Project Pittsbird Almost Done

[Bruzilla]

I started this project for two reasons. The first was I'm from Pittsburgh, PA and a huge Steelers, Pirates, and Penguins fan who attends a lot of tailgate and party events for these teams and wanted a nice car to take to them. There are lots of club members who show up driving late model cars and trucks, usually either black or yellow, covered with team decals, magnets, flags, etc. I wanted to go a more old school route and use my favorite car, the 1973/74 Plymouth Roadrunner.

The second reason is I've been a Mopar enthusiast since I saw my first Roadrunner back in 1973, and I spend lots of time talking to people about classic Mopars. One comment I hear all the time goes basically "I love those cars, but they're so expensive to buy or fix!" I felt a lot of this opinion stems from people seeing show cars or maxed-out restos being sold at auction, and I wanted to see if here in 2011/2012 if it's possible to buy and fix up an old Mopar without having to break the bank.

My goals were to fix up a 1973/1974 Roadrunner. I wasn't going to restore it, but rather make it a car that I would have been driving around Pittsburgh back in 1977/78 when I got my license. The car would be 4-5 years old, so it wouldn't be a pristine show car or even look showroom fresh. I wanted the car to look nice, but not new. My second goal was to make it look like a Pittsburgh fan's car by making heavy use of black, caution yellow (Steelers and Pirates gold), Penguins gold, and white, plus use a lot of era accessories like 70's bumper stickers and decals. Lastly, I wanted to get the car bought and finished without breaking a limit of $8,000, or about 1/2 the price of most entry-level new cars these days. Not free, but not breaking the bank for most people either.

My strategy would be to maximize the use of ebay, craigslist, forums like this one, and other internet sources as finding these cars in junkyards is not a common occurrence... although sometimes you get lucky , and buying a lot of new parts would break the budget in a hurry. Another strategy I planned to use is to look for people with partially done cars, who had already dropped a lot of money into fixing it up, but then lost interest or spousal support and wanted to get out from under the car. The more I could get done spending other peoples' money, the better.

We'll see how it all went. BTW, I'm posting the details of this effort as blog entries, so please be patient with me.

 

[Bruzilla]

Step 1: Finding the Car. I spent the better part of a year constantly checking websites, craigslist, forums, etc., for a car that met my needs. I was shooting for a decent car in the $2,000 range if possible. Difficult to find, but by no means impossible. I spent a lot of weekends going to look at piles of rusting metal that had at one time been cars, "project" cars that weren't quite backyard mechanic specials but more like Manhattan Project-level affairs, and worst of all, I saw a lot of decent 73/74s that were just totally eaten up with cancer in the quarter panels, which I would pass on immediately.

I started tracking a 1974 Roadrunner on craigslist in December 2011. The ad said it was in great shape (it wasn't), had a 360, auto, rally (sic) wheels, and was a daily driver. The asking price was $5,000. I kept watching it and saw the price steadily drop to $4,000, to $3,000, and in February it hit $2,000, which was when I called the seller and arranged to drive about 60 miles to go see it.

The directions were basically take US 301 to Hawthorne, FL, take a right onto a four lane road, make a left onto a two lane road, make a right onto a one lane dirt road, look for two ruts through the grass and make a left, then follow the ruts until you get to a barn with a horse and a dog outside. The picture in the craigslist ad showed the car sitting in a suburban driveway, not a barn in the middle of nowhere, FL. I found the barn in the woods, and saw the back of a B5 blue Roadrunner sticking out of the barn. Success! I got out and went to see the rest of the car and found to my horror it wasn't there! The only thing ahead of the cockpit was the frame and the engine and radiator. Everything else was gone. I was about to leave when the owner showed up.

The owner told me he and his Dad had been working on the car, which was why it was disassembled. He also told me that a couple of weeks ago, a bad storm had come through and knocked a tree over on to the car, resulting in a shattered windshield and dash pad, a lot of dents on the roof, and worse... some major damage to the passenger-side quarter panel. Hence the reason for the quick drops in price. He told me they had gotten a new windshield and gasket and were installing it. The rest of the car's body had some typical denting, dinging, and small areas of rust. Besides the pass. qtr panel, the worst damage was to the driver's fender, which had a large area of rust and a crack that looked like at some point someone had patched up a dent with some Bondo and it was now cracking. The inside was a different story. 90% of the interior was gone. There was a steering column and wheel, Rallye gauge cluster, two gray bucket seats of unknown parentage, a backseat and a lot of very bare sheet metal. No panels, carpet, headliner, nothing. The seller fired up the 360 and it started and ran like a top. He told me "the headers leak a bit" and I said "and water is wet". I've never seen painted headers that didn't leak.

