Chris' '68 Charger R/T restoration

[keepat]

Wow great update! Looks awesome! keep the updates coming!
Pat

 

[69 GTX]

Looking good

 

[Glenwood]

nice detail work!

 

[showard]

Great work! You have been putting in a lot of elbow grease time in.

 

[RT68440]

Great work! You have been putting in a lot of elbow grease time in.

Thank you! It's a lot of work but I really enjoy it

 

[Car Nut]

Thanks Chris, love this work!

 

[RT68440]

Hey guys, its been a long time since Ive updated. Although I haven't updated, Ive been jumping around and plugging away on the Charger. Ive been working on the body as well as miscellaneous components. I restored the front door glass regulators and associated parts, Went through all of the wiring harnesses and removed the connectors, cleaned them and soaked the ends in vinegar/salt solution and rewrapped the harnesses. I tore the engine down to the bare block and I played around with the distributor. I did a little more work on the grille as well.

We sent our gauge cluster out to Instrument Specialties this past May to have them calibrate and reface all of the gauges. We picked them up at Carlisle and then I sent out all of the dash switches to JS Restorations to have Jim rebuild all of the switches and install new chrome knobs. We are very pleased with the switches and gauges:

IMG_20170714_120636388_HDR by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170821_191804299 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170821_191811797 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170821_164302227 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170821_163535819 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

I did a few random interior things like phosphate plate the gas pedal bracket, redye the seat hinge covers and stripped and repainted the sun visor bases:

IMG_20170622_173701778 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170724_194811757 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170717_185808536 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20171022_161802630 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

I played around with the grille to see how painting it is going to go. Its going to be tedious but should look good when its done. I soaked both of the headlight bezels in Castrol Super Clean then wet sanded them with 800 grit. Then I prepped the plastic and sprayed the pieces argent, then masked the ribs and painted the black. I also scored a set of NOS vacuum pod mounting brackets. Mine are pretty pitted up. I phosphate coated the headlight buckets as well. I know that the galvanizing is correct for them but mine were blasted and painted silver in the past so I did this to give it a nicer look then spray paint:

IMG_20170927_164403368 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170927_164434001 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170927_194303624_HDR by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170930_152039422 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20171001_191933840 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20171001_192018734 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170916_155847787 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170919_171445264 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

 

[RT68440]

I basically did the same process with the door regulators as I did with the quarter window regulators. Soaked them in the parts washer, wire wheeled them and painted them. Then I blasted and phosphate all of the hardware and reinstalled:

IMG_20170823_165431525_HDR by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170823_193314119 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170823_193342327 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170825_080913477 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170903_103227085 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170825_082035486 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170825_081941352 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

I cleaned up every wiring harness for the car. I checked for any broken wires, loose or broken terminals, etc. I unwrapped each harness, cleaned every wire, removed the plastic connectors and soaked the ends in vinegar/salt mix to clean any corrosion off. Then I rewrapped the harnesses with new tape. I replaced the firewall bulkhead and headlight harness vacuum hoses for the headlight doors:

IMG_20170617_133912756 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170617_153850497 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170617_195711191 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170620_182740529 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170620_201637482 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170624_150837493 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170624_173439534 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170628_172349517 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170628_172357350 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170624_173447358 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170625_155414662 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170625_155347704 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170701_172344123 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170701_215654740 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

 

[RT68440]

I decided to tear the engine down to the bare block. We had the motor rebuilt years ago, but this time Id like to go with a stroker and aluminum heads. Its the numbers matching motor so I don't want to get too crazy with it. Plans are:

440 Source 500" stroker kit
Stealth aluminum heads with upgraded Comp valve locks and retainers
Comp Cam XE275HL cam
Edelbrock CH4B intake
Holley 3310 carb

Were going to stay with the 3.23 gears and 2200 stall since we will be driving the car on the highway here and there.

IMG_20170810_190924173 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170730_103915020 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170907_174144474 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

When we bought the car it had a Prestolite dual point distributor in it. Ive always thought that it was original to the car, but Ive been told that the automatics only came with single point. We replaced the distributor shortly after we bought the car with a MP electronic conversion kit and threw the Prestolite on the shelf. I thought it would be cool to retrofit the Prestolite distributor with the guts from the electronic distributor. The car is going to have a Day 2 look, so even if the Prestolite isn't original to our car, it will have the look of an upgrade that someone did back in the day. I had to make a couple of modifications but it seems like its going to work:

IMG_20170730_171013098 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170802_190417293 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170802_190411933 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170912_192113520 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170914_185430090 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170914_185456625 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170914_185444683 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170802_190526354 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170914_185526731 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170914_185517214 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170912_192201028 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

 

[RT68440]

Ive been busy with the body too. I finished installing the floor and rear foot wells. The floor fit decent, but I had to make a few slices to make it fit nicely. Rear foot wells fit surprisingly well and I got the buddy seat brackets installed earlier today:

IMG_20170710_185043618 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170710_185057958 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170805_132505053_HDR by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170805_145124970 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170808_195836348 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20170808_195939202 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20171011_184047556_HDR by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20171015_115252223_HDR by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20171015_144548357 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20171017_181759442 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20171018_184912694 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20171022_185819816 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20171026_174448668 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20171026_174500632 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20171028_114646496 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20171028_123819092_HDR by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20171028_130314874 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20171028_152701145 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20171028_161349056 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

IMG_20171028_161620029 by Chris Campbell, on Flickr

We bought a rotisserie a couple weeks ago, so once I get some welds ground and a few little odds and ends buttoned up, I can get it on the rotisserie and clean up the underside.

 

[daytona kid]

Very nice work! And great pics also.

 

[Glenwood]

coming along nicely!

 

[PeteBell68]

Wow your doing really nice work especially on the small parts as well

Pete

 

[69 GTX]

Just thought I'd let you know that legendary carries covers for the buddy seat.
Great work.

 

[RT68440]

Just thought I'd let you know that legendary carries covers for the buddy seat.
Great work.

Thanks. I thought I remembered seeing that they had the covers. I plan on using all Legendary stuff, so thats a plus.

 

[69 GTX]

Could you post some reference pictures of the buddy seat if you have time?

 

[snakeyes]

very very nice ,thanks for updating

 

[RT68440]

Could you post some reference pictures of the buddy seat if you have time?

Yes, the seats are over at my mom and dad's house so next time that I'm over there I'll snap a few pics of it..

 

[moparnation74]

17 days and no eye candy WTF!

Chris

Everything you have done looks perfect! Very Very nicely done to this point....Keep up the good work.

 

[RT68440]

17 days and no eye candy WTF!

Chris

Everything you have done looks perfect! Very Very nicely done to this point....Keep up the good work.

Thanks Justin! I'm still picking away at things every day, even though I don't get to update as often as I should!