DePouli's 1969 Charger 318

[Brian DePouli]

OK i said i would start a build thread so we'll see how this goes. At this point however it is an unbuild thread as I am in disassembly.

I bought my 69 Charger in June of 1996, my first car. It was advertised for sale in northern NJ where I lived at the time. I want to say it was in the $3K range and had a broken oil pump. We did a driver restoration pulling the engine and rebuilding it with some machine work and doing other restoration. I drove the car as a daily driver for my senior year of HS and then in college for several years. I had a few oops with it in high school and got whacked in the parking lot at college so one front fender and both quarters have been replaced.

Most of the work was done pretty good but never to the level I wanted it and things like a cracked windshield and the factory AC had never been fixed. Then electrical gremlins and a leaking heater core finally got it basically parked for the last 10 years while I resorted my 38 Buick Roadmaster convertible. Basically it was if I am gonna fix that then i need to do this and if i do this I might as well do the whole darn thing.

At the spurring of my "impatient" 5 year old son who wanted to know "how old will I be when the charger is done" I began another restoration in November of last year with some light disassembly. Over the past six months I've continued on and off with more disassembly down to what is now a rolling chassis that is nearing being ready to head off to the sand/media blaster and then get the misc. rot spots cut out and replaced.

 

[Brian DePouli]

I have the build sheet for the car and full title history back to the MSO.

The car was originally gold with a black top and interior. It spent all of it's near 50 year life in the Charlotte Metro area except for 2 years in northern NJ.

It's been Hemi Orange (of course), neon yellow with black stripes and obviously black. My wife says I need to do it in B5 Blue to match my 2008 Superbee.

Aside from the factory air it was a pretty plane jane car but i have since found and added a tic-toc-tac and factory correct AM//FM Radio. I've thought about adding other options like power windows or factory correct disc brakes but at this time I'm not.

Prior to my ownership someone out a 4 bbl intake off a 340 on to it and it had a Holley 750 carb which simply drowned the engine and when I did the 96 restoration was promptly scraped for a Carter AFB 450 cfm which has been ok but I am undecided on what exactly I will do. I think I want to find a correct 69 340 carb to match the intake (probably off a Dart or something)... I really want a working choke...Also some one added dual exhaust which I just hacked off the car but will probably go back with a stainless steel configuration.

Aside from the intake/carb and exhaust I plan on going for a factory correct stock restoration for AACA showing, but I am not doing a build sheet matching resto.

At this point my goal would be to complete in Sept of 2019 (my birthday month, a local big show at CMS, and 50th anniversary of the model year). probably a little aggressive but goals are supposed to be aggressive.

 

[Paul Boucher]

Very nice! Hey, even the tear down is part of the eventual build up! Keep the updates coming. We all love to see people making progress.

My son is 6 so I can know your son will love it too!

My family lives in Charlotte and I will be at the show at the Speedway this year and in 2019. I used to go all the time with my uncles when growing up but hadn't been back until last year. I went to the fall show. It was pretty good, but not as big as I remember. I did hear that the spring show is a lot bigger. There were maybe 40 Mopars there this fall. I live in eastern NC. It's good to see someone else from the state on here!

My car (67 R/T) is gold, so stock color obviously gets my vote! But what ever color makes YOU happy is what you go for!

By the way I love all the Rousseau cabinets and shelving in your garage!

 

[Brian DePouli]

I did hear that the spring show is a lot bigger.

Yup Spring Auto fair has about twice as many vendor spaces sold as fall and an AACA National meet. The car corral is bigger but aside from the AACA National the show car count is about the same.

I did alright in the Spring show this year.
http://www.charlottemotorspeedway.c...il-autofair-presented-advance-auto-parts.html

And nice pick upon the Rousseau, its great product.

 

[Paul Boucher]

Yup Spring Auto fair has about twice as many vendor spaces sold as fall and an AACA National meet. The car corral is bigger but aside from the AACA National the show car count is about the same.

I did alright in the Spring show this year.
http://www.charlottemotorspeedway.c...il-autofair-presented-advance-auto-parts.html

And nice pick upon the Rousseau, its great product.

Very nice! Congrats on the win! I now have high expectations for the Charger!

Love the Rousseau products! I build tool kits for the military and commercial aviation/manufacturing facilities and use a lot of Rousseau. Built way better than the automotive stuff and will take a beating.

 

[Brian DePouli]

So made some progress the past week or so.

Stripped out the last things.

Below you can see some of the Rusted out areas

Truck Floor rot

Rear Window area Rot

Battery Tray Area Rot

off to the Sand Blasters and the shop doing the Rot replacement

 

[Brian DePouli]

With the car departed for some time. I pulled the trans and the engine into the vacated bay and began the process of cleaning them.

The trans will be sent off for rebuilding shortly. I've been recommended to a gentlemen in Greenville, SC which is convenient as I am frequently through Grenville on the way to ATL for work.

The engine was rebuilt 20 years ago when I did the driver restoration. I'm not planning on an extensive rebuild on it. Just checking some tolerances and re-gasketing is the hope.

When the car comes back (with engine compartment painted) I'll hit the suspension and then drop the motor/trans back in.

 

[Car Nut]

Love this, thanks for sharing Brian.

