70 duster: updating, and a no-dough pro-touring makeover

[SRT_DSTRHOLC]

ok. the car is finally back home.

spent some time getting the new dual plane re-machined, painted, port matched, and on. went pretty well, and i had to spend no additional money. still need to fine tune the carb and clean up the car, though. its filty, and the car has a nasty bog now. worse than at the strip.

i did spend some more money though, i bought a spoiler to start my cosmetic makover. it was 157 shipped from e-pay. the seller is really standup. had some issues in shipping (it came broken). so it will be a little while before its fitted and attached. also looking into the stripe package now as well. im going twister style for the stripes and hood treatment.

and the only remaining carnage to fix other than cleaning from run through the hills.

michael

Did you ever get the ducktail attached?

 

[dusterbd13]

not really. i fitted the replacemnet, and taped it to the car. never warmed up to it, so it has since gone ato a buddies 71 demon project.

 

[dusterbd13]

got the rest of my bins hung, and started dealing with my cans of nuts/bolts/junk.
my wife also rules!!!
she made me stickers for all my bins so theyre easy to identify.

 

[dusterbd13]

so I got the duster back on my lunch break today. I was stoked.

the body shop has had it since the middle of January. living in a corner. I know bill did it as a favor, but at least he could have covered it. it is FILTHY. everywhere. I have hours upon hours of cleaning to do to get it back to where it was when I dropped it off. but then again, it’s a body shop. a full production, insurance primary, restoration when its slow body shop. and the floor was free. so I cant complain too much.

the floor bill built is great, nice and tight to the trans, looks good, and he stitch welded the torsion bar stubs to the floors for me while it was there. turned out really, really nice. I'm pleased. I also swapped the stick in the car out of my el-camino. fits perfect. was too short in the elky, but not in the duster. ill try to use the duster stick in the elky, unless I find my 700r4. anyway, here's pics of the floor.

bill, however, did create some issues for me to deal with. for some reason, he cut the main battery cable in half, then kinda spliced it back together. its not cool. so ill be replacing the whole main cable.

he also stripped a lot more of the sound deadening and insulation off than I had anticipated. so ill deal with that as well. the speedo doesn’t work now, probably didn’t get grounded under the seat bolt like I had it.

plans for the very near future:
1.
replace exhaust gaskets.
2.
figure out shift boot
3.
find why its running like crap. I retimed it, but need to check out all the plugs when im doing header gaskets.
4.
fix AC, interior lights, radiator venting, battery cable, speedo, right rear taillight.
5.
replace/upgrade all floor insulation/sound deadening
6.
clean
7.
reinstall carpets and interior
8.
drive and fine tune.

and lastly, pics of it home and filthy. ill probably get started on the exhaust tomorrow night after I strip out the suspension on the elky. its time for that truck to get on the road as my new truck.

 

[Idaho]

Looks good. You'll have it spruced up in no time.

 

[dusterbd13]

im spl;itting my time right now between customer cars, family, duster, day job, and full chassis rebuild/brake upgrade on my 64 el camino. so things will be a little slower than nrmal. but i did get it on stands and parts gatrhered for it today....

 

[dusterbd13]

previous total: 7795.30

parts updates:

battery cable and ends from autozone: 58.96

electrical goodies for the trans from modern driveline (forgot when doing trans swap) 46

TTI exhaust gaskets from mancini: 42

collector gaskets from oreilleys: 10.50

console and e-brake assembly from pull-a-part: 27.19

new total: 7979.95



ok, so first is the obligatory fancy magazine looking parts pic:

today after work I stopped and picked up 25 foot of 2 gauge, oxygen free copper battery cable and a pair of ends from advance. my wife helped me feed it through the floor to the starter while I routed it under the car, and my daughter sand vacation bible school songs to us. it was pretty neat. after I got done painting the frame on the el camino, I started working at getting it laid in and routed properly on the interior. before I could get too far, though, I had to clean it up. it was driving my BUGGY. so vacuum, scrub, prep for sound deadening, etc.

then, since I was already on the floor, I grabbed what may be the last of my leftover mcmaster carr dynamat, and applied it to the floor.

screwed down and secured my battery cable along the trans tunnel where it belongs

and then got froggy and started reattaching my foil backed jute. it’s a little scruffy, but I've got another layer of heat barrier to go over top, so it'll do. have to grab some more to finish where some wasn’t salvageable, though, as well as to do the drivers side of the firewall. I also test fitted my console.

fits like it was made for the car. absolutely great!! ill need to make some brackets for the floor, and figure out a way to hook up the hand brake to the factory rear cables. any ideas? and bonus points to anyone that can identify the donor. I know I'll need to clean it and dye it black, but now that I know it will fit and work, I can do that. and its also good that the console fits so well. I may have to split my front carpets in half to get them to fit properly. the new trans tunnel takes up roughly 6 inches more space, judging by the re-used jute.

good night everyone, and happy Easter.



Michael ​

 

[bkd]

What is the console out of, Looks GREAT!!!

 

[dusterbd13]

Come on, whats the fun if I make it that easy? Ill gibe you a hint. Late model, fwd mopar.

 

[bkd]

Neon?

 

[dusterbd13]

99 to be exact.
good guess. you win the FABO cookie!!

and it would NOT have fit with the 4 speed floor. neither did any of the other 6 consoiles i tried. dont know how it would fit with a stock auto trans tunnel, either, but it would be worth trying.

 

[bkd]

That is really cool, I will have to remember this. Man your car is looking great and can't wait to see it going again. That console does look at home there. Sweet!!!

