My $700 car... ('72 restoration.)

I will definitely be painting it myself. It's going back to orange.

I was hoping to find some American Racing Libre's or Bellflower wheels, but when I saw these, I actually think they fit the bill.

I had a bronze metallic 5spd car with a tan interior, magnesium colored Libre wheels and a few other goodies in mind and ended up with an orange 4spd car w/ black interior and factory four spoke aluminum wheels (don't know the name of them)...

I'm going to be painting the jambs, interior, engine bay, etc, so I'm not going to save myself any work and I can change it all to what I had in mind, but it's so close to that idea already and I wasn't concrete with anything. I was throwing around a white car w/ red interior around too. All of my other cars are going to be their original color outfit, so I think I'll keep it consistant. The wheel centers may get a coat of magnesium gray metallic with polished edges though. I'd like to find a set of center caps, but I'm also down with the capless race look.

I almost bought a 1970 (Oct. '69 production date), but by the time I got a call in to the owner on craigslist, he decided that he'd make more than $1000 cash to part it out. That was a few months back. It was also orange and black and the idea of that color grew on me. I already have a dark metallic green '73 Scamp and teal metallic/ black vinyl top '68 Charger that I'm restoring, so I wanted something on the other end of the color spectrum for my next car.

Usually you don't get a cancer free straight car that runs and drives good with a little TLC for less than $1000. Maybe one or two of those green lights, but seldom all three, so I'm happy.

I'll probably add a semi-gloss black BRE chin spoiler under the stock orange valance. I've thought about putting a rear BRE lip wing on it too, but I think it looks so much cleaner without it. I may also add some factory chrome trimmed headlight nacelle lenses.

I'm going to ditch the air pump and manifold to go with a coated 3-2 header with a full twin exhaust like the 432 cars. I don't have a rear bumper for it and I was thinking about putting one back on just for the sake of saftey, but my friend who owns a fiat 124 spider made a good point, in that, they sit so low that any new car would just run up it anyway, so I may run without a rear bumper. Not sure yet.

I definitely want to fix or replace the front bumper. If I fix this one, I'm stripping the chrome, welding all of the rubber holes up and making it a one piece before sending it off to have it rechromed. I'll do the same for a rear if I put one on. It will be getting a four point roll bar at the strut towers and I may incorporate some sort of rear bumper into it inside the car, behind the tail lights. I was thinking about running some tubing through the fenders and across the radiator support too, so I don't die if an SUV hits me. hahaha... We'll see. I'll just drive it like I would ride a bike and I think I'll be okay. I'm a good driver.

I'll start a restoration thread here once I have accumulated my weatherstripping, paint and suspension kit. I really want to drive this thing soon!

So, I think I just opened another can of worms, buying this car, but in comparison to my '68 Dodge Charger and the other cars that I've been tinkering on, it seems like the smallest and shallowest can on the shelf.

And what better place when you're on a budget to start with a restoration than anywhere? lol...

After I took the valve cover and air cleaner off to make way with a lash adjustment and correct all of the foul-up's with the carbs (among other things), I decided to spend some time after work a few nights and made them look nice.
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Now my only problem is that it will make the rest of the engine bay look like total chaos and force me to finish what I've started.

I'll keep posting pics (and maybe some video) as this progresses. I want to try my hardest to have this thing looking, running and driving spanky clean. I spent last night fixing my wobbly drivers seat and replaced all of the tapered head large phillips screws in both seats with allen screws. I also fixed the sticking defrost switch by clipping one loop out of the spring inside, replaced the broken/ missing choke indicator light switch and started to clean things up a bit.

After scraping up some of the sound deadener from the floor, I scratched up some scale rust, but the floors are actually quite sound and won't need replacing. Just a few small patches that I will hand form with a wooden buck on 16ga steel.

I am going to gusset the seat mount crossmembers, though. I don't think they are sufficient. One hole on the drivers seat stud has a few fractures. Nothing my welder can't fix, but I don't want it happening again.

As soon as I have enough cash saved to get this thing registered with classic plates, I'm going to pull the intake, remove the air pump and everything else that has to do with emissions to clean the engine up some more. I may just yoink the whole engine, replace the seals, get a new chain, sand blast the block, head and pan, repaint it and sand/ shoot the engine bay while I'm at it for a week or two after work.

I'm debating filing, sanding and polishing the E88 intakes, but I don't want to go through the trouble of polishing the rest of the carburetor bodies. Too much pocket sanding by hand for a driver, I think.

I have a friend that has access to a CNC bridgeport mill and I think I'm going to buy a chunk of stainless flat stock and tube to make a polished stainless balance tube to get rid of all of the blocked off emissions ports. I was just going to sand and polish it and block it off with polished brass plumbing caps, but I don't like having holes and things places that aren't being used.

Have fun!

Dave

After a phone conversation with my emissions clinic guy, he told me that some of these cars came with and some without the air pump and other emissions equipment.

