70 Challenger RT/SE 440-6pack "shaky SHAKER"

[TobiasM]

and more updates...I am mainly in the "investigating status" and not so much in the "wrenching status"...as I want to learn as much as possible about my car at first...hope, it doesn`t bother you, that this ain`t an "Overhauling"-episode as seen on TV, where everthing is done and finshed after 60min`s ;-)

Ok, so what next? Just a little detail, but one more pointing to proof my car...I would have overseen it maybe, but found this odd "bolt" on the door-jamb...took a closer look and removed the driverside rear-panel and it showed to be the switch for the door-ajar...which only the SE`s (and R/T SE`s of course) had. I feel lucky I found this little guy. You can see there is heavy overspray on it, so my pre owners didn`t care about this ajar-switch at all and luckily didn`t erase it during repainting.

BTW: painting is a good topic, but I don`t want to take it too long an that one again. Found good proof on how sloppy the color-changeing repaints from its factory sublime to red, to black and to dark-burnt-metallic have been, as remainders of these old colors were left on the inside of the door-handles and on the rubber-gasket behind. Only time, repainting was done with more effort was, when my Challenger was brougt back to its factory-sublime colour.

[TobiasM]

And more updates...some of you might have asked, why I disassembled the door handle. Ok, you got me...there was a little wrenching-action last weekend, cause I was annoyed my car didn`t come with keys at all and I felt it deserved keys!

Guess you cannot call a bent screwdriver a key??? That was "included" to open the trunk via its drilled-out lock...and was the only "key" to my car.

At least, I had a pair of Mopar-door-locks on shelf from an unknown heritage and curious if they would fit, I started.

First disassembled the door panels...an easy job...though the "lock"-lever on the armrest is quite a tight one...but got it off without breaking anything, which is my biggest concern, as parts are not readily available here in Germany...at least not over the counter in your next auto-parts-store.

The door-handles themselves came out easy...well engineered! The locks as such where luckily identical to those new ones I had on shelf...besides the small turning lever at their end. This lever was only hold in place by a circlip, so I could change over to the one of my original door-locks.

Installation was reverse of removal and super-easy. I reinstalled the connecting-lever from drivers-door-handle-to door-latch and which transferes the clockwise/counter-clockwise turn of the lock to the door-latch, so you car technically locks up and de-locks. Thats small connecting-lever is missing for my passenger side...will hopefully find this small part here in Germany, otherwise it will for sure be found on rockauto.com.

Then, for curiosity, I tried if I could make the OLD locks work with the key of the NEW locks. This was amazingly easy, too. Here is how-to:

- with the lock in your hands, put a bowl or sth. alike under, cause small parts from the inside might otherwise get lost
- then pry off gently the silver metal-cover atop of the lock so you can reuse it and be carefull not to loose anything under it!
- now you can see 5 barrels/bores,
-each barrel/bore contains 3 parts, namely a) atop a small spring, b) below in the middle a small metal-piece which`s top-diameter is smaller than its bottom-diameter, cause the top slides into the spring, and finally c) down at the bottom another small metal-pice in a "bullet-shape", with the hemispherical side pointing downwards to the key and the flat side sitting butt-to-butt with the larger-diameter-end of b).
- you`ll find that the metal-parts b) and c) have different lengths...mine were 2 short, 2 long and 1 medium of each b) and c).
- to make the lock work with the mopar-key you have, you have to take a look at your keys profile
- important are the "valleys" in your keys profile...there will as many valleys in your key as there are barrels in your lock =>5
- the basic principle of the lock is, that the metal-piece c) sinks into its counterpart-valley in the keys profile. If this is the case in all 5 valleys, the key can turn the lock
- you have got to mix and match your metal-parts c) accordingly to your keys valleys
- depending on what configuration the metal-parts c) of your lock on the one hand, and what your keys valleys on the other hand are, you might not be able to mix-and-match ALL 5 barrels. If so, just leave the non-matchable barrels out...I could mix-and-match 4 of the 5, so I just left the 5th one out...by this your losing a little security, because only 4 of 5 barriers working, but it will technically work
- after you mixed and matched metal-parts c), put your lock back together
- important here: the metal-parts b) need to be of opposite length than metal-parts c), with metal-part c) being the dominating one! So if c) is short, b) must be long and other way round. If c) is medium-length, b) needs to be the same!
- If you didn`t use a metal part c) in a certain barrel/bore, their must not be any parts b) or a) put into that certain barrel/bore, of course!!!
- put part a) atop of the smaller-diameter-end of metal-part b)
- finally slightly bend the latches of the metal-cover-plate back in their original position and last but not least re-attach the metal-cover-plate atop of the lock
=> Mission accomplished!

[TobiasM]

And finally, tons of luck will be coming over "shaky SHAKER", because look what I found inside:


*biggestwish:gettingits2fendertagsreunited*

[RUNCHARGER]

Non matching or missing locks bugs me as well. One of the first things I do with a car.

[Cuda Cody]

@TobiasM  I was able to get the one photo to upload.  It looks like it was something to do with Mac OS X 10.4.11 (8S165) and the compression setting LZW on the photo.  For some reason it did something to the Jpeg that didn't want to make it work.  I tried opening in Photoshop and had trouble too.  So I imported in to a different program and saved it as a Jpeg and it worked.

Just let me know if this happens again and we'll keep looking in to it.

