My '72 Challenger project

Got around to tidying up the boot channel corners, these are odd on this car as normally when you see a repair section for this part of a car it’s a single pressing that had the curve nicely in it & the weld joins are on the straight sections of panel, that’s how they are on others I’ve used seen anyway.

These join right in the corner so they are really hard to get into with a welder tip & then again afterwards to clean up & flatten out the welds… I spoke to some folks on some Dodge forums & it seems that this area gets covered in seam sealer & then you smooth that out.. so I’ve gotten the corners as good as I can & seam sealer will finish the job to a smooth finish when I get around to that bit.













The last big dirty job to be done on this car is to take the roof back to bare metal, it’s winter here now but the weather gods smiled a bit this weekend & it was about 17deg & no rain… so I quickly pushed the car out of the shed so that all the dust & crap created from taking the roof back to bare metal would not end up covering everything in the shed.





The roof looks perfect apart from the fact it was covered in glue to apply the vinyl top a few years back, but as we know whilst you can’t polish a turd you sure as **** can paint one.. so we’ll see what horrors await me now

Been doing some work on the roof, there is a decent dent at the front so that needs to be pulled out rather than just bogged over as it was before



Simple fix, used my stud gun to weld a stud into the center of the dent & then used the puller to pop it out





Whilst I had the stud gun out I sorted the pin dent in the driver’s side door too







Another thing that I need to sort out is the trim buttons that are on the sides of the front & rear window frames, they have clips that attach to them that then attach the chrome trim to them



A few of these are missing front & rear & they had used screws to hold the clips on, but I’d like to replace them properly, so I plan to weld up the screw holes



Then I’ll use the stud gun to weld on some new ones, stud gun kits tend to come with a box of these as standard



The only issue I have is that I’ve borrowed this stud gun kit so I don’t know if its missing a 2nd screw in tip that is supposed to be used as there is no way they will fit in the hole of the standard stud nozzle



Maybe I can try just pressing the tip of this nozzle against the new trim button & see if the current flow thru & welds it to the car? Or I could ask Dr Google I guess

Ok… so I was having some Photobucket account issues… that’s sorted now, so here is the last bit from the post above with pics…..

There was some small rust holes here at the back of the roof, so I’ve welded them up now





I’ve also taken the rear parcel shelf back to bare metal to ensure that it was all fine… which it was & have primed that & the inside lip of the rear window too







Next I’ve start working on alignment of the front panels whilst I wait to get the tools to fix the roof section to turn up…. Stay tuned

As expected this is going to be a nightmare… here is the story of the passenger side door & front guard as a teaser.. the body lines are miles off



So I fixed that





Get a nice gap at the top of the guard & door too





Then this is as far as the door will open now without grabbing on the guard.. if I drop the guard so that the body lines don’t meet up then the gaps are great & the door opens fine but if I line up the body lines & set a gap that allows the door to fully open it’s a mile away & looks crap… some reshaping will be needed methinks



Also when I line up the bonnet with both guards at the front the gap I’m left with on the drivers side is massive



Don’t even get me started on how the bottom of the guards meets up with the sill panels

Just another front end panel update on this old ****ter… I’ve been trying not to take too many pics as lets face it the process is to:

Assemble car
Measure a gap
Disassemble car gain
Then add/remove 1mm of metal at a time to sections
Reassemble car
Remeasure gap
Repeat the above steps

I figure hundreds of pics of each step would drive folks mad… so here are some pics of what I guess I could consider major milestones of the passenger side panel gap saga

The front light bar doesn’t line up correctly, the eyebrow is way too far to the right of the top of the guard



This is because the holes in the guard that the pins on the lightbar don’t line up right



Do I’ve slotted this hole to allow for more adjustment



Now that that’s done I’m happy with how the front looks & the bumper seems to be able to be pulled in fine too with the standard slot adjustment on the brackets so that’s good news, one less thin to have to fettle

I wanted to try & move the doors back as far as I possibly could but the strikers where hitting the door frame, but they have some spacers on them so out they came, thanks to lots of WD-40 & heat as these buggers didn’t want to budge came very close to welding nuts onto the ends of them… but they are out now





These doors are bloody big & bloody heavy so ended up using my engine hoist to help take the weight so I could loosen off the hinge bolts & persuade the doors rear wood





Look at that for a door to rear Qtr panel gap…. I’m soooooooooo ****ing happy with how that looks



Then it was lots of measure & mark etc…



The final decision was that I simply needed longer doors, I can’t bring the front guard any closer to the door or the door fouls on the guard when I go to open it… so the only solution now is to make the door longer in sections to close up the gap between the door & the guard… so out with the welder & slowly put lots of tacks on the front edge of the door… very slowly to keep heat out of the panel





Then to linish this back to be the same shape & profile as the door & just like magic your door is now 1mm longer in the sections you need it to be… then rinse & repeat & if you add too much it’s easy to take it off again

Now on a completely non panel gap front, I’ve managed to finally track down a part that’s been missing of this car since I bought her… that’s the rear demister set up, it’s a little quirky but I love the idea… it’s a blower motor & a directional nozzle, it’s missing the connecting hose but that’s easy fixed







It bolts under the rear parcel tray & blows hot air up the rear window, it takes up a speaker hole as you can see by default







But I’ve also found & ordered the “optional” blower relocation box that will allow me to have twin speakers in the rear & still have the rear demister







Sadly the next update will be pack to panel gaps I suspect… but at least they’ll be on the drivers side to offer a change I guess…

quietsailor wrote: »

Sorry, I'm only seeing this now after you've all the work done , could you weld a filler rod to the edge so you have less welding to do and less heat going into the door

I bought some filler rods to try that ages ago... but my MiG just blew them apart, if I had a TiG it would have been the way I would have gone.. but this has worked fine.

Right a bit more happened this Sat here in the shed, the top edge of the drivers side door doesn’t line up with the top edge of the front guard but the curve of the guard lines up perfectly with the bonnet so it’s the door that wrong… this is a good thing as this is easier to fix that reshaping the top of the guard would be





Taking lots of time & being as gentle as I could be with my precision knockometer I’ve worked the curve on the door to be a much closer match with the guard now



Next up there are these brackets that support the top of the guards



The guards have a captive nut that lines up with the bracket… or at least the drivers side does, there is enough adjustable movement on the drivers side for this to line up but there is no way the passenger side will as the captive nut is welded about 5mm to far forward & there is no easy way to get to the nut to move it





So I cut the bracket in half & bolted each half to their respective homes





This way I could line up the two halves of the bracket & make them… then I tacked it together to be sure to be sure before the final welding…

Steady on..... but thanks