12:05 Garage- ’70 Duster build

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That looks great, love how you held on to the car after all these years.
 
I started color sanding and couldn't resist hitting a spot with the buffer. This spot was only sanded with 1500, I'll go over everything with 2000 for final sand before buffing the whole car.

Excuse the messy garage-just took the booth down and still need to put things back in their place.

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That turned out wonderful! Love the home done visqueen booth,I miss mine....
 
Small update: I've been working on the boring things aren't particularly photo worthy such as door internals, weather stripping, body bumpers, etc.
I learned something new about these A-bodies when it came time to order a headliner. When I got the car, it didn't have a headliner bows in it. The parts car I used had the one piece board, so I used that. I wanted to go back with the bow style and bought some bows off ebay a while back. Well, apparently there are two styles of headliner bows. One uses the "V" shaped clips and the other has bows with a dog-leg on the end that goes into one of three holes in the roof structure. I have bows for the clip style and need the other one. UGH! There's a junk yard about an hour from my house that has lots of A-bodies and I'm hoping he has something there. I'll be heading over there at some point within the coming weeks. I'm just about to the point where I need to have the headliner in before I can proceed.
 
Got the driver side glass in today. I tinted the glass prior to puting it in. I'm not usually a fan of tinted windows on classics but I thought I'd give it a try to go along with my all black theme. I think I like it. New plastic hardware and freshly greased tracks sure make it smooth.
 

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I finished up all the door window tracks and installed the glass. Also installed door latches and got the doors closing nice and easy. Finding the headliner bows I needed proved to be a little frustrating, but thanks to a member on here, I finally got them. Lucky for me the headliner and the bows arrived at the same time so I didn't waste any time getting it in.
I took apart the quarter windows to paint the window lock and post body color. (Its the little details that make a big difference.) I was also hoping to get the new weatherstrip for the quarter windows, but apparently they are on back order all around the country. I decided to assemble the windows with the old weatherstrip just to keep the project moving forward. Whenever the new weatherstrip comes in, I'll just take them back out.
I also decided to try installing the rear window trim with the new aftermarket trim clips prior to installing the glass. I'm glad I did since every clip required "adjustments" to get the trim to clip to them. What a pain in the a$$.

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I love your build and have been watching eagerly! Since I'm in Tx, there's a chance I may get to see your ride in person someday.
 
Great story. Keep up the excellent work. Thanks for sharing.
 
I had my brother in law come help with the rear glass over the weekend. In my opinion, installing the windshield and rear glass are the most challenging tasks on these cars. I'll never forget installing them when I first built the car 20 years ago because I broke a brand new windshield, and at the time, the rear window gasket wasn't being reproduced. I was scared I was going to break it the whole time. Luckly I didn't.

This time around, I had a new rear gasket, and more importantly, more patience! The whole time the bro-in-law and I were wondering how in the hell the assembly line guys installed these things. We would have certainly gotten fired for lack of production! Anyway, it is in and I actually have the trim on the window (no pic of that installed). It's starting to look whole again, even though I have a long way to go.
 

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Did you also tint the back glass before you installed it? If so, would you do it again? I thought of doing mine while it's out, but wondered if the gasket would wrinkle it up during installation. Your Duster sure looks nice! :prayer:
 
JDMopar said:
Did you also tint the back glass before you installed it? If so, would you do it again? I thought of doing mine while it's out, but wondered if the gasket would wrinkle it up during installation. Your Duster sure looks nice! :prayer:
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I tinted all of them before installation. I let the back glass sit for a few days before I put it in. No problems at all with it peeling.
 
Thanks! My 70 Duster came with clear glass. It's going to have a black vinyl top, so I wanted to lightly tint the glass before I put it back in. Thanks for confirming that doing it that way will work well. :)
 
racerjoe said:
What part of TX? I'm right outside of New Orleans
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Central Tx, but I occasionally race at Pine Valley near Lufkin. Been talking about going to a couple of races at Royal Purple near Baytown. Have never been to any of the La. tracks.
 
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I guess it is time to resurrect this thread. I've been working on the car on and off, but haven't taken the time to update this site.

In these pics you can see the body color bumper with shaved bumper bolts.

Also, I replaced the old "racecar" roller cam with a more street friendly roller cam. The new cam provides enough manifold vacuum to run speed density control on my engine management controller. The next picture is the engine painted up and looking pretty.
I then had to make an engine harness for the EFI conversion. When that was complete, I test ran it on the K-member to work out any bugs so I didn't have to work over the fenders on the car. It was nice to hear this thing fire up again.
 
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Here's some photos of the motor installation. Nothing special, just lift the car, roll the motor in, lower the car, done.
 
I would have left the battery tray in, perfect place to put wrenches, while working under the hood.
 
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I also did the lower steering column bearing upgrade. I certainly didn't pioneer this upgrade, but thought it would help stiffen things up a bit. Not to mention it looks better than that crusty plastic bushing.
 
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This took a while to complete. I had previously removed all the stock instruments and installed the aftermarket gauges but I wanted to add the wideband in the cluster this time around. Anyone who has done this conversion knows it is a tight fit with the normal 6 gauges. I decided to "stretch" the cluster out to fit the wideband. This was accomplished by making a mold of the contours of the bezel and making a new section out of fiberglass. I then cut the bezel in half and molded in the new piece. I also never cared for the look of the bezel being offest to the left; Normally the "hump" for the steering column is offset to the right. Since I had it cut in pieces I decided to move the "hump" to center. This now allows the cluster to be centered over the column. Obviously this led to the dash needing modification. (more on that later). As homage to the original wood grain cluster design, I used real walnut for the backing. You will also notice the bezels of the gauges are not the standard silver. I painted them along with the very edges of the cluster bezel. This color is found on other details throughout the car. (more on that later also)
 
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