My '71 Charger R/T

I'm doing this post over again with pictures direct since photobucket screwed everything up and tried to extort money out of people by holding their pictures hostage.
Here goes.....

The story of this Charger begins back in about July, 2001 when my son was about to turn 11. We had built some model cars in previous years that were getting him into the whole car thing. One of the models was a '71 Charger that we replicated to look like one of my old teenage days cars. Well, that July I decided we should look for a real car to build as a Father/son project. I looked in the Mopar collectors guide and saw a '71 Charger R/T,Very well opted! $4900. I called the gentleman only to find out that "the car had sold about a month ago" Dang! So not seeing any more interesting '71 Chargers in that section, I went back to the Super Bees. There I found a red '71 383 4 speed bench seat Bee. "That sounds interesting" so I began to dial the number, "this number looks familiar!" It was the same guy that I just called with the R/T. I explained that I assumed in the previous conversation, that it was the only car he had for sale but obviously not! " He said "the Bee had sold about a week ago" I asked if he had anything else. he said sure I've got all sorts of cars, and listed off a bunch of special interest cars (which I scratched down on a piece of paper,) but nothing more in the '71 charger department. "could I get any pictures of the cars?" His reply was "no, They are packed so tight in storage that the corner of a fender is probably the best I could get" I found out he was located in Oklahoma, So I asked if it would be possible to come see any of the cars if I were down that way. He said "sure, but call first. I'm always out looking for other cars, so make sure I'm here before coming". Well, I tucked that piece of paper in the collector guide and continued my search for a suitable project. In about mid October, my brother offered me a '68 GTX body that was rust free at the time. The '68 wasn't my favorite and I wanted to be sure I would be passionate enough about the car to stick with it. I thought if I could make it an open air car that would give it the pizzaz to hold the interest. I found a GTX convertible down in Michigan that looked to be a good donor candidate. I talked with the owner, Questioned him about the tops of the wheel tubs where the roof mechanism attaches and other convertible pieces I would be needing. He assured me it was all good. We settled on a price and off I went for the 12 hour drive to pick it up. When I got there, What I was looking at was an original 1968 GTX convertible that was so clapped out and rusty. Someone had hung quarters on it at one time but there was nothing to attach the bottoms of the panels to so they were flapping in the breeze. The crossmember was rusted at the torsion bar mounts. The tops of the wheel tubs were as soft and puffed up with rust as could be! But it did have a running 440 in it (that blew oil out of every orifice so bad the bottom of the hood was literally dripping oil). I told him he had grossly misrepresented the car and "would he be negotiable on the price?" I'm sure he figured "This guy just drove 12 hours dragging a trailer, He's not going back empty!" He stuck to his guns and wouldn't budge on price. After much consternation, I told him "Nope! can't do it" I went home empty. Wondering the whole 12 hours back, if I'd done the right thing. Well, The next morning when I returned home, My son was anxious to see our new "project". When I told him it didn't work out, he was devastated! I tried to console him and tell him "it just wasn't the car for us. But we'll find one." He wasn't buying that! So, I turned to Ebay to convince him there was stuff out there. When I did. There I see this rough but pretty complete '71 Charger R/T! It had one bid of $1500 and a "Buy it now" with no price. I contacted the owner, got his phone number and called to inquire. He said he was an Oldsmobile guy, He was selling it "because winter is coming and the wife wants her van in the garage, something has to go and it isn't going to be the Hurst olds!"
I asked about the "buy it now" Why it didn't have a price? he didn't know. I said the buy it now shouldn't go away until reserve is met. He said "Oh! thats why! I didn't have a reserve." I asked if he would be willing to divulge what the buy it now was? he said $3500. I said "OH! I'LL PAY THAT RIGHT NOW!!" He said he didn't want to do anything dishonest as he does a lot with eBay. I wasn't asking him to do anything dishonest. I was just willing to pay his asking price. We talked a while longer and I explained how I owned a B5 Charger in high school. The whole father/son thing and how my son was devastated with the GTX not coming through. He was a little quiet for a moment, then said "I'll tell you what. You cut me a check for $2500 and it's yours." SOLD!!!! I said. I had just told him I'd pay the $3500 he was asking!! But he gave it to me for the $2500, I couldn't believe my ears! I was so excited!
A few days later after working half of my 12 hour shift at work, I headed out around midnight for Carmel Indiana (another 12 hour drive). I was so pumped about getting the car, I hadn't slept in 38 hours and didn't even feel tired! Once I got the car settled in the garage. I started to look for what I would and could get for it. While lying in bed one evening, I was thumbing through the Mopar collector guide to see what was available. That piece of paper, that I had scratched down the guy's name in Oklahoma on and the cars he had, fell out of the magazine. My wife asked what it was. I told her how this guy in Oklahoma had all these cars. How I had called on the R/T but it was sold and then the Super Bee that was also sold. I told her "but the car I really was interested in was the R/T" and as I started to reread the listing for the R/T that I had read about 3 and a half months before, It started to sound very familiar............
"This sounds like my car!" I hopped out of bed, went to the filing cabinet and lo an behold! Here's that same guys name on the title! After all this. I had bought the very car that I first inquired about. Paid nearly half of the price it was listed for in Oklahoma and only had to travel to Indiana instead of Oklahoma! Sometimes things are just meant to be!

