Cool '70 Challenger Project

MyBigBlockDodge

MyBigBlockDodge

Screw it. Give me the red AND blue pills.
A good friend of mine had a pretty neat project come into his body shop. A '70 Challenger R/T SE 440 6pack car :giggedy: It spent it's life as a stock class drag car, so the mileage is incredibly low (in the teens I believe). The owner who raced it passed away and his sister is having the car restored in his honor. Very cool I thought.

I just put a couple of pics on his site - They have not dug into the car yet, but progress photos will be added as it goes along.

http://www.genesisautoworks.net/photo_gallery.php

Thought you all would appreciate seeing a car like that.

Adam
 
that thing is in AMAZING condition..reminds me of the 73 BEFORE we painted it...exact same colors hood etc except ours was a 318...console shift auto white gut white top
 
That's a very pretty car... what a "find". That doesn't look like it's going to be a very tough restoration, either. I think it's very cool that his sister is doing that as a tribute to him. I'd love to know the option content as well.

I was never much of a fan of that window plug on the SEs, but I don't hate it either. I always wondered if people thought it was that cool-looking as to pay extra for the SE package to get that rear window. I knew a guy in Atlanta that had the strangest '70 Challenger R/T I've ever seen. It was a Hemi Orange R/T, 440/4-speed, 3.54 Dana car. It had manual steering, manual 4-wheel 11" drum brakes, and dog-dish hubcaps. When Steve got it, there were 4.10s in the Dana... one would think it was ordered as a drag car, right? Who the hell orders a stripper R/T to go racing, then adds the SE option and black leather bucket interior?! It was a non-console car as well. It was an unrestored rat, pretty rough for a Southern machine but very restorable. The original data tag and two broadcast sheets confirmed it was exactly what he claimed. That car always intrigued me, and I still wonder what became of it. I lost touch with Steve long ago, but a mutual friend told me that much of Steve's collection went away in a divorce, including that one. I imagine that broke his heart. The first time I met him was at his house, and he couldn't wait to show it to me.
 
That odd 70 Chally you mention Doc is probably just another plum crazy 440/6 RT/SE clone now.....Shame. :(
 
That would be a shame, because that's the kind of car that makes knowledgeable Mopar guys look at it and scratch their heads. Like I said, who the hell orders manual steering and brakes but leather buckets and the SE package?! I mean, manual discs I could see... either way, it was definitely an oddball car. The data tag indicated it was an ordered car rather than sales bank.
 
with options like that...it would HAVE to be ordered lol..cause teh factory isnt silly enuf to think one like that would sell
 
11" manual drums on an SE doesn't suprise me all that much. Disk brakes were fairly new then and I'm sure lots of people ordering cars didn't see the advantage of them. They grew up on drums. Bigger drums = better brakes in there experance. Why "waste" money on that "new fangled" "fancy pants fad they call disk brakes"!

Or why spend the extra money on "unneeded disk brakes" when I can spend it on vinyl and a window plug.
 
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A full-manual R/T-SE, including drums, is unusual... it's not the drums, it's the fact that they were manual.

Disc brakes were far from new at that point. In fact, they were standard equipment on the Duster 340 the same year. It was part of the package; you couldn't even delete them.
 
I'm not sure of the scope of this restoration. The body appears to be in great shape, but as we all know, pictures can be deceiving. I'm also not sure of the options on the car, but will ask Randy when I talk to him. Beautiful car - love that color. Maybe I can find out if it's still a numbers car.

Adam
 
Well, being that the car has such low mileage and was mostly used as a Stock-class drag car, I would bet that not only is that the original paint but that it's probably still got the original engine. Stock-class racers usually aren't nearly as hard on parts as dingle-nut kids out street-racing the hell out of their stuff. Yes, I did blow up a steel-crank 440 myself, but so much went wrong with that engine that I can really only blame myself (and my machinist, in part): Multiple mishaps during break-in, running with a far-too-lean carb for the initial few months, not fixing an oil leak for months, a detonation problem on #6 that I never really attempted to address, and very-often shifting it at nearly 7,000RPM I'm sure were all contributing factors. Even then, it still made it 28,000+ miles before it "fah down go boom" when the #6 piston finally broke.

Do you know if it's a Dana car? Which reminds me about the disc-brake conversation: the 1970 Super Track Pack automatically got you disc brakes; Steve's oddball R/T-SE was a regular Track Pack, as were all RB/Hemi four-speed cars. Part of that package included 11"x3" drums up front and 11"x2½" on the Dana. Discs could be had, though, if you ordered them separately. The Track Pack did not include the Dana on an automatic but the Super Track Pack did. All Track Pack cars were 3.54 Danas (four speed) or 3.55 8¾"s (automatic, even with the Hemi). Super Track Pack cars were all 4.10 Danas regardless of transmission.

