My '72 Challenger project

But you can see the bolt shaft is no longer uniform… again I have all new bolts, so not fussed… the washer shattered when I started to undo the bolt & this was with a hand ratchet not the rattle gun…





Next up I needed to remove the header panel (not sure why they call it that but they do), so first removed the lights from the header panel





The passenger side of the header panel came away really easy, all the bolts & screws came undone nicely… however on the driver’s side one nut was so rounded that I had no choice but to cut it off…



Then as I started to undo the bolts that undo the top section of the panel there was a very loud crack….. I was not happy!!! Whatever muppet put this panel on last decided to use some form of liquid nails or other permanent glue to hold a section of the panel to the front of the fender so as soon as I released the tension it just snapped a chunk of the panel off….







Now the panel pile is also starting to grow…

Yep, she's in Melbourne now... probably one of the better travelled Challengers in the world... she started in US obviously, then she went to the UK… then Ireland… I bought her in Dublin a few years back & had here there for a little over 2 years, then when I moved to Australia I took her with me…

Don’t mention the war… I’d forgotten about the steam cleaning… I never set a budget & to be honest I’m not even tracking the costs, but roughly I’m still ok, I got the car for a song in Dublin & it’s worth so much more here.. but it is simply a labor of love at this stage & all I want in the end is the best car that I could make with what little skill I have learned along the way

I also had some new bits turn up…. I have a new battery tray (this makes it official 100% of the metal front of the firewall is being replaced)



I also got a new adjustable drivers side mirror to replace my cut up one



I’ve also never liked how worn & tatty the window winder handles are, so a new set to go on are here now



I also decided to get new dress rings for the headlights as mine are badly pitted & starting to show rust spots





And I have the complete replacement screw & bolt kit now… everything comes bagged & tagged so it will be very easy to make sure that I’m putting the right ones in the right holes…





I’m not wondering what I might do with the K-Frame & the old lower control arms… the K-Frame is a bit crappy looking & bent in a few places & the lower control arms are the same, all I did when I was re-doing the new suspension install was to paint my original ones… now I’m rethinking that approach

The view I was met with when I had removed the booster was not a nice one… some bad rust was growing behind there… looks like I’ll need to patch or repair that was now my thoughts…







Now I was getting myself ready for the big job of the day, unpicking the front panels off the firewall… I used my engine crane to take the weight of the front so that it wasn’t pulling off the firewall as I was working on it



Then as I started to scrape off the heavy layers of tar & paint to see where I needed to get into to unpick the panels… I found that the tar used for rust proofing that had been applied in Ireland by a previous owner was applied way too late in the cars life, the salt from the roads for the years she lived in UK had gotten in where the inner wheel well meets the firewall….





So some serious head scratching was being done as I ran through all my options now… I decided to not bother unpicking the front panels & just used a plasma cutter (cool toy) to cut the front off..

Now I’m up to the pulling the dash out of the car part of this… this is my pet hate when it comes to working on old cars, I love & look forward to doing all the mechanical bits, but playing with 40 year old brittle wiring & contorting my body into awkward shapes to reach nuts & screws up under the dash is not fun in my book….

With this in mind I was standing in the Skunk Works nice & early on Sat morning getting myself ready when I decided stuff it I’ll open up some boxes of bling & play with them instead… so with the engine being all new & shiny I figured it would be a shame to fit my old filthy, dented & scratched accessories & brackets… so I’ve opted for some new billet bits..



I already had a chrome crank pulley for the engine..



Now I have a matching water pump pully





The kit I bought also had a billet bracket kit for the alternator (I already have a chrome Alt)







The power steering kit came with a new shiny Saginaw pump too..

With that done… it was time to start playing inside the car… happy happy joy joy…… job one was to disconnect the ignition & all the other wiring from the steering column & remove that… some of the connectors where nice & easy to get to & to unplug..





As suspected I found a very brittle connector that was compounded by the fact it had melted at some point in its life… this took at age to get apart without breaking anything….









Then I started to come across the “new” wiring that has been added, a previous owner loved scotch locks for sure… there are a heap of these & connector blocks under that dash..



My fave was these two wires that are joined together by a 10A fuse… it’ll be interesting to see where they go in the end….



With that done, I was able to unbolt the steering column from the firewall & the underside of the dash & remove it from the way

It’s been a while since I’ve updated this… combination of me being traveling for work & not being near the car, added to the fact I’m still awaiting some major parts that I’ve ordered & finally I’ve been too busy to write up some posts… so what’s been happening… sadly not a lot at all really, I’m still awaiting the big part that is needed to get this project moving to the next phase & that is the new firewall & front cowl sections. I’ve decided that I’m not cutting the old panels out until such time as I have the new bits to hand here to weld in, I’m also waiting still on the new engine wiring loom & some small dash bits & pieces…

What did arrive since the last update is my new QA1 tubular K-Frame, so I’ll be adding the old filthy bend & dented K-Frame to the growing pile of “used” bits from this car… & yes that pile is getting very big… I’ve seen people selling less bits on ebay & calling it a restoration project…

Anyway, the new K-Frame looks lovely & shiny….







