'70 Hemi Challenger (SS/D and SS/DA car driven by Lee Cameron of Sacramento, CA)

[HemiStan]

Yes: I thought it was really neat as the Swift Dodge with the custom faded paint etc. but I wouldn't put the auto in it. I think your idea is perfect, sheetmetal back to factory and then day 2 paint and performance mods.

Sheldon, as you know, I like to drive my cars and this one will be no different.  It will have a pretty stout stroked Hemi, cam, headers, etc. but it will all look "period correct".  I have a very nice (maybe NOS) "Rat Roaster" Intake as well as a very nice, uncut, vintage Weiand tunnel ram.  It will definitely be getting one or the other....

Stan

[RUNCHARGER]

Stan: I bet you will alternate the intakes and I know you will tune them to run correctly too.

[HemiStan]

So, here's how the story begins......    Back in February of 2013, I saw the Challenger come available on eBay.   I don't recall what the opening bid was or what the reserve was, but I do know it was high.  Much higher than anything I could afford.  But.....    it was cool and I kept checking out the auction as the days progressed.  I finally sent the owner an email inquiring if he would be open to some sort of trade.  He stated he was and from there we worked out a deal.  As I said at the beginning of this thread, it took everything I had to get this car; including probably my most favorite car I have ever owned.  But, I had Hemi Challenger fever bad and I had to have it.......   

So, in early March my buddy and I loaded up the truck and trailer and headed out to Missouri.  We drove 19 hours straight to get there and picked the car up the next day.  Out of respect for the privacy of the fellow I picked the car up from, I won't mention his name or where he lives; but he probably had the most impressive private car collection I had ever seen.  It was amazing.  As you can see, the Challenger was parked next to another one of his project cars.  Very cool.  We took our time getting back to Virginia and then pushed the Challenger into my small garage.  We had a few cold beverages and then we called it a day.  I was amazed that I had a Hemi Challenger in my garage!

The next morning I went out to my garage and opened the door.  I will honestly say, the excitement had worn off.....    Where my beautiful '68 GTX had been parked for several years, was now sitting a very derelict '70 Challenger....  I ended up pulling the engine and transmission out of the Challenger that weekend but that was it.  I was actually a bit depressed.  I didn't have a running/driving muscle car to go bang some gears in anymore and I was in this car deep......   I had put all of my chips into this gamble and I was wondering if I was going to be able to make this work.... I didn't work again on the car for nearly a year...  I had another project car that I had bought a few years earlier so I needed to finish that one first anyways.

Stan

[HemiStan]

Stan: I bet you will alternate the intakes and I know you will tune them to run correctly too.

You pretty much read my mind! 

Stan

[HemiStan]

For about 8 months, I just looked at it and shook my head.  Some days, I didn't even want to look at it.  But...  After I quit feeling sorry for myself, I decided I needed to make some progress on the car.  This car had been driven HARD.......   It had some rust issues from the Hawaii salt air and it had some issues from being a race car.  It was difficult for me to decide how I wanted to get started with it.  After taking some measurements, it looked the the unibody was slightly tweaked from the years of racing. 

I have got kind of an interesting garage set-up.   When I moved hear about 15 years ago, the house had a detached 20'x17' garage (unfinished on the inside).  I ended up building a 20'x20' addition on to the side of the existing garage which I finished off on the inside.  So basically, I have a garage that is divided in two.  One is a clean side for painting, etc; the other side for dirty work. 

On the small side, I built a 16'x4' wooden frame table.  Using a laser level, I leveled the entire table to less than a .060".  Yes, it took me a while but I needed a level surface to build this car correctly.  My wife and I lifted the car up on the table to see how tweaked the car was.  Hmmmm........   Not great......

I figured that I really needed to replace the entire floor pan and trunk pan.  What hadn't been beat with a hammer/cut with torches for clearance for frame connectors, had been rusted from years of water running into the car.   So, I drilled out a lot of spot welds and removed the floor and truck pan.

And guess what??....   After doing that, the car sat perfectly level on the frame table!   Finally, a "win"! 

At this point, I now had a completely dissembled car that was basically immovable.  I did not want to weld the new floor pan and trunk pan into the car until I had cleaned/painted the inside of the frame rails, torque boxes, etc.  So, I pulled out my portable media blaster and proceeded to blast the insides of the frame rails with it......   In my garage.....    If you have never done that, it is dirty......    I think that I still have media in every crevice and corner of that garage.   But it had to be done!  I carefully cut out the frame connectors, cleaned/painted the insides of the frame rails and torques boxes, and welded in the trunk floor.  All while it was sitting on my "frame table"  (I didn't weld the floor pan until about a year or so later).   I periodically checked all of my measurements against a frame chart and what is in the Factory Service Manual (which I believe allows up 1/4" tolerance between measurement points).  I ensured that every one of my measurements to was within 1/16".  This car is straight.  Probably better than when it left the factory.

