My new patina'd RR1 burgundy 1968 Charger ("Ribeye")

Since my survivor 1969 R6 Charger was totaled in December of 2018, I have been wanting another driver quality Charger to drive while my pro touring 1968 Charger is being built. I spent three months on the couch recovering from surgery so I spent a lot of time looking but I didn't get serious until about 6 months ago. I really wanted a B5 or Q5 Charger, but so does everyone else! We all know, most original paint cars seem to be green....IN January I found and bought a really solid R4 Charger out of Texas. It had a cheap repaint but was complete. Not two weeks after buying the R4 Charger, I came across this RR1 Charger just 30 miles from me. It had mostly original paint (with a few spot ins) and some greats options like black vinyl top, white interior, cruise control, rear defrost, power breaks, power steering, AC, 3 speed wiper, etc. It had great patina and the paint was chalky/oxidized but I knew my paint detail guy could do wonders with it. The grill is perfect!! It had been a Kansas car all its life. It spent inside for the last 5 years but was outside quite a while before that.









It spent one more night outside while I cleaned up and reorganized the shop.

Step 3...Call up a buddy who does detailing and ask him to schedule me in. He came over with a bunch of different pads and polishes and did some test patches.

For some reason, the patina on the hood and decklid remind me of the marbling in a ribeye steak....hence the nickname. I knew it would look cool but I didn't realize HOW COOL. I never thought I'd like burgundy so much. I think that the primer shining through the thin burgundy really brightens up the color.







I will get some pictures of it outside in the sunlight.....with better wheels!

More to pics to come...reserved...

That is looking awesome !!! Great options too !!! . . . congrats !!! Damn, wish I had a shop like yours !!! . . . . enjoy !!!

Happy for your recovery and I'm sure the Charger will receive proper attention from you.

Looking forward to following along

It's great to hear you are doing well.

I love the patina, the shop is what really makes me jealous..

Can't wait to see the finished product.

Glad you healed up OK. Great find on the '68.

That's a great color. Is it fairly uncommon?

I think it is fairly uncommon. I've only seen a couple burgundy Chargers before. It's especially different with Burgundy paint, black top and white interior!!


I tried to remove the vinyl top glue with 3M adhesive remover and acetone but the glue was not coming off so out came the DA.

The trunk floor had a big hole in the middle where water had collected. I spent about 6 hours cutting out the majority of the trunk floor and grinding spot welds.

I'm that guy that keeps pulling the string when it comes to his cars....

I started knocking undercoating off the bottom of the car. I wanted to stop at the seam where the rear passenger foot well pans meet the sheetmetal under the rear seat, but the vibration of the needle scaler would knock loose undercoating up to 12" ahead of where I was working so I ended up removing all the undercoating. The needle scaler has a way of finding the soft spots. The cabin floor pan had looked so good prior to removing the undercoating but now showed pin holes in both front floor pan troughs where water in collects. The worst damage was under the passenger seat, which seems very odd. I called 521 Restorations and ordered a full set of cabin floor pans. It's overkill for sure, but I've come to hate floorpan patches when I can remove and replace the whole cabin floor so easily. Tomorrow I start removing the cabin floor pans...

You just never know what you are going to find. Good thing you looked.

A few more pics of the driver's side floorboards...

Well, the day got busy and I only had 1.5 hours to work on the floorpans but the right air chisel makes quick progress of the sheetmetal removal...I still need to go back and remove all the spot welds/sheetmetal strips.

Nice work

It's A LOT of work is what it is, damn my hat is off to you as I could never never do it. As UCUDANT said though very nice work.

My stepfather did kind of the same thing as you with his friends 1968 Chrysler 300, the front floors were rotted as the car is a fast-top and are known for it. That said he cut out part of the floor that was not salvageable and welded in new pieces. Here is some of the work that was done.....

I dig it !! Love the look of the Sheetmetal replacement.. One day would love to learn how to do that....

Are you going to spray a satin or regular clear over the buffed original paint?

Well done...

Thanks! For now, I'm just going to leave it buffed/waxed and see how long it lasts before it fades. It will be out of the sun so it should last a while

I pulled the dash frame yesterday so I could clean the window channel and firewall a bit and found a Chrysler inspection tag on the A/C box. I thought that was pretty cool. I ground down a bunch of spot welds in the cabin and trunk. I was surprised and pleased with the overall condition of the wheel tub lips. They were all solid except for where the two tub halves meet at the very back.

I've been putting off removing the undercoating from the rear wheel tubs because its such a nasty job but I finally started in on it yesterday. Small areas of the undercoating had fallen out over the years. This way I can seal and undercoat everything from the firewall back.

I used a $30 ebay needle scaler and if you haven't used one to remove undercoating, you really need to. It FLIES off....which is why its so messy!