eBay pictures...

Here's the GTX I went down for.

After getting the car back to Minnesota. I was pumped! No sleep for 38 hours!

Original owner wanted a "Landau" vinyl roof like he'd seen on the SE's. When he tried to order it, the dealer told him it was only available on the SE. The R/T was only available with a full vinyl or no vinyl. He ordered the car without vinyl and had the dealership install the canopy top.

The car was pretty solid but had some rust in places I'm not accustomed to up her in Minnesota. It had spent some time in the Brevard county area of Florida while the original owner was stationed at Patrick air force base. Salt water air was not kind to it and caused some rust in odd places like the door jamb, hinge pillar, quarter end and roof skin. (can be seen in the picture above near the drip rail. Up here in Minnesota, cars rust from the bottom up.

After replacing the roof skin and dutchman panel, I restored the correct date coded wheels.

It did have some of the "normal" rust I'm used to seeing up here, but not a lot of it! This rust was very different in that it was rusted clear through but about an inch away, it was rock solid and untouched. I'm used to seeing a pinhole on the outside and the backside is rusted from end to end. This was like the salt water air was able to get at it where there was a scratch or bare spot but the rest was unaffected. But like I said, Some of it was the normal moisture held by dirt at the bottom of the panel type rust.

fender bottom

The corner of the door was rusted but I was able to save the original lip on the back. I filleted the rusted door shell out of the skin and will show the replacement piece I made to preserve the original lip and shape.

Replacement piece fabbed up and welded in.

Outside skin

I replaced the driver's side floor pan front and rear due to too many holes to patch. It could have been saved but it would have been such piece work, I just replaced it.

It was cool to see a lot of the factory paint daubs and markings still evident.

Tried to kind of replicate the poor coverage/overspray look on the floor pan.

The model my son and I had built years before. We took the hood off to look the same as our new project.

The hood had been stolen off the real car while in storage in Oklahoma. I found a decent hood up in Canada that was originally B5 and appeared to be stripe delete also. Who knows...... could have been the original? probably not, but possible.

I'll roll this back a ways and say when I got it I tried to turn the motor with a breaker bar but found that it was frozen up. I pulled the distributor and looked inside. I saw oil right up to the top! I thought, "oh, somebody filled it with oil or tranny fluid in a attempt to soak it to free it up." When I pulled the drain plug on the oil pan, 5 gallons of water poured out (literally 5 gallons!) and then a little dribble of some oil came drooling out at the end. What I thought was a motor full of oil to free it was really a motor full of water with a few quarts of oil floating on top of it. Having had the hood stolen off the car many years ago, who knows how long it rained down the carburetor? The motor was torn down and I found one cylinder was cracked. Being that it is the numbers matching motor, I brought it to my local machine shop and asked what they could do? He told me he could sleeve it. So I had them do the machine work to block, crank , rods and heads. We're a couple years into this project now and my son is thirteen. I had quit my job as a papermaker and bought an auto repair business with my brother. Our shop did police tows and happened to tow an '86 Chrysler Laser XT. It was a cool looking car to my son (I liked it too.) No one claimed the car, so we pursued a title on it. After we owned it, we started to look into putting it back on the road and found it was pretty rusty under the plastic cladding. My son found another Laser XT that used to belong to one of our employees (employee set him on to it.) bought that for $150 and then proceeded to get two more'89 Daytonas from a friend of my oldest brother. One of the Daytonas was a rust free Iowa car so we took a little detour from the charger and built an '86 Laser out of an '89 Daytona.

