Chris' '68 Charger R/T restoration

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Before the engine went back in, I cleaned and painted all of the components like the master cylinder, brake booster, steering box, etc. I unwrapped all of the wiring harnesses, cleaned the wires then rewrapped them. Then it was time to drop in the engine:

IMG_20180814_184121607_HDR by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20180819_121530062_HDR by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

2020-01-19_10-50-30 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

2020-01-19_10-47-08 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

So for as long as I can remember, hes been rocking these old American Racing rims with 225 tires. I convinced him to update wheels and tires and he bought some Torq Thrust wheels and some 275/60/15 and 246/60/15 tires...much better:

2020-01-19_10-25-35 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20181017_180244836 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20181017_180315433 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

2020-01-19_10-22-13 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

So this phase of the project took me till about October of 2018. The car was way more fun and looked much better. Then over the winter of 2018/2019 my uncle had time to think about what he wanted to do next. He really waned to freshen up the suspension as it was all stock except for some Bilstein shocks and a fiberglass rear spring that were installed years ago. So in April of 2019, I ripped the front and rear suspension out of the car, replaced all of the body mount bushings and rebuilt everything with new bushings:

IMG_20190406_135727040 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20190420_072302244 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20190421_121117076 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20190423_194900136 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20190605_114059666 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

Pulled the rear diff apart to clean, check and install new seals:

IMG_20190512_124050427 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20190519_132555596 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20190527_165025864 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

Rebuilt the brake calipers:

IMG_20190608_214306153 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

He also decided over the winter to buy the Hooker side exhaust system. Im glad that he did. not only does it look great, but the car sounds meaner too!

IMG_20190623_120023686 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20190623_120045479 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

Here we are at the local car show. This is one of his favorite shows that weve been going to for the last few years. Its a once a year deal so I made sure that the car was ready for this year. I finished the car a few days before the show. He drove the Vette and I drove my Mustang:

2020-01-21_09-04-54 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

 

[HEMI-ITIS]

Nice pic,,,,,,,but who's who?

 

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Been making good progress on the Charger over the past few months. I got the deck lid fit and gapped, I got the car on the rotisserie and the bottom side cleaned up, took the shell up to Detroit to get acid dipped and e coated and I rebuilt the doors. I ended up cutting the inner lips off of the doors, separating the skin from the shell to wire wheel in-between, coated everything with rust converter, made new lips and reassembled the doors. Today I hung the doors to do the final gapping

I added a Hemi pinion snubber reinforcement plate as well as the leaf spring hanger and shackle reinforcement plates

 

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Back from e coat

Ground the lips off of the doors so I could clean up in between the layers. I then wire wheeled everything and coated everything with rust converter. I sheared up some steel to make the new door lips and welded everything back up. I also glued in the door handle and rear view mirror reinforcements with 3M panel bond

 

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I also had to fix a couple spots on each door skin. The areas were previously brazed but it was failing and continuing to rust. I decided to just cut the areas out and make patches.

 

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New lips made and tacked on

Reinforcements glued in

Door hinges rebuilt thanks to Mopar Leo

 

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Got the doors hung today for final gapping and set a back tire in place to get a visual

 

[hunt2elk]

Very nice work. Looks like this isn't your first rodeo.

 

[RT68440]

Very nice work. Looks like this isn't your first rodeo.

Thanks, actually yes and no. This is my first restoration, however, I do work at a hot rod shop, so I apply what we do at work to this project as well

 

[keepat]

Awesome job! Looks great!
Pat

 

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I want to give a shout out to Stephan Fournier at S.F. Restorations. I gave him a bunch of my parts off of the Charger to restore with the correct finishes. I've always heard great things about Stephan and I will say that I'm another one of his many happy customers!

 

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So it's been over two years without an update. I've steadily been working on the car when time allows. Last summer I rebuilt the deck on the back of our house, and then my wife and I decided to have a baby before we got too old lol. So she got pregnant last September which meant turning her office into a nursery, moving her office to the basement, cleaning up the basement to have extra living/play room, we added a full bathroom to the basement and remodeled the main floor bathroom. So needless to say the last year and a half has been hectic. The little guy is just over 4 months old now and things are getting to be somewhat normal again which has allowed me more time in the garage. Pictures will pick up from my last post of April of 2020.

I stripped and cleaned the insides and outsides of the fenders and doors and then put them in epoxy. Once those were dry, I prepped the inside and outside of the hood and epoxied it. I also fixed the broken dabs of glue that are in-between the skin and structure with 3M panel bond.

 

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I had Resto Rick rebuild the hood hinges to tighten everything back up before the bodywork started. I also had Mopar Leo rebuild the door hinges as well.

I stripped, prepped and epoxied the front valance and trunk lid.

 

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With all of the panels prepped and epoxied, I started working on the shell. I stripped all of the e coat off of the outside panels to give me a fresh surface to start the process with. Once that was done, I masked and epoxied the shell.

I then put all of the panels back on the car and got everything adjusted. Then I sanded the epoxy with 150 and started bodywork. Making sure all of the trim fits properly.

 

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With the filler work done, I cleaned out the garage and hung up plastic. I sprayed another round of epoxy on the car to seal everything up. Then I sanded that with 150 and sprayed 3 coats of polyester high build.

 

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At this point, I let the car sit for a couple of months in the garage with the heat up and let the polyester dry out real good while we worked on the nursery and basement. Once I got back to it, I blocked the polyester with 150

With the passenger side blocked, I did a wipe down with wax and grease remover to give myself a reflection to make sure I was going in the right direction, then I rolled it out to turn it around and start on the other side.

And driver's side blocked a few weeks later.

Once the polyester was blocked, all of the panels were removed and I sanded the trunk and door jambs and did any bodywork touch up. Then I seam sealed the outside of the shell and top coated the shell with epoxy.

 

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This weekend I sprayed guide coat on the shell. Eventually it will get wet sanded with 360 and 500 grit. Before that happens, I will get the panels seam sealed and put into epoxy, then the car will go back onto the rotisserie and get the floor, engine bay and trunk e coat sanded, any bodywork needed, epoxied and a fine dry sand.

While all of this was happening, I had the transmission rebuilt, I bought a set of 440 Source Stealth heads and took them up to KG Engines and had them cnc ported. Right now the engine is at the builders getting machine work, assembled and broke in on the dyno. I also received my Legendary order last month that I placed last year. So things are moving along!!

 

[xs-ivv]

Very nice, straight car that you are building. What process did you use for stripping the panels down to bare metal?