By then it was November of 1999. Being as I was walking to work, it was a bit difficult to get around. I still hadn't received a title for the Challenger from Pedro, so it wasn't registered with plates or insured, hence not exactly driveable.

Up to this point in my life I'd only ever seen one other Challenger besides mine. It was back in middle school. I used to pass by it walking home from school. It was a dark green car, sort of plain but in pretty good shape, nice paint etc. It just sat in a driveway up by a house that I walked by. I only noticed it because it was an old car, not newer like all the others. I went up the driveway and walked all the way around it once, but that's it.

There's a BIG car show down here in Daytona Beach every November called the Turkey Rod Run. It's 4 days Thanksgiving weekend at the International Speedway. 5,000 + cars in attendance every year. I had never been before, but was really looking forward to going, hoping to get a good look at another Challenger. I had a lot of questions, and it seemed like the only good way to answer them was to have a thorough look at another Challenger. There's a big swap meet too, and I had some money saved up for parts if I got lucky enough to find any.

I went to that show all 4 days and still didn't see all the cars. Sensory overload. I had to learn to scan down the rows and only walk down one if it had something I wanted to look at. E bodies have unique flush mounted door handles. That helped to look for those. Of the approximately 5,000 cars, I think I saw about 20 E bodies. (These days there's usually only about 5-10.)

At the swap meet I met some guys that specialized in Mopar parts, which was a great find. One of them has an old Mopar specific junk yard about 3 1/2 hours away. If I could find a way to get up there, I could go look at another Challenger anytime I needed to. While I was there, I managed to buy...
a smashed up grill that I could scavenge the egg crate out of,
right & Left black door panels (one of mine was missing and the other one was green),
both kick panels (mine were missing),
a repaired taillight lens (mine was missing a corner),
a door lock tab,
the passenger inside door handle (both my handles were missing),
the 70 Challenger only curved plastic trim that goes around the bottom left corner of the dash (mine was missing)
and a power disc brake setup which included no spindles, no rotors, old used brake hoses & pads, only 1 caliper (it turned out to be stuck), and a brake booster.

Later, while putting the door panels on the car, one of the little square white plastic sliders in the horizontal window track broke. Well, I couldn't leave the window down with it parked outside, so I made my first parts order. Using the catalog that came with the car, I called Year One and ordered the window slider listed (but not pictured) in their catalog. When it showed up, it was a large green rectangle slider for the vertical track. It was the only type of window slider available. I still have it uninstalled in its little Year One bag. Perhaps one of these days I'll try out their no questions asked return policy, tear off the little return label on the invoice, and send it back. I went down to the local junkyard, rummaged through cars until I found the slider I was looking for, broke it prying it off, found another, got it, took it home and put it all back together with fresh grease. The new slider was round instead of square, but the inner & outer diameters were the same, and it worked well.

I also removed the rear interior panels at this point. They were green, but had been painted black. The black paint was flaking off, so I cleaned them up and re-sprayed them black again.

Next I wanted power brakes. It seemed simple enough, just add a power brake booster and a vacuum line right? I unbolted my four wheel drum brake master cylinder. I had to get a new master cylinder because the manual drum brake master cylinder has 4 studs instead of 4 holes, so it won't mount to the booster. When I tried to put the swap meet power brake booster on the car, it wouldn't go because the car had two studs coming Out of the car where the brake booster studs were supposed to go Into the car. I looked it all over, cut off the studs with a hack saw, drilled through what was left, and used a chainsaw sharpener to finish it off because I didn't have a round file. That was way more work than I had intended on doing, but it would have been easier with the proper tools. Using the swap meet parts, I was able to get everything bolted up ok, and went for a test drive around the lake the next day. (not far, total trip about 1 mile.) Not much of an improvement, the brake booster had a vacuum leak.
Similar to manual brakes, but once you started pushing the pedal, you got a slight hissing sound.
Oh Well, guess I won't have power brakes just yet.

still, I couldn't wait any longer. It was time for the first real test drive. Not just a mile around the neighborhood lake, but something a little more significant. I checked all the fluids (except the differential fluid because I didn't know there was such a thing), made sure the tires and rear shocks had air, and away I went. I had my route planned out, about a 12 mile loop on two little used highways connected by one country road ending up back here at home. When I left the oil level was just a little above the full mark. It felt great to finally be out driving my car with the windows down. I was also very nervous though. Everything went OK. When I got back home I checked all the fluids & pressures etc. to see if I had any problems. Left air shock leaked a little, oil level under the add mark halfway between add and the end of the stick. The oil didn't leak out, it burned it. I needed a new engine or a rebuild if I planned on driving this car regularly.

Someone gave me an their old auto CD player. My original radio was long gone, and a couple others since then I think. The CD player fit nicely in the hole in the dash, regular DIN size, so I installed it. The CD part didn't work, but the radio did. I picked up a universal antenna from Autozone on one of my few trips into town. I used an old 4x10 speaker from an S-10 truck. It wouldn't have fit under the speaker grill, but since my speaker grill was missing anyway, it was better than a hole in the dash. The green dash pad was cracked and was covered with carpety cloth thing that just laid across the top, so you couldn't see the speaker anyway. Maybe I couldn't Drive the car anywhere, but sometimes I'd sit in it at night and listen to the radio. Without a passenger seat it was fairly comfortable to lay down over there. Someday I'd be able to leave home/work.

Tav