Hello from Lake of the Ozarks

[Titan912s]

and St. Louis during the Winter when the boat rental biz is really slow...    I've been a gearhead all my life, growing up in the 70s and have gone through (and wishing I had most of them back) around 120 classic cars.  At one point I dug up as many pictures as possible and put around half of them up on a web page.  You can see them at http://adventureboatrentals.com/jstewart/vehicles.htm.  2 of those on that page are a '70 'Cuda with a fantastic history and a '72 Challenger 440 (originally 318).  Towards the bottom of the page you'll see where my username came from.   

I've been mostly a Chevy guy for all my life, but I really didn't have the brand loyalty that my parents had.  I like everything that's cool.  I decided on a top-5 collection of cars that will be fun to own (and keep this time), with nothing being so rare that I would be scared to take it outside and waste the tires.  Some I've previously owned, and some were slightly off from what I really wanted (like the '72 Challenger instead of a '70 or 71 e-body, and the '72 Mach 1 instead of a '69 or 70).  Currently I have a '70 Nova SS that's getting paint sometime in the next week or so after replacing a lot of metal.  It's the gray one at the end of the car page, going back to silver.

My wonderful wife tolerates my hobbies/obsessions like guitars and cars, and is fine with boats since we're both boaters.  Her one request is that I only have one car project at a time.  That meant the Nova should be done before I get something else. Well, it didn't quite work out that way...   

During my relentless saved searches on ebay and craigslist, I come across a Plum Crazy Purple 70 Challenger on eBay.  Funny thing, I was about 25 miles from this car 4 days before I saw it during a trip back to Nebraska.  Put a couple bids on it during the last few minutes, and tried to time the last one down to the last second.  Computer/Internet lag caused me to get outbid.  I had been e-mailing the seller with questions and replied one last time that if the deal fell through, to give me a call.

Almost 2 weeks later I get the call, saying the buyer backed out.  I borrow a car-hauler that weekend and bring it home, the car stuffed with parts and the truck bed with extra sheet metal for almost another car.  No real surprises, as it was mostly as described.  It's an original FC7 Plum Crazy Purple car without a vinyl top (Yay!) and a white interior.  Should be a stunning combo when done. I added up what all the extra parts that he bought cost, and came up to $7455 without shipping.    Plus he paid $10K for the car 3 years ago.  I'm way happy with the deal!

It'll be at least this Winter before I can start on it, but wanted to introduce myself and my car right away.  I've been on this and the C-C site for a couple weeks soaking up as much knowledge as I can.  You guys are incredible. 

[RUNCHARGER]

Welcome, cool Challenger.

[J-Code Jeni]

  and what a great introduction! You've had some awesome cars over the years!! I really love your current project- purple with white interior, no vinyl top... sweeeeet! Can't wait to see your progress next winter!!

[Cuda Cody]

Hello @Titan912s      Very impressive list of cars!    Great verity and even a few boats & planes.   

Nice grab on that Challenger.  You can never go wrong with FC7 and white interior.   

There's a couple guys here that love guitars and cars so you'll fit right in!  Thanks for sharing some photos.   

[Titan912s]

CudaCody:  There's a couple guys here that love guitars and cars so you'll fit right in!  Thanks for sharing some photos.   

I'll try not to get too far into the weeds, but here are my favorites in the guitar department:  '81 Gibson ES-347, 2016 American Standard Strat (Christmas gift - Did I mention my wife was wonderful?) '79 Les Paul Custom (bought brand-new as a kid) and an Ovation accoustic.  Still need the Tele to round out this group.   Oh, and the car/airplane/boat page hasn't been updated for at least 5 years, so here's the current boat.  Twin 496s in that one!

J.D.

[1 Wild R/T]

Welcome to the site!! Nice assortment of past cars, quite a few of us  here appreciate cors of various makersGM Ford & Mopar all had great cars... & a few duds... Heck there are plenty of European cars I love as well as  a few Japanese cors worth owning/appreciating...

Boats are cool I enjoy them but if I were well heeled I'd have a plane....  But not just any plane.. I'd love a Grumman Widgion great way to see the USA..  sort of a crossover vehicle part boat part airplane

[Chryco Psycho]

Welcome to the site , Glad you found us .I am sure you will find any info you need to help with the build here .

[JS29]

  nice project!!!

[Cuda Cody]

Lets see some more photos of your guitars!     I wish I knew how to play.  I love the look and feel of guitars and have a few on my wall, but could not play to save my life.

[303 Mopar]

Lets see some more photos of your guitars!     I wish I knew how to play.  I love the look and feel of guitars and have a few on my wall, but could not play to save my life.

Welcome.     more pics and maybe a video would be cool!  I have no musical talent at all, but after a few beverages I'm a great dancer!   

[Spikedog08]

Nice Gibson!   Love it!  Welcome to the site!   Funny I too have guitars mounted on my walls in the man cave!  Cars, boats and guitars!   Awesome!   

[Titan912s]

I've been reading through a bunch of threads and one referenced the A66 thread on Moparts.  Wow, 23 pages of info.  Seems I have an A66 car!  Here is the fender tag, along with the decode.  What do you guys think?  Did I get an unexpected bonus? 

[Cuda Cody]

   Oh ya!  A66 340's are super cool!  @6bblgt  Dan the numbers Man can tell you a lot about them / your fender tag.  Did you find a build sheet?

I've been reading through a bunch of threads and one referenced the A66 thread on Moparts.  Wow, 23 pages of info.  Seems I have an A66 car!  Here is the fender tag, along with the decode.  What do you guys think?  Did I get an unexpected bonus?

[Brads70]

   Welcome! Nice rides! 
Lake of the Ozarks looks really beautiful! I googled it to see where it was then clicked on pictures . Wow looks like my kind of place! Boat party town! 

[Titan912s]

Yesterday I looked at the casting # of the engine and found 2780930-340-2, so that puts it in the 68~73 category.  The seller's eBay description said it might be a '71 340.  So far so good.  Was working around the shop today and curiosity got me to do a little detective work on the engine.  I scratched off the paint on the driver's side pad and found FW340P31820516.  Looking this up at home tonight, I see it's it's a 1970 Windsor-built 340, needing premium fuel and built on April 14th, 1970.  My car was built on April 23rd.  Could it really be I have the original engine in there???     I can hardly contain myself.  If we weren't going through a major thunderstorm at night I'd drive over to the shop right now to check the serial #.   

On another note, check out the picture.  The 5 is stamped upside down.    Has anyone seen anything like this before?  I looked up the date to see if it was maybe on a Friday or Monday, maybe resulting in careless operation, but it turns out that April 14th, 1970 was a Tuesday, the same day the oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13 exploded.  The whole country was distracted.  I remember it well.