72 Duster Resurrection

moparmat2000 said
Back in 1970/1971 plymouth offered a duster twister. It was essentially a slant 6 or a 318 with a 340 duster exterior dress up package. It came with a blacked out hood, 340 stripes on the sides without 340 callouts, tallight panel black outs with duster twister callout, small bolt pattern rallye wheels, color keyed dual sport mirrors, non functional twin scoop hood , and a sharktooth 340 grille.

You could probably duplicate this with not too much effort. The sharktooth grille would be the expensive part. Those go for $1,000 or more. You could prob just use your stocker and black it out or do it in a dark argent silver.

I have a set of 6 small bolt pattern rallyes they are 14x 5.5 for sale in the brakes and wheels section. They come with 5 center caps, and no beauty rings, though i dont think the twisters came with rings. Just the rims and caps. These would be great to have. 4 on the car, one for a matching spare in the trunk, and 1 for a spare rim just in case one gets damaged. I have had them for sale, and 2 of them are on my sons 69 cuda. I would need 2 stock steel rims back with tires as i need them to keep the car rollable. Tires can be dryrotted, and shot, as long as they hold air. Would prefer a pair of 15x7 fifth ave steel BBP rims to keep it rollable for the disc brake conversion i plan on doing.

Heres twister pix

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Love the look of that twister, that will be something to consider when it comes time for paint/body! Hopefully I wont need the small bolt pattern wheels anymore after buying the 2 bbp wheels, but thanks.

moparmat2000 said
Thats a screaming good deal on an A body disc setup. Local too. A 74 duster is still an A body like yours His upper control arms are the big ball joint ones. Thats what you use with those disc spindles with no adaptor sleeves. You will need a ball joint for the one upper control arm thats painted. Its a K772 joint. As well as bushings for it. Might as well rebuild both of them with new joints and bushings if your going to use them. Or you can use the small ball joint ones on your car with the adaptor sleeves

The lower control arms are the same part from 1962 to 1976. Only difference is some have tabs welded on them for swaybars. The ones on your car will work for this swap.

You will need the A body disc brake hoses from 74 to 76, disc brake proportioning valve for A body from 74 to 76, and the manual brake A body disc brake master cylinder from 74 to 76, and ten 1/2" RH lug nuts since the pic shows there arent any.

If you decide to use your small joint arms with the doctor diff adaptor sleeves, and original lower control arms, you can sell the big joint arms, and those nice painted lower control arms and recoup some of your money. Id look on fabo sales and see what the going rate is on those pieces before selling them, as well as selling all the front drum brake stuff.

The bonus is the big bolt pattern 14" wheels. And extra parts that come with it. Typically just the brake setup from the spindle out, with no extras like rims and suspension arms goes for $250-$300. You will notice the disc brakes come with way bigger studs 1/2" instead on the 7/16" ones on your drums.

If you buy this setup, and i recommend you do since its local, and you can recoup your money on the extras you dont need, unless you want to wait and come out this way for a set of cheaper M body brakes (same thing except for larger piston caliper, slightly changed spindle) you can prob go 2 ways.

1 sink a bunch of money in the disc brake setup right away and swap it in,

2 do a quickie fix on the drum setup with minimal money spent just so you can get the car up and running, and round up all the parts including new upper and lower ball joints, pads, master cylinder etc and rebuild the disc brakes as time and money allow and get it all ready, so you can do the disc swap in a weekend.

Yep, that was too good of a deal, so I went and picked it all up for $250, see more pics below.

I think I might go ahead and do option 1 here depending on what the shopping list total is. I should just bite the bullet now and be completely v8 ready and safer on the road. Are the bigger ball joints "stronger" for going to a heavier v8?

I plan on building the front end the best I can afford and then selling all unused parts that are leftover for sure.

moparmat2000 said
I snapped 2 lugs off on my 68 charger back in 1985 when i was 15 years old because i didnt know. My dad showed me the L and R. The rest spun right off when i reversed the impact gun, my dad and i changed every one of em to RH that afternoon.

Bummer, guess you gotta learn the hard way sometimes, I would have done the same thing if mine had not been switched to RH in the past.

moparmat2000 said
If you like the no nonsense street race look of black steel wheels and chrome lugnuts, those wheels he's got are 14x5.5. Perfect for the front. If/when you upgrade the rear to the same big bolt pattern, find some 15x7 M body steelies for the back. Give em the same paint and lugnut treatment. Put you some 205-70R14s on the front, and some 255-60R15s on the rear. Car will look bad ***.

Love it, sounds slick. Probably keep the rear end tires the same for now unless I can find another local deal that is cheap for upgrades...then yes, up to the bbp wheels

moparmat2000 said
Also i mentioned the upper and lower ball joints and upper control arm bushings only because if your that far in you might as well replace them while your at it. Avoid at all costs the evilbay complete front end kits for $80. You get what you pay for with those. I hear moog is no good anymore too since they are made in china too. Theres 2 online places that package and sell complete front end kits with high quality parts. PST (performance suspension technology) and just suspensions.

Since your putting 74 disc brakes on a 72, you will need to talk with them directly to get all the correct parts in your kit. For example

You decide to use your small joint upper arms with the adaptor sleeves, and put the 74 up disc brakes on, you will need the 1972 kit, with 1974 disc brake lower ball joints.

If you decide to use the large joint upper arms with the 74 up disc brakes on your 72, you will need the 1972 kit with 1974 large flat rate box upper ball joints and 1974 disc brake lower ball joints.

Definitely going to rebuild the whole front end while I am here at a pace I can afford. I have to get some things fixed up with the engine anyways.

Thanks for the heads up on the rebuild kits, I will check out the companies you recommend and be sure to get the right mix of 72 and 74 parts depending on how I go with the control arms.

Actually, when I figure out which way I want to go, can I post my shopping list so you can see if I missed anything? That would be very helpful.

Finally, as promised, various pics of the rest of the car and some comments:

Can anyone tell me what kind of rear end I have from this?

Some rust in wheel area as usual...

Fresh new jack stands always add a bit of class to a brake job. Am I going to be yelled at for how I have this jacked up? I know I will need to get off that lower control arm to do the brake/suspension upgrade.

A little hood rust but nothing scary

So I have run the engine for about 10 mins total and driven maybe 50 yards down the street. Does this gunk look like trouble? I'm not sure if it was like that when I got it and we spilled all kinds of stuff (cleaner, gas, etc) when we were working on the engine, so im not sure what it all is....does not look sever to me, but...

The captain abides.