Stan

[HemiStan]

Great history !!!       Are we looking at the original block ?  I don't see a VIN. Do you have a pic of top pad and bottom rear flange ?     

This is definitely not the original block.   I am willing to bet that this block came from Dick Landy's shop as an "over the counter" piece.  Even though it has an early 1970 casting date (prior to the build date of this car), it still isnt reallly "correct.  I don't beleive that any '70-'71Hemi cars came with blocks that were cast in '70.  I think they were still using up inventory with '69 castings.  I will get some more pictures of the block next time I am out in the garage.

Stan

[HemiStan]

As you can imagine, my welding skills were put to the test with this car!  I can't even begin to count up the number of hours I have in cutting, fitting, welding, and grinding on this car.....    Either way, it was good practice.  My goal was to correctly repair every bit of rust and whatever had been hacked up while saving as much original sheet metal as possible.  Not an easy task.....   Sometimes I think I was crazy but someone had to do it. 

This car had some rust issues in the cowl and windshield corners.  The next several photos will kind of give you an idea of what I did for about a year....

Stan

[HemiStan]

More.....

[HemiStan]

Windshield corners....

[HemiStan]

Driver's side windshield corner...

[HemiStan]

More fabrication and welding.

[HemiStan]

Repair of a hole in the RH frame rail where they had ran a 1/2" fuel line.  I don't have a photo handy but I of course ended up cleaning up the weld and drilling the correct hole back in it. 

One thing I found kind of interesting as I was posting these photos was seeing all of the vice grips, cut-off wheels, grinders, etc that was laying on the garage floor as I was taking the photos.  Any of you that have done any work like this know that it is a very tedious and dirty process. 

These photos aren't necessarily in 100% chronological order.  These photos probably span over two years of work.... 

At about this time, I needed to take a break.  I pushed the car out under the shed behind my garage, covered it up, and it sat there for close to a year.  I didn't even want to look at it!  I had already dumped a fair amount of money into it and I knew I had a long way to go.  I had gathered up the correct 1970 seats, an uncut '69 B-body Dana, an 18 spline with shifter, some cool wheels for the front, the entire correct dash frame, pad, and gauge cluster, etc.   As you all know, '70 E-body stuff is not cheap...   I was learning....

Stan

[anlauto]

Okay, I'm late to the party, welcome Stan, here's my two cents worth....

Car needs to be restored back to it's original state B5 in and out....."day two" mods to the engine for sure, and a set of Aluminum slots polished all around with (important part) PolyGlas Goodyears....F60's on the front and G's out back.....or even 14" on the front and 15" on the back to really give it a correct big&little look One step further to represent it's past may be a tasteful simple bolt in roll bar....

I certainly would do a colour change of any sort.....
....as for the restoration, you should start by stripping and blasting the car completely before you start welding in small patches everywhere

Awesome car !

[HemiStan]

Fast forward 10 months or so.....   I am ready to get back at it!  At this stage I knew I was going to be able to finish this project (I really had no other choice; I had put everything I had into this car......).  I pushed it back into the garage and put it up on some heavy duty jack stands that I had previously leveled up.  The car was pretty solid now and I figured I didn't need the frame table any longer but I still wanted to have the car bare (no suspension) and perfectly level before I welded in the floor pans.  I used AMD floor pans which are pretty good.  One thing I didn't like was that there were some minor incorrect details.  I ended up removing the original seat belt mounting brackets, etc. and welded them onto the AMD floor pans prior to installation.  I think it just gives it a cleaner, more factory correct look.  Details matter....

Around that time, my wife got me a nice rotisserie for Christmas which just BARELY fit in the garage.  But it did!  (Yes, my wife is pretty cool!)  I put the car on the rotisserie and started to attack the bottom as well.

I know that you are all asking the question:  What about all of the holes drilled in the radiator support and RH inner fender??!!  Well, I did what any sane person would do.   I welded...  every... single... one... of them up...

[HemiStan]

More photos...  As you can see, they cut right through some if the numbers on the radiator support.  In addition to that, it looks like they took a grinder and just randomly grinded the entire radiator support.  Either way, I did what could be done and documented it.

Stan