1974Duster/6
New Member
Hey there everyone! I bought my Duster last December. It looked decent, it ran, and that was all I needed.
This is my Duster:
The guy I bought it off of was a real d!(|< and promised to do a whole bunch of work to the car which he flat out lied about.. but I did get 2 new rear tires out of the deal so that was okay, I guess. By the time I finally got the car home [about a month after actually buying it] the guy informed me that the transmission did not go into reverse, said he'd fix it for me after he came back from vacation, and then dropped off the face of the earth. It was no big deal. We drove it around without reverse, using gravity in our favor to back out of the driveway and pushing it as a last resort when we didn't get enough speed to turn the car enough to clear the curb.
Then the electrical problem [whatever the hell it was] started. The car would randomly stall when sitting at a stop sign or a red light, which was really awesome when the light turned green and there was a line of angry people behind us. Then it started shutting off completely, no power at all almost as if the battery had been disconnected, only to turn back on after about 30 seconds of waiting. We got stuck on the side of a highway for a few hours one day when it decided to shut off and not turn back on again. We finally got it going and I parked it at my aunt's house because it was only a few miles away from where I was. Then a ton of snow was dropped from the sky, as it tends to do during the winter in New Jersey and the poor car ended up getting left in my aunt's driveway for another month.
By around mid February we had gotten it back home after a very gut wrenching 40 minute drive with the power strangely surging through the car, causing everything to click on and off periodically. We began to disassemble the engine.
My boyfriend, 1971dodgedart/6 on here, decided to buy a 360 off of jamesdart, so I decided to take the slant 6 out of his car to put in my duster, because the 90-nothing horsepower in that 74 slant 6 was just too mind numbingly slow. Not that an extra 45 hp or so makes that big of a difference but, hey, it's something.
Here's the 71 slant 6 partially cleaned:
And here it is slightly more clean:
And here it is primed! yay!:
At the same time my boyfriend bought the 360 off jamesdart, I bought from him a 2 barrel intake and carb and some nicely done exhaust and a bunch of other stuff that's still sitting in the corner of my garage.
Then I bought this cam. It was made in 1989 but came in the original package in perfect condition. It has a .398 lift.
We knew there was bondo on the bottom of the driver side fender, but had no idea how bad it was. So we decided to pull the fender off one day.
This is what we found:
All I can say is: WHO DOES THIS? Pop riveted sheet metal over a giant rust hole on the fender, slathered bondo over it and painted it. then they stuck it back on the car and didn't want their terrible fix to go flying off the car, I guess, so they used spray foam and.. insulation?.. to keep the fender glued to the car. There was even an old cigarette butt in there. Oh, lucky me. Luckily only surface rust under all of that nasty spray foam. Hopefully we'll be able to pick up a fender from one of the forabodies members in MD this weekend.
I've been ignoring the duster for a while in favor of school work because college trumps all hobbies. So now we're rushing to throw everything back together in hopes of getting it going to go to Carlisle next weekend.
This is my boyfriend putting the head back on today, finally:
It doesn't get much more DIY than a bunch of rusty parts laying in the grass, a tin can filled with lacquer thinner, and a toothbrush and steel wool for scrubbing. I've spent over 8 hours in the last 2 days cleaning, scrubbing, cleaning again, priming, and painting every single part.
These are my lovingly hand painted manifolds that I'm going to probably cry over when they get dirty for the first time:
And this is me after 4 hours of cleaning and painting parts:
We've been putting our sweat, blood, and a ton of elbow grease into working on our cars. They will never be perfect but they will be ours and we'll have the satisfaction of knowing that we did it ourselves.
Wish us luck on finishing in time for Carlisle. I think we need it.
This is my Duster:
The guy I bought it off of was a real d!(|< and promised to do a whole bunch of work to the car which he flat out lied about.. but I did get 2 new rear tires out of the deal so that was okay, I guess. By the time I finally got the car home [about a month after actually buying it] the guy informed me that the transmission did not go into reverse, said he'd fix it for me after he came back from vacation, and then dropped off the face of the earth. It was no big deal. We drove it around without reverse, using gravity in our favor to back out of the driveway and pushing it as a last resort when we didn't get enough speed to turn the car enough to clear the curb.
Then the electrical problem [whatever the hell it was] started. The car would randomly stall when sitting at a stop sign or a red light, which was really awesome when the light turned green and there was a line of angry people behind us. Then it started shutting off completely, no power at all almost as if the battery had been disconnected, only to turn back on after about 30 seconds of waiting. We got stuck on the side of a highway for a few hours one day when it decided to shut off and not turn back on again. We finally got it going and I parked it at my aunt's house because it was only a few miles away from where I was. Then a ton of snow was dropped from the sky, as it tends to do during the winter in New Jersey and the poor car ended up getting left in my aunt's driveway for another month.
By around mid February we had gotten it back home after a very gut wrenching 40 minute drive with the power strangely surging through the car, causing everything to click on and off periodically. We began to disassemble the engine.
My boyfriend, 1971dodgedart/6 on here, decided to buy a 360 off of jamesdart, so I decided to take the slant 6 out of his car to put in my duster, because the 90-nothing horsepower in that 74 slant 6 was just too mind numbingly slow. Not that an extra 45 hp or so makes that big of a difference but, hey, it's something.
Here's the 71 slant 6 partially cleaned:
And here it is slightly more clean:
And here it is primed! yay!:
At the same time my boyfriend bought the 360 off jamesdart, I bought from him a 2 barrel intake and carb and some nicely done exhaust and a bunch of other stuff that's still sitting in the corner of my garage.
Then I bought this cam. It was made in 1989 but came in the original package in perfect condition. It has a .398 lift.
We knew there was bondo on the bottom of the driver side fender, but had no idea how bad it was. So we decided to pull the fender off one day.
This is what we found:
All I can say is: WHO DOES THIS? Pop riveted sheet metal over a giant rust hole on the fender, slathered bondo over it and painted it. then they stuck it back on the car and didn't want their terrible fix to go flying off the car, I guess, so they used spray foam and.. insulation?.. to keep the fender glued to the car. There was even an old cigarette butt in there. Oh, lucky me. Luckily only surface rust under all of that nasty spray foam. Hopefully we'll be able to pick up a fender from one of the forabodies members in MD this weekend.
I've been ignoring the duster for a while in favor of school work because college trumps all hobbies. So now we're rushing to throw everything back together in hopes of getting it going to go to Carlisle next weekend.
This is my boyfriend putting the head back on today, finally:
It doesn't get much more DIY than a bunch of rusty parts laying in the grass, a tin can filled with lacquer thinner, and a toothbrush and steel wool for scrubbing. I've spent over 8 hours in the last 2 days cleaning, scrubbing, cleaning again, priming, and painting every single part.
These are my lovingly hand painted manifolds that I'm going to probably cry over when they get dirty for the first time:
And this is me after 4 hours of cleaning and painting parts:
We've been putting our sweat, blood, and a ton of elbow grease into working on our cars. They will never be perfect but they will be ours and we'll have the satisfaction of knowing that we did it ourselves.
Wish us luck on finishing in time for Carlisle. I think we need it.