We cut in the T-top just the same as ASC did it.

Long story short....... He got his car.

Back to the Charger tomorrow.....

Nice backstory on that 71 Charger R/T (that rots about photobucket) and wish the best outcome for you and your son as the project moves forward

Sorry, I didn't intend to deceive, My Charger is done. I'm just re-telling the story with pictures since photo bucket ruined my, and so many others, posts by pulling the photos.

Back at it.....
Having sat out in the sun for many years, the interior was pretty baked out of the car. The front seats looked decent but were very brittle and the vinyl had shrunk so the stitching was about to pull out, the rear seat was baked badly and the top of it was gone in places. The dash pad looked like a bunch of potato chips. The headliner was nearly gone except for some remnants hanging from the listing rods. The V.I.N. plate on the dash was baked clean of it's paint.

Restored the dash with a nice original pad I found up in Seattle Wa., cleaned up the gauges and rebuilt the clock. Restored the V.I.N. (without being removed from the dash) Got the "Chrysler corporation" dry rub transfer from Dave Walden at ECS. Also found (finally) a decent "Charger R/T" emblem for the dash.

Recovered the seats. New on the left, old on the right.

Assembled the motor, put it in the bay but pulled it back out to do some other work on the car. (I did try to leave some "patina" and original marks in the engine bay.) You can see the grease pencil "3" and "X" on the firewall as well as the sloppy undercoating sprayed over it.

It felt good to drag the car out into the sun once in a while. It gave a different perspective.

I purchased New Legendary door panels and stretched them onto the old frames. With limited room for all the parts accumulating, I had to temporarily install the door panels and seats in the car to keep them from getting damaged in my mess!
(temporarily, as can be seen by the crooked window switches and release handle.)

I finally got to working on the hood. Painted the underside and fit it on the hinges, Restored the louver and installed it. (again, temporary..... I like to do things many times over again!)

It was tough to get the louver fins straight. But lots of patience and perseverance got it pretty good (I think)! I see a lot of these on nice cars, and they're wavy! It really detracts from the car's appearance!

As I said earlier, I replaced the roof skin with a rust free one from a '74 Charger. That car had a canopy vinyl as well but the '74 molding and the '71 moldings are in different locations. I had to grind off the weld studs from the '74 position and weld some new ones on in the '71 position. This necessitated the use of my uni-spotter to weld them on.

Did a little detail work to the radiator saddle (had a little too much "patina").

Got all the great options. AC, PW, 6way seat. Nice car! Doing a great job!

Seems I'm not able to get on here as often as I had hoped to finish this post. I'll try to speed it up. Not sure there is much interest in it anyway since this is a repeat post , but......





Restored the taillight assemblies, cleaned up the original bumper (still with the "Brevard community college" bumper sticker from the original owner) and put on my nice 1971 Minnesota license plate.

With all the body work done and primer blocked out. I disassembled the car, got the car masked and ready for sealer and paint. Cleaned up the garage a little and put up some more lighting.

Set up the valences and bezels on horses.

The moment I had waited for, for so long! Finally...... PAINT!

Basecoat..........

Clear flash coat........

After the fog lifted from three more coats of clear...

Reassembly begins.....

It looks great! Keep those pictures coming.

Redoing the dealer installed canopy vinyl roof.
I ordered the vinyl at a car show (vendor didn't have it in stock at show) So he said he would ship it to me without shipping cost. I asked if it was the correct "canopy" style with no seams other than the ones in the front pillars. He assured me, YES! Well guess what came.... a seamed one!
Well..... I put it on anyway because I was so anxious to get the car out at this point.

I needed the decals for the hood and doors. This is a "V68" car so the over the cowl and down the side stripe is deleted so I didn't need those.
My brother has a vinyl cutter, so I asked him if he could make the hood black out. He said he could if he could get the dimensions. I have a spare Ramcharger hood from an FC7 car. I traced the black out off that hood and here are the decals he made for me from that. I had to warm up the garage a bit to float them on. That was a little nerve wracking! Those things are a lot bigger when you start to try laying them out! Even with another set of hands helping.

