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1968 Charger Build

TexasRoadRunner68

Well-Known Member
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Location
Dallas,Texas
And so it begins...it’ll be an AMD Charger, but hopefully this one will be saved and done the right way. Starting from the back and working forward.

Hoping to media blast and grind down the welds next. I have Rust Encapsulator platinum for the inside of the rails, hopefully top with weld through primer on welding surfaces and maybe a coat of epoxy primer inside the rails. Then brace the rails and get the crossmember replaced, then trunk pan, etc.

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Looks like a challenging project. I actually enjoyed the metal work on my GTX. Keep us updated.:thumbsup:
 
Keep going l litterly have done what you are about to do. Your just lucky you don't have to replace the frame rails. l litterly had to replace three of my rails

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I have to patch or replace the front driver side frame rail. I want to mini tub the car, but I almost might patch the inner wheelhouses to get the trunk centered and then cut them out later for mini tubs. Hard to center everything when you have to replace it all and there’s barely anything original aside from the frame lol.
 
Is this some of what ya have to repair on your left frame rail mine was also bad where the proportional valve was mounted. There is also a picture of here back on her wheels. Hopefully here soon l will be able to put a set of pipes on her. Open headers just aren't legal on the streets lol

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Haven’t done much, but I did get test out my modified harbor freight media blaster with my compressor. I learned I need a better blasting hood and I bought an enclosure to keep all the media out of my pool, but this looks promising. Just a few minutes of blasting, and this didn’t even tax the compressor.

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Here’s my improvised setup I’ll be using. Not ideal, but I got it for like $350 and it puts out 23+ cfm at 175 psi. My brother welded up a frame and we threw on some 10” harbor freight casters...and it’s portable! This thing powers anything I have used pretty easily, even the blaster.

When it comes time for paint, I do have a champion refrigerator dryer in the garage that we bought from a closed dealer for a whopping $150.

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Glad to see another one getting saved. I would assume it wasn't a Texas car all it's life?
 
Glad to see another one getting saved. I would assume it wasn't a Texas car all it's life?

I’m honestly not sure. I bought it about 50 miles from nowhere. The guy I bought it from said the prior owner had it sitting in a field by College station for years. Clearly it has been off the road for a while. I do have a clean blue Tx title coming, after much difficulty.

No fender tag, but it was clearly a QQ1, black vinyl top H code console auto car with PS, PB and 26” radiator.

I’m not planning on making money with this...I know it’s cheaper to buy one. I suppose the benefit is that I can do whatever I want with the car and not feel bad about messing with originality. And when you buy one second hand, you never know what corners were cut under the paint. It’s a money pit compared to some, but at least I’ll know it’s done right...

I am planning on keeping the original paint color, but I hate vinyl tops and will go hard top. I will also go with a manual trans and will mini tub the rear. Sort of a home built resto-mod.


Glad to see another one getting saved. I would assume it wasn't a Texas car all it's life?
 
Not a huge update, but the trunk is officially out. I also have a clear title in my name that just came in the mail, so that’s something. I had bigger plans for today, but we ended up starting late and ran out of abrasive media. Rails look really good overall. Junk air shocks are out. Hope to have these rust encapsulated and primed later this week.

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You need a pair of those new AMD widened inner wheel houses and you need to modify the outer wheel houses to get rid of the inward edge that catches the top of the tires. I got one of those AMD Chargers too,it has good bones but needs all the usual tin and a roof skin too. I already got all the sheetmetal for the car.
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Already have the inner and outer AMD wheelhouses. The inners are 3” extended, but I was going to cut them down to 2” and tig them back together to save some of the trunk flange and give it better unibody strength. The problem is I can’t have both wheelhouses out until I have the new quarters welded in at least...otherwise there won’t be much holding the rear end together
 
Most people are welding the widened inner wheel houses right to the framerail itself.
 
Already have the inner and outer AMD wheelhouses. The inners are 3” extended, but I was going to cut them down to 2” and tig them back together to save some of the trunk flange and give it better unibody strength. The problem is I can’t have both wheelhouses out until I have the new quarters welded in at least...otherwise there won’t be much holding the rear end together

I used the 3" wider inner wells on my coronet and was worried about strength removing that lip on the frame rail too. I ended up welding in some angle iron to the inside and now it's stronger than ever. Going to do a thread on it soon as there is not much info out there about them...

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Here's another shot of the other side rail modification if you decide to go that route.

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That's a good idea, moving the lip of the framerail to the inside of the rails. It should be just as strong if not stronger. If you wanted to you could run a strip of a 1/8 steel and weld to the new inside angle iron and the otherside of the framerail, and make a complete boxed framerail out of it, it would be super strong, instead of a three sided channel with sheetmetal on the top,as the factory did.
 
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That's a good idea, moving the lip of the framerail to the inside of the rails. It should be just as strong if not stronger. If you wanted to you could run a strip of a 1/8 steel and weld to the new inside angle iron and the otherside of the framerail, and make a complete boxed framerail out of it, it would be super strong, instead of a three sided channel with sheetmetal on the top,as the factory did.

I thought about that too, but I didn't have a ton of room to weld the other side where I cut. It's plenty strong for what I'm doing though I think. If I had the trunk pan out still it would have been a piece of cake to just run some 1/8" flat bar on top on the inside to completely box it like you mentioned. Then you wouldn't need to mess with the angle iron. It was a little tricky to pie cut and bend to the right curvature.

It was a lot of work and had I not needed to replace the inner wheel well anyway, I probably would not have messed with it. My springs are still in the stock location, but I figured now was the time to mini tub it in case I need the extra space later. Juist started the de-hump on the outer well yesterday which alone should be good enough for a 305 tire with the correct BS from what I have seen.

-Rick
 
I guess I just saw the magic Chris Birdsong worked on General Mayhem and was inspired lol. You can still get plenty of meat with a 2” extended inner and a dehumped outer.
 
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