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69 Roadrunner Resurrection

john28ryr

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Since I am not on Facebag or any of the other social sites, and since I thought this is the proper home for a story like the one I have I wanted to share here...

The car
A 69 Hardtop - 383, 4-sp. console car, black interior. As Plymouth intended, it is meant to go in a straight line very fast but little else - it has manual steering and manual brakes (and I think I am going to keep it that way .

The car was originally F8 green but along the way someone painted it a dark green metallic. After some investigation (and help from these boards) I have also learned that this Lynch Road produced car had the 3.91 axle package, 26 inch radiator, and very likely a green vinyl top with white side stripe (an unusual combination in my mind considering it has a black interior)

I have owned the car since...1989, and it was my very first car. I drove it in high school, terrorizing the parking lot and setting records for most number of school buses passed in a row :)

This is what it looked like in 1991..

image0-001 (1).jpg

My dad had a 69 coupe - bought new in 69 - which is one of the reasons I have an attachment to these birds...

I managed to hold onto it all these years (some indoors, but most outdoors unfortunately) but the elements have taken their toll in the usual places for a B-body trunk floors, quarters, lower front fender, etc.)

After putting around removing parts in the late summer I was able to get a LOT of help from some good friends in order to pull the engine / trans out and begin tearing it down to go to a local bodyman for the sheetmetal work and paint.

The car was dropped off this weekend along with the first round of parts. I took advantage of the sales that Classic and YO had from Black Friday through yesterday saved some big $$$ this way.

My vision for the car?

F8 green or T5 Bronze Fire Poly with the blackout hood stripes, 15" police wheels with plymouth dog dish. And of course yellow hi beams in true Mopar fashion.

Mechanically - a slightly warmed over, - but reliable - 383, and sticking with manual drums and steering for now. Subframe connectors have been delivered already and will go in after floor pans are set - PST front end superkit also delivered to restore the ride a bit.

I hope to provide updates to this thread along the way. The pic below is sitting at the bodyshop waiting to go in to the garage.

Thanks!


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Your bird looks a lot like mine from back in the day, keep us up to date on your progress.
 
Welcome, and good luck with your plans. Looks like a great starting point.
 
Gonna be awesome when you drive it again. My story started exactly like yours. But I wasnt smart enough to keep mine. Mine was exactly like yours but a post car. Same color even. Congrats and enjoy the ride.
 
Looks like it was a nice car back in it's day. Hope it turns out nice for you.
 
Great car, thanks for sharin your story! best wishes on the rebuild!
 
Concur with all the comments .. thanks for sharing and I'm looking forward to the old birds resurrection.
 
It's good that you were able to keep it after all these years. Good luck on the resto. As you know there are lots of good people here that can help out with any questions you may have.
 
So its been a little over a year since i added to the thread here - thought I was show some of the progress.

In that time the bodywork has been ongoing (I am not doing it myself as I have no experience and didn't think this was the car to start gaining it), and is nearing ready for primer. In between, however there was a ton of sheetmetal replaced:

Driver and passenger side floor pans
rear footwells
rear seat pan (back)
trunk floors
back half (south of shock bracket) frame rails
Full quarters, taillight extensions, lower panel
repair to existing trunk

some photos of the progress:

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- - - Updated - - -

- - - Updated - - -

in the meantime the 4 speed was rebuilt as well as the hurst shifter, including a rechromed stick. Gonna drop a whilte Hurst ball on it to go old school (never had the original woodgrain knob anyway)

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- - - Updated - - -

took the dash completely apart this weekend, and will blast the frame and repaint. A buddy local to me working on a similar bird restored his dash recently so I will be able to use as a reference and get pointers on the resto.

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That's a great story and I'm sure many of us wish we would have kept a few of ours, looks to be in pretty good shape too :hello2:. Man that tranny looks great!!!!!!
 
Very nice car and great story!

I restored my first car, a 1973 Road Runner, and ended up giving that to my son who now drives it (and loves it too). I am now restoring my favorite car of all time, a 1970 Road Runner.

Good Luck with your restoration - looks good so far!
 
Good story, car, and work! Keep the pics coming!:hello2:
 
Good story, car, and work! Keep the pics coming!:hello2:

Thanks for the all the comments.

Looks like the car will be painted sometime early spring (Car is probably going to get shot with T5 and not the original F8 this time), and once I get it back the rear will get rebuilt, and the k-frame taken out, cleaned up, and detailed.

the one thing I need to start figuring out is in the engine department - rebuild the old one, or go with a crate 383 from Carolina Machine Engines. Anyone have any experience with them?

just for $hits and giggles, here are some photos of the car in during its previous refresh in '89 - me and my dad working on it

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The car is getting close to paint, and this weekend picked up the goodies to do the job. Instead of the original F8 green I am going with T5 bronze.

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Dropped off taillight bezels, mirror, door handles, console rear plate, and vent window frames off at the chromer last week and hoping to get those back soon (but not looking forward to putting that frame back together).

Also gathering materials for the dash resto, getting the gauge needle paint from HiPo parts - easer to get started on this part, just need some uniterrupted time, which is difficult with 3 boys under the age of 10 :)
 
That car is going to look great in T5! Although in my opinion it would look great in F8 too
 
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