Pro Touring 68 Dart convertible

[dodj]

 
Very Nice! All that extra space will be great.
And.....with less grass to mow, you'll have more time to work on the cars. lol

[Burdar]

I live on a corner lot.  I had to stay 25' from the property line in the back and on the side.  I made the garage as big as I possibly could.  The new driveway should be poured in October.  Once the outside is done I need to get bids on electrical.  I tried getting bids last year but only 1 company called me back.

[dodj]

I'm a journeyman electrician and would come help you out....if you were just a tad closer! Garages are easy electrical wise. I would offer a couple suggestions, but, knowing you, you have it well thought out by now.
Surprised only one response. Maybe find an electrician that does after hours side-jobs? Could get a garage done in a couple evenings. Especially attached to the house. No ditch to dig or overhead to run.

[Burdar]

Here's an update on my end since I haven't been on here much lately.  The garage is finally done.  I ended up having to call the electrician's emergency # that was on their voicemail in order to actually talk to someone.  After making contact it went pretty smoothly and they were nice to work with.  The rough-in electrical was finished about a year ago.  Once that was done, the wife and I insulated the ceiling/walls.  Then dad and a friend of mine helped me hang the sheetrock.  I put the last piece up on Dec 31st.  I didn't want to have to heat the garage in order to get the mud/tape done so it just sat all winter.  In late March I hired a guy to do the mud/tape.


Then in May I sprayed texture and rolled on multiple coats of drywall primer and paint. The ceiling sucked...glad that's done.  Once the paint was done, the electricians came back and installed the outlets.  Then dad and I started trimming out the windows and doors.  I didn't want to leave the concrete exposed at the bottom so I insulated it with foam and covered the bottom of the walls with wainscoting.  I debated back and forth about using corrugated steel for the wainscoting but ultimately decided to go with wood.  Then I started hanging my signs and traffic lights.




I ordered some 8' LED shop lights from a place in Wisconsin.  They are a Chinese light but have a special upgraded driver that isn't supposed to create any RF interference.  I bought a 10 pack but they are WAY brighter then I expected.  I only used 8 and the garage is REALLY bright.  Then the Challenger was moved out of the old garage and into the new one for the first time.  I'm sad to say that it was quite neglected in the old garage.  My wife refinished an old dresser in there and covered it in sawdust.  Surprisingly though, it fired right up with a new battery.  The gas in the tank is from 2015.(the last time it was driven)




This fall we turned our attention to the outside landscaping around the new garage.  Weeds had overtaken the dirt and I wanted to get the outside finished up before winter.  I re-stained a section of the fence and put mulch down.  I thought it looked like a good spot to hang some of my more rustic looking street signs as well as a perfect spot for my rat rod wagon.


Then I cut down a tree close to the road and dug a trench (through the roots ) as a natural border for some more mulch.  Then I finished it off with a dry creek bed for the downspout to drain into.


Over the last month I had a gas line run from the basement to the shop and installed the heater.  One of my daughter's friends dad helped me run the vent pipe through the roof and get everything hooked up.  I even had time for a little garbage can project for the garage.

[jimynick]

Looking good brother, looking good!! 

[dodj]

The gas in the tank is from 2015.(the last time it was driven)

After following your meticulous restoration over on cc.c, I was surprised that it has been sitting for almost a decade. Time flies!
Nice looking garage!

[Burdar]

The gas in the tank is from 2015.(the last time it was driven)

After following your meticulous restoration over on cc.c, I was surprised that it has been sitting for almost a decade. Time flies!
Nice looking garage!

I'm going to be completely honest.  After Owen passed away, I had/have a lot of guilt about working on the Challenger.  I should have been inside playing with him instead of working in the garage.  I lost all interest in it and honestly didn't even want to look at it.  That's one reason it was stored away from home for so long.  Now that it's home and I have a safe place to store it, I'm hoping that my interest will return and I'll get it back on the road.

[dodj]

The gas in the tank is from 2015.(the last time it was driven)

After following your meticulous restoration over on cc.c, I was surprised that it has been sitting for almost a decade. Time flies!
Nice looking garage!

I'm going to be completely honest.  After Owen passed away, I had/have a lot of guilt about working on the Challenger.  I should have been inside playing with him instead of working in the garage.  I lost all interest in it and honestly didn't even want to look at it.  That's one reason it was stored away from home for so long.  Now that it's home and I have a safe place to store it, I'm hoping that my interest will return and I'll get it back on the road.