 

[Brian DePouli]

Sandblaster completed their work and the car rolled next door to the shop to have the rot cut out. Overall not much additional rot beyond what we already knew about which is good.

Also engine is coming along. Stripped it down the to the block. Check a rod clearance, all good didn't bother with mains as everything was running well with good OP before the restoration and not a ton of miles on the rebuild. No ridge in the cylinder walls either. Put the heads back on (the first thing to be reassembled). Intake, valve covers, timing chain cover and pan are being baked or vatted or something and I'll have those back next week. Got to have the wire clips on the one valve cover fixed but will reassemble all the rest. Then paint and push it off to the side to wait for reinstall.

Haven't got the trans out to be rebuilt yet.

Did find a source to rebuild the factory AC compressor and convert to modern refrigerant. One of the things I simply want to farm out.

Also made a pit stop at YearOne on an ATL trip and brought home some suspension goodies (and the replacement floor sections) need to make another stop to get the rest of the suspension needs.

 

[Paul Boucher]

Thanks for the updates! Looking good! Yeah, nice to be able to pick a few things up. AMD is right there too if you need anything sheet metal wise. My uncle and cousin in Concord drove down to pick up some parts for his Cuda restoration. Keep up the good work and keep us posted!

 

[Speedbird]

How does the inside of the cowl look?
The body looks nice so hopefully that is good too.
But...... I've had a good body with a bad cowl.
Strange what rust seems to find.

 

[Brian DePouli]

How does the inside of the cowl look?

You mean down in the air vent area? I didn't actually look, but with factory gold, orange, yellow and 3 black paint jobs I'm sure there was plenty of paint in there. The passenger compartment side of the cowl looked perfect.

Even the little "shelf" of rocker panel behind the fender splash panel, in front of the door was in good shape but starting to pit. The gentleman doing the patch panels said he is going to epoxy that area to preserve it for good.

 

[threewood]

That is a solid car!!! What rot you have looks to be an easy fix. What kind of timeline did the body shop give you for having it in paint?

 

[Xp29h]

Very nice! Looks good

 

[Brian DePouli]

That is a solid car!!! What rot you have looks to be an easy fix. What kind of timeline did the body shop give you for having it in paint?

~2 months... to clarify, only the paint I mentioned above and a full primer job top pickle it. Once I get it back I'm gonna do the suspension, put the drive train back in, put the interior items on the firewall, install the dash and front and rear glass...then we go for painting the body. Somewhere in there I need to have the fenders sandblasted and jammed out and the replacement hood underside painted and installed...then paint...

 

[Brian DePouli]

Here is an update.

I've been cleaning miscellaneous suspension and engine dressing parts trying to get a large batch of items to be painted black. Sorry no photos of the pile of parts wire brushed and ready for paint.

Also I got the intake, valve covers,oil pan and timing chain cover back from the vat. Reassembly below.

I am doing many of the gaskets one side only with RTV so I can take them on an off easily during the course of restoration until I am ready for final assembly, but still allow me to paint the assembled engine while on the stand. In particular I am concerned about the water pump and timing chain cover with the factory AC and alternator bolts yet to be hung off it. The harmonic damper is only on finger tight. I will pull it back off after painting. My goal would be to dress the engine in the car before putting the radiator back in.


Below is the first thing ready to go back on the car. Tough the engine and other components will actually be installed first. That's Seymour's cast gray paint (from Amazon) That thing was covered in 50 years of sludge,road grime,etc and took a lot of engine degreaser and wire brushing to get it cleaned up. I'm pleased with how it turned out. Certainly a nice motivation builder to keep pushing through the dirty job of cleaning all these nasty greasy parts. I don't believe I will find anything worse than that to clean...close but not worse.

Ok I need help on this next bit. I was gonna put the oil pan on to get ready for painting and came across this. Note the oil seal has two "nibs" (not sure what they are supposed to be called). See below they are different sizes on each side. I have 3 sets of these gaskets and all are the same. the smaller "nib" can be pulled through the hole in the oil pan to seal tightly, but pulls out easily too. The larger "nib" I cant get in the hole ( I hate when that happens), it's too big (that's what she said). So.... whats the trick. I checked the shop manual and the Chilton's manual and both are silent on anything to do with this. Also should i be putting RTV on this gasket (both sides?) or letting it ride?

 

[Brian DePouli]

Tomorrow get the trans ready to go to the shop for rebuild on Monday. Hopefully mount the oil pan too.

Oh and forgot
Brought the other valve cover to the shop doing the rot repairs to weld on new wiring harness tabs as mine were mostly broken off. I'll stop by there Monday to see the progress they made. At least the car should be in primer, hopefully they've hacked out the floor pans.

 

[oldbee]

Those "nibs" are mainly for locating&holding the gasket in place while assembling,go with the smaller ones if everything else is correct size & put some 'gasgacinch' or similar on both sides of gasket when assembling & maybe a dab of rtv at any joint where gaskets meet each other.

 

[Brian DePouli]

go with the smaller ones if everything else is correct size

Sorry looks like I didn't explain correctly. The "nibs" are different sizes on the SAME gasket. I have 6 gaskets all the same with different size nibs on each side of the same gasket.

 

[oldbee]

I understood, if you try the "too big" ones they'll probably just tear off anyway(try them first though, you've got spares!)