The Dodge Challenger Message Board

It was only around the block, but it felt like a mile. I was pretty excited.

Once the glass and trim rings are on, I'll get some good pictures to post of the entire thing. Then this winter, all I'll have to do is get the seats recovered and restore the jack.

Must be a great feeling being able to drive it finally!!!
Have you thought any on getting it in a mag? Perhaps Mopar Action or MCG?

Some of my first memories are of riding in this car with my dad. I wanted this car for as long as I can remember. Having it in a magazine would be cool but it was never a goal of mine for that to happen. I'm just glad I have something that I can pass onto my son some day.

Last Friday the car was aligned. The steering wheel is off a little so I'll have to bring it back in to have that corrected. Monday the windshield and back glass were installed. The back glass is original to the car but the windshield is AMD. The first windshield came in shattered so I'm glad I had it delivered to work so I could refuse the shipment.

I put about 10 miles on the car yesterday. My dad and my son were with me for the drive. We drove it around town a little before taking it on the highway. I got it up to 60mph and everything felt OK. It didn't pull and seemed stable. The tires have 28psi in them which I think is the factory spec. I'm going to try 32psi and see how it feels.

The main thing I realised on the drive is that the car doesn't feel big anymore. When I drove it for the first time back in 94, the hood seemed very long, and it was hard to determine where I was on the road. With all the mandated safety features on new cars today, they've gotten a lot bigger. My wifes Sebring is pretty close to the same size as the Challenger.

Wow burdar!
That's beautiful! You've done a killer job and I know you'll get years of enjoyment out of that car. There are so many things I wish I would have done differently when I began working on mine, but money has a funny way of dictating what you can do compared to what you want to do, right?
Again...Wonderful job sir!

Very good work Burdar and it looks soooo sweeeet . Enjoy
/hezzel

It's a fairy tale come true.

Here are the latest pictures. I took it to a show on Saturday. Ended up putting 120 miles on it.

Fantastic job! Was the brake fluid reservoir & servo originally that gold colour? And did you install the vinyl roof yourself or get it done by someone?

If the brake booster has a metal band holding it together, it was plated zinc dichromate.(yellow/gold plating) I've seen some 73's and 74's with the crimped boosters. Those were painted black.

The master cylinder lid should be phosphated. I had this one plated because at the time I thought it was correct. I'm looking for a lid in really great shape that I can use instead of this one.

I had the car back in the shop on Friday to have the toe reset. The steering wheel is now centered.

I've had a small exhaust leak since starting the car and it seems to be getting worse. I thought it would be the manifold to head connection since I'm not using any gaskets. It looks like that's not the case though. The PS manifold is cracked down where the down pipe attaches. I have a spare manifold for it.

The jack assembly is almost done. I removed the mechanism and repainted it. The mast was put in some PVC and filled with acid to cleaned it up. It's going to the platers early next week.

Absolutely superb restoration. I am full of admiration for you.

Oh and thank you very much for putting the details of your work on this forum for reference for many more people over the coming years.

Thanks!

I feel that I've learned a lot during this process. There are definately things I'll do differently on the next car...if there is a next car. I'm happy with the way it turned out though. I think I spent the most time on cleaning up and refinishing all the fasteners. That seemed like a never ending process. Trying to bead blast 100's of fasteners with an undersized compressor was not fun. For my last batch of fasteners I used acid to clean them. I should have done that from the beginning. The acid does all the work for you. I also spent a lot of time trying to figure out where each fastener went on the car. If I would have been organised from the beginning, the car would have been done long ago.

The other day I worked on the exhaust tips. They were really close to touching the rear valance. The top outside edge of the PS tip would hit the valance under certain conditions. I ended up installing a 1/4" aluminum plate between the floor pan and the rear muffler hanger. I could have used a stack of washers but the aluminum plate looks a lot cleaner. That did the trick. The tips are lower now and you can see more of them without accually moving them farther back.

This is probably the last update until the spring. The trunk area is just about done. All I have to do yet is clean up some of the weatherstripping adhesive around the trunk seal and replace the trunk latch.(which was damaged at the bodyshop back in the 90's)

I just finished up the jack assembly and installed it. It didn't need much work. I spread the mechanism open enough to pull it off the mast. I soaked it in EvapoRust which cleaned up the minor rust that was on it. Then I resprayed it gray. The rubber bumper and the internal parts had gray paint on them so I didn't have to disassemble it any further. The mast was put in some PVC filled with acid. The acid took the original zinc dichromate plating off and derusted the ends. I took it in to a local plating company and had it replated.









original spare tire...

I drove the car up to the gas station yesterday. I put some fuel stabilizer in the tank and filled it up for the winter. I let it idle in the driveway for 10 minutes while I took a few pics. Then I backed it in the garage and hooked up a battery maintainer. I still need to jack the car up off the ground and put a dust cover on it.

I posted earlier about wanting to run "year of manufacture" plates instead of the state issued ones. Well, I went ahead and ordered some and they arrived over the weekend.

I found two sets of 72-74 Iowa plates at my grandparents estate sale. I thought one might be the original set to the car but that wasn't the case. I did find the correct numbers on the original title though. There are a few differences between the old and the new but overall I like it. The color should really pop against the body color.

Original 72-74 Iowa plate on top...

Cool! Missouri has the same option. Keep thinking about going in that direction also.

