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

[Mr.SpeedFreak]

Well last weekend was a big one, stayed up all night Friday night getting everything under the car reinstalled and buttoned up. My previous pictures of the car rolling were with the front spring hangers unbolted, so aside from the spacers still not being installed yet this is about the final fit for the rear wheels
:icon_cool:




Sunrise after a long night


So the point of the all-nighter was to get it back rolling for a field trip to my friend Rich's shop to get the rot around the rear window taken care of, so another long day after a long night, but definitely worth it with how well it came out.

My dad checking out the wheels haha








No more rot! :icon_thumleft:


And finally a cancer-free rear window surround


So we ended up only patching the "face" of the surround (between the shelf the window sits on and the roofline itself) since the window shelf was in good condition and I worried about the window and trim fitment if we were to add more thickness to it. Some quality time with the angle grinder and roloc wheels and it came out looking great. Still feels weird not seeing the whole thing rotted out like it's been since I bought the car lol

Finally back home and cancer-free! ccasion14:


- - - Updated - - -

And I'll post some more pictures tonight, over the time I was MIA on here for a bit I got my motor disassembled and stripped with some wire wheels and my power drill. Got it taped off and etch-primed last night, and shooting it with factory-matched orange when I get home :icon_cool:

 

[tallhair]

I had missed you. Thanks much for the updates and yes you have been busy and really made a lot of progress! Looking great and I'm anxious to hear your reports on what it feels like to drive.

 

[Basket case]

great to be cancer free!

 

[cdr]

yes it is a good feeling to have all the metal work done,i still gotta grind all my welds,,by the way your car is lookin great.

 

[Mr.SpeedFreak]

Thanks guys! Yeah it's really an awesome feeling to have no more rust issues, but this weekend I'll be tackling cutting the braze out of the drivers side quarter (where the quarter was brazed to the sail once upon a time) and rewelding it. Looks like I'll have to do a repatch on the passenger side too, but hey at least there's no more rust haha

- - - Updated - - -

Alright well here's the progress with the motor! First I got it disassembled and taped off to start stripping it down with the wire wheels



Then got the new high flow thermostat and water pump installed, hand sanded the little spots I couldn't reach with the wire wheel, and did a final wipedown and tape-off


First I hit it with some etching primer to seal and give something better for the topcoat to bite to


Getting to work :icon_cool:




And the final product! I'll wait a couple days for it to cure before I start putting all the new/powdercoated stuff back on. Really happy with how it came out though
ccasion14:

 

[tallhair]

Another late night .. Looks great Mr SF

 

[northerndave]

Looking really good!!

 

[hunt2elk]

Nice work. You're right, it is a great feeling when all the soft spots on the metal are solid again. I'm envious of you and wishing I had some free time to get into the garage and work on my project.

 

[Mr.SpeedFreak]

Thanks guys, the encouragement from everyone always helps keep me going.
ccasion14:
And yeah elk it's hard to find the time, I've been working anywhere from 9-12 hour days plus making sure I spend time with my girlfriend. Luckily she doesn't mind watching me paint on occasion haha

 

[Superfreak]

The car is looking great.

 

[Mr.SpeedFreak]

And another bit of progress I just remembered I forgot to post. When I took a trip out to mopar mike's to replace the seals in my trans, I took my dash with me and learned the process of restoring the gauge faces in the cluster with new decals. I was a little hesitant to tear the cluster apart but it turned out to be really easy





Then got the cluster back in the dash, scuffed/re-dyed an original dash pad I bought from my friend Chuck, and mocked everything up to see how it looks







Think it'll look good in the car, definitely an improvement on how my dash started out haha. Think I'll be ordering the LED bulb replacements this weekend, excited to see how those look :icon_biggrin:

 

[Basket case]

looks great!

 

[tallhair]

looks great!

X2!

 

[747mopar]

Great progress, dash looks great.

 

[roadrunnerman]

Everything is turning out great and you should be proud of what you've done so far.

 

[BigBlock61]

Its coming along nicely. Great work on that dash too.

 

[Ron 73]

Everything is turning out great and you should be proud of what you've done so far.

X-2!!!

 

[Mr.SpeedFreak]

Thanks guys! Feels really good seeing some of the bigger steps done and getting closer to it being a whole car again.

The past few days I've been having fun doing brain surgery on the driver's side sail, cutting out the braze I mentioned before and rewelding it. Some pretty tedious stuff but surprisingly it's going pretty smoothly

This is basically what I started out with, glad I took the time to strip all the bondo off and find it now while I'm already doing metalwork. Would've been horrible to find the hard way later down the road


And this picture shows pretty much every step in the process. Luckily there was enough overlap between the two panels that I could drill a couple holes in the outer layer and plug weld them together. Once they were solid I went down the line cutting about a quarter inch below the braze, then came in from above and cut the strip out. Then just used the cutoff wheel on edge to grind the rest of the braze off. *the tedious part* :banghead:


Then once everything was clean I got the mig dialed in really well and started stitching her back together. :icon_cool:




Still have some braze to remove where the top edge of the quarter meets the door pillar but it's nice to have this section out of the way. Got some good welding practice in and won't have any bondo nightmares there later on :icon_thumleft:

 

[747mopar]

I really hate working on a car that someone that didn't have a clue started, it's twice as hard especially trying to uncover all of the cob jobs. Lucky for me the retards that started mine ran out of motivation early in the build and didn't get to deep into it. You keep this up and you'll beat me done "dammit". Looking good

 

[Mr.SpeedFreak]

That's for sure! Whoever made the attempt to "fix" the body of my car before I owned it definitely didn't do me any favors. Would've been a hell of a lot easier if they had just left it alone lol

Well hopefully both of us can be back on the road soon. Did you ever drive your Charger before you started the build?