Front end breakdown

I have been doing little things off and on with the car and trying to juggle things with the other cars at the same time.

Last week, I decided to tear down the front end to assess what I really need to do with it. The Corvette is at the body shop where the frame issue will finally be dealt with. My hope is that when it is ready to return, I can drop off the Challenger and have the frame checked on it before going any further.

I removed the hood, front fenders, bumper, and grille. What I found is that the frame probably is bent to some degree but it was hard to see and determine this before with all the other stuff in the way.

The front fender walls were crumpled and straightened out somewhat, all of the original bracing is also bent and needs replacing.

This is now a good stopping point for the frame shop to do their work. The car runs and drives so I can drive it onto and off of the trailer. I decided to leave the inner fender walls and radiator support stuff for rigidity. Once it is back from the frame shop, I will start drilling all the spot welds out and removing these damaged items. Fortunately, there is nice reproduction stuff available to put back on when ready.

In the meantime, while I am waiting for the frame shop to have an opening for this car, I will strip the car down further to a bare shell so after the frame shop is done, I can be more ready for the blaster. What I may do is take the car to the blaster before replacing the front end sheet metal so that when it comes back, I can focus on doing nothing but sheet metal repairs. The blasting process is likely to uncover some other rusted panels that may also need replacing.

First test drive

Over the past few evenings, I have been able to remove the seats, door panels, seat belts, and other misc. items from the interior. Today, the rain finally let up for a few hours. I rolled it out and finished cleaning out the inside. The windows wouldn't hardly move up or down, the clutch pedal creaked and groaned, and the shifter was very rigid. Fortunately, a bit of wd40 freed it all up and saved me the trouble of further disassembly.

I took it out today just to shift it through the gears and listen for problems. Everything seemed great.

At this point, I need to decide where to go next. I would like to get everything working if I can do it without spending money but I know that eventually, I have to strip the car down to a bare shell for media blasting.

The plan for now is to make sure the car is safe to drive so that I can drive it to a body shop and have the frame checked. This car was once involved in a significant front end accident and whoever repaired it did a lousy job. This was know from the onset and the seller threw in extra sheetmetal for the project. Although the seller thought the frame might be bent, I am not so sure about that. Once I know the details of the frame, I can remove the fenders, inner fender walls, radiator support, and start working on the cowl which has some minor damage.

Once all the front end sheetmetal is good, I will strip the body down to a shell and have it media blasted next.

First day of cleaning

Another day of rain but since I have the day off, might as well do what I can in the tight confines of the garage.

I vacuumed out the interior a bit but until the seats can be removed, it will be impossible to get it really clean inside. The trash and droppings from the rat which once lived here were piled high. Just getting the bulk of it out made a big difference.

I cleaned the trunk fairly well and boy did it need it. The trunk lips around the gasket were packed with leaves and dirt which was wet. Had I left it in there, it would eventually rust through. The trunk floor has far more rust than I had expected. We checked the car fairly well before purchase but with so many spare parts in the trunk, it was hard to be thorough. I scraped away the thicker areas of rust and removed some of the body chalking which was curling up. Despite the rust, the floor is still solid.

The bottom line, the main center area of the trunk floor has the biggest rust issues. If any part of the trunk floor needs replacement, it will be that area. At some point, I hope to have the body bead blasted. If the trunk floor is still solid, I will look into skim coating it rather than cutting it out. This will be one of those issues I need to consult an expert on. I'd like to do it right the first time but I really don't want to do any extra work or take on extra expense if it's not necessary.

I fired up the engine and let it run a good long time. It was already in perfect tune and needed no adjustments what so ever. It would not overheat and sounded great at idle. Not sure if the flapper valve on the exhaust manifold is working right so I'll have to check that later.

I cleaned the engine entirely and it looks like new. I replaced the partial air cleaner wih the old one from my Super Bee and it looks like the day it came from the factory. I did notice though that the flappers on the air cleaner don't appear to work right so that's another thing for me to check out.

On another note, I discovered that the clutch petal doesn't seem to return properly and may have binding issues. Once the interior is disinfected and bare, I can look into that problem. Hopefully it's something simple and not a sign of pressure plate or clutch fork problems. The tranny does shift through all gears but it seems kinda stiff to me so I guess that's another thing for me to look into.

Car is delivered in the middle of a three day rainstorm

The seller brought the car to me this morning and was nice enough to do it in the rain. He got the car running for me so I had no trouble getting it off the trailer and into the garage.

Having another look at the car out in the open made me see more than before. The interior is just disgusting. Rats nests and droppings several inches deep in some areas. The carpet is desentegrating and the headliner is falling down. The trunk and the interior had lots of extra parts littered about, some of which don't even belong to this particular car. Removed the extra parts and stripped out some of the biggest pieces of trash just to get an idea of what the floor looks like. So far so good, but until all the interior is removed, cleaned, and disinfected, it's hard to really inspect the interior further.

Closer inspection of the outside shows sheet metal damage to the front lip of both doors and the door hinges probably need replacement but that's to be expected of a car this old. Both front fenders need work but at least they seem salvagable. The seller threw in a really nice R/T hood he claims is from a 71 model. It looks good but I'll need to flip it over and inspect it better. The radiator support has been replaced but the person who did it didn't do a very good job so that will be part of the overall redo. It looks as though both inner fender wells were straightened but they really need to be removed and replaced with better ones. The seller threw in the passenger side replacement with the attached piece of frame rail and shock tower. He offered to give me the other side if I thought I needed it. The cowl is the last part of the damage. It has dents and definitely needs work but I may not have to do any cutting. In any event, the seller threw in an entire cowl section with the lower firewall. 

If the rain lets up tomorrow, I'd like to strip and clean the interior really well. Time permitting, the engine could use a nice tune and I'd like to check all the fluids throughout the car. I suppose if the rain doesn't let up, I can still tune the engine and start going over the outside to photo and document the issues.

I found no build sheet or fender tag which is a real blow to the authenticity of the car but on a brighter note, the federal sticker on the door jamb is intact and I might be able to use it to get a replacement fender tag made down the road.

New addition to the family

Just finalized the deal for my new 1970 Challenger! It's rough but I'm convinced it's gonna be something special when I'm done.

The pictures you see were taken a couple weeks back. The owner was kind enough to let me go down there alone and inspect the car at my leisure. I crawled all over it and took several photos.

Basically, the car is a numbers matching R/T 383 four speed car. Original color is Go Mango with a vinyl top. The car has no power brakes or power steering. There is no console and it is likely a low option go fast car. Of special note to me is that the serial number is less than 800 which implies a pretty early production car. Since 1970 is the first year ever for the Challenger, this could be one of the very first cars to hit the showrooms.

The seller is going to deliver our new addition this weekend and I can hardly wait.

It is going to look great parked next to the 70 Super Bee in the garage.