That's pretty cool do you just ask for an age related plate or can you search for the original from when the car was first registered? Looks smart either way, and your car gets better the more pix you show us Burdar

That car would probably be a National Winner in an American car show over here in the UK.

When I went to register the car in my name, the DMV didn't have any info on the car. They had switched computer systems a couple times since the car had been registered. They accually had to go back into an old system to find the cars information. It only went back to 1986 though. They didn't have the original plate # on file. That's when I found it on the original title. That's the only way I would have been able to find it.

The state doesn't have to have the 72 plate info in their files. I just have to keep the state issued plates under the seat incase I get pulled over. I printed out the state codes that show this is legal. I'll keep it in the car so no one can tell me it's illegal.

I think I posted this before but here it is again. http://www.licenseplates.tv/

You can look up plates by state and year. They also have plates for other countries as well.

)In Missouri, you can use any year plate so long as the number isn't in current use. So I could use a plate form 1959 if I wanted to, so long as the number isn't in use. Pretty cool.
Also Missouri has something like 250 different plates. That includes custom plates, such as schools,Hot Rod, truck, antique vehicle, fireman Audobon <sp> Society and many others. Then you can also get personalized plates. So I could get FAL 308 plates in standard or custom (FAL 308 Hot Rod plates )

I haven't been on here lately. There isn't much to report on the car. It has been sitting mostly. I was able to take it out a couple times this month which was nice. I installed the vintage plates and think they look perfect. A couple weeks ago a friend and I went for a drive and took some pictures.







I had it at a show last weekend and heard a few people talking about the crushed velvet seat covers. I thought it was time to get the new covers installed so I pulled out the seats and dropped them off at an upholstery shop.

Now on to the list of things that need fixing...The rear end was making some noise so I pulled out the center section and dropped it off at a friend house. He is going to go through it for me.

Something is wrong with the e-brake cable kit I bought. I wasn't able to get the intermediate cable hook up. I ended up taking the cables off and comparing them to the originals. They are a little different in length which must be causing the issues. I'm going to order another companies kit and hopefully it will fit.

While I was driving, something came loose in the DS door. The glass is loose and won't go up all the way. I need to pull the door panel off and see what's going on.

I also need to raise the front end a little bit. The LCA bumper is only 1/4" from touching the frame at rest. I think I'm going to raise it a 1/2" and see what happens.

The PS exhaust manifold has a crack in it and needs to be replaced.

Yea the shake down always reveals issues , make sure you have all the correct brake cables they vary from year to year, and who cares about crushed velvet seat covers they work, and the manifold, humm perhaps some high performance stock type or headaches (headders)

Car looks beautiful. Great angles on the photos as well!

Well, a lot has been going on this year so the car has only been out a few times. I've gotten some of the issues taken care of but others are still biting me in the rear.

1. Seat covers. I got the seats back from the upholstery shop in July. They turned out great. They did something with the foam because everything is now nice and firm. You don't sink way down into the seats like you did before.




2. Something fell apart inside the DS door and the glass wouldn't go up all the way. It turned out that the two rectangular stamped nuts that hold the front track to the glass loosened up and fell off. That was an easy fix. I just reinstalled them with some thread locker on the threads.

3. I couldn't get the e-brake intermediate cable hooked up. It was 3 inches too short. I ended up purchasing a longer intermediate cable from another company. I still had to change the supplied bracket to a smaller style but I got it to fit. So, I'm using Fine Lines front and (2) rear cables...Inline Tubes intermediate cable and the factory "S" hook at the trans x-member. What a PITA that was!

4. The rear end was given to a buddy of mine. He went through it and found a bad bearing. He replaced all the bearings for me but didn't get something set up correctly because the rear is louder then ever. I can't drive it this way. I have to pull it back out and see what was overlooked. There is a show this weekend...I have a spare center section I might throw in there so I can drive the car.

5. There is an awful noise coming from the right front when I go over pumps. Everything looks tight. The LCA bumpers were very close to the frame so I replaced them with 1/2" bumpers just to see if the noise would go away. If it did, I was going to raise the front end up a little. The noise is still there though. I'm just ready to drive the car and when something breaks/falls off, then I'll know what it was.

6. I thought the PS exhaust manifold was cracked but it's not. The heat riser shaft is just leaking bad. I put some high heat silicon around the leaks for now but need to pull the manifold and fix it correctly.

7. There was a big Mopar show in August. Since I couldn't drive the car with the rear end messed up, the guy that did the body/paint on the car came and picked it up with his enclosed trailer. The car spend a little time in his booth at the show to promote his work. The rest of the show it was parked over in the show field.
After the show I reminded him that there were a few paint issues that he was going to fix for me. So, he just kept the car and fixed those things while it was already there. The header panel was cracked. The repair that was made didn't hold so he redid it while it was still attached to the car. He reinforced the area from the underside so it should hold. A small section of the front hood trim had bubbled. He fixed that as well.

Once the rattles are fixed and the wheel wells are undercoated, the car will be done. With everything that's been going on this year I needed another project to keep my mind occupied. Last month I bought a 68 Dart GT convertible as my second restoration project.

Good work finishing up those little annoying chores, just proves that a car restoration is never entirely finished!!
Still looks fantastic whenever you post up pix tho, bet you're looking forward to gettin the diff noise sorted and gettin behind the wheel
That little A body ragtop looks the bizzo, give us the details and a few more pix please

1973 parked in front of my grandparents house.


2013 parked in front of my grandparents house.


tried to age the picture...

Here's a couple more from yesterday...