He told me that he and his Dad would reassemble the car and I told him I would be back in two weeks and if the car was ready to go, I would give him the $2,000. I also asked him how this car had been "driven daily" as he said in his ad, and he said he did drive it daily to his brother's house a mile away. I asked how he could drive the car with no fenders, headlights, bumper, etc., and he said the cops around there didn't care. Like I said, this was really the middle of nowhere.

 

[tpodwdog]

im from Pittsburgh but not really a sports fan of any kind,,,,,but i cant wait to see the car!

 

[Bruzilla]

Step 2: Getting the Car Back Home. Two weeks later I got a call from the seller saying the car was done and ready to go. I drove down with my son and a spare tag, put the tag on the car, and we started heading back to Orange Park. The ride back was pretty uneventful aside from feeling like the car had no shocks, no radio, and the seats felt like they were out of an SUV as my head was making contact with the roof. But, I had an engine that ran, a tranny that shifted, brakes that stopped the car, and every light on the car worked, so what else could you expect for $2,000? The biggest issue he warned me about was the gas gauge only worked sometimes and he didn't know how much gas was in it. We stopped at a gas station about five miles from the seller's home and fueled up.

The pictures below show the car as it looked when we got back.

And this was the worst damage, the passenger quarter. As you can see it's got some rust forming on the bare metal, dents, twists, and some apparent bondo from a previous repair.

Lastly, while it doesn't show up well in the pictures, every inch of blue paint on that car had orange peel! Worst paint job I had ever seen. Like I said, not a great car but it drives, stops, and was a good deal for $2,000.

 

[YY1]

:happy1::coffee2:

That's the way to do it- Can be done.

I've got a similar budget and methodology for all mine.

 

[67 coronet]

come on,its like reading a good book,i need to read the next page!:grin:

 

[Budnicks]

we need pitchers

 

[Ron 73]

Great reading this, Looking forward to some pictures of it..

Budnicks, cool avatar!

 

[Bruzilla]

Step 3: The Interior

The second step to doing the interior was to find all the parts I needed. The first was to find the money I needed. In keeping to my plan, I wanted to conserve as much cash as I could because I know old Mr. Mayhem is going to show up and force me to make a lot of unplanned purchases.

I inventoried everything in the car and decided what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to get rid of. I wanted a black steering wheel with the RR center, so the blue Plymouth wheel had to go. The car had a totally unmolested 120 MPH Rallye cluster with the original AM radio. I wanted a 150 MPH rig and an aftermarket stereo, and I didn't want to destroy the cluster, so I decided to sell it. The seats had to go!!! The back seat was serviceable, and the one lower door panel was ok.

I put the steering wheel and cluster/radio on ebay, and sold them for $442, and I sold the two buckets for $40 on craigslist. I got real lucky when I opened the trunk as there was a spare set of four 14" Rallye rims with centers in there! I put these on Craigslist and sold them for $300. So before ever reaching for the ATM card, I had $782 to work with, which as I pointed out to Mrs. Bruzilla, also meant the car actually cost me $1,218.

I did a lot of searches on craiglist and found a 150 MPH Rallye cluster that had been cut for a stereo for $50. I also found a pair of 76 Aspen seats for $40. Both were within 20 miles of me. The seats are similar in size and shape to the RR seats and a lot cheaper! Since originality points didn't matter, they were a great buy. The downside is no one makes replacement seat covers (something you hear a lot about on the F body sites). The short term fix was to use a set of Steelers universal covers I had, with the long-term goal being to get custom black/white/gold covers made. I've been quoted $300 for these, which when the cost of the seats is added in puts me at only $340 for a set of excellent buckets, which is what a pair of rebuildable 74 RR seats would go for.

I used ebay to get most of the parts for the interior. A few tips for doing this:

1. Most ebay users review searches in the Best Match sort view, which is the default. It shows the best matches for your search criteria with the auctions ending soonest displayed first. This is a mistake because all the best deals are long gone well before the auction was scheduled to end. Always sort by Time: Newly Listed. I had decided I wanted to change the car from a column shift to a console shift, so I needed a console, shifter, brackets, etc. All of the consoles I found were between $150 and $300 using best match. Then I used the newly listed sort and found a console and top plate for $50 buy it now, which I did the day it was listed. This deal would have been long gone by the time it showed up in my Best Match sort.

2. Be patient! I found this to be very important. Parts are being added every day, so never take a bad deal as a better deal is coming. I found a pair of OEM kick panels for $300 one day, a set of new ones for $80 another day, two used selling for $19 each another day, and a pair for $20 another day. There are sets of sail panels selling for $350 or $35 on the same day. So wait for your deal and when it meets your budget, get it.

