Well, I figured it was time I'd show the progress I've made since I got this car a year ago. I guess you could call this car some sort of restomod/hotrod/muscle car project. A lot of original pieces to the car will still be there while at the same time adding some creature comforts but not too crazy. I promise there will be no 26" rims with rubber band tires in this thread

Picking up the car... this will be the starting point on this project, oh boy! You might notice that there's no fender, hood, bumper... or really just the entire front end. The car was in a head on collision, from what I was told it was with some sort of tree or pole. Apparantly the entire front end was unusable, everything got mashed into the radiator and in turn went into the fan... barely.

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Well look at that, a 318! It had been rebuilt with very few miles before the car was crashed. I opened it up last week and it has infact been rebuilt with a 30 over. In exchange for a rebuilt 318 I get no front end of the car. Oh boy

Day after getting the car home, beginning rust removal

On the upside, it does have the rally dash, which appears to be in good shape. Thats really the only thing special, it also had the inside hood release, rear window defroster, back windows rolled down, A/C, and 150mph speedo. None of the interior panels are worth using honestly, but more on that later.

Problem solved. Almost decided to restore this car but come to find out it has some major rust issues, you might be able to see it. Quarter panels behind the wheel, over the back tires, along with a lot of rust in the floor pans.



Another shot there. Previous owner put new tires on them road wheels. Being a 225/70/14 tire, it won't do me much good, another possible item to sell.



Even had a brand new 1 1/2" dual exhaust system installed, neat! Although for the engine I plan on using this will be inadequate. Someone could make use of it I'm sure.



This is what mainly kept me from using the second car... You can see the rust in the other photos above. The car has all the door panels that are in excellent driver condition, the front fenders, hood, bumper, valence, grille, headlights, and other assorted pieces needed for the front end are in great shape and do not appear to have been hit by the rust.

Its gettin there

Getting the underside clean. Used an engine hoist to lift the car up in many different ways.





Got the rear end out... blasting time.







Eastwood rust encapsulator and extreme chassis black







Disassembled the rear end in order to swap out to 3.55 gears





Since I'm not using the 318... Got a 440+727 for $850. It came as a whole assembly, has all pullys, brackets, kickdown, entire ignition system, voltage regulator, started all still hooked up.



Took the 727 off. Rebuilt it at tech school when we were doing automatic transmissions. Gonna add a stall converter when the engine has been built.



Removed the heads on the 440 to inspect, overall it appears to be a good rebuild canidate.









This was apart of an 8 straight hour blasting job to have it all finished up. For working so hard I was rewarded with the air compressor giving out, ended up getting a new one a couple months later.













Painted the floor pans, trunk pan, everwhere inside with rust encapsulator, to then do bodywork over it.





Using all metal to fill holes, and smooth out some rough spots.







Finished. Came out better than what I thought

I finished body putty throughout the floor pans 2 days ago, will get that cleaned and finish painting. Today I disassembled the 440 to measure it out tomorrow to decide the next steps on it. Will add pictures for all that soon enough. There's alot more pictures of different steps along the way. I'll all be here eventually.

Very nice work! I'm using a combination of rust encapsulator and Rust Bullet on my '72. Keep the pics coming.

size comparison on the stand. 318 vs 440

Todays disassembly of the 440.





Table nearly full of parts.





When I was told it came with everything... he meant everything.



I'd say there's a great deal of parts there. Everything is there except for the rotating assembly. Which will come out later today and go to a safe place.



You could only imagine the look on my face when I turned it over the first time and watched all the coolant come out of the block. Thank goodness for floor dry

Have you thought about upgrading to an 8 3/4 rear since you're putting in the 440/727 combo ?

Yeah, it's going to need one before its all said'n done. Just need to find one that came from a 71-74 b body and at a reasonable price. I don't need all that fancy ebay stuff thats already cleaned up, disc brakes yada yada for around $2000. I'd rather just buy a junk housing that will be a direct bolt up and do the same thing I've already done to that 8.25 rear end.

If I were going to save to drop that kind of money on a rear end, I myself would just go straight to the dana, regardless of the extra weight or any of that.

I'll be curious to see how long the 8.25 lasts, as long as I'm not too abusive to it (ha)

Today: Nothing really new as far as pictures go, spent my time measuring the bores on the 440. Results came out to be very good, Bore taper on each cylinder is no greater than 0.001" as well as cylinder out of round. Plan is to do a STD size HP rebuild kit from flatlander racing. In the meantime I still need to finish cleaning the block out.

Also got engine paint ordered and an HVLP paint sprayer + cleaning kit

http://www.eastwood.com/ew-concours-paint-gun-w-3-tips-plasticandmetal-cup.html

Haven't decided exactly what color the car will be. Would love to do a candy apple red over a silver base. Other option would be a gloss black. I'll probably decide after I see how good I can get the paint to lay down.

More cleaning today, just about done for the most part. Went to a machine shop to find out about how much it would cost to get everything done to it.

Took the engine block to the machine shop, decided to just have them do everything to it.

Here's a list of what is going to be done:

Magnaflux
Jet wash
align hone
deck
hone
bore .30 over
cam bearings + plugs
polish crank
balance assembly
press piston pins
Recondition rods

Going to use something like the trw six pack pistons for good compression, add most likely aluminum heads and a good comp cam. Edelbrock intake + carburetor and mallory ignition. Too finish it off it will be painted hemi orange



Got the spraygun, cleaning kit and paint in today












Things that I've been working on the past couple days

dutch-man panel!

Spent a good 5 hours after I got home from work on the charger. Here's what I got done.





Got the K-frame and suspension out.





Torsion bars removed, cleaned and painted.

Tomorrow I will finish disassembling suspension and will work on painting the k-frame.

are you reusing the original torsion bars? Since you are going to a BB, you might want to upgrade the T bars. It will work with the original bars, they will just be a bit light. Also, they have 30+ years on them, good insurance to swap them out from new ones. It will make a big difference on handling and be one less thing to worry about.

Got to try out the new spray gun today, I'm pleased so far with the results.







Unfortunately I ran out of rust encapsulator, currently waiting on another couple quarts of it. The spray gun I'm using is an Eastwood Concourse with the 1.4mm tip in it. First time ever spraying with a paint gun.

Very nice work and the Rust Encapsulator does a very good job.

Its been a while, got a lot more done, been procrastinating with uploading but I will show ya what got finished yesterday

How is the buldge hood and ralley doors coming on your project? You gonna cut door skins or try to save the ralley doors
ralph

Haven't gotten to do anything with them yet, the hood currently lays under my bed haha. Would be nice to save the rallye doors but at least the rally impressions in the door are good.