MY CHARGER

As he sat, Sept. 14th, 1996

My charger started out as a 1970 500 on February 13th with a 318 and 904. It was painted a greenish-gold and had a black interior. It went through a lot of hands before I got it, I think I'm "M" on the title. I picked it up on September 13th, 1996 (a friday, by the way) for roughly $800. It had no brakes, and the engine barely ran. What I didn't know was that the floor and trunk, as well as the frame, were gone. I got it home and started to get to work on it. I cleaned out all the junk inside the trunk and decided I would need a new trunk floor, or at least some patching. Then things really went downhill. First, it had decided that it wouldn't crank over anymore,(due to a missing distributor hold-down bolt) so I decided to vacuum out the interior. I noticed a lot of little pieces of paper coming out from under the backseat, so I pulled it out. I found a rat's nest (absent the rat) made of a newspaper and what was left of my buildsheet. That's when I realized what all those little things were under the seats and on the block; rat droppings. While I was cleaning that out, I heard a "crunching" noise under my feet. After taking out the two bucket seats, I found the floor to be mostly gone. Then my neighbor pointed out that my frame was missing. Well, things weren't looking up. Then I gave up and bought another Charger, a polar white 68. That's another story in itself. That one didn't turn out better than the 70, but I liked it a lot better. It had been rear-ended; not severely, but no bodyman would touch it. But did it run. I had been paying for everything myself to that point and was running out of money. Then my father offered to pay whatever I couldn't to get the frame fixed on the 70. I decided that was better than nothing, so I went back to work. The first thing to do was to get it running. Parts were pulled from the 68 and after replacing the carb, wires, hoses, oil and filter, fuel filter, plugs, cap, rotor, points, condenser, coil, gas lines, air filter, choke pulll-off, and battery, it cranked over. It was loaded with carbon. For a few months every time I fired it up the garage floor turned black. The problem was that I had originally wanted a 69, so I was a lot closer with the 68. Now I had to switch to the 70, so I decided to make a 69 out of it. Right now, the interior is gutted because I just had the floor, trunk, and frame put in. I hope to have some pictures up soon. The car had been repaired before, evidently. It had new floors put in, the frame fixed, and a new trunk, as well as quarters. However, they overlooked the window seals and water just went right to the floors and trunk. Then the guy who owned it before me decided to get aluminum siding and "fabricate" pieces of the trunk and wheelwells. This guy must have owned stock in pop rivets. He used at least 500 to keep it all together. He was an artist with aluminum. I just got it all covered with por 15, so the next step is the body. All I need is to have the window channels fixed, two fenders, and some light sanding. Well, I got the fenders, and a few other parts, and I have to say the charger has never been better. That 69 front makes a world of difference, not to mention the parts I added to the engine (only the high comp 68 heads, an edelbrock highrise dual plane aluminum intake, and a holley 650 cfm 4 bbl). I picked up all the parts for the window channel repair and I'm waiting on the guy to weld them in. Then its just windows, a little wiring, and exhaust before I am street legal. Things are finally starting to work out with this thing. UPDATE Here is how things sit now - all the frame and floors and trunk are done - the window channels are repaired - beautifully, I might add - after all new lines, wheel cylinders, power booster, shoes and a master cylinder, the brakes are finally good - currently waiting to finish putting on a set of dynomax headers and thrush glass packs,(they're on and sound great) and to put in all new steering gear(I gotta update this again - all new tie rods and stuff is on now) - after that, it'll get a new gas tank, go for inner fender installation, after which i will POR 15 the whole car, paint the engine bay and engine, pop in that 8 3/4 rear, hopefully with better gears, replace the u joints, then send it to be undercoated, inside and out. After that, its time for the wiring to be fixed, wiper seals, dash to be painted and put back, front and back windshield glass to be installed. Then all i have to do is have the body lined up, sanded and primered. Then the interior gets dyed and put back in the car. I'll have to build up some more cash and have it painted. Then maybe a 440. Better get to work!
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