I bought used door panels, interior quarter panels, kick panels, and sail panels off ebay. Total cost: $118! On the downside, the sail panels ended up being for a 71/72 Charger, so I had to find a set of sails at J&J auto parts for $50, which took me to $168, but I'll find a buyer for the Charger sails and make some of that back.

I bought a set of used console brackets for $53, a complete shifter assembly for $112, a torque bracket for $33, and a new T-shifter handle for $44, which added to the console costs brought me in at $302, or just $2 more than what many bare consoles sell for.

I found the steering wheel I wanted for $88, plus I got a new center decal for $7.

I bought the headliner and carpet new, along with a dash cap. That ended up being about $326.

So, all toll, I spent $981 on most of the interior and the parts needed to convert the shifter. I'm still missing a lot of parts at this point, and I still haven't ordered the custom seat covers, but at this point I'm at $2,199 spent. Not frigging bad.

 

[Bruzilla]

Part 4: The Junkyard

I hit up the local junkyards and found one, lone, 73 Satellite Sebring rusting away...

I inventoried what was on the car that I could use, and decided to approach the yard owner with a bundled deal (hat tip to the guys at American Pickers). The car had both A-pillar covers, sun visors, all the headliner trim, rear window trim, the bumperettes, and the #4 headliner bow I needed. I wrote up a list and went to talk to the owner. We settled on a price of $180 for everything.

I pulled all the parts but the bumperettes. These I couldn't get because I needed a 9/16th deep socket that I didn't have. I was going to go home and get one, but it was hot, muggy, and I decided to come back the next day. Big mistake!!!

I came back and got the bumperettes, and big surprise... the owner suddenly forgot he had sold them to me the day before! He said the $180 price he had quoted me didn't include the bumperettes, and if I wanted them I was going to have to pay another $100. I was pissed!!! I told him to shove them up his *** and left. I figured even at $180, what I had gotten had beat the prices I would have paid on ebay by $200 or so, so I still had a good deal. Even better, when I got home I saw the rear bumper on the car only had one hole for the bumperettes, so it needed the all rubber ones and not the rubber/chrome ones I had found on the 73 (which have two bolts on them). So I was glad I didn't cave on paying the extra $100 as the bumperettes wouldn't have worked for me.

So now I have most of my interior, the rear window trim that was missing, and I'm at $2,379.

 

[Bruzilla]

Step 5: Rolling Stock

The car came with 14" Rallye wheels, centers, and three rings. The tires were 215-70-14s that had seen better days. My plan was to replace the rear 14" wheels with 15" Rallyes. I wanted RWL tires, and have always used Radial T/As.

I did a lot of searching for a pair of 15" Rallyes, with the low price being repops for about $250, or buying two OEMs at J&J for $500. Again, worried about what Mr. Mayhem... this guy...

... had in store for me, I figured I would forgo the 15" rims and stick with the 14" for now.

I wanted a set of 225/70/14 T/As, and the best out-the-door price I could get locally was about $460. A pretty big gamble budget wise. I decided to try the used tire route, but found getting 14" anythings is getting hard to do. Since I didn't need tires right away, I left my contact info with several used shops and told them if they came across a set to call me.

I got a call from a place called Tire Pros a couple of weeks later, and they told me they had gotten a set of 225/70/14 T/As in from a pinhead who was putting 18" wheels on some Chevy POS. The tires only had 3,000 miles on them, and they wanted $40 each, plus tire disposal fees, so it would have been about $176 out the door. Better, but not great.

I went to their shop and we haggled, but they wouldn't budge on the price. $40 a pop was fair, but I knew they had paid nothing for them and had also collected the disposal fee for them. Using some treachery I had learned at estate auctions, I finally said "fine, how much is just one?" and they said $40, so I bought just the one and had it mounted on one of the rims. They were happy they got their $40, and I was thrilled because now they had an odd-numbered set of tires to sell... good luck making that deal suckers!

I waited two weeks and went back, and now they were more willing to bargain as selling three matching tires isn't as easy as selling four. We ended up at $30 a tire, so the whole set cost me $130 out the door. Even better, while looking for tires on craigslist, I had found a guy restoring a 70 Charger who was in desperate need of some cheap 14" tires he could mount on the original rims until he replaced the wheels later in the resto. I kept my old tires, which saved me $16 in fees, and called the Charger guy up.

Jeff came over right away and offered me $20 each for the old tires, but since he was a Mopar guy, and the tires weren't that great, I just gave them to him. He kept trying to pay, so you know he wasn't a Chevy guy, but I told him he had already saved me $16 by taking them, so it was all good.

