Challenger Driver/Project

[73DAD]

Bought my '73 Rallye back in October as a temporary replacement for the Road Runner. I've been using it for my daily driver/commuter since mid March, racking up 6,500 miles. Enjoyed driving it so much that I'm thinking its here to stay.

The RR hemi project is stagnant while i wait for the block to ship, so i figure its time to give the challenger some TLC.

The fenders are shot, quarters shot, floors transparent, and the grill is beat up. The '71s are my favorite styling year so I figure as long as all that stuff needs repaired or replaced, I may as well convert it over. An 80 dollar 71 grill at the Nats this year made that decision easy.

I'll try and post some pics tomorrow, so you guys have something to look at.

 

[moparleo]

Good deal. Keep us posted.

 

[73DAD]

Let's see if i can post a pic the right way...

Bingo! there we go. This pic is from the ad when i bought it in october last year.

As bad as it looks, its actually much worse. If the drivetrain hadn't been new, i would have passed on it.

 

[dongei]

I like it, wish I had one.

 

[73DAD]

Removed the rear valance and bumper over the weekend. The big bolts holding the brackets to the car were the biggest pain in the neck! One rounded off the head. All but one valance panel bolt either twisted off, had to be cut, or ground off with an angle grinder.
Hammered the valance back into shape. Removed the rubber impact pieces from the bumper (again, bolts twisted off).
The bumper was deformed, looked like someone yanked it with a tow hook. Gave it wack or two with a sledgehammer and "fixed" it.
Zipped it all back together again Sunday night with new hardware and drove it to work this morning. Now that it all comes apart quickly its time to order some early bumper brackets and tuck those suckers in!

A pic of the rear when I first got it, sort of a "before" pic. Need to find a good camera for the "after" pics...

 

[73DAD]

Fender tag

Interior

360 4bbl

 

[73DAD]

Not much to update, ordered bumper brackets Tuesday (Jegs) and attacked the four front bumper bolts last night.
Had to use a breakover, expletives, and WD40 to bust 'em loose. Three of the washers cracked and broke, and half of the bolt heads snapped off. All but one was necked down badly from rust.
I saw a couple unused bolt holes (must have been three bolts per side originally) so i used them to replace the snapped ones stuck in the frame.
Starting to see a trend: remove one, snap off two, swear, repeat. Oh well, progress is progress. It still got me to work this morning despite a carb issue that has cropped up.

 

[73DAD]

Pulled the Edelbrock carb yesterday and popped the top off. There was so much dirt in the bowls I don't know how it ever ran in the first place. Imagine a ketchup packet worth of sediment. Ordering a rebuild kit later today.

After the carb started acting up, the diff suddenly got real noisy last week. It always did whine a little.

Yanked the 2.94 one legger out of the roadrunner over the weekend, and promptly dumped gear oil on myself. Any reason why it shouldn't swap right into the Rallye other than the u-joint?

 

[Adam]

What a headache with the broken bolts! You might be able to avoid the broken bolts on the front end. Eventually the front bumper, grill and fenders are coming off, right?

The bumper bracket and K-frame nuts are enclosed inside the front unit and you certainly dont want them breaking off inside. You can drill a couple of small holes above the bolts/nuts and hose em with liquid wrench days or weeks before removing the front bumper. Then its an easy matter to mig up the drilled holes.

 

[73DAD]

Rebuild kit showed up yesterday so I completely disassembled the carb for cleaning. Looks like mostly some loose dirt and slight varnish.

Hoping to get it running again before the weekend, but still have to do the diff swap. Not looking forward to that!

 

[73DAD]

My brother was visiting this weekend so we worked on the car quite a bit.

We reassembled the carb saturday afternoon and put it on the car. Wouldn't fire, found out power wasn't getting to the coil. Not surprising considering the sad state of the engine harness. We ended up soldering/repairing a few wires going to the starter relay and that seems to have done the trick.
The car fires up on the first crank and idles clean now with the rebuilt carb!

Sunday evening before he left, we dropped the worn out diff. There was crazy amounts of play in the pinion and the wear pattern on the ring was all over the place. Whoever "set up" the rear last time didn't put the retaining clip on the adjuster on the passenger axle and i had to borrow it off the Roadrunner.

I cleaned up the housing surface while he cleaned the Roadrunner's diff surface before RTV'ing both, then I manhandled it in.

I still need to get a new u-joint since the yoke was different, bolt in the axles, set the play/load on the wheel bearings, and fill the housing with new oil.

Then it's back to daily driving for a while! I took pictures and left the camera at home, I'll try and get them up tomorrow.

 

[73DAD]

Darned computer won't eat the SD card from my camera.

The rear end is buttoned up so I went to make a test drive and... no spark. There is still a problem in the engine harness somewhere.

Wiggled the connections, wire nuts, and "repairs" by the PO then it fired up on the next crank. Went out on a short test run and no more gear whine!

I'll probably yank the wheel off one more time and tighten up the axle endplay. It felt like more than the .018" max my service manual spec'd.

 

[73DAD]

Figured out the electrical problem! A connection on the ballast resister was loose. Hooked up the electric choke last night and it works great as well.

Went to Norwalk's swap meet over the weekend, picked up trim rings and center caps for my magnum 500's for 75 bucks! Still waiting for my bumper brackets to ship from Jegs. Its been a whole month since I placed the order.

While at Norwalk, I spoke with Dave Hughes and asked him if he knew anything about the situation with Mopar Performance hemi blocks. He claimed they quit making them altogether. I can believe it. My block has been back ordered for 6 months, but why would they take the order at all if they didn't intend to fill it...