Nice to see your progress Zippy! I remember your car running pretty good waaaaay back for a 451" streeter b body.


I will try to find it on stupidbook and follow along.

Glad you’ve been making strides.

On the bullet turns, you made the correct call. Those are WAY cooler. On that note, I had an Oct 68 built 69 rr that was a lynch rd car. It had the bullets so I’m not thinking your car is off base. I’m sure they just used what they had laying around. I’ve never heard if you had a choice when choosing the option on early 69s.

That's a deep dive right there Zippy, once you get into it at that level there's no turning back.

I had my Charger on a rotisserie in my garage for 2 years over a 4 year rebuild so that was eye opening for me to say the least. Thing is, once you get past the initial fear, it just happens. But geez I'm jealous at you guys being able to easily buy decent replacement sheetmetal, I had to track down NOS parts that are over 50yo for my project; I cant buy new tail panels, qtr panels, hoods, nose cones, fenders, decklids, trunkpans or any of the stuff you can over there.

Looking forward to see it come together and finished, great work man !

Nice work Rich! I always enjoy seeing progress made! They wouldn't call them projects if they could be done overnight!

TY....You're probably right. I am no expert, but it just seems they ran out of them sporadically at the very beginning but went back to the bullet style asap.

Thank you LAD.
Availability of reproduction parts has been good since 2009ish.
It all had to fall in line with the rest of life circumstances. I consider myself lucky to be able to chase this.

TY! Someday I might ask you or one of the other authorities to move this to another area.

For now I do appreciate you guys letting me get away with posting it in the Race area, though I will be a street/strip guy for the forseeable future and this
is not exactly racing bodywork

Appreciate it.

The 451 is still a sweetheart, but it's going to be bittersweet to run it one more time and smoke out the shop with fogging oil before it comes out.

Lots of history with this silly thing. Alot of things in life may have turned out very differently had I not bought it.

Had you not started off as a famous parts manufacturer and author before doing youtube, maybe things on Youtube would be slightly different?

Not trying to be patronizing or blow smoke by saying that, just making the point that people are online looking for you and whatever you've put out there because of previous activities.

I do have a separate automotive channel that I have not kicked off, other than putting a name to it.
Did that because I have just about as many views for music and guitar stuff as I do for automotive stuff, and I don't feel my name has much going for it in terms
of marketability, so probably better to separate things.

For a basic nobody like me, I think the trick would be to not have any expectations and just try to help people out and talk about topics they're interested in.
One of them should be the legend of the 451CI Chrysler B engine, and I'll have to drop your name if/when I do that.

Thx Joel.

"One thing led to another, now I'm waiting on parts" =Story of my life

A little archeology/study and talking to OE/restoration experts has helped me understand a couple things about the car better than ever before.

Got the windshield out and found evidence of the original paint (color: A4 silver), and also very blatant evidence of the V21 performance hood stripes.

I was surprised to find those, as the car didn't come with air grabber (no hole in the firewall for the cable) and as far as I know came with
almost nothing otherwise. 440 4 speed, 3.54 dana, AM radio/1 speaker, manual drums, oddly power steering, vinyl top.
No console, no air grabber, but someone paid extra for hood stripes...well OK.....

I don't plan to ever rebuild it to exact stock specs as long as I own it, but since I finally figured out what most of the stock specs are, might as well document them somehow.

Zippy, another big congrats on your project! Huge undertaking, which VERY FEW can accomplish.. 👍👍

Looks great. I personally likw the work building them. Then when someone asks "Who did this ir that it looks good" . You cab answer I did. That will make it all wirth it.
Doug

Thank you sir.

Thank you sir.

I did it before too in the early '90s, but nobody said it looked good, because it definitely didn't... so I never had to answer for it

It's not all reproduction parts, though.

Some pieces, they don't make, and you have to go after them the old fashioned way.

The trunk lid bolts on, so the thought is "I'll just find a better one, and change it".
I found only three. They were all $500 and way worse than what I had. All the better ones had 10k cars attached to them.

So, I didn't have to plan and decide for long, the decision what to do was made for me.

Severe surface rust from my early-90s lacquer job total failure, years of outdoor storage, and just general neglect.

People took pictures of this rusted area at the track....patina is really "in".....but not my thing. Never was. It just happened.
The bottom 2" of skin was holed through in several places, and the lip was gone on the backside but not as bad as the pieces sellers wanted $500 for.

You can sort of see the hem flange is cut off, and the bottom 2" has been replaced.

I didn't want to blast it, for warpage concerns.

I didn't want to dip it, because I wanted the original color on the backside preserved, just in case I decide to shoot it original color,
because if I went through that much effort I'm enough of a geek that I would want the color to more or less match what it originally had.

There is also some graffiti on the trunk lid that, after lots of guesswork, I finally heard from an expert who laid it to rest.
There is a thread about that here: https://board.moparts.org/ubbthread...h-rd-trunk-lid-grafitti.html#Post3003875

On a more race oriented note, I did accumulate a fiberglass decklid many years ago, and mocked it up, but decided against it in the end.
Clearly I am not a very serious racer, I'm not building an all out race car, and it will be street/strip capable as long as I own it.

The rebuilt hem flange and backside came out excellent, the repair does not show at all.

The trunk lid was/is more work than it should have been,

WHEN your done, tape up all the "holes" on the underside of the lid., pour in about a quart of por 15. Rotate the lid every 5 minutes or so , get the por 15 in every crevice. then drain the excess out. This will prevent the edges from rusting out ever again , and protect the work you just did.

Nice to see all the work you putting into it

I suppose 451boy could stop by to help you kick off your channel

TY...I wouldn't mention you without your permission