I cleaned up the T/As with some Simple Green and Mr. Clean magic erasers and they looked like new.

So, I now had a fetching set of rolling stock for $130, which could have been $80 less had I sold the old ones, and now I'm at $2,509.

 

[Bruzilla]

Part 6: Fun With Particle Board

The package tray was completely rotted and the divider board that seperates the back seat from the trunk was gone. I was looking at about $200 for replacements.

Plan B came in the form of a quick trip to Home Depot, where I bought a sheet of white particle board for $10. I took it home and pieced what was left of the package tray together enough that I could trace the outline of it, and the location of the speaker and defroster holes, on to the particle board. I cut out the new tray, painted it, and installed. Looks pretty good for $10.

I cut a section of particle board that was about the size of the area between the trunk and cabin, and put it in the car. I marked off key locations like the sides, hangar holes, etc., then cut the divider out. I painted it black and installed.

Two more issues fixed and I'm at $2,519.

 

[67 coronet]

thats awsome so far.this reads like a "how to"on building a car on the low budget.great work,keep it comming.

 

[Bruzilla]

Part 7: Bumper Issues

Both bumpers were in okay shape. No major rust, holes, or dents, but a lot of scale and that annoying pinhole rust that pops up though the chrome over time. They were good for a driver but not show quality, so that was okay. As an aside, after we got the car back to the house, my son told me it was a challenge driving behind me because the sun kept reflecting back off the rear bumper and into his eyes, which told me that the bumper was in good shape and that kids today have gotten too used to painted bumpers and bumper covers.

The only issue with the front bumper was the chrome looked new where the bumperettes had been and old everywhere else, which wouldn't be a problem once the bumperettes were on. The problem I had with the back bumper was I was planning on putting vintage bumperstickers on, and whether they were original or reproductions, they wouldn't be cheap and I didn't want to spend $100 on bumperstickers and put them on a 40-year old bumper, so I needed a better one.

I checked around ebay and craigslist, and found a lot of rear bumpers that were in the same shape as mine, and a couple rechromed ones for about $450-500. I checked with the usual chromers and got quotes from $600 and up. Ouch. What I hadn't done to this point is make use of the fallen project car route, so I started checking the cars for sale sections of all the Mopar forums.

I saw that MoparGod had a 340 73 Roadrunner he had been trying to sell for a while. It was a project car, but it needed to be rebuilt and it had a rechromed bumper! I contacted him, and asked if he was thinking of parting the car out. At first he wasn't, but later he did and offered to sell it for $150. I also saw in some pics he had posted that he had a set of wheel lip trim, and he threw that in for $50. Even better, he was about to go to Daytona Beach and was able to meet me in Jacksonville so I didn't have to pay for shipping! A hat tip to MoparGod for really helping me out there!

With the bumper taken care of, I started looking for a set of rubber bumperettes, and this is where jessipup stepped up. He had a set of rubber ones he didn't need and gave them to me. He even paid for the shipping, so bigtime hat tip to him! But, as always, when good things happen... old Mr. Mayhem has to show up.

I unwrapped the bumper I got from MoparGod and of course... it is set up for the chrome and rubber bumperettes, not the rubber ones like my old bumper was and now the ones I got from jessipup won't fit and I have to find a set of chrome and rubber ones. If you remember back, I took a set off a 73 Satellite at the junkyard, but the owner tried to hold me up for $100 for them, and I wasn't going to go back and get them.

I finally found a set on ebay for $60 or submit offer. I offered $40 and they took it, so with the shipping they came out to $55.

So, after about three months of looking, I got a rechromed bumper, wheel lip trim, and rubber/chrome bumperettes for $255, which puts me at $2,774.

 

[Ron 73]

This presentation your doing is better then any featured car ive read about in any magazine Bruzilla.. I cant help but wonder if your smiling as you do it for the sharing of it that i sure thank you for but also maybe knowing we know these little updates are leading to the pictures of what appears to be a beast of a ride. lol.. Ah, the anticipation we wait patiently for!

 

[bigredbird]

^ What Ron said. More! :blob1:

 

[roadrunnerman]

I like how you give us a running tab on what you have into it with purchase and parts.That's keeping it real.

 

[Bruzilla]

Body Work Part 1

Okay, this is the point where the rubber meets the road without any rubber meeting the road. The point where grown men cry, our metal is tested, and souls are whipped. The point where we have to receive the lecture from the wife that goes like "Honey, I know you have this passion for your car, and I appreciate how motivated and determined you are to see this project through, but at some point we do need to buy some food for the kids!" Yes, it's time to start getting the bodywork done.