Can’t wait till I’m at a point where I have a set of chassis rails to bolt that back up to… I also decided to replace the lower control arms.. these where the last of the original suspension parts that where on this car, so now I’m fitting AQ1 tubular lower arms as well..



Some other bits that arrived as well as all new chrome work… I got new wheel arch moldings



New chrome trim for the rear panels



The above is what replace these battered bits that go across the boot & down each rear Qtr



My new dash wiring loom is here





I got a complete firewall gasket kit to go with the new firewall when it gets here..

The next job before looking to remove the dash was to disconnect all the wiring that connect to the in dash loom from the back of the car & to unbolt the connector block from the firewall that joins the dash loom to the engine & headlight looms









The A pillar trim also has to come off



The last bit of unwiring that needed to be done was to disconnect the stupid big AMP in the boot that I reckon I’ve used twice in 5 five years… I tend to just listen to the music from under the bonnet…





The car has clearly had several ICE installs done over the years & most of the time the old wiring has just been cut & left dangling up behind the dash..



There were two of these things whatever they are…

So I went & bought another tool…



This one is used to bend back the little clips that hold the chrome trip on around the windshield… my plan now was to pop the front screen out first & then unbolt the stupid dash…



You can see how it’s shaped to get in behind the clips & pull them in to release the trim.. much better than just pulling on the trim which can bend it



Next thing was to remove the wiper arms to get them out of the way…



No…. no that wasn’t going to be possible…. It’s really hard to see from the pics, but these are NOT just clipped on like you would expect these have been bonded on using liquid nail or some other industrial strength adhesive… they won’t budge & I suspect that I will have to cut them off….. how can people be so stupid as to actually do this sort of thing….





A fragment of the adhesive I was able to brake off…



Then with the trim off you go inside the car & using a long flexible blade you start to cut into the bonding silicone that holds the window in until you have cut all around the screen & its free to push out… sorry no picks here as once I started I didn’t want to pause to get happy snaps in case something went wrong & I broke the screen… happy to say that I didn’t…



Screen now out… so at some point over the weekend I’ll remove the dash now

Chris_Heilong wrote: »

Amazed at how much work has gone into this, well done.

Thanks, sadly there is still a bit more stripping down & taking apart of the old girl before I can finally start the rebuild... But it'll be worth it when she's done

With that done, the heater core was next on the list of parts that needed to come out…



I noticed that the top vent that blows air up to the screen isn’t actually connected to the blower housing… I’m not sure if this is how it’s supposed to be? It works, it will blow warm air on the screen but surely there should be something connecting the two together.. I’ll see if I can’t get that information from uncle google when I’m putting it back together..





There are a couple of screws that hold the unit to the firewall on the inside to be undone..





Then there should be 3 bolts that go through the firewall & need to be undone from the engine side…. Two of my three where snapped off at some point in the cars past, so I’ll have to look at fixing that before I put it back in







With that one bolt undone I figured it would slide out fairly easy…. Nope… there was some rusted hook shaped thing sticking up into the plenum chamber on the passenger side that made it nearly impossible to pull the unit far enough into the car to clear the hose outlets from the firewall….



Once I had managed to wiggle the assembly out, it appeared that the rusted hook thingy didn’t have anything to actually connect to anymore & had snapped off years ago…. Guess I’ll have look into that as well to work out what’s missing, I’m guessing a flap of some sort to control airflow

Once the pedal assembly was free I could see that these where captive bolts, so I’ll need to drill them off & weld on some new ones when the putting humpty back together part arrives







The more naked I make this firewall, the more of the horrid rust you can see… I’m so glad that I started down this path to fix the rear main oil seal leak in the old engine, which if you remember is where all this started… with carpet, parts & paint you just couldn’t see any of this…



Next up was the brake pedal assembly, this is attached to the steering column bracket…



That came off easy & without snapping anything… next was the loud pedal… again 2 bolts that run through the firewall… I was expecting the worst on this now too…





Luckily this part of the firewall wasn’t exposed to the same elements that rusted the outer sections away (I’m blaming the many years she lived in the UK & drove on salted roads in the winter)



The parts pile was growing now…

Got a call when I was away for work last week to tell me that my parts had arrived & where ready to be collected… happy days… so I headed out this week with the trailer & got my boxes of happiness…



I’ve unboxed everything to make sure that I have everything I need & to ensure that nothing is damaged, because my old grille was held on with rivets I decided to get a new one to fit correctly to the car when I get to that stage of reassembly, my parts catalog for YearOne is from 2011 & so some things have changed over time… for example back in 2011 you could get the grille in silver or black… now it’s silver only, so that’s what I got… not an issue as I’ll be re-spraying the car anyway



