My GY8 '71 Road Runner

[ct71rr]

I saw a lower firewall on E bay specifically for the 71 and up b body. As far as I know,no one makes the upper cowl though.

Yeah, I can’t find a cowl, reasonably priced anyway. Nobody is repopping them yet. I was dealing with Desert Auto Parts and another Mopar yard whose name I can’t remember, but both wanted $500 + shipping. The Desert Auto appeared much better than the other one. I almost pulled the trigger - crazy. I’m going to repair mine the best I can.

 

[ct71rr]

Going a little off topic here; I found an old pic and only pic of my first car I purchased way back in 1990 when I was 16. A blue streak 1973 Charger with black vinyl top, opera windows and blue interior. It had buckets and a console automatic. Originally it came with a 400 but a PO dropped a ‘69 440 HP in it, which I still have & the 727. I paid $800.00 for it. I had 4.10’s in it which was not fun driving long distances. I do not have the car anymore. I wish I knew then what I know now. It was a solid car. It had a little rust in the lower quarters and a crease in the driver’s door that could have been banged/pulled out with ease. The car was also Ziebarted. As you can see, I was way ahead of the curve with the flat black paint look. I really didn’t like the blue streak color when I was a dumb teen. I can remember the day my buddy took this picture in front of his house. He had a ‘78ish Firebird with a built 396. We and a few other friends with ricers were going to head up to the speedway in New Hampshire to run the 1/4 mile track. My buddy left a quart of oil on the hood, near the windshield, passenger’s side for the trip up there. They were leaving before me because I was at work. I left my car there the night before. The ironic thing is the guy I bought the Charger from lived about 4 houses away from my buddy and where this pic was taken. My grandparents also lived about a mile further down on this same street. My neighbors hated me starting this up in the morning with Flowmasters. They used to complain to my parents all the time.

 

[ct71rr]

Progress: Today I worked on replacing the lower driver’s side corner of the windshield frame. This area was rotted pretty bad which is typical for these cars. I marked the area that I wanted to remove after taking several measurements and comparing with the donor piece:

I got the donor piece from moparmarks, thank you mark:

I cleaned this up and applied some Rust Stop. After the Rust Stop dried, I sprayed the entire back side with a good coating of copper weld through primer:

Test fitting for probably the 20th time:

And welded in:

I sprayed it down with some weld through just to keep rust from forming:

I also hosed the area under this piece with Rust Stop and applied a good coat of weld through in there. I was going to start getting the firewall in but, I’m thinking I’m going to wait until I get a new windshield. I want to make sure the cowl is set right before I weld it in permanently. I suppose I can get the firewall in and then wait to install the cowl when I get the windshield. That way, I can make any adjustments to the cowl if needed for the windshield to fit properly. The lower piece of trim does appear to fit properly on the cowl when everything’s mocked-up but I’m thinking that this is probably not a good reference for proper positioning of the cowl.

 

[HawkRod]

I’m thinking I’m going to wait until I get a new windshield. I want to make sure the cowl is set right before I weld it in permanently.

I agree. Waiting until you have the windshield sounds to me like the right move to avoid unpleasant surprises later.

Hawk

 

[ct71rr]

I ordered a windshield from ECS yesterday. Tom is a really nice guy and very helpful! I'm looking at 6-8 weeks for delivery due to COVID though. FU COVID!! I still have plenty of other things to do on the car so, I'm not that annoyed by it.

 

[ct71rr]

Progress is progress; Today I decided to replace the left cowl side panel. I originally patched the top portion of it an replaced the flange but, I was chasing blow-through around the top of the circle detail and a few other places. So, I purchased a Goodmark panel for an E body off EBay hoping it would be close enough. The circle detail was very close but not in the right location. It was further over to the right of where it was on my original. I then cut off what I could use:

After this, I made a poster board template and trimmed the new piece to fit:

First pass with welder before grinding and planishing:

Then finished welding, grinding and added a new flange:

Not too bad I guess.

