Okay.... breath... think... it’s not all bad...
Step in this fantastic forum who puts me touch with Matt Hollingsworth who helps me out with V5. Manage to find someone at the DVLA who wants to help. I really needed that luck! This gives me confidence to keep pushing. Maybe, this cars worth saving....
Let’s look at the positives..
It’s a numbers matching big block charger, 383 2BB car. F6 Green originally.
Engines all there and I heard her running. Oil leaking, but otherwise she sounds great. I believe someone at some point had upgraded the cam. It also has headers and a 4BB carb. I don’t know at this point what il be doing with this set up in future.
Glass, trim, roof structure, brakes, interior (less door cards) seats are rough but would need to be up holstered anyway, fenders, deck lid, bonnet, grill (needs restoring) loads more il get to as I progress though this thread...
Maybe it’s not all bad.
Here’s the thing, any project would need panels, this one just needs quite a few more!
Shopping list looks like this: both full quarters, both full frame rails, both rockers (sills) roof (I was tempted to repair as only the back was rotten but may as well do it right) rear light panel, rear crossmember, trunk floor, front full floor, floor quarters and obviously loads of other bits I’m forgetting to list.
Around 10k to AMD for sheet metal. To be fair I kind of expected that. And always anticipated spending that on a project. And I wanted good quality panels as I will try real hard to do this car justice.
Fast forward 3-4 months and everything arrives.
Here’s the thing. I wanted to buy as much as I could in one hit, one because it’s cheaper on shipping, and two, because have Iv all the panels at hand makes building the thing easier as I have the ability to test fit, mock up and see how things come together.
From this point I’m going to fast forward to the build. Il skip tear down and try to catch up to the point I’m at as the build has progressed at this point and I’m late to start this thread. But one last word. I’m infatuated with this car and I’m obsessed with this project. I’m enjoying every second and if I had the chance to buy this car again I honestly would. It’s coming together great and better than I could have imagined and I have learned so much. The car is a keeper and il do my best to do it justice.
The biggest issue was measuring. I wanted a straight car that meets the factory spec. I put out a post asking if any local charger owners would mind me measuring there cars. I do have the factory spec and that’s what I’m working too, but felt I need to see where other chargers are at.
Let me tell you these cars are all over the place and some measured way outside their factory tolerance. One car was almost a whole inch out! In total I measured 6 68~70 chargers.
So, level ground, level car and incredible hi tech mechanical G5 measuring device designed by NASA just to make my charger straight.
Looks like two pieces of electrical conduit, a tape measure and 4 plum bobs. But like I said, it’s much more than that!
Getting the frame in was actually not that hard. Once I had a plan, it was quite straight forward. The thing is, it bolts on to the rear crossmember, so as long as the factory specs under the rear floor are met, they should just fall into place. Welding was mainly done from the trunk floor and rear floor, one part that was incredibly difficult was sandwiching the frame between the leaf spring perches as they did from factory. It was a fight to get it in, but it did listen and settle in to place in the end. Uk take some pics of this and post tomorrow.