CDN72SE's Restoration Thread

[Charger72]

Leaf Springs
Turned my attention to the leaf springs, started to strip them down. I ordered the Shackle Rebuild Kit from Bill Rolik and I ordered a new pair of Leaf Spring Center Bolt's from Jim's Auto Parts, that's right Jim's. Thought I would take a chance, ordered them on the 8th and they were in my hands on the 11th. They were twice the price of Bill's but I wanted them ASAP. Got Bill's and used his.

Uncovered some numbers:

Separating the leaves, I have six aside.

Had to cut through the bolt and burn the rubber insert to get it out, what a pain. Bought new bolts from MegaParts.

Installed:

 

[Charger72]

Rear Brakes
Got out the wire brush and the rust encapsulator, these are 10" drums.

I had some red paint kicking around so used it on the drums as I'm using rallye's.

Think I had changed the rear shoes once since I've owned it, not sure if the hardware is original or not, I did order a kit.

Took care of the backing plates, one finished and one unfinished, I did the vinegar, lemon juice and salt method for removing rust on these. Did an excellent job.

I used some rust encapsulator, primer and then some of Eastwood's black steel rim paint that I have kicking around.

Got the wheel cylinder gaskets from DMT, the wheel cylinders from Canadian Tire and the riveted brake shoes from Napa.

 

[Charger72]

Headlight Buckets
Well I've got a few things on the go and trying not to get too far ahead of myself, been working on the rear leaf springs, rear brakes, heater box and headlight buckets. For now I'm concentrating on the headlight assembly and the heater box. So here are some pics of the start of my headlight and accessories re-fresh.

Drivers side fender with assembly attached:

Removed... not much to it, four bolts I'll bag those and clean them up later.

Took a bunch of shots of the position of everything for later:

Before cleaning, discovered the part numbers and paint marks, looks like we have red, orange and blue and I think black on the different cups, I have to record them:

Here's HI-LO-5-RT-.122 after a bath:

Here's one of the mounts after a little sanding and a few coats of Eastwood's Underhood Black Paint.

Next I'll finish cleaning the other parts, install the new headlight screws and hardware, reproduce the coloured stripes on the cups, polish the headlight rings and install the new sealed beams.

 

[Charger72]

Heater Box
Compared my original heater box to one I bought off eBay, hoping to make one out of the two, unfortunately the parts one got damaged during shipping. I should still be able to put the two together.

Original:

Donor:

What I'm working with:

Acouple more:

Last of the many pics I took:

Ordered a kit to do the rebuild, I'll update as I go along.

 

[Charger72]

Well I knew it would be 50/50 on whether I would break the glass or not, but a tool for the removal and used some aircraft wire but I got impatient and managed to crack it, it really doesn't take much at all to break the glass. Not too upset the windshield wasn't in the greatest shape.

 

[Charger72]

Front Brakes & Components
Started to take apart the front brakes, I will clean up the calipers, maybe I'll rebuild them. Strip down the dust shields and paint them black as I do see that they had black paint on them. I bought new brake positioners and I have a pair of NOS hub grease caps.

Further taken apart:

Did a little painting:

More to come...

 

[Charger72]

Valances
That's the original '72 valance on the left and the one on the right is a '73 piece that I picked up NOS back in '92, I painted it in primer black and installed it on the car. It's still in excellent shape, but I'll be using the '72 (as everyone probably already knows they are different). The rear valance I had to buy, thought I'd better buy one just in case they decide to stop producing them :shruggy:.

Here is some evidence of where it was painted with some kind of black paint, even have the running paint to prove it. I often see a lot of these left body colour, maybe some are?

 

[Charger72]

Crossmember
You can see how much undercoating I have on the bottom of this car, I plan on removing it. I guess some options are to just apply more undercoating over what's already there, leave it and patch or... what others have done use Lizardskin and re-cover the bottom. I have noticed in some spots where I have removed undercoating there is surface rust there so that leads me to believe that no everything is not going to be perfect underneath. I had gotten the car rustproofed over the years (Rustcheck) so I think that helped a lot and helped me dismantle the car with the basic tools I've always owned. I don't think I have ever broken a bolt.

The crossmember I'll de-grease and paint with Eastwood's Extreme Chassis Black. I bought a set of NOS crossmember bolts, they were cheap, mine were ok but all four were not the same. Does it make a difference? No, but hey they were NOS and now I can say I have some NOS parts. :coolgleamA:

 

[Charger72]

Ramcharger Setup
Well here's some of my Ramcharger parts, looks like I am missing one end cap or flapper or whatever you call it. Think I will be ordering one from PG Classics. I've bought many parts from them and the delivery is quick and the packaging is very good and oh yes the parts are nice as well. :2thumbs:

 

[Charger72]

Undercoating & Removal

Well, on sunday I got my propane torch and putty knife and decided to start removing the undercoating, I am planning on replacing it at some point. The bottom of the car is starting off very easily, I think mainly because I used to get the car rustproofed so it's kind of supple. I haven't come across any rust yet, I know there is a little bit of surface rust where the gas tank resides, there was no undercoating there as the undercoating was applied after all the components were already on the car. Needed the torch on the stuff in the wheel wells and the front wheel well area. I almost regret removing it but I didn't want to take a chance of their being rust present.

Here are some before pictures showing how much coverage the car has.

