Complete and utter disassembly

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NoCar340

NoCar340

The Original Partstitute
Joined
Oct 23, 2022
Messages
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Location
Upper Peninsula MI
When I bought my '70 Swinger 340, it came with another nearly-complete, never-hot-rodded '70 Swinger with a Slant Six and AC. There's very little rust on the parts car: Excellent floors, trunk & extensions, rails, wheelhouses, etc. The driver's side quarter is already off, which I have. They removed it at the spotwelds except at the roof, where they sawzalled it. Grrrr... it was a perfect quarter panel.

Anyhow, I want to use anything from the Slant car that I need for the Swinger 340. I'm trying to avoid reproduction sheetmetal. I have no room to store the parts car for any length of time, so my plan is to dismantle it completely. That means cutting nearly every bloody spotweld on the car so that anything useful will remain so. What I need, I'll keep. What I don't need will be sold to save other cars. Yes, anything and everything will be posted in the classifieds at some point, including the underhood complete AC system minus the missing condenser.

Has anyone else ever done this? If so, have you any advice to pass along as to the procedure? Yes, I realize how much work this will be, but good original sheetmetal is well worth it for my car and others'. I'm guessing "start at the roof and work down" but if someone's already done this, I'll gladly listen to any advice or tips they might have.
 
mopar head said:
I`ve done it to a C barge, never again.
You`ve got your work cut out for you, have fun.
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Yeah, I'm aware. There were something like 200 just to get the roof and drip rails off my Challenger. But hey, winter's upon us, I've nothing (much) better to do, and I want to get the 340 car to the body shop as soon as I can. That means getting the parts I need off the car, so while I'm out there and in the mood, I may as well keep right on going. I'm sure this is something I'll never want to repeat, but nearly all of the sheetmetal is worth saving. Even the best reproductions are a far cry from OE.
 
I did it on a 75 Duster. I was amazed on what people were looking for parts wise. Didn't do much sheet metal, although one guy did want the roof, but it never came through. Parted it out to nothing and then had the wrecker haul what was left of the body away and got $250 for it. I really enjoyed it, tbh. I liked helping other members with parts.
 
plumkrazee70 said:
I did it on a 75 Duster. I was amazed on what people were looking for parts wise.
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I scrapped a '74 Challenger in September after parting it for everything it was worth. It was completely rotten, with the exception of the rear seat area--both the cross-braces and the package tray--and the rear-deck filler panel. A tree had fallen on it to boot. Every fastener worth taking was removed and stored. I cut the filler panel out and scrapped the husk. A few days later a FEBO member was looking for a package tray and cross-braces. I felt so bad that I'd crushed those parts, because he was having a devil of a time finding them. One man's trash, right? I don't want to repeat that mistake.
 
NoCar340 said:
I scrapped a '74 Challenger in September after parting it for everything it was worth. It was completely rotten, with the exception of the rear seat area--both the cross-braces and the package tray--and the rear-deck filler panel. A tree had fallen on it to boot. Every fastener worth taking was removed and stored. I cut the filler panel out and scrapped the husk. A few days later a FEBO member was looking for a package tray and cross-braces. I felt so bad that I'd crushed those parts, because he was having a devil of a time finding them. One man's trash, right? I don't want to repeat that mistake.
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I hear ya. I still have a front end of a 69 dart upstairs spindle to drum. I need to break it apart and list it
 
I did that several times. It took me about a week (a full 7 days) to do one car using a spot weld cutter (actually several of them). Start with all the unbolt parts. Then top to bottom as the car is on jack stands. Keep the drill speed low, drill bit sharp, and use plenty of cutting oil. I still found I needed to use an air chisel in a few spots to pop some panels loose. I used long sleeve leather welding gloves to keep the purple hearts to a minimum. Goggles of course, and if you use any other power tools, ear protection and sometimes a face mask/filter. Extra jack stands help a lot too when you get down to the floor pan and frame rails. Glad I don't have to do that anymore! It's tons of work. I found it more economical to just cut parts off with a Sawzall back when parts cars were easier to find. Today, it may make more sense to save everything rather than sacrifice some parts to save/sell others. Pretty labor intensive to do it that way though.
 
one of the biggest mistakes people make when taking a car apart, is drilling a zillion holes in the panels to separate spot welds. Last thing you want is a panel with holes all over and bent up flanges from separating panels. I have seen way too many rust free panels ruined by novices with drills and chisels. As a bodyman, I like to plan out how and where to separate panels, so there is minimal harm done to the panel that is being saved. Sometime that means using a spot weld cutter from the back side, sometime it means using a small zip disc to carefully grind away the spot welds from the backside. Using a roof skin as an example, if you want to save the skin, drilling through the drip rail flange will result in a lot of holes and damage to the narrow flange of the roof skin. If you do not need any inner panels, then cutting off the roof through the pillars, and taking a lot of care to drill, grind and remove the inner structure is the way to go. It takes a lot of time. The end result is a roof skin with NO holes in the flanges, so it is just like a brand new panel. That way it can be installed just like new with a spot welder, or carefully done plug welds, or panel adhesive if that's your thing. this way you won't have holes that are oversized and ragged like you would have, had you used a spot weld drill to remove it. This applies to many other panels too.
Floors have larger spot welds, that are easier to find, and those are a good choice for using a spot weld cutter, because it saves the frame rail flanges too.
Carefully choosing which method is best, for each situation will result in better panels.
 
I recently had a tree fall on my Valiant and it caved in the upper part of the window frame. I have a donor roof.

Am I better off to porta power the roof back up, as a member here suggested, or re skin it?

I am NOT a body man, and I figured the non body person way was to reskin it, as I figure Ma Mopar tried to keep body work to a minimum.
 
jos51700 said:
I recently had a tree fall on my Valiant and it caved in the upper part of the window frame. I have a donor roof.

Am I better off to porta power the roof back up, as a member here suggested, or re skin it?

I am NOT a body man, and I figured the non body person way was to reskin it, as I figure Ma Mopar tried to keep body work to a minimum.
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The first thing I would do would be have the car put on a frame rack to insure it didn't get bent. The roof is structural to the subframes. It may have tweaked something, it may not. I'd rather know, personally. My '74 Challenger looked very straight when I got it, but I had it racked anyhow. It turned out there was unseen crash damage. When I got it back, the car sat differently and obviously so.

I think I'd rather attempt to straighten the existing roof structure if possible, then re-skin.
 
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