On an unrelated note; It was a balmy 9 degrees this morning. When I rebuilt my garage, I went out of my way to insulate the crap out of it and thermal break the floor. It kept the first floor of the garage at 33 degrees with no heat on. Even with Thursday and Friday being in lower teens. The loft was 15 degrees, the loft is not insulated. After about 4 hours with my heaters on, the first floor got up to 65 degree and the small insulated enclosure I built for the compressor, in loft, got up to 59 degrees with the small oil-filled space heater I have in there.

The top number is the loft temp, the bottom is the first floor of garage:

After about 4 hours with my heaters on:

I also added some swag to the garage:

 

[ct71rr]

The firewall is in!! Instead of doing a million plugwelds, I decided to purchase a ChiCom spot welder form Comrades R’ Us. I’ve read a lot of good reviews on the web so I figured, what could I lose. Here’s the spot welder:

I then did a few test pieces:

I think it worked pretty good. I went with a count of 3 each time. I then tried to pry the pieces apart with a body panel separator. The metal tore around the spot weld while the weld remained:

I did learn, by trial and error, that the spot welder does not like the EDP coating. I had to sand it off, both pieces, before spot welding. I also sanded off the mating surfaces and gave two coats of copper weld through. And, the firewall in!!:

There were a few spots where the spot welder couldn’t reach, I plugged those. I also had a few holes from AMD that I had to plug and a few spots where I held the trigger on the welder for a second too long. All in all, it worked really well and will save me a ton of time. I also purchased a set of longer & wider tongs from a guy who makes them and sells on EBay.

 

[T2R9]

Your doing a great job! I did a Cuda to that extent a few years ago. Firewalls are not easy! I don't think I have it in me again!

 

[ct71rr]

More progress: This weekend I started working on getting the inner fenders installed. I left the right inner fender on as reference. I also used my old firewall to measure for the cowl to fender bracket placement as well. Before welding in the driver’s side, I checked for level across several places from let to right inner fender:

I then welded in the driver’s side and removed and installed the passenger’s side. I used my references and level about a thousand times before welding in:

And make the noise:

I was able to get both inner fenders in:

I also replaced the cowl to inner fender brackets with new AMD ones. Mine were pretty much toast. I took a shot with the E Body ones as they do not make them specifically for the ‘71-‘72 Road Runners. This turned into a bit of a cluster with AMD. This is what I received:

Two left side brackets. Super. This is what I should of got:

So, after numerous emails that became very confused because AMD has the lefts listed as rights and the rights listed as lefts on their website. I was missing the right, they sent two lefts. One of them was in a bag listed right. I had to convince them to not send me a third left, which they were telling me was a right. Thankfully it was cleared up and I received the correct part. They are actually very close to originals but about 1/4” narrower:

You can see by this image the difference in width. The bracket should be even with the mount already attached (at least that’s the way it was originally on my car):

All in all, AMD’s pieces are nice and I’m thankful someone is making parts for us.

Thanks for looking!

 

[HawkRod]

Nice work! This is really detailed stuff and it looks like you have a well thought out plan of attack. I'm sure the car will turn out great!

 

[ct71rr]

Thanks Hawk! I'm no expert, just trying to document the process as best I can. It is pretty intimidating at first. Breaking things down into individual projects definitely keeps me from getting overwhelmed. What I've learned so far is; take your time, measure (a lot), ask questions and think it through before cutting/welding.

 

[ct71rr]

Having to measure frame datums alone really sucks and is pretty much impossible. I usually have to wait until my wife or one of my kids is free to help me. Then I stumbled across a tram gauge. Not being in the business, I’ve never heard of one. Not wanting to pay $150.00-$300.00 for one, I decided to build one myself. I got the idea off of a hot rodders forum. I purchased a 5’ section of 1/2” metal conduit from Home Depot (i originally wanted to use 3/4” but they only had a box of 25 3/4” couplings, which I will never use/need), a small bag of 1/2” couplings, 1/2”x1/4”-20 thumb screws and a couple of 6” nails. I retapped the coupling for 1/4”-20 and then cut it in half so I would have two mounts. I then welded on the 6” nails to the coupling halves. Not too shabby. I may buy a longer piece of conduit if need be.

Supplies:

Re-tapping the screw holes:

Thumbscrew test fit:

Nails welded on:

Voila:

Total cost: $7.36!!

