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PHOTO 6: Yikes! Rust! At least this is repairable. I add a note to my overhaul list for future reference.
PHOTO 7: More rust! Where you find one spot of rust you will always find two spots of rust. This floor pan can be replaced with new metal. Again, I make a note on the overhaul list.
Initial Inspection
Armed with my checklist notebook and a good camera, the next step is the vehicle itself. Perhaps it is just ritualistic with me, but after purchasing a restoration project I walk around the vehicle and look it over. I may do this for a week or more before actually committing anything to paper or film. When I’m ready, I start taking notes. I write down everything about the vehicle. For example, I check for tire wear. Tires with odd wear patterns such as cupped areas or excessive wear on an inside tread can indicate a badly worn suspension. Next I look for damage on the vehicle. That includes everything from the wheels to the roof. I look for missing parts and parts I can see that I’ll need to replace.
Then I look at the interior. Primarily, I want to sit in the seat and observe what is in the interior. I want to know what works and what does not work. For example, I crank the engine and check the gauges. If they work, fine; if not, I make a note of the ones that do not. Do the interior lamps, switches, and clock work? Do the seat tracks work? You’d be surprised how many times I’ve tried to adjust a seat of a fresh restoration job only to find it wouldn’t move. This is something that you should take care of early in the restoration process, but something people often overlook in the haste of getting shiny new seat covers on the old ride.
As I check the car’s condition, I see the hood does not sit level with the fender. This is a telltale sign of a worn hinge. Should I place this hinge on the new parts list, the overhaul list, or is it a candidate for the salvage parts list? I place it on all three lists. Sometimes parts show up in the strangest places. But then you have to know you need the part to know you should buy the part.
This is also a good time to drop by your local automotive air conditioner repair facility and have the R-12 Freon drained from the air conditioner. During my initial inspection of the Charger, I found the A/C system already drained, but if yours is not, add it to the checklist.
Last, I ask a mechanic to go over the mechanical aspects of the car with me. I have already conceded an engine overhaul, transmission rebuild, and rear axle restoration. It is things like steering gear boxes, brake boosters, and HVAC units that have a way of sucking up dollars intended for use elsewhere on the vehicle. So be prepared for the worst. That is why you make a list and check it five or six times.
In the Charger’s case, I rate the overall condition of the car as good. Every exterior panel of the car is bent, but again, no panel needs to be completely replaced. I do find a little rust along the bottom of the right quarter panel, but I am unable to determine the extent of the rust on the floor to the quarter filler panel or the adjoining wheelhouse. It is important to note that the quarter panel and quarter filler panel are two different parts joined together at the floor. If the quarter panel had a rust hole in it you would be able to look through the hole and see the quarter filler panel behind it. To get a closer look at these areas, I will need to progress a little deeper into the restoration. I do find additional rust in the trunk floor pan area. This will require removal of the floor pan in that area and replacement with new sheet metal.
A quick look through an aftermarket parts catalog reveals that replacement floor pans for the trunk of this vehicle are readily available, as are the floor to quarter filler panels, should that become an issue. I note these problems as well as any other problems I encounter on the master checklist.
Parts Protection and Organization
As you get deeper into the restoration process, you will see that room to work diminishes as room taken for storage increases. It never fails that once you have a panel such as a door repaired, primed, and in need of storage, that part becomes a magnet for every loose object in the shop. The awful result is a nick, gouge, dent, or worse on the parts you thought you had already repaired. The next time you are in your local office supply store check out the plastic bubble wrap. It can be cheap protection for an expensive part.
I tag each part as it comes off the car. Small colored price tags—the ones with the handy string attached—are available at any office supply store. Use the tags to label parts as right or left, front or rear, along with the actual name, such as “back-up lamp housing.”
Keep similar parts together. By this I mean store all of the lamps from the rear of the vehicle in the same box and store all of the lamps from the front of the vehicle in another box. Don’t mix up the parts. This makes locating them later a less difficult task.
Final Thoughts Before We Go to Work
This is not the time to worry about how the hood, deck, or doors fit. These items have seen years of wear and tear. They are not supposed to fit and work like they did when they were new. As I go through the process of restoring the Charger, I will overhaul, replace, and rebuild all of these parts so they fit and work as they did when they were new. Over the course of the restoration, I will also completely reassemble the body of this vehicle at least once before final assembly to make sure everything fits as it should.
While the Charger is a total unibody vehicle, meaning the body cannot be removed from the frame, it restores pretty much the same as a framed vehicle. It still has front suspension components as well as rear suspension components to be dealt with. The basic difference is the body cannot simply be lifted off the frame to gain access to these parts. The parts are bolted directly to the unibody structure, and therefore require a little more close-quarters work when dealing with them.
There are, however, quirks inherent to the unibody that are not found on framed vehicles, and these differences must be addressed to properly restore the vehicle. I will discuss each of these factors as we encounter them.
PHOTO 1: Both doors on the Charger need to be realigned to fit before the car is raised on the jack stands. We use the alignment bar to tweak the doors into alignment.
CHAPTER TWO
Teardown Begins
The first step of actual hands-on work is to clean out the car. A lot of debris can accumulate in a 30-year-old car, and every bit of it needs to be removed to expose what lies underneath, that being the vehicle itself. I clean out the interior and the trunk area first, tossing out everything that’s not tied down or associated with the car itself. Note: If you happen onto the manufacturer’s vehicle build sheet (normally found under the back seat), which lists the build date, model, and every option that came on the vehicle; or if you find the owner’s manual or any other documents that might pertain to the history of the vehicle, keep them. They may come in handy later on.
Once I’ve cleaned out the vehicle, I take a walk around it looking for anything that might cause me bodily harm such as loose moldings, broken glass, dangling mirrors, or dangling windshield wipers. I remove all of these (even if they are in good condition), label them, and add them to the master checklist before I store them away. A damaged wheel-opening molding can be your worst enemy when it comes to causing bodily harm. This comes off and goes straight into the trashcan. Now I can work on the vehicle without worrying about being “bitten” by it.
Working Height
Ergonomics