Not sure why that last photo is not showing up.  I'll look in to it....

[Cuda Cody]

You keep making good progress.     Keep up the good work.  Lets hope those tags get to you soon. 

[TobiasM]

@TobiasM  I was able to get the one photo to upload.  It looks like it was something to do with Mac OS X 10.4.11 (8S165) and the compression setting LZW on the photo.  For some reason it did something to the Jpeg that didn't want to make it work.  I tried opening in Photoshop and had trouble too.  So I imported in to a different program and saved it as a Jpeg and it worked.

Just let me know if this happens again and we'll keep looking in to it.

Not sure why that last photo is not showing up.  I'll look in to it....

Cody, thanks for fixing that upload, but to be honest, I didn't have any problems with watching that photo in my original posting...

If others had problems with watching that one photo, I am sorry...problem might have been caused due to Apple saving its screenshots as *.tiff-files and I just had the file-name manually changed to a *.jpg-ending...maybe this didn't do for a full/automatic file-type conversion.

THANKS FOR SUPPORTING MY EFFORTS IN MAKING PROGRESS WITH MY CHALLY, Cody!

[usraptor]

Just found your thread Tobias.  Great project and history to your car.  Very good job of investigating your cars history.    Keep us updated with your progress.

[TobiasM]

BREAKING NEWS!!!

Though I am quite a newbie member here on e-bodies.org I would like to suggest a new category to this board: the "Member of the Month"-category.

And as somebody might have guessed, I already have a board's member on my mind that I would like to name for becoming the first "Member of the Month" here aboard.

All of you Ladies and Gentlemen gave me a warm welcome here on e-bodies.org, when I first introduced myself, and many of you also followed the thread about my car "shaky SHAKER" and helped with motivating words or even constructive input and profound knowledge.

You all kept me motivated, but there is one member who performed something as great and priceless as it could come: this member managed to pick up my "shaky SHAKER" 's two fendertags and additional important documentation from the seller, Terry Bradley of Terrys Musclecar Garage in Winder, Ga from just ONE day to the other, after the seller was beating arround the bush, making empty promises in shipping "this week" countless times and making excuses for not doing so in the same amount for MORE THAN HALF A YEAR!!!

Again, from this weeks Thursday to this weeks Friday, this member managed to get hands on my fendertags...WITHIN ONLY 24 HOURS, after I contacted her to ask if her offer to help and show up there in person is still valid.

So, folks, all your vote for "Member of the Month" please now here

https://forum.e-bodies.org/cuda-and-challenger-general-discussion/2/lets-elect-rev-it-up-for-member-of-the-month/2445/msg35729#msg35729

for this AWESOME member making a wonder happen... it is member "rev-it-up": LAURA, I JUST CAN SAY....

[TobiasM]

To get you an idea of what stupid bullsh.. came from the seller: rural area...no post office...

Kidding??? post office is only 1/2 a mile distance from the seller Terry's shop...even on that exact same street!

Even from his private home in that same city distance was less than 3miles...

Man, did he think Germans live on trees or are cavemen?

Laura, wanna give you a big 

[Cuda Cody]

Hope you kept that lucky penny.   

[TobiasM]

You bet I did!

[TobiasM]

Just found your thread Tobias.  Great project and history to your car.  Very good job of investigating your cars history.    Keep us updated with your progress.

Thanks for complimenting my thread, Brad! Updates in progress?

Here you go:

Spent only very little time on my Challenger last weekend, but with a very good result in further proofing my car...as my fendertag options read like to good to be true and being even a 2 fendertag car, I was in the beginning VERY sceptic if my car is what it pretends, especially because it was once stolen and recovered 30 years ago.

So what proof came up this weekend? One of my fendertag-codes is "C62 - six way console drivers seat". Though this 6-way-console got lost over the years, there is luckily still enough remaining evidence my car was once equipped so:

To mount the 6-way-console, special holes were needed in the floorpan through which from inside the car 2 brackets (one front/one rear) were pushed and from the cars underside two special supporting-rails (one front, one rear) were bolted to those 2 brackets. You can see in the following photos, that one of the special supporting-rails (the front one) is still in place!!! It also has that very small hole between the two main-bolt-holes, which was used by the factory to for an auxilliary selftaping screw that bolted throug the center of each 2 bracket so hold them in place so - from the unserside of the car - the 2 nuts holding the rail/bracket-unit could be attached way easier/without the brackets moving or beeing pushed out again.

My rear-supporting-rail was in the way when my car had it dragracing history and therefore was euipped with subframe connectors. But you can still also see that small extra-hole of that auxilliary fixating-screw that once hold the rear-bracket in place that mounted to the rear supporting-rail of the 6-way-console.

[TobiasM]

Another little progress finally done this Sunday is remove the old, drilled-out trunk-lock. Though I haven`t a new one on hand, I just wanted to get rid of that old lock.

As my car is an RT/SE, I have that neat little rear-panel above the rear-lights, which wants to be removed first when wanting to remove the lock.

Taking out that drilled-out old lock had showed one positive side-effect: underneath some very familiar colour-shemes showed off...and by these "fingerprints" I now know that the trunk-lock must have been removed by all the prior colourchanges (red/black/dark-burnt) except the last one back to its factory-sublime-colour.

Here`s pics to proof:

[Cuda Cody]

It's fun watching you uncover the past.