JamieZ's 68 Charger

[r0t0rdr1ver]

Great work so far Jamie, she'll be back on the road in no time. Love the '68's and love the blue!

 

[Propwash]

Looking sharp. Nice tip on the tap for the LCA bushings! Thanks for posting, i'll have to remember that.

 

[transamdroptp08]

Great work so far! Good to see all the work keeping it alive and back to like new condition.

 

[JamieZ]

I cleaned the Challenger up for Mopars at the Junction, and since it shares the garage with the Charger I haven't done much to the Charger since most of what it needs now is messy.

On Memorial Day by dad brought over the torch and we got the other end of the Torsion bar out. The cross member was full of packed in mud and road grime due to a failed seal/boot. The passenger side doesn't even have a boot so unless the bar falls out on the first few whacks, the passenger side will see the torch too.

I did fit the new seals on the new bars. I blasted them with a heat gun for a few minutes to soften them up before muscling them on. It was a lot harder than I expected.

Finally since I had the sway bar and radiator to K frame piece out, I gave them a good cleaning, hit them with the scotch brite and then dropped a new coat of chassis black on them:

Hopefully next week I can get back to the dirty work and maybe even start reassembling the passenger side.

 

[JamieZ]

Still working on the disc brake conversion / front suspension refresh project. I found some rust and the repairs have slowed everything down. I've got most of them fixed up, I'm down to replacing the UCA mount. One side was rusty and weak looking so I decided to buy a replacement. The replacement doesn't come with the "washers" that the eccentrics for the bolts key into, so i had to be careful and save my originals. The rusty side I pulled off with just a pair of pilers. The other side took a bit of work with the cut off wheel, but I got it out clean. Removing the rest of the bracket is a bit of a pain, but hopefully I'll get it off this week.

 

[JamieZ]

Got the bracket off....not the cleanest removal but aside from a few scores I didn't do any damage:

My dad fabricated an alignment tool. Just a simple piece of wood that fits the washers, but it really helped get everything lined up:

Once they were clamped to the bracket I took them outside and burned them in. I worked on refitting the UCA but with the new slightly larger bracket and the new never been compressed bushings it is a very tight fit. I need to do a bit of grinding to clean off the undercoating/grime and maybe a touch of metal to get it fitted cleanly.

 

[boandluke]

This is nice, much better than any car ill get for my project.

 

[Ron 73]

That looks like kind of a tuff job there, Some of the work on these can be, im not to familiar with what your doing here though.. Good luck getting it where it has to be!

 

[JamieZ]

I finally got UCA bracket positioned and welded back in place. Then I started putting parts back on the car. Everything went back together a lot smoother than it came apart. It did take me a bit to figure out the caliper mounting bracket from Dr Diff, but once I realized it attached to the back of a knuckle, everything slipped together nicely:

Now I just have to break down the major pieces, grease all the joints, take my best guess at adjusting the shock, and then put it all back together with the right torque settings.

...and then put on the rotor....and the caliper....and the wheel...... Oh well at least parts are going on for once!

 

[Richard Cranium]

Nice job!

 

[snakeyes]

thanks for sharing looking very good :headbang:

 

[JamieZ]

Installed the bearings (once I figured out the races were already installed), rotors and then the caliper. I had never done slide calipers before so that was a bit of a learning experience:

And fortunately, the new wheel did not have any clearance issues when I offered it up:

Now it's time to get the tires mounted and start pulling off the other side. I also cleaned up the garage and put away all the tools. Now the parts pile is looking much smaller:

 

[JamieZ]

Finishing up the driver's side, I disconnected all of the hard brake lines and cleaned them out with Eastwood's Aerosol Injected Cleaner and then connected them to the new distribution block. I was very happy all of the existing lines fit without any issues:

And while I was under the car I was looking around and discovered why the car weeps a little oil......

You don't need all the bolts holding on the pan do you? Most of them is enough, right?

 

[Richard Cranium]

Fishnets on your spindles? Obviously you're a very ***** guy.

 

[JamieZ]

Went to the Canfield swap meet this weekend. Not much in the way of mopar stuff, but I did manage to pick up a 68 Charger owner manual and a print of a 68 charger.
Mounted up a tire and put it side by side with the tires I am pulling off:

Height wise they are nearly the same, but as you can see the new ones put more meat on the road. Hopefully that will keep them from breaking loose so easily.

Caliper clearance is minimal....

...but nothing rubs. I might take a trip to the local pull a part and see if I can find a 5 on 4.5 15" wheel/tire to use as a spare. If I stick with the 14s" I'll need to carry two as a 14" won't fit on the front any longer.
So now I can either play with swapping the master and adding the booster or do the other side...all depends on how dirty I want to get.

 

[JamieZ]

The oil pan bolt kit showed up. And it turned out it was a good thing I ordered a full set.....because there were THREE bolts missing from the pan.

What the heck? Does a small block use less bolts and a previous owner ordered the wrong kit and ran out? Well it's fixed now.

I also hooked up the remaining 2 brake lines. I still have to mount the booster/master but I was under the car and already dirty so why not? And speaking of dirty, I was poking around under the car and found 2 different vacant insect nests. One looked to be a wasp nest and was in the passenger side motor mount. The other was in the K frame. I also found several rocks, and a 6" stick jammed up in there. If I have time before the weather turns I'll have to dedicate some serious hours to cleaning the underside.

 

[JamieZ]

I tried to swap in the new master cylinder/backing plate but got frustrated by the location of the nuts and the difficulty of access. I'll probably have to pull the front seat to save my back.
So I decided to get dirty and rip apart the passenger side front suspension. This time it went a lot faster, as I knew what I needed to do. Unfortunately the passenger side looks to be in worse shape than the drivers. I snapped one of the UCA bolts, it was so rusty that the cam had rusted to the shoulder. The frame rail is missing a few chunks as well. A previous owner just screwed pieces of sheet metal over the holes...sigh. I won't know how bad it really is until I get it cleaned but the bottom and engine side seem solid all the way through, with the top being questionable in the UAC pocket and the front being bad from the brake union to the front of the UAC pocket.

Now that the parts are off the car, I can start cleaning them and removing the old bushings. Then new bushings, ball joints, and paint. I still have one tie rod end on the car (swapping it anyhow) and the steering idler arm. Not sure if I am going to swap that or not. Ironically, the passenger side torsion bar just wiggled right out. No torch required this time.

 

[JamieZ]

Managed to get all the bushing out of the control arms. Everything it broken down now and just needs a good cleaning/repaint before putting new bushings/ball joints back in. There were some issues with my press. Mostly due to the fact that the ram part of it bends....very easily. I got fed up and decided to fabricate a new one. I ended up using the torsion bar I chopped as a new ram. That won't bend. I'll probably make a second one that is a bit longer from the other half of the t bar:

I also chopped out most of the rust from the passenger's side frame rail. I've got a Safe-t-cap piece to put over it but I'll probably add some additional structure inside just to be extra safe....right now it's too depressing to look at the pictures of it

 

[GetX'd]

You're doing some masterful work on that puppy, or should I say Big Dog.

Its a nice Charger to begin with. Funny (not really) how much work you have to put into these old dogs to get them the way we want them. I ran into the same problem when I pulled my GTX out of a 35 year siesta. Went in clean came out needing a lot of work.

you have a great car - it all pays off!

 

[JamieZ]

Last week has been spent cleaning the suspension parts. I soaked them in Evaporust, pull them out, scrubbed them with a wire brush, and put them back in for another soak. Repeat repeat repeat.

This is what they started as:

And here they are now:

A few of the more stubborn spots I'll hit with a wire wheel and then scotch brite followed by some chassis black paint.