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71 ARRRRR ! T

nstyle73

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This car has been around the block, I even sold it once to buy an R/T that matched my 73 SE, but, it managed to come back to me. It left me as a stripped shell without an engine but with most of the parts to complete. It came back in a different color with a driver's paint job that runs and drives but needs an interior, the hood and trunk fixed and an engine swap. Life and health have been delaying progress over the last year, but it is surplanting the other projects I had started to hopefully get it going over the next month or two. I feel like I need to get one of my projects on the road ASAP. When the guy I sold it too contacted me and I saw the color, I was kind of hooked as I built a model of it when I was 12 in that color.

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A lot of my pictures were lost in a computer issue, but the first thing I did after reacquiring, was to swap the 3.23's for 3.91's with a locker and some 11" brakes donated by a 74 charger, RIP. New wheel cylinders and hardware finished it out, but I still need to install one new brake line.

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This car has been around the block, I even sold it once to buy an R/T that matched my 73 SE, but, it managed to come back to me. It left me as a stripped shell without an engine but with most of the parts to complete. It came back in a different color with a driver's paint job that runs and drives but needs an interior, the hood and trunk fixed and an engine swap. Life and health have been delaying progress over the last year, but it is surplanting the other projects I had started to hopefully get it going over the next month or two. I feel like I need to get one of my projects on the road ASAP. When the guy I sold it too contacted me and I saw the color, I was kind of hooked as I built a model of it when I was 12 in that color.

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Here the hood after I just got it back from the blaster . It is solid with some minor pitting under where the decal was but other than a couple cracks in the inner structure, just needs some smoothing. The trunk lid was donated by that 74 Charger and came back with one ding and a couple problem areas on the inside lip. I cut these out last night, but what is the next best step on this besides clean, treat and seal?

Three opinions have been given to me, leave it as is because its on the inside and this isn't a show car. Weld a tiny strip in for aesthetics and finish, or the guy I was planning to have paint it, wanted to cut it out all the way to the front and weld in a new lip that folded over the edge. I shied away from that, and from him at this point, as the rest of the trunk lid is rust free.

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The metal work will have to wait until next week, so I worked on some of the interior pieces. I installed new window felts on the upper door panels. The originals were stapled and I guess I should have done more homework because everything I have read now, said to buy the "Cat Whiskers" brand, but I just bought some from the same place I ordered the carpet. These are not made exactly like the originals and I used small self tapping screws as there were predrilled holes in them. The look and fit like the originals, but are made different.

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Before I buttoned up the passenger side, I had to do some investigating on the window as it did not roll up correctly. It turned out that the rear guide for the lower roller on the scissor was installed upside down. Talk about a waste of 2 hours. I finally got the window to close properly and the new weatherstripping looks like it will seal well.

The driver's side is going to have to wait a bit because, even though these are original R/T upper door panels, they are not from this car, so they have a hole for a remote mirror which this car does not have at the moment. I took a spare remote mirror apart but still have to swap the internals with the painted mirror that is on the car.

I dyed some lower door panels from that 74 charger to replace the painted gold ones that were in the car as they were chalky. I did not realize the difference in the metal reinforcing bracket until I had the panels off, but the 74's were easily modified to accommodate them with a utility knife.

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What scale is that model rt? Wants sell it? It would look good next to my purple one
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All the mopars are 1:18 the older cars are 1:24 that fastback Buick was quite a fight to get cost a little under $300 to get it people are going crazy for them for some reason I've seen the in the $900 range .
Sorry nstyle73 don't mean to Jack your post Zach was interested in the scale size .
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The OP's model is 1/25 and can be had pre-assembled as a numbered edition.
They do a really good job, complete with air cleaner pie tin decal, heater hoses, etc.

I've got one and an unassembled one to use as a donor for my 73 RR kit which has an incorrect and poorly detailed firewall.
 
A long road it has become. The hood and trunk lid are finally at another shop to be painted after several issues. The engine is a 73 steel crank motor from a donor car that runs quite strong for no notable performance updates. I put a new ready-to-run distributor in, 14 degrees of initial timing and it fired right up. Moved it into the shop and gave it a bath.

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One of my favorite cars. I've had a few of them.
 
First time installing such a large decal. No significant issues but it could be nitpicked. The decal is shorter than the one I took measurements from and was solid so the insert had to be cut out afterwards so that created a bit of a sag that had to be worked out.

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