Gas tank area with a little surface rust:

You can see the little patch that is missing and how clean it is underneath:

Here are some progress pics, nothing too exciting:

The whole floorpan basically looks like this, I was trying not to scratch it too much with the putty knife.

 

[Charger72]

Not a heck of a lot going on right now just scraping off undercoating and stripping the shell, starting to concentrate on the interior as well.

 

[Charger72]

Rear Axle & Differential

Thought I'd do a little cleaning of the axle, what a lot of caked on grease. I may replicate some of the paint daubs and markings not sure yet. Main goal is to strip it down, prime it and coat it with some of Eastwood's Extreme Chassis Black. With the differential I think I'll hit it with some Detail Gray.

Differential:

Started to do some detail of the rear.

Took care of the pinion snubber. De-greased it, soaked it in some Evaporust, primed it and then painted it.

 

[Charger72]

Brake Pedal

Here is my brake pedal assembly that I just finished freshening up. Did it over a few days as time permitted. Here it is as removed from the car.

Disassembled:

Gave this part a little bath in the vinegar, lemon juice and salt solution. For the rest I used Evaporust, for light stuff I used the red scotchbrite pad and/or steel wool.

Cleaned up and painted:

These pieces I left their natural colour and coated with some of Eastwood's clear.

Here is a before shot:

Some more:

another, painted the whole thing with Seymour Stainless Steel paint and then sprayed over most of it with Eastwood's Underhood Black. Mine originally faded from black paint to bare steel.

Here it is all back together, wasn't hard to do and I think I'll move on to the emergency brake next.

 

[Charger72]

Not too much to show lately, still removing paint from around the trunk and front & rear window gutters. Not very interesting stuff so I've kind of been starting other little projects as an aside.

Figured I'd take the plunge and buy a new Spectra gas tank, of course it's cheaper to buy it in the States and have it shipped to Canada, even though it's Canadian made there is not much choice as to where to purchase it here and it's more than double the price. Mine is dented quite a bit, so to avoid hassles I thought I'd purchase new.

Here's my new tank, what a beauty.

Test fit the tank:

Started going through my stash of Slapstick shifter stuff, before AMD came out with theirs I purchased some original brackets off ebay. I'm going from column to floor shift.

I also started stripping the front and rear bumper brackets. Will use some rust encapsulator on them followed by some eastwood's extreme chassis black.

Got the rear bumper guard brackets finished up as well, one NOS and the other has some slight surface rust that I removed after soaking in Evaporust for a few hours:

Here they are after a couple coats of Eastwood's Rust Encapsulator and Chassis Black, with original nuts and clips:

 

[Charger72]

Cleaned up and painted the Wheelhouse Vapor Canister & Shields.

Before:

[

After:

 

[Charger72]

Bucket Seats

My car was originally a benchseat model, ember in colour. I replaced that soon after I got the car with a pair of mismatched buckets; drivers side is white and passenger green. Both I painted with some cheap vinyl spray, duct tape and cheap seat covers.

I recently ordered some white front seat covers from Dante's. The plan is to colour match the interior with the front seats, I'll be switching the interior from black to white. Here's the seats as they sit. :'(

Recently received my covers from Dante, very nice Legendary covers, I'll tackle these myself a little later.

Some interior color change. I lightly went over the panels with a scotchbrite pad on some of the scratches and followed the SEM procedure, here are some of the results:

 

[Charger72]

Hidden Headlight Grille

I'll put the refresh of my grille here as I work on it. Not a bad set-up does have a bit of the usual pitting but not too bad and nothing broken.

Did some masking and used Eastwood's Underhood Black.

Added the DODGE emblem, going for a similar look to the 71 style.

Here's the grille surrounds:

Got the surrounds done, still need to polish the chrome, I'm happy with the results. Here's a couple pics.

another

**Edit, after all that I decided to go with the '71 setup.

 

[Charger72]

Received my set of KYB shocks from Just Suspension, these are to replace the set I last bought in 1991. I was tempted to re-use them because the car has mostly been off it's suspension all these years. I did have to cut the two rears off so that swayed me to buy a new set. They are sort of a dark silver colour, look good but I thought I would paint them black, three more to go.

I paid US$125 for the set, in 1991 I paid CAD$105 just for the front!

Also picked up some suspension parts from Rockauto. The shipping to my Toronto office was not bad at all, and the prices were worth it. Still need to get some sway bar end link bushings and a couple more things.

 

[Charger72]

Got the front sway bar finished.

Used Eastwood Chassis black, Seymour's Stainless steel paint and the bushings are Moog.

 

[Charger72]

Rear Taillights

Decided to take a look at these this past weekend, I have one NOS black and one a nice argent taillight. The plan is to re-finish them both with the tri-colour effect, black, grey (or darker argent) and argent. I am not too concerned with them looking OEM exact. I've got so many different cans of silver, argent, aluminum, grey it's getting nuts so whatever I have on my shelf that is the closest I think I will use.

Here's the black bezel.

and the argent:

Started masking:

Got it painted:

Ready to spray some argent I had kicking around for the outer part of the bezel:

Thought I'd share my mistake, I painted these two bezels two weeks apart and somewhere along the line I mixed up the finishing paint, one I used Eastwood's Spray Gray and the other is Detail Gray. I think the top is Detail Gray, when I have made the correction I'll straighten it out. :brickwall: Well at least I have two different samples.

Installed: