My 68’ Rustic Charger Resto

[Deere842]

It’s been a little while since I’ve posted but, I’ve made some slow progress. I had to put a new heat pump system in the house and a few other things (You all know how that goes! LOL).

Next I cleaned up the inside of the torsion bar cross member. The crossmember is in pretty decent shape aside from the frame rail brackets inside. I removed the brackets and made some replacements out of 2” box steel and some angle welded together. Then I sprayed everything in copper weld through primer and welded everything together. Think it should work out fine and is probably stronger than the factory braces.

 

[Deere842]

After seeing signs of rust from the cowl corners and from the lower cowl vents, I figured I should pull the upper cowl to inspect the damage. After half a million spot welds, this is what I found. Luckily the donor coronet I bought has a really clean upper and lower cowl to spare.

 

[Deere842]

Pulled the upper and lower cowl off of the coronet and blasted them at my buddy’s show (Thanks Dave!). Only bad spots were on the driver very side cowl vent ring. Got to try out this shrinker and stretcher kit from Eastwood. Worked awesome. Need to pickup some new sheets of metal.

 

[Deere842]

I’m waiting on trying to find a drivers side windshield pillar so, figured I’d start on the drivers side rocker then replace the door hinge pillar. I had to weld in patches on the inner rocker due to severe pitting & holes. Once that was done I tried rust remover gel on the inner rocker after wire wheeling it down. I’ll probably sand blast it before I permanently mount the rocker. Temporarily I screwed the rocker on so I can perfect the gaps later.

I removed the drivers side hinge pillar from the donor car and welded in a small patch. I’ll install this when I track down a windshield pillar.

 

[Wojo68]

Outstanding skills

 

[showard]

That's a lot of work.

 

[daytona kid]

A lot of very nice work. Your going way further than I did on mine, & Looks like you've done your homework. 68's RULE!!

 

[showard]

There are going to be a lot of homeless mice!

 

[Deere842]

Sorry for the delay, I’ve been making some slow but steady progress! Now for the dreaded windshield A-Pillars...

I went to a cool old junkyard and found a donor 69’ RR that had an unlucky date with my sawzall mid order to get a decent set of pillars. This is the passenger side.

 

[Deere842]

Now for the drivers side pillar. This side required a few more beers than originally intended

 

[Deere842]

Got the drivers side all wrapped up. Made a small patch on the firewall to cowl mating surface then, applied more weld through primer. Sandblasted both the upper and lower donor cowls then, welded the lower on. After that I epoxy primed both pieces and welded the upper cowl back on. Holy spot welds!!!!

Then, I was able to stick the donor front frame rails, aprons and core support. The frame rails fit perfectly and everything measures within spec according to the service manual.

 

[Deere842]

Here is where the fun begins... I removed the rear quarters and cut everything back to get the car ready for sandblasting. Took a couple days off work and took the car to my buddy’s shop in order to sandblast / epoxy it.

It took a ton of time but, turned out decent. At least now I have a clean canvas to work on now

 

[monroegtx]

You’re doing some phenomenal work here, and you seem to know what you’re doing as well. I wish i had half your talent for body work. You will save yourself heaps doing this kind of thing yourself, and it will be one beautiful resto when you’re done. I’m enjoying following along here and appreciate your pics and posts. Well done.

 

[70Polara440]

Excellent work! Glad to see another young guy not afraid to crack a few beers, bust out the grinder/spotweld cutters/welder and tackle the seemingly impossible! I'll be following this one.

 

[Deere842]

You’re doing some phenomenal work here, and you seem to know what you’re doing as well. I wish i had half your talent for body work. You will save yourself heaps doing this kind of thing yourself, and it will be one beautiful resto when you’re done. I’m enjoying following along here and appreciate your pics and posts. Well done.

Thank you for the kind words! I’m no professional by any means, I’m just going full steam ahead with the little bit of experience I have. All of the info on this site helps greatly. I’m definitely excited to see it moving along, I just put in a big order to AMD for all of the metal I need. Thanks again!

 

[Deere842]

Excellent work! Glad to see another young guy not afraid to crack a few beers, bust out the grinder/spotweld cutters/welder and tackle the seemingly impossible! I'll be following this one.

Thank you! It’s definitely strange that not may of my peers are into older cars. They think I’m crazy for putting this much effort into a car in this condition LOL.

 

[70Polara440]

Thank you! It’s definitely strange that not may of my peers are into older cars. They think I’m crazy for putting this much effort into a car in this condition LOL.

I know the feeling I'm 27 and "weird" or harsher names for believing that we should NOT LS swap the world.

Keep it up! We are the people to bring this hobby into the future. The last of a dying breed.

 

[monroegtx]

Well said.

 

[hanks73340]

Keep it up! its awesome! Love watching what folks can do that are not scared and have the skills to do this work in our hobby. Especially in our garages......

 

[showard]

Great work!
I really enjoy watching how you are doing this work.