I bought the door scallop decals from Phoenix graphics since I didn't have templates for my brother to copy from. (they were only $16) I would have had way more labor into them than that, had I tried to make my own.

Finally, ordered up the Polyglas GTs from Russell Small (Smallhurst) here on Moparts.
Great guy to deal with! It really finishes off the car!

They aren't the greatest snow tires though!

Thank you steve70! I didn't think anyone was looking. I see by your signature, you have a '71 Mr. Norm Charger? I'd love to see some pictures of that if you care to share. (no matter what condition!)

Steve, I did some snooping, and WOW!!! That's BEAUTIFUL!!!
I'd love to hear the story behind that car! (they all have stories, don't they?)

Very nice!

Details please on your painting equipment and garage ventilation fans.

Thank you Larry!
I just used a cheap Warwick HVLP gun. It worked just fine. I really had no ventilation to speak of. I would shoot the car and then purge the garage by opening the garage door and man door to get flow through. I also had a box fan that you can see in the background of some of the pictures. It was later in the fall of the year so bugs weren't a big issue. I used to put up an elaborate filter system and bank of fans, but the more vehicles I painted, I found it to be not so necessary. I use DuPont Chroma-base paint and Chroma-clear. It flashes so quickly you don't have problems with dust after just a few minutes. It's a great system (Chroma) to work with in my book. My style may be crude but the car looks very nice (I think) still after 9 years of driving in the summers. (and I can be my own worst critic!)

I haven't taken any good photos lately, but these were taken about 3 years ago after six years of driving it.

I had made mention of the canopy top having the seams that it shouldn't have. Well......one day I was looking at charger stuff on eBay and saw one of my pictures of my car. I was surprised, but It was Dante's advertisement for the canopy vinyl roof they sell. I contacted him and told him it was my car that was being used in his ad and that while I was flattered that he would use my picture, " if you look closely, it's the wrong one (from another vendor) with the seams." I asked if he would give me a little discount on the correct one if I sent him pictures of it to use after I installed it. He was gracious and did give me a discount so I was able to replace the seamed vinyl that had bugged me for years. Now the car has the correct seamless vinyl it should have! Thank you Dante!

Oh, I forgot. I was going to add a picture of the last thing I needed before showing the car after getting the Goodyear Polyglas's. It was the headliner. Here it is after I installed it.

Ddue,
That is a NICE looking car. And optioned to the hilt is only better.

Thank you gtx!
Yes, the car is well optioned! Sunroof, hideaways, six pack and spoilers are about the only things he didn't check off. I'd say in it's day, the car had a pretty hefty price tag! Add to that the dealer installed vinyl roof.

I will have to admit I am not a big fan of the 71 Dodge's, but Bro that is one good looking car.
You did a nice job with the car.
Great color combo

Keep the photos coming.

Matt

Nice work and what a gorgeous classy looking charger !

Congrats on the headliner install, need to tackle that myself one day.

First off that is one Beautiful Charger!!!! I have to ask who did your window sticker? It has the automatic trans. included which I've never seen on a window sticker. I have a soft spot for these cars myself and own a 71 Super Bee.
Ron

Thank you Matt!
I kept the color combo original "as ordered"
Some don't like the white with the blue and prefer black. But I'm partial to the blue and white because I had a blue and white Charger back in my school days, so this was the perfect car for me!
I've attached an old photo of my school days car. (I later installed Louvered R/T/500 tail lights not on at time of this picture.)

Thank you ogopogo! It certainly gets the looks and compliments a lot! Those are my biggest and best trophies, when others give me a thumbs up or shout "nice car" across a parking lot or gas station driveway! It makes it all worth it when others enjoy it too.

Thank you CDN72SE!
I've been following your build. I'm so glad to see you got it out of that other shop(with all your parts) and are on the road to reassembly.
The amount of time and detail you are putting into it are going to make my car look like a beater!