You may recall that there were a few tiny rust bubbles on the bottom of the doors, I won’t know how bad that is until I strip the paint off, so I ordered a set of lower rust repair panels to use depending on how bad the rust is… to be honest it looks like nothing… but a good coat of paint could be hiding anything…



The drivers floor section has a patchy fiberglass repair on it, so I have a new repair panel to go in



There are some bad rust bubbles on the driver’s side lower sill, just in front of the rear wheel, so I have full sill replacements now for both sides



I’ve never been happy with either the front or rear valence panels on the car, they are bent & dented a little too much for my liking, so I got a new set…



Of course let’s not forget the big bit… my shiny new perfect firewall panel… it looks great, so happy with the quality of all the bits really…



Now I probably could have reused my old cowl section to go back on top the firewall when I replaced it… but I’ve gone this far so no point in cutting corners now… so I have a shiny new cowl too



Together they look like this….



I also got new side sections that join the firewall to the floor pan.. again who knows if I actually need them, but I’d rather have them here & not need them that need them & not have them…

It’s been a while since I’ve updated this… things are happening, just not as quickly as I would have liked.. but it’s my own fault, I’m travelling a lot for work & I refuse to let my panel beater mate work on the car without me there helping & learning, but I won’t rush things or do things half arsed if I can help it, so it is what it is….

First up was removing the center console, fairly simple step really… remove the shifter handle & then the top plate screws off, I noticed that this plate is bent a bit & the finish on it is pretty tatty.. so I’ll probably replace that





With the top plate off I can get to the screws that hold the console in, most of the retaining holes are snapped off & it has always wobbled about as a result & it has lots of extra speed holes drilled into the sides from years of CB/Radio/Phone kit installs I guess, so I figure I’ll replace this too whilst I’m at it.



Now you may remember that I had that one wiper arm that I couldn’t get off as it had been glued on using some bonding material of unknown origin, so I had no option but to cut that off in the end…



Now, let me introduce you to my new fave tool…. The humble spot weld drill bit, these little buggers are fantastic for what they do, the premise is simple they are flat so that you can just drill through the spotweld in the top panel & not drill through the second panel, now sometimes they do bite in & in the panel is thin they just rip through both… but all in all they are very easy to use, sadly rust seems to blunt them quicker than good metal & they are not the cheapest little things..



I just realised that I never took a pic of the process that I used to peel the panels apart… but it goes like this:

Find spotweld
Drill out the spotweld being careful not to drill through both panels
Once all the welds are drilled, get a cold chisel place it against the seam of the two panels you want to separate (between two of the drilled spotwelds)
Belt chisel with a hammer & it will lift the two panels apart, then just chisel & lift as you work your way around the panel

First thing I did was to grind back the paint on the panels to clearly show me where all the spot welds where.. the “placement” of spot welds show me that this car was clearly build by Roberts & not by Robots.. some didn’t even join the panels..



Then drill them out



Then peel back the panel using the hammer & chisel



Once you’ve made it all the way around the panel you’d be amazed how easily it all comes apart… so now the old Upper Cowl is off

The pile of crap removed is growing…





Also used this time to remove the smaller sections that I had patch panels for… again can’t say enough for the quality of these parts, they fit almost perfectly & at most need a tiny tap with a hammer to get they lined up 100%





Next up was to offer up the new firewall & see how much “massaging” if any this would need to fit…



This trail fitment went far better that I had ever expected it too… I had envisioned many hours of me cursing & throwing tools around & regretting having ever started this stupid repair attempt… I have a spot welder, but when we tested it, it really wasn’t working…





So we decided that plug welds where the way to go… so next up where for me to mark out & predrill the holes for the plug welds (basically picked the spot between the old spot welds)

Then the day came to offer up the firewall, this would be a two stage process… step one was to bond the panel to the car using a Sikaflex bonding agent, so we put a layer of Sikaflex around the panel edge



Then we clamped the firewall on… it’s a bit fiddly to get it all lined up perfectly… but again I cannot speak highly enough of these new panels… luckily between me & my mate we had enough clamps… just.. note to self, next time you see clamps on special buy them all…





This was then left for a week for the Sikaflex to fully cure before the clamps where removed



Then I had to go around & remove the Sikaflex from within all of the pre-drilled holes that needed to be plug welded, to be honest that was the worst job of all so far in this whole process… once that was done then we plug welded each hole… then we started to test fit the upper cowl panel to ensure that that would be a perfect fit too





Took this time to mark out where the cowl panel will be welded to the firewall, then buffed off the paint where the welding would happen & ground back the welds on the firewall to be flush like a spot weld would have been





I’ve also predrilled & dressed the cowl panel in prep for its impending union with the firewall

Another quick update… good progress was made on the weekend here, it was time to mock up the front chassis rails for fitment to the car.

