Winter 2003-2004
First thing that I noticed was that some rust has been formed
underneath the vinyl top. The vinyl had some holes in it, and in addition, it
wasn't original material. It had thin layer of soft material on the back side,
which unfortunately acted like a sponge. After a rainy day or washing, I noticed
that these holes felt wet days after! Also, water entered into the trunk,
and I knew that there must be some holes at the rear window area. So, vinyl top
was removed and replaced with a new one. It was a much more work than I
initially though (there were some serious trouble when installing the new
one...), but it was worth all the trouble. Now roof looks just perfect!
I always wanted to have a R/T Charger, but nowadays they are out
of my reach. So I decided to make a R/T clone out of my Charger. Rear end was
already build for the R/T specs, but front end needed complete rebuild. I
ordered 440/HEMI front torsion bars and a set of polyurethane bushings. I chose
poly, because car is mainly cruised around town, and therefore I wasn't concerned
about the elevated noise. And after all, I think running a big block
with one muffler per pipe, you shouldn't be that worried about the 'noise' the
front end makes...
Making a R/T is pretty straight forward. I ordered all required
emblems from YearOne, along with the bumble bee striping. After some time it hit
me...I cannot have a 383 on a R/T! So I started looking for a 440 engine. After
all, 383 is a cars original engine, so it might be a good idea to store it for
the possible restoration. Finally I found the 440+727 package from 1973 Monaco.
Engine seemed to run fine, and transmission was recently rebuild, so I bought
the entire package.
After some tuning engine started to run fine. Although, it
certainly is not as 'sharp' as my 383 was, but seems to work fine as a driver.
Torque is definitely better...the rear tires tend to skid maybe little too
easily. I made a promise not to burn that much rubber during next
summer.........
Click images for larger image
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Winter 2003-2004 - Vinyl
top
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Just peeling the old vinyl off the roof.
The sheet metal below was quite ok, just a few spots of rust on where the
top had holes in it.
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The rear window area was rusted and
required welding. All welding work by 'PaHa'. Thanks dude!
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A roof sheet metal fixed and painted.
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I ordered a new vinyl top (along a lot of
other stuff) from YearOne. Here, top is half glued on, another half just
about.
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Top is glued but not yet trimmed. Trimming
was done with a sharp razor blade. The vinyl top moldings were installed
and top was trimmed using the moldings as a reference. Then I cut another
couple of millimeters. After that I lightly sanded the metal and applied
some body colored paint to the seam areas.
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With moldings installed a new top looks
just perfect. That was definitely worth of all that trouble.
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Winter 2003-2004 - Front
end rebuild
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Starting to rebuild the front end. This is
how it looked when I started.
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Everything removed from the wheel well.
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A set of Energy polyurethane front end
bushings waiting to be installed.
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A lower and upper control arms back in
place.
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I cleaned and painted the wheels silver.
I'm not sure if this is any better than the previous color, but at least
it is a change..
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Winter 2003-2004 -
Engine swap
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Old engine is out. Funny, but now that
looks like a old piece of dirty metal...
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A 1973 440 engine from -73 Dodge Monaco.
Just arrived to our garage. Engine has a forged crank, but quite low
compression and 'emissions era' cylinder heads. Compared to my old 383, I
may lose some top end power, but I hope to gain some on low end torque.
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440 almost ready to be painted...
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First coat of paint applied. This time I
decided to use Mopar Street Hemi Orange for the engine.
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Seeing the engine ready makes me wonder why
I ever used the turquoise for the 383, this looks so good!
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440 going in...
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...and there it is!
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Winter 2003-2004 -
Others
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Since this is going to be a R/T clone, it
needs to have bumble bee stripe! A local company made me a copies of the
YearOne stripe kit, which was then applied . The striping definitely makes
the rear end look more 'muscular'.
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The R/T emblems are there now also. Front
wheels are waiting for the front end rebuild to finish. Also note the new
black license plate. In Finland, black background license plates were used
until 1971 (about), after that, all new plates were white with black
letters. In my opinion, black plates fit so much better to the old cars.
Also note the new tinted rear window. Thanks to Kimmo for letting his
extra one go.
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