Slim's 73 440 Duster

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SlimPikins

Pikins, Slim Pikins.
Joined
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Location
Marysville, Wa.
A couple of people have told me that I should start a restoration thread for my car. I’m not very good at remembering to document stuff, or taking pictures but I will include what I have. Even though this is not really a full restoration by me, I have changed [FONT=&quot](and continue to change) [/FONT] a lot of stuff on the car since I bought it. I hope you find this mildly interesting.

Here is a picture of my car before the restoration began. It was just your basic 73 /6 Duster. Now it has a low compression 76 440, 727 with a 3000 stall and manual valve body, and an 8 ¾ with a 3.91 sure grip.

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When I bought the car the suspension under it was fabricated to make it sit as low as they could get it. It looked very cool sitting still, but the car was undriveable at almost any speed. The front torsion bars were lowered as much as they could get away with, and the rear had a homemade ladder bar setup with coilovers mounted in the factory shock locations.
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Here is what it looked like sitting on my trailer the day I brought it home.
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The day after I brought it home I washed it, and raised up the front and rear as much as the rear coilovers would allow, which wasn’t much. Even though the car was not dragging on the smallest little bump anymore, it still was not driveable. The rear suspension had no travel in it what so ever and it clunked badly while driving. Here it is after I raised it up some.
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Here is a picture of the engine and compartment the way it was when I bought it. It is going through major changes as I type this, but more on that later.
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More to come soon.

Slim.


Just as I was getting ready to hit the SUBMIT button, I realized that today is exaclty one year from when I brought the car home. Time fly's.
 
When I bought the car it had an Edelbrock carb and cast iron 4 bbl intake on it.

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The car had no throttle response at all. The first mods to the car Was a Holley 750 and Edelbrock Performer RPM intake, and a set of Mopar Performance valve covers and air cleaner. Once the carb was adjusted properly the car really woke up.

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As you can see from the picture above, I had to remove the heater fan to make room for the valve covers. Since this car never see's foul weather I didn't figure that would be much of a problem.

The next item on the list to make it road/track worthy was the suspension. Like I stated above, the car had a homemade ladder bar setup and coilovers. I have searched, but I don't think that I actually took any photo's of the suspension before I took it out. I installed a set of Calvert monoleaf springs with a 3" relocate, and caltracs.

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Here is how the car sits now with 295/55 15 drag radials.

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When I took the car to the track for the first time the car launched really hard but stumbled badly after shifting into second gear. We messed with timing and jetting and could not get it to run. After two days of messing with it at track, I had a buddy tell me to take the gasket off of the gas cap and run it. He actually told me that the day before, but in the midst of other people suggesting things I didn't do it the first time. So I finally took out the gasket and ran it. It made a full pass without stumbling at all. It ended up being that someone along the line had plugged the fuel tank vent line, and the carb was starving for fuel. After that the car was running mid to high 13's in the 1/4 mile. Next time at the track, with a bit more tuning we got the car to run 13.4 @ 99 mph. I felt that was pretty good for a low compression motor that I knew nothing about. The one issue the car was still having was it was stumbling and not making power over 4700 rpm or so, I was pretty sure that the valves were floating.

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This past fall I pulled the motor out of the car to do some work on it.
Right now I am in the middle of doing some work to the engine, and getting rid of the terrible Ferd/Chebby black paint in the engine compartment.

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The car came with a set of 915 heads on it. Being naive like I am, I figured that just because they were suppose to be decent iron heads that I wouldn't have to do anything to them. Boy was I wrong. The valve springs were really weak, I could push them down using two thumbs. I took them to "A Guy" that's great with mopars to have new springs put in them and shimmed, only to find out that the springs that were in it were wrong, the exhaust seats were put in wrong, the valves were put in used, and never cut, and the guides were shot! :( So now I'm having them rebuilt, but also getting larger exhaust valves put in it.

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I had no idea what cam it had in it, it didn't sound like a whole lot though so I'm putting a new cam in it. The engine has been rebuilt before, it has a set of .030 pistons in it, but they are a ways down in the hole. With the measurements and calculators I've found, I'm guessing with the closed chamber heads I'm in the neighborhood of 8.2/1 compression.

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While I'm waiting for the heads to get back I painted my engine compartment. The black is gone, and it is now body color. This might be the mod that has excited me the most so far.

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This is a buddy of mine that is doing the paint for me.

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I also just converted it from power steering to manual. I also put the correct column in it.

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Things are going along pretty nicely now. It sat most of the winter without me doing much to it but hopefully I'll have it wrapped up in a couple of weeks.
 
They look so good lowered down but ya gotta be able to drive em'....Your car is looking very nice and I'm sure more driver friendly.:thumblef:
 
Very nice looking car. Keep up the good work.

Thanks for the compliment!

They look so good lowered down but ya gotta be able to drive em'....Your car is looking very nice and I'm sure more driver friendly.:thumblef:

Yeah it sure did look good low thank you, but I'm getting use to the aggressive look.
 
Ran over to the machine shop this evening to see what's been done. The new guides and exhaust seats are in and the work on cutting the seats have begun.

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Fresh paint always looks good. Hope you get your motor done soon. Car is looking good.:coffee2:
 
Well I haven't gotten very much done lately, I'm still waiting on the heads to come back from the machinist.

The one thing I did accomplish is I got the brakes working. I replaced the master cylinder, calipers, and all new pre-bent stainless brake lines courtesy of www.inlinetube.com. Bill "Demonracer" gave me the link to the brakelines and they are a work of art. I highly recommend them to anyone wanting to freshen them up. The ends of mine were rusty and soft from years of no one flushing the fluid.

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lookin good...and I'll bet soon...runnin good!
 
When I bought the car it had an Edelbrock carb and cast iron 4 bbl intake on it.

IMAG0283.jpg



The car had no throttle response at all. The first mods to the car Was a Holley 750 and Edelbrock Performer RPM intake, and a set of Mopar Performance valve covers and air cleaner. Once the carb was adjusted properly the car really woke up.

IMAG0335.jpg


As you can see from the picture above, I had to remove the heater fan to make room for the valve covers. Since this car never see's foul weather I didn't figure that would be much of a problem.

The next item on the list to make it road/track worthy was the suspension. Like I stated above, the car had a homemade ladder bar setup and coilovers. I have searched, but I don't think that I actually took any photo's of the suspension before I took it out. I installed a set of Calvert monoleaf springs with a 3" relocate, and caltracs.

IMAG0306.jpg



Here is how the car sits now with 295/55 15 drag radials.

IMAG0324.jpg

IMG_3053.jpg

100_9758.jpg

awe some looking car man.I am getting ready to start building my 73 duster and have a question about your wheels if thats ok? what size and back spacing are they?thanks Mopar65
 
Slim,

Great looking Duster, I'm glad the suggestion for the brake lines worked out for you.




Well I haven't gotten very much done lately, I'm still waiting on the heads to come back from the machinist.

The one thing I did accomplish is I got the brakes working. I replaced the master cylinder, calipers, and all new pre-bent stainless brake lines courtesy of www.inlinetube.com. Bill "Demonracer" gave me the link to the brakelines and they are a work of art. I highly recommend them to anyone wanting to freshen them up. The ends of mine were rusty and soft from years of no one flushing the fluid.

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your car is absolutly beautiful!!!!! i am 18 and just got a 76 feather duster and my hopes were to have it done up just like yours only with red paint. i hope i have the pleasure of seeing your car in person or hopefully racing someday! im at pacific a lot cheering on my buddy in his blue 68 dart and his dad with his yellow 68 dart
 
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