Sorry to hear about the fire. Glad everyone is okay though. Certainly could have been worse. Hopefully you'll get everything straightened out in time. Any idea what caused it? -Trent

Yes. I had a bullet heater / salamander on a thermostat. Something fell in front of it when I wasn't here. When the thermostat kicked on....

I have been acquiring cleaning supplies, testing a few methods I've seen on line for the things that I will have to clean. Slow but sure.

Insurance company and restoration company are moving faster than I am! No complaints there thus far.

I did manage to get the overhead door open. Patched together, but it works. I'll be spending the rest of this week getting parts out from under and next to the Chrysler, and hopefully have it off to the detail shop early next week.

The good(ish) - she's back on the ground, and ready to be towed to the detail shop.




The bad - That dark stripe on the roof is carbon / soot. The shiny, lighter areas are portions of the roof that were covered.




The ugly - The interior (which was in nice shape and needed the least amount of work of any part of the car) did NOT escape carbon and soot deposits as I had hoped. This paperwork was sitting on the passenger seat, and you can see the light rectangle on the paper where the envelope was sitting.




The build sheet, which was on the dash, survived, but was soot covered. Cleaned gently with the dry chemical sponge, then a few day in a ziploc bag with some baking soda, and it should be in decent shape.

Transported to detail shop yesterday. I went and met with them to go over what needed to be done. They seemed very nice, and interested in helping save the car. It's stored indoors, and behind a locked gate, so it should be in good hands.



The cement under the car, not so good. A lot more carbon and soot than I had hoped. Probably means that despite appearances, the underside of the car has a little soot on it too.

To give you an idea of how thoroughly the smoke leached it's way into small space, those squares with an X shape in them...those were gallons of distilled water for the new radiator. The X is the moulded shape of the bottom of the jug.



The white outline is where a piece of rolled up carpet was sitting under the car. Front of car was to the left, fire to the lower right. It's amazing how the smoke traveled, with more soot up under the front of the car than there is nearer where the fire was. There are cabinets in front of the car that are heavily covered in soot, while items 2 feet from the fire are much cleaner.

I'll try not to bore you with all of the tedious steps of the cleanup process. But for a lot of the contents of the shop, cleanup is on me. And much of it will go like this past day did (or at least I hope it will).

Thus far, for items stored in a container or box with a full lid, the contents survived well. No detectable smoke smell, no soot. So I'm taking those containers, laying them out on sunny days to air out and bake in the sun (helps break down the smoke molecule).



Plastic containers absorb too much smoke smell to clean, and must be replaced. Obviously, the same is true for cardboard as well. I started with these plastic containers. After a day in the sun and fresh air, I transferred all the contents to new containers, and stacked them away in the back garage. I did do one copy paper box of stuff. It did not fare as well, as you could easily see the smoke and carbon/soot got under the edges of the lid all the way around. The smoke molecule is tiny, and gets everywhere. Unless sealed air tight, there's going to have been some level of smoke damage. In this case, the box was full of old magazines, and after a day outside, there was no detectable smell, and no detectable soot deposits. So they did NOT have to go through the bagging with baking soda procedure seen above with the build sheet. Got lucky.

We'll see later how the old containers with split design lids, or cardboard boxes with folded flaps fared. The parts that are not in a container of any kind will require quite a bit of work, if they are savable.

Container arrived yesterday. "Contents" crew was going to be here Monday, but we backed that up a week so I can make more progress on my part of the deal.



Broke into a stack of boxed parts today. Except for a pitman arm for the T/A, it's all Mopar parts....refinished 340 (Charger) A/c brackets and fasteners, restored Charger HVAC controls, floor mount cassette player and housing, Ramcharger hood vacuum harness, dash switch and bezel, solenoids, concealed headlamp relays, Charger cruise control system, Charger sport mirrors, NOS Cordoba lower grille, nearly NOS Cordoba Lean Burn air cleaner pie plate, NORS Cordoba heater core, etc. Out of frame a spare tire subwoofer, and Rock Auto closeout Bendix rotors for the Cordoba, and a pair of Cadillac rear disc calipers for use with conversion brackets on the Cordoba. All aired out, cleaned if needed, repacked and reboxed.



And a whole lot of smokey, soot covered old boxes hit the recycle container.

Didn't think to grab a photo of today's goodies, but dug out 2 more crates of parts, and started in to the dreaded stack of parts on top of and between the crates....items that were wrapped or packaged, but those packages were not in a box or crate....my custom made dual snorkel air cleaner, two battery thermogards, Edelbrock Performer intake, Mopar Performance (MP) cam and lifters, chromed rocker shafts, aluminum shaft hold-downs, valve seals, two Carter Strip-Kits, Mopar TQ rebuild kit, spare O.E. gauges, power door lock system, CPDP aluminum water pump housing, MP aluminum water pump, repro decals and documents, and dozens of other small parts. Also some parts that were full-on exposed. Got everything re-packaged and crated up, air cleaner carefully cleaned with a chemical sponge and wrapped in a clean towel, but ran out of time to do the parts that were bare. I'll have to get back on those tomorrow.