Thank you also Ron!
I read a lot of your threads and posts and feel somewhat akin to you in your views and admire your Plymouth but am not sure I've seen your Bee.
I had the "Monroney label" done by Dave Walden (ECS) I have to say, he is a very, very nice and meticulous man! He is obsessed with getting things perfect. There was an error with a font made on the first set he made for me. (someone on one of the forums pointed it out to me.) I asked Dave about it. He apologized that he had let an employee send it out without first proofing it himself, and sent out corrected ones. He is a GREAT guy to deal with! I know some take issue with him, but my experience with him found him to actually be a very humble man that is driven to perfection! That impressed me!

The "Torqueflite transmission" is listed under the "standard equipment" category. I suppose that IS incorrect, isn't it? It should be under the options since a manual trans. was "standard". I never noticed that! Thank you!

I appreciate what you stated about me, more times than not people don't get my NY quickness and meaning. Thanks for liking my SSP also. Wow if Dave did it I would expect it to be 100% so please let me know if I actually caught a mistake or if I'm the mistake LOL I too get along with Dave Walden fine, I understand his perfection direction!
I had mine done by Triple A and know they may not be 100% accurate but were quick painless and cheap.

My buddy had a 71 R/T back in the day 440 6pack that stuck in my mind so when this Bee came available I had to have it.

Here's my 71 Bee:

WOW!
I love it!!
Citron Yella is one of the coolest colors! Especially on a Bee! There used to be a yellow Hemi R/T here in Duluth back when I was a kid. It looked just like your friends car. I don't know what ever happened to it....

Thank you again, I hope you keep this post flowing because it is truly an inspiration for everyone. The amount of work and the quality of the work is exceptional!!!
Ron

Very nice build!

I see you forgot to reinstall the trailer hitch

Actually........ I would like to find a trailer hitch! if anybody knows of one, I would like to buy one.
The holes are already there on the bumper. I filled them with another set of bolts but I could put one on in a few minutes. That would get the comments!

Hey 71 I looked at another 71 Charger's window sticker and it too had the automatic included in standard equipment but lower it showed the entry without a price next to it. I would bet your's is 100% since it came from ECS. The one I compared to was made by Triple A.

Ron

Auto is standard on a 71 R/T. Here's my window sticker

Cool beans Steve! Thank you for that!
I have been looking around and see others like that too. (on google images) but most are pre-'71. I'm gonna go with it the way it is unless someone can show me definitively that it's incorrect.

What is the SPD of your car?

Mine is a 4 speed also interesting to note the base price difference between a Lynch RD car and a St. Louis car. Both window stickers 100% real and original!

Mark,
what is the SPD of your car?

Mark's looks like C16 Dec. 16 70
71 Charger looks like 129 jan. 29 71

Ron

Thanks Ron, I forgot it was on the window sticker. I've heard the actual build date is on the bottom left of the window sticker which would be Oct 2nd for mine and Dec 8th for Marks. Is that true?

Hmmm that little tidbit I wasn't aware of (as my cousin used to say "my brain just got a wrinkle"). Hopefully someone much smarter than me chimes in.
Ron

I heard that's the date the car was actually completed and the window sticker was applied. The OP's window sticker has an SPD of 1/29 but it looks like it left the plant on 1/22. From my own research that date is usually within 1-3 weeks of the SPD.

Yes, that is correct. (Sorry, out in the garage the last two days working on cars) My SPD is 1-29

There Mark. Fixed it for you!

Very cool build to see unfold. Thanks for re-posting all of these images.

Thanks DynoDave! It's nice to know others can enjoy it too!

You had this at Mopars in the Park ?

Talked to you some on that Friday

Beautiful Beautiful Car

Thank you, much appreciated, I spent quite a lot of time drooling over your car waiting for mine. Yours is what I aspire to own, you definitely do not have a beater there.

Yes, Had it M.I.P.
Thank you!
Refresh my memory. Which one were you? I talked with so many people, Only one identified himself as from the forum. He had his white '73 Rallye in the winners tent. (all the way from up in Canada)

Thank you, much appreciated, I spent quite a lot of time drooling over your car waiting for mine. Yours is what I aspire to own, you definitely do not have a beater there. [/quote]

Mine compared to yours, IS a beater! I would be afraid to drive mine if it was as nice as yours! I just had someone "key" mine the other day while I was in a store. I was able to buff it so as to be hard to notice (didn't make it to the color just in the clear) but as angry as that made me that someone would do that, I would have cried if it was as perfect as yours and then got a flaw like that!