 

[dusterbd13]

previous total: 7979.95

money spent: 16.32 for insulation

new total: 7996.27

been working off an on throughout the week on both my cars, as well as OT at the day job and a little bit on customer stuff.

got the remaining jute glued back down, and finished off that half a roll I had left over from my AC install. insulated the rest of the firewall finally. I also removed the drivers side fresh air box, built a plastic plate that I didn’t take pictures of, and bonded/bolted it to the cowl prior to the insulation. really freed up a bunch of space.

I then used up my last of the double foil sided bubble wrap I've been using lately. used that over the pretty mangled jute. reason being that with all the damage to the foil on the jute, it had no appreciable heat insulating properties any more. so this, when installed, is about 1/16th thick and functional. not blowtorch on one side and hand cold on the other functional,. but hold a lighter there until it burns your thumb next to the botton and your other hand is just starting t regiseter heat functional.

had to buy another roll to finish. that’s where the money came in. I just glued it down over top the mangled jute.

then put the carpets out in the sun this morning to settle out from being loaded in the box for god knows how long. the mass backing makes this stuff very stiff and hard to work with, but it was much more manageable right after coming out of the sun. stiffened back up pretty quick, though.

got the rear piece laid in, and the only two required holes put through it. its some tough stuff to work with, but I had my wife sit in the car while I smacked under that floor pan with a rubber hammer. she said it was hard to hear the hammer blows, and heard them more from the open door than from the inside. so here's to hoping that this pain and aggravation and expense is worth it.

also went to pull-a-part with my dad yesterday. had to get some stuff, and I found my shift boot for the neon console. they didn’t charge me. I also looked at getting the neon park brake lever/console mount, but its held to the floor pan by close to 20 spot-welds. I think im going to borrow a cordless saws all, and cut the tunnel out. then separate at my leisure. ​

 

[dusterbd13]

previous total: 7996.27

apparently I never finished updating the interior redo.

it went very well, all things considered. the front carpets fit fine without having to split them at the trans tunnel. the mass backing I sprung for makes a dramatic difference in road noise and heat transfer. I have to say, I'm pleased with the ACC carpets and mass backing.

also, I really like the way the console/shifter/seats turned out.











I have driven it quite a bit since getting it all back together. have some unwelcome vibrations I believe are from the poly trans mount, so I'm figuring out a rubber version.

also, the rear axle proceeded to get much, much louder. driveline is standing behind it, so I pulled it and dropped it off with them.



I have also decided to dial the front end back a couple of notches as far as alignment, and raise it about 1/2 inch for more ground clearance. its just too damn low top drive like I want to....

​

 

[DionR]

Very nice! I like how that turned out.

Would you consider it daily driver worthy?

 

[dusterbd13]

which part?

 

[DionR]

which part?

Which part did I think turned out nice? The whole thing.

 

[dusterbd13]

I had read that differently, as in would you consider"blank" daily driver worthy.
Or did you mean the whole car dd worthy?

 

[DionR]

Yep, wondered if you have it at a point where you would drive it on a daily basis. Or maybe you already are.

 

[dusterbd13]

I do daily it when my other two cars are down. so yes, it is daily drivable.

before it were to become my only daily, I need to address some intermittent electrical gremilins that I caused myself years ago, and some fuel systems issues.

both are next on the to do list after I enjoy it on fun car Fridays for a little while.

simple solution of rewire the car, and add efi.

 

[dodgedartgt]

Just finished this thread. Subscribed. SO many wonderful ideas, very inspiring. Thnx! Just remember that imitation is flattery, not theft! LOL

If rainy season will end anytime soon, I'll be able to get my '64 Dart out of the woods and up to the garage. Every time the ground starts to dry up, we get more rain. There were stars in the sky at 4AM this morning. When I got back up at 8AM, the path I need to use to move the Dart was under 4" of water.

I'll also have my '67 cuda and daughter's '62 Valiant here in early summer. Gotta get rocking on the shop in the meantime.

Mike in FL

 

[dusterbd13]

take as many ideas as you want, just make sure to give credit on the really strange stuff, like the airdam.

glad my thread helped and inspired you. ask any questions you need to.

Michael

 

[dusterbd13]

This thing isn't completely dead. I'll finally be limping it home to start on repairs from lat winters electrical Chernobyl next week. I'm excited to finally be resurrecting this one. Been almost two years since ive really touched it.

 

[DionR]

This thing isn't completely dead.

Glad to hear it! Though maybe you had gotten into some other car or something.

I'll finally be limping it home to start on repairs from lat winters electrical Chernobyl next week.

Hadn't heard you had a problem. What happened?

Looking forward to seeing more, this has been one of those builds that has kept me motivated on my car.

 

[dusterbd13]

well, in the last couple of years, I shattered my left ankle. that kind of made me not able to drive a stick. after reconstructive surgery, I finally got the red car out again. made it about 50 miles when the interior filled with smoke, and I saw flames behind the dash. put the fire out with a 2 liter of diet mountain dew. the fan relay had gone bad, back feeding the whole harness through the ac system. slagged the harness between the core support and taillight harness. so, that kind of killed the car. this was last January. almost a year ago. this major failure, combined with increasingly poor running, and a number of other gremilins and issues, had made me lose interest in the car. so I finished the elky, debugged it, and turned it into my daily. as well as did some major home rennovations, tool retorations, and complete shop overhaul.

im now getting the motivation back to get this car back under me. the plan is to start at the back bumper, and tear it down to a rolling shell. clean, refinish, repair, upgrade, etc. efi, suspension mods, new harness, interior work, trunk finishing, the whole nine yards.

the failure and plan will be covered in detail in the next actual update. this is just a brief summary to not leave you hanging, dion.