Since removing the rear bumper, the oxidized paint that was behind the bumper has been annoying me. Sounds stupid...but its polished now!

I'm finally getting back on this one. I am going through the dash now. I cleaned up the dash pads....so nasty. Just cleaned them and used saddle soap to condition them. They turned out better then I expected.

A big push was started so I can hopefully drive it in the spring/summer of 2021. a week ago I tossed some wheels on it, rolled it outside, blew off a bunch of dirt/dust/rust, and took some pics before I transported it to a friend's shop, where he will do some rust repair, weld in new floors, and paint the roof. It hadn't been out in the sun since it was polished up!

This first issue was a weird one: it looks as though the the factory let this Charger leave with voids/gaps in the joint between the top of the right forward pillar and the roof skin. The vinyl top didn't help things any and the top forward corner of the windshield channel rusted through in several places. It was the only spot around the front window. Before and after pics showing the patches...






The right rear pillar was puffing out at the bottom of the quarter to roof joint/seam. The bottom of the lead joint was melted out to see what was needed. The rusty area was cut out and replaced with a fabricated patch. Before and after picture...

This Charger had quite a few hail dents...nearly all the roof dings/dents have been removed.

The Charger came with white seats from the factory so when I removed the white seats from the car and found the broadcast sheet for a much earlier 1968 Charger, I was very disappointed. But i contacted the guy who I bought it from and he gave me the name a previous owner. After several weeks of trying to set up a date to meet, it finally happened. His parents bought the car in 1969 when it was only one year old. He told me he had the original seats in his barn. The charger had a harness fire and he had removed them due to the smoke/soot on them (I think they will clean up). The barn had a dirt/gravel floor but fortunately the seats had been sitting on the trunk of a Satellite. I flipped the seat over and the broadcast sheet was there! It was bunched and brittle but mostly there. Together we extracted the sheet and I took it home where I flattened and laminated it. I also struck a deal on the original front and rear seats. More pics of those later...Here are pics of the broadcast sheet.

That Charger is nice! That is great that you were able to get the original broadcast sheet back! Keep posting info /pics for us!

The guy who had the broadcast sheet came across some cool family pictures that the Charger was in so he texted me some pictures. The snowy picture was from the "Blizzard of 1971" (in Wichita, Ks) and the camping picture was from 1972. Notice the trailer that's hooked up in the camping picture. I love this kind of history!

The Dutchman's panel was removed.....the plenum underneath also needs replaced...



So it got removed also.




The roof gutters were media blasted and cleaned up nicely.



And roof was sealed in epoxy

Nice job on the roof dents

Thanks!!

This car had lots of door dings down the side and hail dings on the roof, deckled, and hood. My PDR guy I've used for the last 7 years retired so I found a new guy and sent the passenger side door and deckled out for a test run. He did a nice job!

Before..

After...


The door after...

I just got the hood back from the PDR guy and it looks great!

The two piece trunk floor is in place!

Rear filler panel support and rear filler panel are now installed. The rear filler panel fit better then anticipated. The flanges that are spot welded together needed pulled/clamped together but I am pleased with the fit overall. The first two pictures are of the real filler panel just resting in place. The rest are after its welded in place.

Lots of progress on a cool project!

Excellent work repairing that rust!

Looking great!

God I can't wait until I can get back on my car.

I know that feeling. I have had to put some of my cars on the back burner for several years at a time. My 70 Cuda has been on the back burner for 6 years now since I've become infatuated with 68-70 Chargers. LOL


Cabin floor pan is in place. The insides of the subframe rails were treated with POR15.

The doors were pulled in order to rebuild the door hinges. Once the driver's door came off, I was a bit frustrated. My best guess is that the poor leading of the upper pillars allowed water to run down the pillars, which rusted out this area below the upper hinge. I called 521 Restorations and ordered up a driver's side post/pillar. It's so weird how such a solid car has rust in such odd places.

Here's the passenger side. It was also super disappointing to see the first time. But an original donor section was used and I think it turned out well. It has to be the poor lead work at the top corner...oh well!

A disappointing issue to run into, but nice repairs!

It's just metal, it can all be repaired.........nicely done.

Right rear valance corner was repaired and console brackets were installed.

Rear window corner patches and welding up the rear window staple holes...finally done with sheetmetal repair. Bodywork starts soon.

Another milestone. Nice work!

All the filler work is done and the trim has been test fitted.

Epoxy sealed

Pillars have been spotted in, door hinges have been rebuilt, and doors have been hung (and they close so nicely now). Now that the doors are in place, it makes me appreciate the work the PDR guy did to remove the dings!

That's looking really nice!

Thanks!


Tinted UPOL raptor liner pics

Well done!!!!! Keep the pics coming.
My humble opinion that the '68 Chargers are the best looking cars of all time will never change.