Strangely, only one-half model year earlier you could not get disc brakes delivered new on an A12 lift-off hood Super Bee and Road Runner unless you had the dealer convert it. Like wheelcovers, they were absolutely not available on the 69½ Six Pack cars come hell, high water, or outright bribes. One should never say never with Mopars, but not a single one has ever surfaced.
 
I talked with the owner of the shop today and he gave me some insight into the car's history. It is a factory R/T SE 440 6pk car. The original motor is with the car but it has a cracked block. He's not sure of the extent of that until they tear it down. Original rear and trans are with the car, but it currently has a Hemi K member and rear in it - possible it was a 8 3/4 car originally and they put in a Dana for racing - not sure if auto or 4spd which would answer the factory Dana or 8 3/4 rear question.

Power windows, overhead console, leather seats etc from the SE package. It was repainted in the early 70's and it had a fiberglass hood on it which has been replaced (the color match is not good in the most recent photos he sent). California car and raced there it's whole life so zero rust and never had any body damage. Unsure of the original color at this point.

Not a lot of info, but I'll try to get more info as I can - he was slammed with work today and couldn't chat for long.

Adam
 
Well, if it was a Super Track Pack it would have had a 4.10 Dana as well as the discs, regardless of transmission. I don't know if you meant it that way, but power windows were not part of the SE package. I thought leather was still an upgrade over cloth but I'm not 100% sure on that. It may have been a one-or-the-other proposition. On the Hemi K-member: I'm curious as to how the engine is held in place as a 440 won't bolt to one. However, the Six Pack cars did have the skid plate similar to a Hemi car to protect the larger sump on the oil pan. 440-4V cars did not have it. A four-speed car would also have the torque boxes on the rear subframe like a convertible but I think they were skipped on automatics.

Keep us posted... it'll be fun to learn more about this car as details gradually emerge.
 
Hey Jass!
The original 440 is with the car, but not in it - no motor right now. The Hemi K frame is still in the car, so that will be part of the restoration process - back to original :) Think you are correct on the spring boxes, but I'm not sure he knows that info at this point. They just washed it up and that's as far as it's gone for now. Will pass along more as I get it - will be a fun one to follow along with for sure.

Did you look at any of the other cars on their photo page? Some nice stuff there - you may recognize a couple of other Challengers on the page ;)

Adam
 
I bopped around for a little while when you first posted this, but I didn't get all that far.

Depending on where that crack in the block is, I've seen my machinist friend do some amazing things to repair block damage. It can be hard to hide if it's external, though. I think the most-amazing one was him repairing a long crack on the RH lifter galley of a 340 using a drill fixture, anaerobic adhesive, epoxy, and about 40 socket-head set screws if not more. I remember looking at him like he was insane, but he told me no, the owner was.

I lost track of that engine and its owner a long time ago, but at that point it had a few years' worth of circle-burning use on it with no problems related to the repair. Stretch might remember the car; I think it was the only Mopar Street Stock running back then.
 
I know a guy here locally who has "re-discovered" a very old, almost forgotten method, of repairing cast iron. He wouldn't divulge how it was done, but he did show me a couple blocks he had repaired, junkers he was practicing on...one he even pieced in a large missing chunk of a bellhousing on one. You could barely see the repair. He even gave me a hammer and told me to pound on the repair.....SOLID as the day it was cast!!! I was impressed.

This guy is a very low key guy, does not advertise. Talent out the wazoo...been fabricating his own custom bike frames since a very young age, and been building top notch cars, bikes, trucks, whatever forever. Dad was a brilliant engineer, and he is probably even more talented.

The info you've garnered so far just makes you want to know a little more....Thanks for digging. :2thumbs:
 
Most likely, he was using high-nickel rod in an arc welder and heating the repair area with oxyacetylene. The trick to that is getting the repair area hot enough without actually melting it. I've seen it done several times; one of the guys I worked with at the short-run foundry saved more than one expensive casting in this manner. It works quite well, but it's tricky in tolerance-specific areas because they're usually thin and easily distorted.

20-25 years ago, it wasn't hard to old iron Hemi blocks used in drag cars that had cracked up the main saddles that had been repaired in this manner. You probably wouldn't want to build a 4,000HP fuel motor out of one, but for street use they were fine. They were also pretty inexpensive.
 
You also need to let the repirr cool slowly by covering it with a welding blanket and letting it sit untouched over night.
 
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