Been a whale of a week. Content cleaning crew in the garage all 5 days, working the first 4, calls in about detailing, about processing the contents, with the insurance company...

So after a week, this side of the sop is looking pretty empty.





But the other side of the shop, not so good! But this was expected, and I would say we are roughly on schedule.



That's the front of that bay. The back is no better. The row of "stuff" nearest the photo is content that has been inventoried, and written off, awaiting my final decision on if I want to keep and try to restore the items my self, or if they go straight to the dumpster. A slow, and painful process. Depending on what day of the week, and what section was being inventoried, the amount I "saved" varied.

Here's an example. This AC item came off of a shelf directly above the garage door, which had the worst smoke/soot damage. Several boxes of petroliana in similar condition. I didn't take the time to clean everything...Many items were simply reboxed (because the cardboard is dirty and smelly, but the contents not as bad...they will get a thorough cleaning when they come back out of the box to but placed back in the restored garage). But I needed to do a test clean on a few pieces, to see if they were worth saving.

As it came off the shelf.



After a light dry cleaning with a shop towel, then a more aggressive rubdown with a dry towel.



Then a final cleaning with some spray cleaner.



Another can half finished.



Since several test piece looked good, and went ahead and gave all of the pieces from shelves a similar treatment. Time consuming, but I did not want that acidic soot staying on the container finishes all summer until I pulled them out of storage.

If you go back up to the shot of the full side of the garage, you can see the soot stained Steelcase file cabinet. Here's the same cabinet after cleaning.



And a few form the lighter side....is that some sort of liquid sealer in that control joint? Nope...that's liquid car cover. Melted from a synthetic fiber to a liquid that flowed into the crack and cured post-fire.



I had a row of old license plates and frame above the pegboard wall. The last plate above the worst area....you can actually read the plate that was there. It's the only one that did that. Even the plate right next to it left no legible trace.



So just lots and lots of cleaning to come. But it is nice to see some visible progress being made. And I AM throwing out a LOT of stuff. Stuff I just didn't need, stuff I haven't touched or used in 20 years...get it gone, give me the money and the space. Like that sand blaster. Nice to have at times, but I haven't used it in a decade, it makes a mess when you do use it, and it takes up a ton of space. Just let 'er go.

I was fortunate to have a 4 day weekend around Easter, so I was able to work in the garage with the cleaning crew on Friday and Monday, and got some other work done over the weekend as well.

The workbench side of the shop is 99% cleared. About 2/3 of the contents from the attic were marshalled in the center of the shop, and gone through. Lastly I started to attack the bay that was full of stored parts. It may not look like a lot of progress, but that table made of saw horses and a file cabinet was full of boxes underneath around it, and stacked 7' high on top of it. All have been gone through, lightly cleaned as needed for now (full cleaning will come later, as needed), and moved to clean new boxes. Not inventoried at this time, just moved to clean, safe packages.





I'll continue to work on this side of the shop this week and weekend, then the crew will be back on Monday.

The Wen belt and disc sander is a little worse for wear.



Fortunately I had a bit of an obsession with keeping parts wrapped, boxed, crated, or otherwise protected. Probably only about 5% of the parts were out in the open, and thus heavily damaged in the fire (not counting the car cover, water pump and sander that were at the heart of it). Here are a pair of NOS rocker mouldings for the Cordoba, wrapped in several layers of Saran wrap. You can see the soot in the wrap.





Carefully unwrapped on the right. If it looks dark and streaky, it is not. That's the reflection of the trees above.



Look as good as the day I wrapped them up.



NOS wheel well trim turned out the same. The plastic wrap took a beating, but protected the part inside.



The box is restaurant food worker gloves. 2000 for like $10 or something at Sam's Club. Makes it very possible to wear a fresh pair to unwrap the part without touching the part itself and transferring soot to it. Throw them out, then a fresh pair to wrap the part, store it, then clean the clear-coated plywood table I made for this job. Unwrap another part, new gloves, and so on. Really helps eliminate contaminating parts that survived without damage.

The detailer finished their work with the Cordoba. I asked that they not waste time (and money) on polishing and waxing the car...just get it decontaminated and clean. It's the cleanest it's been since I bought it. I'm very happy with it.





By mid-day today, I had the second of three rows of parts cleaned out, with all the things stacked on top of that 2x4 table cleaned off, as well as all the things under it. As you can see, that 3rd row is actually a couple of boxes/items deep.



By late afternoon, I had broken through to the wall.



And by 10pm, all the smaller boxes along the wall are gone. Only large items (gas tanks, hyd. strut compressor, NOS condenser, grease drum and dispenser, foot locker, and sheet-metal) remain to the right of that photo.

Not a very productive week.

My son got a text from a co-worker that he (the co-worker) had covid. So my son went and got tested, but it was lab-type test, with 3-5 days to get results. I had to warn off the cleaning folks, and the painter for inside the house until we had results.