That stuff looks great!

Thanks!


Bottom side has been undercoated....took two full gallons!

Trunk gutters and rear filler panel have been painted. Rear filler panel was deliberately sprayed thin in areas, to mimic the patina of the original filler panel. I'm pleased with the color matching

Since the PDR guy took out most of the door dings, my paint buddy has been wanting to take a shot at polishing the original paint. I was doubtful it could be improved much but I was WRONG! Look at the light reflections in these pictures!

Car looks great.

Thank you!


The top was painted last night!

What did you use on the roof? Assuming this lat black is a sealer of some sort to go under a vinyl roof?

The flat black is actually a satin single stage finish coat. It had a black vinyl top originally but I don't like what vinyl does to roof skins so I elected to just paint a black top on it. If the next guy really wants to, he can install a vinyl top!

I have been slowly picking away at interior. I have a new Legendary carpet that has been rolled up in a box for 13 years, so it is taking lots of time to form it to the floor pans....hence the sand bags in the picture. The rear upper seat had a clear plastic cover on it that was half on/half off, which is why it has a dirt line that runs from corner to corner. The rear seat cleaned up pretty well, but has some yellowing/staining.

I installed the rear wiring harness, taillights, rear bumper, and this antique tag I bought on ebay. That tag is now my permanent tag.



I also cleaned up the door panels

Rear window and trim are installed. I cleaned up the window but left the vintage radio station sticker.

Spent some time cleaning and polishing the engine bay. The passenger side is in much better condition then the driver's side so don't expect as good of results on the other side!!

Gonna pull front suspension and rebuild while you're there?

I bet he could pull the torsion and then slide the lower control arm off without unbolting the pivot pin!!

Yes!
Finally pulled all the original front suspension parts out for refurb/replacement. So many rusty cotter pins...I'm also trying to figure out what I want to do for front brakes. This thing has drums on all four corners and that's not fun.

My friend has a RR1 '68 Charger, only one I've ever seen in person in that color.

With 5 kids, work, school board, etc, I've not been making much progress on this charger. But I've also been trying to be patient as I've been waiting to make a deal with a previous owner for the complete numbers matching 383-4. I've known where the engine was for the last 3 years and the owner was willing to sell it. The engine is in a Satellite he owns and it hasn't run in over 20 years. We even came to an agreement on price three years ago, but I can't get him to take any action. I've offered to pull the engine for him...I've offered more money for it...He has turned down my offer to pull it and he just won't ever get around to doing it himself. After three years, I've come to the conclusion it won't happen any time soon and I'm tired of waiting. I had also completely rebuilt and powder coated all the front suspension. So the direction is changing for the better.

I'm going Gen 3 hemi, A518, Vintage Air, and RMS front/rear suspension.




Also, I noticed that there is not blackout treatment on the front of the radiator support...and the radiator support has not been repainted.

I'm also going with disc brakes and bigger wheels. Don't judge the wheels just yet. It will look a lot better at ride height, which will be lower. If I didn't mention it earlier, I had my paintless dent repair guy work out the hail dents and door dings.

Awesome overhead shot of the garage!
Is that a T7 white hat special 69 Charger I see there.

Close…it’s T5 with a white hat and saddle interior. Original paint!

The chrome Road Wheels looked perfect on that Charger.

RMS 4 link has been mocked up. Will need to pull/paint/reinstall later.

Catching up a little bit...

Got the Charger up on the lift to mock up the drivetrain...




Mounted the cast manifolds first, which are from a 6.4L Jeep Cherokee SRT8. These headers are cheap and they actually came factory on Jeep SRT8's which had 485hp, so they can handle the power and won't break easily. I paid $125 plus shipping for them. The driver's side engine mount had to be redone to accommodate the cast headers. The mount was originally straight...now it is curved.

It's kind of hard to see in these first two pictures, but the tunnel had to be clearanced to get the transmission up into the tunnel where it needed to be.




The torsion bar crossmember lips were trimmed down in the tunnel and a plate was welded in.

Nice! Looking forward to riding in this one!

Me too! You can drive this one too!

Haha, I still laugh at the look on the guys face at Mo-Kan when I asked to drive your Roadrunner...

Exhaust mock up

Subframe connectors

I'm going to make a real push to get this thing together and running before summer is over. I sent the transmission crossmember out for powdercoating but took a couple pics first.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/H9Ldrcmh.jpg?1[/img]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/koCFSFBh.jpg?1[/img]

Nice work.

Kind of silly to geek out about this....but I'm happy with the powdercoating results. lol

Nice work! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pic from below of a bare block and tranny case mocked up in a car.

Just some of the blown up/damaged junk from the 85+ SRT8s/Scat Packs/Hellcats I've parted out!

Keep it going!! Love these type of restos.