After digging through my factory service manuals, it looks to me like the cars with the automatic transmissions and the other induction and exhaust system had no provisions for an air pump.

Before that, I was a bit concerned about preemptively pulling the emissions stuff from my car to clean it up, only to have to put it back on to get my tags, but now that I have a green light from the guy who will be doing my test, I can continue with this project the way I had intended.

I posted an ad in craigslist a few days ago for a new front carb. I met a guy that just bought a 1600 roadster that dumped his Z project a while back, but had a pair of round top SU 3 screw carbs, with all of the linkage.

I really only needed one of the carbs, but I bought both of them from him with everything for $150 based on the fact that having another set of these things around probably isn't a bad idea. Being able to inspect their operation in person was also key for me to come up with something that works well, too.

He bought them from a local pull and save boneyard and got hosed for $100 or so, because the guy at the front counter was calling the float bowls, fuel pumps and wanted to charge him separately for everything.

You can see from the goofy paint on the individual pieces that he wasn't kidding! hahaha.

So I spent some of yesterday pulling everything from the engine.

Sadly, I have two broken exhaust manifold studs in the head on either end.

I didn't understand how you could have a broken stud in an aluminum head until after I took the exhaust off of the manifold and the entire pipe and muffler hit the ground. The previous owner had absolutely nothing tying the exhaust to the car other than the manifold. I have no idea how long that went on for.

After seeing this abuse, I pulled all of the intake and exhaust studs that weren't broken (I will pull the broken ones soon) to replace all of them. Every time I have tried reusing exhaust studs, it has been a study in frustration and I don't want to take any chances on an aluminum head. I'm just glad that the damage was isolated to the studs that got sacrificed.

After much debate, I'm going to pull the engine and transmission for cleanup. When the engine ran, it didn't smoke after I tuned the carburetors, so this engine doesn't need rings. I'm going to leave the head on the block for now until a later time, when I have the money to get a valve job with hardened seats installed. It won't be driven much until then.

Pulling the engine now will allow me to replace all of the seals, fix my dented pan, cosmetically restore the engine and engine bay, rebuild the front suspension and install new exhaust.

I really wanted to drive this thing. I was just going to clean the front carb up that I bought, polish the canister and rebuild/ retune the carbs to get it going, but I suppose this is for the better.

I don't have kids, but I have a very busy life and limited funds at the moment. hahaha... I feel your pain. I'm supporting my small household with my girlfriend and I, until she has better luck with work, like most of the rest of the world.

I'm also catching up some old bills and helping relatives. Between that and working full time, it's difficult to find any time and/ or money to do anything, but I should have a little more financial clearance towards October.

So, I've made a commitment to myself. I've decided that if I spend a little extra time at work after hours restoring one thing every night, that I'd be in pretty good shape in a reasonable amount of time.

I finished the steering wheel, intake manifolds w/ adjacent parts and one of my carburetors completely so far this week. I'm finishing the rear carb tomorrow after work. Once it's done, I'll have some pics of my week's progress and what it took. I'm trying to take some durring pics of a few things. I will definitely get some durring shots when I tackle the body and other lengthy processes.

These carbs are a simple clean up/ rebuild with polished domes, but I took the linkage all apart and re-cad coated it all.

If you ever need any help on the '77, let me know. I restore everything down to the stainless and aluminum trim on cars and I'm building stainless bumpers for this thing, as well as a stainless grille.

Even if you only do one thing on your '77 every week, it's progress! I started thinking about how I got the car at a bit of an unopportune time and just realized that any work I can do is better than no work at all, so I decided to go with something small every day or do one slightly larger project every week, like pulling the engine. That's a decent goal for me because my tools are at work and I have keys to the shop. With kids and a household, I'd make way for doing one thing a week. Start with one small system of the car from start until finish, then set it aside for assembly or reinstall it if it won't be in the way of the rest of the project.

The key to a lengthy process is to make sure you have everything organized. I label all of my hardware in bags and in boxes if it won't fit in bags and keep each system separate (front carb, rear carb, intake/exhaust manifolds, etc.) rather than gigantic piles of hardware (engine bay, interior, etc.)

Especially if you're taking a bit longer to do things, it makes for a much easier install. The factory service manuals are actually very comprehensive with exploded views and wiring routing as well, but if I have any questionable parts to dissasemble, I take pics before I remove anything and sometimes durring removal if I can't see it all when it's still assembled.

I also restored the steering wheel. It didn't need much, but the rim was filthy and needed some cleaning and conditioning and the spokes had some chipping and rust. I masked the rim after cleaning it with dawn dishsoap and hot water, sand blasted the spokes, acid etch primed the metal and hit it with some semi-gloss black.

I'm debating what to do to the horn button, if anything at all. The center emblem is not perfect, but I'm at a point where I really don't care. It will probably just live that way. I may just paint the black area over the pitting.