Hi folks,
My name’s Paul, and this is my first classic car project.
I’m especially interested in the sheet metal and fabrication side of things, so I’m looking forward to learning a lot as I work through this ’68 Charger build.
From what I could gather from the seller, the car was originally torn down for a restoration back in 2016, but the project stalled and the car was stored away then later changed hands with the current seller having too much on the plate to get it done.
There’s been a fair amount of patchwork repair—possibly due to limited availability of full panels at the time—so my thinking is we’ll likely need to scrap a lot of what's been previously done and start fresh in many areas. I’ll get into more detail of the ugly in a following post but as a spoiler its clear this car has had a hit on the front passenger side at one point.
For now, here are some overview photos some bad some good, I'm new to these cars so please feel free to share insights but be kind:
440 with a 727 transmission and an 8 3/4 based on the imagery I've seen online. Orange paint on the block implying its a later model motor thats likely been swapped in? Only have the VIN, no fender tag to work off of.
Maybe it was originally Burgundy before being resprayed to red?
You can also see the outline of the patching that was done around the arches and the front and rear sections of the quarter panel.
Looks like the trunk extensions and the outer fender wells have been patched (true for both sides) Not very impressed with the execution so we're probably going to need to take the quarters off and do this properly.
I did find a pair of AMD outer wheel houses in the trunk though so maybe that was always someone's plan.
I can still see what I believe is the lead filler - shame they approached the quarter panels the way that they did.
You can also see they replaced the panel on the back of the rear window before the trunk.
The trunk floor looks okay with some patches having been done but since the car has been undersealed its hard to really tell whats hiding under there.
It was also hard to see what was hiding underneath all the junk on the floor of the car..
The good news is that as I went through the parts - its pretty complete as far as I could tell, maybe I can do a review of what I found in a following post before I get to the challenges at hand.
Thanks for taking the time to read up so far, I think im limited to 10 photos per post so I'll leave it here for now.
My name’s Paul, and this is my first classic car project.
I’m especially interested in the sheet metal and fabrication side of things, so I’m looking forward to learning a lot as I work through this ’68 Charger build.
From what I could gather from the seller, the car was originally torn down for a restoration back in 2016, but the project stalled and the car was stored away then later changed hands with the current seller having too much on the plate to get it done.
There’s been a fair amount of patchwork repair—possibly due to limited availability of full panels at the time—so my thinking is we’ll likely need to scrap a lot of what's been previously done and start fresh in many areas. I’ll get into more detail of the ugly in a following post but as a spoiler its clear this car has had a hit on the front passenger side at one point.
For now, here are some overview photos some bad some good, I'm new to these cars so please feel free to share insights but be kind:
440 with a 727 transmission and an 8 3/4 based on the imagery I've seen online. Orange paint on the block implying its a later model motor thats likely been swapped in? Only have the VIN, no fender tag to work off of.
Maybe it was originally Burgundy before being resprayed to red?
You can also see the outline of the patching that was done around the arches and the front and rear sections of the quarter panel.
Looks like the trunk extensions and the outer fender wells have been patched (true for both sides) Not very impressed with the execution so we're probably going to need to take the quarters off and do this properly.
I did find a pair of AMD outer wheel houses in the trunk though so maybe that was always someone's plan.
I can still see what I believe is the lead filler - shame they approached the quarter panels the way that they did.
You can also see they replaced the panel on the back of the rear window before the trunk.
The trunk floor looks okay with some patches having been done but since the car has been undersealed its hard to really tell whats hiding under there.
It was also hard to see what was hiding underneath all the junk on the floor of the car..
The good news is that as I went through the parts - its pretty complete as far as I could tell, maybe I can do a review of what I found in a following post before I get to the challenges at hand.
Thanks for taking the time to read up so far, I think im limited to 10 photos per post so I'll leave it here for now.