The process I used was to bolt back on the K-Frame to the two chassis rails & then to measure all the datum points that I had taken of the gaps between the original rails prior to cutting them off. I didn’t take a pic of them (I think I need an official photographer at this stage) but the large bolts that mount the K-Frame have a tapered shoulder so when they are tightened up they center the K-frame on the chassis rails. Once the K-Frame was tightened up the gaps where almost spot on front & rear. Then we fitted up the front upper & lower rad supports to tie that section together again to the same measurement specs that we had taken from the original piece before removal. This was a very fiddly process that took a long time with lots & lots of measuring distances & angles & lots of tapping of things to get an angle or measurement spot on that of course then put another angle or measurement out… but after what seemed like several hours we had this…



Then I bolted & welded my engine leveler to the k-Frame & used my engine hoist to get the whole assembly up in the air, this made it very easy to move around & the leveler made it very easy to set the angle of the structure to the angle that the car is on.. once we moved it into place we were able to position & clamp the chassis rails where they have to connect onto the existing sub-frames.. again several rounds of measuring & checking & taping & re-measuring & re-tapping where required.. then as we got each piece to the exact location it needed to be we started to put some tack welds on to stop things moving as we fettled the large frame on.. we also took this time to test fit the windscreen & I’m happy to say that we have the exact same gap all around the screen that the original had to within .5mm.. I never got a pic of the window in as I wasn’t taking a lot of brakes to capture the moment.. but this is the frame tacked on







It was finally starting to look like a car again…

Now I didn’t get any pics of it (will do later) but there is a some bog in the outer sides of the boot floor I noticed & on the inner panel that joins the boot floor to the rear Qtr.. I didn’t have the time or the heart to start digging to see how bad that is, so I just decided that it’s better to have the new panels handy in case I need them… so I got a set





Then I decided, feck it & I got a whole new boot floor too…. I opted for the two separate halves option as I’m told the one piece floor is a bugger to install if you don’t remove the rear Qtrs & I really don’t want to so that…



I hope that I don’t need to use all of these new panels & there is only patches that need to be cut out & replaced, but as you’ve probably guessed by now I don’t do things by half, so whatever needs to be done I’ll do… & who knows maybe one day I’ll even be finished….

Now you may remember that when I was taking the front off the car & unbolted the nose that it snapped off where it had been bonded to the driver’s side guard… well here’s a refresher pic anyway…



Well I cut that little bit of front off so I could re-fiberglass it back onto the front nose & what did I find behind it…. A ********ton of bog…



Now I know what you’re thinking, how much bog on a flat panel surface is considered a ********ton…. Try the best part of 10mm



Now the bonnet is also not really perfect either, it’s got more of a curve in the passenger side than it does on the driver’s side & some of the support bracing underneath is cracked



So I’ll do some soul searching over Xmas & decide if I fit what I’ve got or just buy new panels & not fix these ones… my concern would be just how bad are then one I have them blasted back to bare metal…

I was having a real hard time with the bonnet, it just didn’t seem to want to shut properly & I couldn’t figure it out as I’m using brand new hinges… well it turned out that the new drivers side hinge is fouling in 3 spots, not on the bonnet, not on the inner guard but on itself… first the spring end fouls on the bracket



Then the upright support is too thick & it sticks right between two of the coils of the spring





& finally the stopper tab is too large & it also fouls on the spring…



So that’s another issue to sort later, there is an aftermarket set of billet hinges that uses struts & not springs that I might opt for… we’ll see how good Santa is too me I guess…

Right it’s been a while since I updated this thread, work has been ongoing but I’ve just been slack at the thread updating part of this…

I got sick of looking at the vinyl roof on the car so I decided it was time to rip that off, plus I’ve grown tired of nobody believing me that the roof under there is fine, so I undid all the side bright work so I could peal the top off





Then with the trim removed from the rear window I was able to simply peel the roof off, interestingly the passenger side was really well glued on, but there was little to nothing holding down the driver’s side, I suspect that the glue had gone off before that side was being pushed down… no wonder it was peeling up, definitely an example of how not to install a vinyl roof…







The roof whilst sticky now in large parts, looks great.. no damage or rust, in fact the guy that installed it never even scored up the paint to give the glue something to bond too… unfortunately the chrome trim than ran around the base of the roof was installed correctly using the pop in clips & I now have a collection of small holes that I don’t want & will have to fill…







With the vinyl roof off there are actually some nice lines in the roof that you really couldn’t see, the angle that the roof slopes down towards the rear window is much more pronounced now



Also the curve at the base of the roof where it joins the roof looks so much better with the vinyl & the chrome trim there… looking forward to see it in shiny paint eventually…