Work was super busy, and looks to be so for the next couple of weeks.

My son finally got the all-clear from his covid test, but the crews have to be rescheduled and have not returned.

I then got my second covid shot on Friday. While I did not have the kind of fatigue that I did the first time, I was a little lethargic yesterday, and only worked out there from 2-7. I did uncover a few nice Mopar parts, all of which seem to have survived OK.

My stack of forged Mirada wheels survived. Bought these 20 years ago. The clear coat is beginning to yellow very slightly, more from age I think. One has a touch of corrosion that crept around from the side where there is no clear, up under the edge of the machined/cleared surface. Could be used as-is, cleaned up at home, or professionally redone. We'll see.



Some of this stuff I bought so long ago, and there are variations on parts over the years, I'm going to have to refresh my memory on. This is a narrow tank for a Cordoba (and other late B-bodies). Used on cars ordered with the H.P. 400 and dual exhaust (std. tank is wider and offset to the driver side, eliminating room for the factory tail pipe and resonator, where this narrow one looks very much like a 3rd gen. Charger piece, sits centered in the body with room for exhaust down either side of the tank). Not very many made, which makes the tanks pretty rare. And it's not reproduced. Got this one as part of a lot purchase up in Toronto, Canada in the early 2000s. Was a new tank, modified with a sump (on the bottom side) for drag racing. Not sure if I'll use it as-is, or have a tank shop patch it. Includes a sending unit.



4 "Cordoba" hood seals, that go at the leading edge of the hood and seal to the core support. The '77 original is a very thin piece of rubber, and did not age well. My 38k mile car was missing it's seal, to give you an idea of how often they are missing. There is an original in that stack that I found on a Cordoba at Warhoops (salvage) back in '99. Sort of a miracle it survived. Still in good shape, semi soft/brittle. There's another thin one that is probably a '78/'79 part, which is just a subtly different design. Then there's the odd-ball, looks like that same '78/'79 design, but in a very different material...much thicker, and made of a very very soft, flexible material. There's a 4th one...but I don't know what it fits! A pair of Studebaker trim mouldings, and a new in the box bug shield for the Suburban that I didn't even know I had. facepalm



And another Mopar tank. As much as I have perfect recollection of who/when/where and why I bought that other one, I have no recall of where this one came from. Probably ebay, but it's a very different shape than the black one. Going to have to do some homework.



A 6-way manual seat base for the Charger, bought from a forum member (thanks Tom!).



Once this tank is cleaned up and moved (along with all the other stuff) to the back garage, that end of the side wall is done. Cleaners will take care of the rest (because they are not car parts).



But I still have this corner to do. The good news is it's not all cars parts. But there are some in there, and many of them big body panels.



I'll be out there again today.

A few more parts moved out yesterday.





And I started moving out and cleaning some of the sheet-metal.

This battered and abused 18" or so shortened Charger hood was a freebee from a Moparts member. Picked it up at Carlisle, and our third gen. Charger forum member Bob let us use his shop to shorten it (so it would fit in my vehicle). But there are pieces of the hood inner structure intact that I need to repair another hood, so it has value.



The cleaning crew was back today, and they helped me move the rest of the sheet-metal and some other items into temporary storage. With the attic now emptied out, there are two stacks of "stuff" to go through, then the interior of the garage is official cleaned out. Restoration crew will deal with the rest. Cleaning crew thinks they will be done on Thursday.

About 98% cleaned out now, though some of that is an illusion. The container is full of stuff from the attic that I have to go through, and car parts that I have to 1) ship because I sold them 2) clean and store in the back garage 3) clean and move to the storage unit with the Cordoba (a possibility for some of the bigger sheet-metal parts) or 4) write off as a total loss. Another long weekend of sorting, cleaning, packing and moving is ahead.

Started going through the container today. This had a little carbon on one edge, but it cleaned up nicely.

I'm looking at the melted mini blinds, imagining how hot it was in there to do that

Glad to see others that appreciate the Doba! Man oh man, a Doba with 400-4. Dreamy! I don't own one but definitely would love to have one.

Thanks. I'm sort of anxious to get back to working on it. After the detail shop cleaned it up, it looks pretty nice!

Been busy for the last few weeks with "other things". Just not enough hours in the day.

Getting close. Down to just large items for the most part. Did take an hour this evening and clean up this NOS fender, and an original hood seal for the Charger.

A few more pieces of metal today. Starting to fall behind a little. Going to have to get a lot done this coming week.



So how long did MOPAR continue to stamp out replacement deck lids for 75-77 Cordobas? At least through late November 1983 it would appear.

A couple of more panels done yesterday afternoon.

A few more panels knocked out. I keep telling myself the front garage is almost empty, yet I keep finding more stuff!

I have 4 of these for the new shop. This is the only one that was charred. I'll have to have it blasted again, and start over.









My Charger's original hood.






Cleaning up nicely (right side). A '71 RR 383/727/8.75 prop that came with the 8.75 axle I bought. Both headed into the Chrysler.