So far in this project, I've always tried to think of better ways to get things done (with better meaning cheaper most of the time), and I wanted to apply the same logic to the paint and bodywork. The car definitely had some challenges when it came to the bodywork needed. The passenger quarter was moderately damaged, the driver's fender was damaged, there were multiple dents in the roof, lots of spot rust and door dings and other flaws that 40+ years on the road had caused. Add to this I absolutely loathe B5 Blue (apologies to those fans of the color), so I wanted a 100% color change to black, which also adds to the price.

Another issue was the color itself. I've learned from experience that black is a major PITA for body shops because it's like a mirror and reflects and amplifies any defect in the body or flaw in the paint. The darker the color, the more expensive the paint job seems to get because you have to get so many things just right. I considered going with a white or Steelers gold paint, but I'm no fan of white cars and yellow/gold has always said TAXI to me. On the plus side, my budget has been running below target to this point so I felt I could afford to splurge a little on the paint and body. And I won't lie. I've been reading articles in car mags about how to reduce the cost of a paint job by doing things like sanding the car yourself, removing trim yourself, etc, for years, but the thought of hours of sanding and disassembly during a Florida summer just didn't appeal to me. What I needed to do was come up with a way to get someone to do 100% of the work and do it within budget. Yes, it's a case of laziness, but I'm just not 30 anymore.

So, here was my target, I wanted the car to look like it would have in the late 1970s, so I would go with a single stage enamel paint job, in black, and with the major body damage repaired but not all the little dings and dents. I took the car to some body shops, and got estimates ranging from $3,000 to $6,000. It seemed like most of the places I went to didn't grasp that I wanted the car fixed up and painted, not restored. It's like the minute they see an old car come into the parking lot they think frame-off resto time!!! They also tried to push a base/clear paint job which added even more to the price. And again, as soon as I mentioned the word "black", they went "oh... black, well that's going to add to the cost." Bottom line, I didn't want to do all this work myself, and I didn't have the money in the budget for a body shop, so what's in between? I know I'll take some grief for the solution I came up with. Some will find it brilliant, some foolish; and some will hate it because they feel like it's robbing them, but so be it.

I did a search on craigslist for "paint bodywork". For a couple of months all I found was a college student who was home from school and willing to trade doing some bodywork for a laptop and some other stuff for school. He had no pictures of his work, and having some college kid do the work didn't seem too promising. I stopped looking for a while, and went back to checking in July and I found two guys who had ads posted that said they were professional paint and body guys who were doing work on the side. They both had photos of their work, and both advertised enamel paint jobs for $350 and base/clear for $750, which was well under half of what everyone else was charging.

I sent emails with pictures of the car to both guys, and followed them up with phone calls. The first guy I talked to sounded like he had just woke up, and he started telling me about his experience in the field, how his friend owned a paint booth that he uses, etc. He told me he would look at the photos and get back with me. The second guy I talked to, Mike, was very enthusiastic, said he had 16 years of experience working in the field, and his grandfather owned a shop that he used as it had a downdraft paint booth. The first guy never called me back, but Mike did and after looking at the pictures said he would like to do the job for me.

 

[67 coronet]

thats some creative writing you got going there,ever think of doing a book?keep up the"how to"feel your doing great.cant wait for the big finish.:grin:

 

[Bruzilla]

Body Work Part 2

Before I go any further, I guess I should preemptively address all the concerns you guys are going to be having.

First, putting your faith and car into the hands of a guy you found on craigslist is a risk. No doubt about it. And if I had a $100,000+ number matching HEMI car I wouldn't have ever gone this route, but then again if I had a car like that I probably wouldn't need to. This project was about getting an early 70's Pittsburgh themed Mopar back on the street for under $8,000 or so. It didn't need to win trophies, or make me rich, just make me happy.

Second, I'm sure some body shop guys aren't happy with the idea of their employees working on the side and taking business away from them and money out of their pockets. That's a fair criticism. But the reality is I couldn't afford to do business with the body shops, so I would never have been going to them anyway. Second, in my experience, work that's paid for by insurance dollars tends to have a higher priority than non-insurance work, so there's a risk for me there as well.

Lastly, I want to say that I have a special place in my heart for guys who choose to think out of the box and find ways to get through life rather than just sit around and whine about how hard things are. If a guy wants to work an eight-hour day, then go home and work on a car at home for another three or four hours to make some extra cash instead of watching TV and wondering why he/she isn't able to pay the bills, I'm all for supporting that effort.

Okay, back to the project.