 

[HawkRod]

Total cost: $7.36!!

Sweet! Well done and I'm sure that will work great!

 

[Grabbergreendream]

When I replaced my firewall & cowl in my 71 RR w/AC, I had the original, delaminating windshield to use to get the shape right.
I used a Goodmark E-body firewall & an AMD E-body cowl. I cut the top of my original cowl off & grafted it to the E-body cowl. When I got to fitting the 2 together & test fitting the windshield to get the channel buttoned up I had to use heat to re-shape & streatch the firewall where it met up with the windshield channel on the cowl. The channel ligned up perfect with the E-body cowl before I chopped it apart to fab in my original cowl top. I believe theE-body windshield is not leaned back as far as the B-body, and the lower corners aren't curved as much as the B as well...
Nice work so far. Coming along nicely.

 

[ct71rr]

Thanks for the information Grabbergreendream! I just read through your thread. I’m going to try to save my cowl. I can’t find a used one for under $500 and I can’t justify (budget wise) buying an AMD or Goodmark one for $350.00+ just to cut up. At least I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that!

 

[Grabbergreendream]

Thanks for the information Grabbergreendream! I just read through your thread. I’m going to try to save my cowl. I can’t find a used one for under $500 and I can’t justify (budget wise) buying an AMD or Goodmark one for $350.00+ just to cut up. At least I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that!

My cowl was rotted all along the firewall seam as well as various spots along the windshield channel. It sucked choppin up a new cowl but I got several panels through RockAuto at the same time that shipped through the same warehouse so it didn't really add to the shipping cost. RA has the upper cowl for $223. Time is money and this repair made the most sense to me. I have thousands of pics of the rebuild of my car. Feel free to reach out for any details.

 

[72RR4SPeed]

View attachment 1018456

Making some progress. Cut a bunch of saddles for mounting RR to jig. Also drilled some holes too.
View attachment 1018457
I then mounted the RR to the jig at four points that are level, according to engineering sheet. In retrospect, I probably should have made the jig about a 10-12” lower.
View attachment 1018458 View attachment 1018459

I just need to add mounting points to the rear and front. The RR is resting on the saddles but still attached to my rotisserie. And, of course, my welder stopped working half way through for some reason...super!

For shits and giggles, I also started removing the rest of the undercoating. I read somewhere, maybe here, that Goo Gone Automotive works well. So, I hosed one of the wheel wells down and let it sit overnight. I was able to scrape off a pretty good area with a plastic scraper with relative ease.

View attachment 1018461



View attachment 1018462

I soaked it again and let it sit overnight. I was able to get even more off with ease. All of the undercoating that I sprayed is soft now as apposed to hard as a rock when I started. And the citrus smell is quite pleasing.



View attachment 1018463

Wow That works great! I wished I had known about that when I did mine, I used a paint stripper and putty knife. I have a 72 RR also

 

[ct71rr]

Damn it! I never even thought of Rockauto ! That is definitely an option. Thanks for posting that.

 

[ct71rr]

I started on the removal of the left rear frame rail. I’m also going to replace the trunk pan and rear panel, as well. I figured it would be easier to remove the trunk pan before the rail so, that’s where I began. As you can see from the image below, my car has damage from being struck in the left rear corner at some point in its life. The strike bent the left rear frame rail and caused the floor pan to pucker.

It also caused the back half of the left rail to be about 1/2” lower in relation to the right rail:

You can see that the trunk opening is off (1/2”) from left to right. You can see how much the rear was pushed (area between arrows) by holding a straight edge against the trunk opening:

:

I drilled the spot welds first. Holy crap there’s a lot of them holding the trunk in! I also used a needle scaler to remove the old seam sealer. It blasted right through the sealer.

I then pulled the trunk pan out. And of course, I found another nest in the right frame rail.

You can see the damage to the rail in this picture:

Now, I have to figure out how to get the rear panel out without removing the quarters. I’m not sure if it can be done. I have a donor panel to install as mine is pretty trashed.

 

[Grabbergreendream]

I have a nice drivers side rail you can have if you pay for shipping or pick it up.