70 Challenger going Plum Crazy

[Dakota]

Beautiful car! Has the car been completed, or are you still in the "putting it back together" stage?

I can safely claim being in the "done taking it apart" stage, mostly because there's nothing left to dismantle.   I expect to be retiring soon so hopefully that will allow for time to finally finish the car. 

[Rev-It-Up]

Congratulations on your retirement! Sounds like you will be keeping busy.  Putting the car back together is the fun part. 

[wldgtx]

Looks awesome.  I agree that FC7 is one of those colors that really grabs my attention.

[Chryco Psycho]

FC7 is amazing when it is mixed right & is not too light or silver
Congrats on retiring

[RUNCHARGER]

Great thread. Yes those little fixes get out of control in a hurry. I had a 66 Hemi Coronet that the paint was a bit tired on. I never painted it because I knew it would have spiraled out of control in a hurry and I'd have to restore the complete car.

[Dakota]

Decided to finally follow through on a recommendation Brads70 made a year or two ago about which alternator to buy since I needed more juice to support an electric fuel pump.   This was purchased from Quality Power. 

Big shiny lumps of metal make me smile!

[redgum78]

That looks awesome! I am following this thread for inspiration.

[Chryco Psycho]

Big shiny lumps of metal That do what they are designed to do make me smile , Those Alternators kick ass 

[Dakota]

Well that was more exciting than I wanted to be.   I have been making a concerted effort to move things around such that my wife can actually park in our garage (she's been waiting to do this for most of the last 28 years).  I managed to stack and slide stuff around to make room for her car, but the partially assembled K-member/engine/tranny/disc rotor compilation that I had sitting on piano carts was way too close to her car when she parked.   Something bad was gonna happen.   Well, let's see - there's plenty of room under the Challenger where all that stuff is supposed to be anyways, so why not store it there for the winter?   Since my car is sitting on jack stands, it was a matter of lifting the front end up high enough to clear the high point on the engine (the valve covers).  So, channeling my Wile E. Coyote engineering (yes, I watched a lot of cartoons as a kid, but that's another story) I made a stack of 4 x 4's so that I could use my floor jack to lift up from the US Cartool radiator brace (I should point out I have this large industrial surplus work table sitting directly in front of the car, so there was no room to use the engine lift to raise it without dismantling said bench).   So now I've got the nose airborne, but the wood stack under the floor jack was filling some of the space where the K-member and such need to go.   "No problem" I say to myself (foolishly) - I can hold the nose up with jack stands using even more wood under them.   While everything seemed nice and stable (subframe connectors are wonderful), at one point the driver side front of the car started to slowly dip down.  HOLY S%%T!   I moved like a geriatric version of The Flash, then did my imitation of the Incredible Hulk (it wasn't really that heavy) to lift the nose of the car back up while using my foot to reposition the floor jack that had moved.   Fast forward to the end: the engine was safely tucked under the car.   The only evidence of the near-miss was that I completely soaked my shirt with nervous sweat.  And then there was that lingering regret over the weekend I "relaxed" (my dad would've call it "goofing off") instead of getting the engine compartment repainted, so I get to go through this "lift and pull" a couple more times.

In the spring, that work bench is going to have to be moved so I can use the engine lift.  Any maybe I shouldn't work alone so much.

Epilogue:  when I came home from work today, all the extra floor space I had created by moving the engine was filled with "lawn objects" that apparently needed to come indoors for the winter.   Ugh.

[RUNCHARGER]

Oh yeah: I fight the same battle. My plan is to sell off wifey's car as she isn't working and doesn't need it anyway.

[usraptor]

Just read your Nov 6th post.  Thanks for the great description and laugh.    After the day I had, I needed that.  I thought I was the only one who did things like that. 

[Dakota]

I don't know about the rest of you, but routinely reading posts here helps keep me moving on my car project.   Sometimes it's because of the absolutely awesome work I see other members complete.   Other time it's because some unrelated tidbits from different posts that conspire to get me off my butt.  Today's case in point:   Pink AAR asked a question about seats, which got me to pull the seat frames from under a work bench.  Swamp Donkey mentioned having a personal deadline for completing his car.   And then there's that countdown clock to Carlisle that Cody has running on the forum header page.

So...  I put down the TV remote and stripped the cover and foam off the back seat of the car.  Since I'm retiring soon (mid-January!!!), I'm setting a personal goal of getting the car finished before Carlisle.  Despite the ugly weather outdoors, it felt good to get going again.

Nothing really exciting about removing the old seat covers from the back.    I found using a small (14") set of bolt cutters work really well for cutting off the hog rings.  Other approaches tend to involve more twisting motion with my hands which seem to complain a little bit more in the morning as I've gotten older.  The underside of the back seat had turned into a mouse hotel at one point, so there was a fair bit of surface rust on the frame.   I'll use my Harbor Freight sand blaster to clean that up.   Just some odd trivia that I noticed during the tear down:

There are ~12" pieces of listing wire that were used to a section of the springs together where the bend - the wire is covered in black paint so it must've been installed before the seat frame was originally painted.

There was a fragment of a paper tag tucked between the seat cover and the foam.   I'm guessing this was a part ID tag.

[Dakota]

One more week of work before I'm retired.  It's been a great ride.  After that, it'll be "Challenger time" (or as my wife says, "get that damn thing done" time).   

[73440]

One more week of work before I'm retired.  It's been a great ride.  After that, it'll be "Challenger time" (or as my wife says, "get that damn thing done" time).   

Good for you on that, time to do what ya want !

[JS29]

One more week of work before I'm retired.  It's been a great ride.  After that, it'll be "Challenger time" (or as my wife says, "get that damn thing done" time).   

Good for you!!!