Finally started! 1972 Dodge Charger Rallye project.

Finally getting started on a long awaited project, factory 340 powered 1972 Dodge Charger Rallye. Been saving up, scraping together, trading and flipping parts to finally put together my childhood dream of owning one of these. Having nearly 25 1971-72 Chargers over the years, this sweetheart of a car was found here in California after the second owner and son decided they could not do the work and decided to sell. Came with built sheet, numbers matching everything 98k original miles and even has paperwork the original owner, which was a little old lady from Washington. It was a hard car to find as I was looking for blue car with no vinyl top, no hide-away headlight and a clean body to work with. Sadly with bad health and constant work conditions always coming up, it sat for 6 years before I could get started on it. Luckily one of my best friends Mike out of Watsonville, CA decided I needed a hand and made me a buddy's offer to get the car going. SWEET! He knew my health kept me from a lot of things, but said he wanted to see me in a done muscle car for once and said we could whip this car together for cheap if we worked together. So here is my car and will be posting pics and info on it as we do the work and inch through the progress.

Wait a minute ...... It's not raining in San Jose !

I am looking forward to seeing this car come together. Looks like you have a great starting point to kick it off.

Yup, that pics if from 10 years ago the day I picked it up. Unfortunatly, outside storage in a marina was not kind to it.

Sweet! Congratulations on making it to this point. I look forward to following along.

I also have a '72 Rallye 340 car that is waiting it's turn. I'm still in the saving stage.

Here is the engine that will be going into it. Mopar Performance crate 360 Magnum engine pushing nearly 400hp. By the time it's installed, it will look totally different from how you see it now.

starting disassembly.

Now the interior.

Entering body shop to start media blasting...............

Came back with a few areas of rust I was not expecting to find it in trunk lip, trunk edge, lower quarter panel, rear pass floor pan. The roof was not bad and totally savable.

Guys from the northeast jumping on you about the horrible rust in 5, 4, 3......LOL. You've got a really great car to start with, and it sounds like you searched long and hard to find it. Looking forward to watching it come together for you. to your buddy for stepping up to help.

Great car!!!
Hard to believe the roof condition from first pics when u bought it to now? It looks totally covered in paint at first?

I thought Cali cars did get burnt paint, but usually down to primer? Never saw them get to surface rust like that.

been raining and busy so was not able to get picks of the car as they reassembled it and coated it with primer sealer. They started with prep work with replacement trunk lid with factory spoiler cut outs and the upgraded hood.

2nd set

Its looking good. I love the 72 door scallops

Will be updating a bunch of pics tonite when I get home from work, including suspension upgrades.

Body shop is starting with 26in radiator support conversion from Ed At ‘The MOPAR Shop’ and preping the bodywork. AMD cut-out rear valance from Ted and Jackie from Steven’s Performance and will be prepped next.

Fenders are off and getting work next. Patch panel was made for lower quarter panel, but other side was fine and only needing prep work.

Well after double shifts at work and 2hr drives in rush hour traffic, finally getting time to post pics. Stage two Firm Feel Inc large bearing box fresh and powder coated By Dick, Dennis and Ross should make for some fun steering on the road.

While the bodywork is going on, decided it was the perfect time to start on the front suspension. I had left the original suspension on the car and bought 1972 Charger SE parts car and used the k-member off of it (3 previous k-members I looked at all had cracks).

Since I wanted better handling and easier servicing, I did a lot of work checking into these suspension and used the best sources and tech that would have made this a better than stock driving. The weak part in these suspension is primarily the k-member. If you look, it is formed sheet metal that has some welds and engine mounts on it, nothing more. So strengtening it will require more than quick fix items. Welding is required and a clean surface is best, so off to a chem bath to remove any contaminants.

As you can see, welding from the factory was not up to current standards and lots of gaps and ok'ish spot welds through out.

Thanks for sharing the build process - I like the direction it's headed with a noticeable improvement in the handling department

Do you plan to 'box' the control arms?

Been awhile since I posted on my Charger. Long story short, friend I had doing the work had a disagreement over the project and added covid worries, was forced to put it in storage in 2019. I will be posting updates from prior posting from another forum I belong to.

Now most folks would have started welding, but that was not the best way to work with the metal k-member. Though it might seem over kill, I started with having the k-member heated up to nearly glowing and slowly let it cool for a full day. This removes any impurities left from the chem dip and helps strengthen the metal in the unit. This was done two more times during the week, making for stronger metal and having it ready to for welding. Tech from FFI made the brackets for reinforcing the k-member easier then than doing it myself and make for quick work, brackets and reinforcement work to be done correctly, it was then taken to Magnum Force Racing and one of their certified welders did all their magic to make this unit super strong and rigid. Clean and great welding can be seen where there were gaps and media blasting final prep before off to powder coating.

new Magnumforce chromemoly tubular control arms, and they had their new powder coating semi-gloss black on them, which is to me more resistant to chips than previous blend they carried.

Magnum Force did the powder coating and came out very nice.

final bodywork before primer sealer.

primer and will sit for awhile before being painted.

Color testing paint, looking at how it will look on mirrors first.

Good looking stuff!

update images and pictures coming in 2023.

locked away since 2020 because the guy working on it gave up after my money he had me spend didnt get parts to him fast enough so it went into storage. hope to start again next year.

What I want to know is, why do your photos show both a 1971 early production spec hood (solid line of cowl vents) and the 1972 spec hood (cowl vents divided in the center)?

Are you covertly restoring your 1971, too?

It's a great looking car. Can't wait to see the progress.