking of just a hair 1.5" drop and it should be where it needs to sit. And even though I still have a long way to go with Frankenstein, I'm already getting the gameplan together to frame-swap and fix my Chevelle (excuse my chevy haha) but a friend of mine has offered to sell me a pair of '70 Plymouths (one is pretty much rotted away and would basically be parts for the other). I don't have the money right now but we'll see what happens a little later down the road
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