The Dodge Challenger Message Board

I love that colour. "Jack T" on here has a 1970 440+6 that colour. Here in the UK I know of two that came that colour too. One is a '71 and the other a '73 I think.

Not much to update at this point. Best of Show moved their showroom at the beginning of April so work on the Challenger slowed down while cars were being moved. It is at least a month out yet at this point.

I rebuilt my body stands last month and they turned out pretty good. I origonally had 4" casters on the stands but they were way over loaded. It was hard to move the car and the wheels developed flat spots if the car stayed on one spot too long.

I took the stands to work and had one of the guys in the shop re-do all the welds for me. I cleaned them up at home and sprayed them with "hammer" paint. I bought 6" casters that have an 800 lbs load rating per caster. They also have a harder rubber wheel that shouldn't develope flat spots.

I recieved a few more pictures today of the Challenger.

The trunk lid needed some work to sit down flush with the quarters. They installed lower door skins because of pitting on the bottom of the doors. The NEW fenders needed some work to get the body lines in the right place.

Almost assembly line perfection... It looks really nice.

christer wrote:Almost assembly line perfection... It looks really nice.

It's a darn sight better than the work they did on the assmembly line Christer.

Well, it's been three months since I posted any progress. Man the time flies when you are taking care of a new baby. He'll be six months on the 5th.

The restoration manager is finishing the car himself so he can put his guys on other projects. He's been working on the car on his own time so I've just kind of left him alone to do his thing. He doesn't need me calling him every week. About a month ago he said it would be close to being done by the Nats.

It's that time of year again so...I am headed out to Ohio Wednesday night for the Mopar Nationals. I'm swinging through Cleveland to check out the car before going back down to Columbus. I'm hoping the car is painted!!!

My best friends are going with me but the wife is staying home with the kid. Maybe he will get to go to the Nats in a year or two.

I was reading a thread about vintage lisence plates on another site last week. It was pretty interesting.

There is a company that can make up custom plates from the state and year of your car. I went to the web site and looked up the Iowa plates. They had plates available for cars all the way back to the 50's.

The site said that the same plate was used in Iowa from 72-74. Well, just by chance...I was walking past a stack of old plates in my garage that night. I got the plates from my grandparents garage when they passed away. Anyway, I looked through them and was shocked when I found two sets of 72-74 lisence plates. Both sets have an inspection sticker from 1974 on them. One of those sets of plates is most likely, the origonal plates for the Challenger. How cool is that?

Here in Missouri you can use any older plate as long as the number/letter combination is not in current use also. The folks that have older plates usually carry a copy of the law with them as most LEO don't know about the law.

Can you post the link to the company that makes the plates. In Indiana you can plate your car in the year of manufacture. So I am looking for a 1970 Indiana plate. They start the plate numbering with the number code for the county and then follow with a letter, and then the sequential number. We have a county that is the 70th county{Shelby}. I think it would be cool to find the 383rd plate from Shelby county Indiana from 1970.
Still Dreaming

My mistake Rush county Indiana is the 70 county alphabetically.

Here is the link to the lisense plate website. http://www.licenseplate.tv/

No good news to share on the Challenger...I was all excited...walked into the shop and saw it. It's not even in primer yet. I was told they were working hard on a 70 Firebird that they showed at the Pontiac Nats over the weekend.

Right now the door gaps are being straightened out. A thin rod was welded to the back of the doors as well as the sides of the trunk lid. When completed, all the gaps should be around 3/16 of an inch.

I was going to waite until I got the car back before I bought any more parts for it. I was also going to wait before spending time on restoring any other components. I was told they need at least 3 more months to get it done so...I decided that I'll start gathering more parts and restoring some components to pass the time.

This weekend at the Mopar Nats, I bought all new brake and fuel lines as well as new E-brake cables for the car.

A little more progress on the body to report...

The Goodmark fenders needed some more work to fit properlly. The fenders were about a 1/4" lower than the hood so they were modified. They were cut open the entire length and moved up flush with the hood. This also allowed the hood to fender gap to be adjusted.

Like I said earlier...the restoration manager is finishing the car himself. He is sticking to his origonal estimate even though the estimate was low. He had to put his guys on other "billable" projects.

One thing that had been on my mine since the beginning was the use of a 70-71 trunk lid. For some reason I couldn't stop thinking about all those extra holes on the inner structure. I had picked up that trunk lid years ago...long before the new lids came out. I also had another 72-74 lid but the rear lip was rusty. I sent both lids out with the car.

I asked if it was possible to remove a section of the 72-74 lid and use it to fill in all the extra holes that are found in the earlier trunk lids. I got an e-mail back saying that it would be cheaper just to buy a new trunk lid but if I did that...the new lid would have to be re-gapped. I had forgotten that he had already welded rods to the trunk lid to adjust the gaps. I told him not to worry about it...that if someone said anything like,"You know you don't have the right trunk lid on the car don't you?" that I would just tell them to mind their own buisness.

Well, I got another e-mail on Saturday and found out that he is filling in all the extra holes afterall...for free. He said it was the least he could do for making me wait so long to get the car back. Here's some pics.

Rusty 72-74 lid with section cut out.


Section cut out of 70-71 lid...some other holes already filled.


New section being installed in 70-71 lid.

I've been working on some of the components just to keep busy until I get the body back. Here are some pics.

Here are the headlight buckets after a lot of scrubbing with steel wool. I put back the paint markings that I found while cleaning.

We're on the home stretch!

Filler work.

Starting to look pretty straight.

Polyester primer...




Polyester primer is all sanded and the car is ready for final primer...



Final primer is on...

Finally, the body is in paint.

Color coat...


Clear...

Bloody lovely.

They are sanding/buffing right now. Once that is done, they will put on the strobe stripes and the vinyl top. They are planning on delivering it to me on the 19th. This is going to be a very long two weeks! I can't waite.

Looks great!

man Im drooling..........fantastic

Havn't posted pics here for awhile. Got the car back the day before Fathers Day. I've been spending more time trying to figure out how it goes back together than accually wrenching on it. That's to be expected though when a car sits appart for 12 years.

wet sanding and buffing


vinyl top is installed and argent has been sprayed on the tail


finally home

Headlight buckets installed
.. rad blackout

Heater box before and after a rebuild kit from Detroit Muscle Technologies.
installed...what a PITA that was!!!

might be a pita but always nice after a full body resto to be bolting new and refurbed parts back on, those panels look super straight to, keep up the good work

I drool every time I look at that paint.

dave-r wrote:I drool every time I look at that paint.

What's the color?
I've been thinking for a while now about the new color I'll put on the convertible, and Winchester gray is the current winner. This seems a trifle lighter, and it looks great!
Could you post the references for this paint?

The factory paint code is JA5. It's a one year only 1973 color. Dodge called it dark silver metallic...Plymouth called it Silver Frost Metallic.