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January 23, 2011
Front valance and blackening
Didn't have much time this week to work on the car until today, but my son and I did reinstall the front valance and mask everything off, carefully, to black out the area behind the grill and bumper. Also, I wanted to see what my new parking light lenses would look like installed, so we put those together and installed them with new hardware in the valance. I think it all came out well and looks really cool.
Posted in 2004-present | RESTORATION | Reassembly | body | primer and paint | link to this page | | Comments (0)
January 17, 2011
Reassembly begins
It is wonderful to finally be at the reassembly stage. Boxes, envelopes, containers of new and restored parts, will now be freed from their captivity to adorn my Charger.
The very first part I installed on my newly repainted Charger was the passenger side fender emblem, the symbol of Mopar, the pentastar.
Next I installed my new reproduction outside door handles, to encourage people to not put their hands all over the paint when they want to open the door and look inside. They sure look nice to me.
Here's a shot under the hood, with new weatherstripping, bumpers, and hood insulation, with new clips.
With help from my brother-in-law, son, and nephew, we jacked up the assembled K-member and bolted the front suspension in. I installed the .96-inch torsion bars with new seals and clips, and began to assemble the brakes. These are 11.75-inch Cordoba brakes, and will do the job very nicely, I'm sure. The rotors are used, but have been turned. All other parts, including bearings, seals, calipers, and hardware are all new.
After installing the front suspension, my son and nephew were itching to put something else on the car, so I let them install the new body plugs.
I really appreciated the use of Mopar Ed's dollies for the front end of my car, and wanted to free them up to return to him as soon as possible. The most fun way to do that was to get the car sitting on its tires again. I remounted my old BFGs on the newly painted rims, and installed them with new chrome lug nuts. At some future time, I will install the stainless steel red-line dog-dish hubcaps, to see if I like that look as much as I think I will. I really like the look of the car sitting on its tires. To me it looks more like a car than a "project" this way. I think this combination looks really sharp, and is the look I have been hoping to achieve.
Posted in 2004-present | RESTORATION | Reassembly | Reassembly | body | primer and paint | link to this page | | Comments (1)
January 15, 2011
Happiness in the garage!
Today was to be the day! Mopar Ed said if we could give him a little while to finish buffing and detailing a few areas, we could bring the Charger home today. Here are some views from inside his shop. My family and I were stunned with how beautiful the car was, how great a job Ed and his team did, and how totally cool the colors looked together in real life, after imagining them or seeing examples on paper for all these years.
Here is my buddy, the famous Mopar Ed, doing some last-minute dusting prior to taking some pictures for his records and his Facebook page. I cannot recommend Ed's work highly enough. I encourage all my Mopar buddies to give Ed a holler for your Mopar parts or painting needs. His shop pretty much does it all.
Here are a few more pictures of the car outside at Ed's and on the trailer preparing to come home:
AT LONG LAST, with the help of some wonderful friends and family, here is my Charger, beautifully painted and safely unloaded in my own garage. The boxes you see in the background of one of these photos are full of parts, new and/or restored, waiting their turns to complete my Charger's restoration, inside and out.
We've been home for about three hours as of this writing, and I've already run outside six or eight times just to look and let it sink in.
Posted in 2004-present | RESTORATION | body | primer and paint | link to this page | | Comments (1)
January 14, 2011
Wheels
In preparation for the arrival of the Charger, I sandblasted these "cop wheels". They are a Mopar item from the mid-1980s, usually found on Diplomats and Grand Furys. They are nice, stout, ventilated 15x7.5" wheels with great backspacing, making tire selection a breeze. After sandblasting, I coated them with etching primer and then three coats of satin black. These will be set aside until needed.
Posted in 2004-present | RESTORATION | primer and paint | sandblasting | suspension, brakes, tires, and wheels | link to this page | | Comments (0)
January 08, 2011
RED update
We took our first road trip down to see the car. Mopar Ed and his team continue to work on my Charger, as time allows, and things are really starting to look sharp. They are in the process of "cutting and buffing" the paint. The paint has a luster in person that is hard to capture in these photos; however, the shiny paint catches reflections in a frustrating way. (This last is according to my wife, the photographer.)
Perhaps in a week, the car may be reassembled and ready to come home. We will update this page as soon as we have new information.
(This is me, laying hands on the red paint for the first time. Hard to tell, but I am definitely smiling. This is a happy moment.)
Posted in 2004-present | RESTORATION | body | primer and paint | link to this page | | Comments (0)
January 07, 2011
Front suspension coming back together
Now that everything for the front end has been painted with the Eastwood's Extreme Chassis Black, it's finally time to reassemble everything. Here are all the parts laid out, prior to bushing, ball joints, etc being installed.
Here is the final product ready for installation when my car comes home from paint.
The upper control arm bushings are polyurethane; the lower control arm bushings are stock rubber replacements. I had read too many people having problems with the lower control arm bushings loosening up and/or squeaking with the polyurethane ones. All new ball joints and boots are installed. The tie rod ends and sleeves are stock for C-bodies, which are much beefier than the stock B-body units that my Charger came with. The original strut rods were bent, I realized after I took them out, so these are new steel heavy-duty units from PST with polyurethane bushings. The steering box is a police-car steering box from a Dodge Diplomat police car. Once the K-member and torsion bars are reinstalled, upper control arms bolted in, I will install the dust shields and rotors with new bearings and seals, allowing me to put the front wheels back on, at long last.
Posted in 2004-present | RESTORATION | suspension, brakes, tires, and wheels | link to this page | | Comments (0)