I remember seeing pictures of you and Owen working(?) on the car on cc.c. It's one of the things I thought of when I saw the Challenger in the new garage. I understand the guilt, but it's not fair to place that on yourself.
Hope you are enjoying the Challenger out on the streets next year.

[Burdar]

Fender tag installed.

[7212Mopar]

Very nice garage. Plenty of space for a lift.

[Burdar]

I'm surprised no one said anything about the fender tag.  I thought you guys were better then that...

I've been working on installing some trim pieces before I get back to finishing the engine compartment and installing the exhaust.  I got the antenna base installed and routed the cable over to the radio.  Then I installed the kick panels.  I installed the front hood trim which fit pretty nicely.  The attachment nuts end up being really close to the inner hood lip and I couldn't get a standard 1/4" socket on them to tighten them up.  I had to take a cheap off brand socket and grind the outside to make it thinner so it would slip onto the nuts. 

Installing the hood louvers also required a little extra work.  All the holes in the hood needed to be filed to remove paint buildup.  A couple holes needed to be filed larger so the louver pins would line up.(I wasn't able to test fit the reproduction louvers to the hood before paint)


I installed the rear side markers, trunk lock and the trunk weather strip.  This past weekend I worked on the stainless trim that goes around the interior opening.  Do they call that "belt molding"?  I was pretty nervous about pushing those clips over the newly painted surface.  I tried to do it as gently as I could.


Some of the clips fit nicely but others did not.  There were about 4 clips per side that didn't want to push down all the way.  The metal on those areas was two layers thick.  Not only did the clips not push down all the way but the extra thickness caused the bottom of the clip to stick out away from the body.  You can see in the picture that the bottom of the clip is sticking out about 1/4".  I'm positive that if I left it this way, the convertible top would have rubbed on that sharp clip edge.


I ended up grinding the inner lip thinner underneath each clip.  With that inner edge ground down a little, the clips pushed on and weren't all spread open.  You can see how they fit tight to the inner body structure now.


With the clips in place I installed all 10 pieces of trim around that back opening.  Then I turned my attention to the door window fuzzies.  I watched a Youtube video of someone installing this trim with the glass already installed so I knew it was possible but it just kept fighting me.  There wasn't enough room to work and I didn't want to risk breaking the side glass.  I ended up removing the three regulator bolts so I could lower the glass all the way down to the bottom of the door.  That gave me enough room to work.  After those inner and outer pieces were on, I installed the stainless trim on the top of the door.


Last night I installed the foam gaskets around the convertible top and temporarily installed the tack strips to get them out of my way.  The factory put some butyl over a couple seams in the rain gutter.  I assume to insure no water would leak from the gutter into the interior/trunk.  They put three layers of sealant over a couple of them.  Butyl then some sort of tape on top and finally the foam seals.  Did E-body convertibles do something similar?  When I put the foam seals on, I didn't put any adhesive on the outer edges so they can be pulled back to install the tape if that's something I need to do.  Any idea what kind of tape to use?  Hopefully this weekend I can get the convertible frame out of the basement and get that installed.  I'm slowly getting stuff out of the basement.  My wife wants her basement back.

[blown motor]

I wondered why one screw in the fender tag wasn't painted.

[Brads70]

Looking great Darren! Very clean looking ! 
What's up with the fender tag? A code thing? or just the one screw not painted like factory?

[Burdar]

I wondered why one screw in the fender tag wasn't painted.

The one painted and one unpainted is correct.  The fender tag itself is not.  That is a 73 Challenger tag I've had sitting around for years.  I sold that car back in the 90s and later found the tag in a box of other stuff.  I thought it would be funny to mess with people by putting a Challenger tag on the Dart.  The easiest giveaway is that the 68 and earlier tags are a completely different style/format then 69 and up.

The convertible top frame is out of the basement and on the car.  I'll let a professional handle the adjustments when the top gets installed.




One issue that's popped up... The sound deadener inside the doors isn't staying and is slowly pealing off the door.  The inside of the door still has factory undercoating on it so it's not a smooth surface for the sound deadening to adhere to.  I'm not sure what the solution is.  I installed it when it was cool in the garage.  I got out the heat gun and warmed up the material and re-rolled it onto the door but I'm not confident it's going to stay. I've had no other issues with it coming loose from smooth surfaces.

[YellowThumper]

Beautiful work on this build.