My first car was a '68 Charger which I bought (in 1976 when I was 18) for $500. It was not in the best of shape, but it was painted bright blue and was an eye catcher and I loved that car. I sold it a few years later and I have always wanted another Charger. After seeing this Charger R/T on
Doug Panter's web site, I emailed him to see if he might be interested in selling. After a few months of talking back and forth, I bought the car from Doug in the late spring of 2001. That summer I didn't do too much to the car except repaint the wheel covers and have the tail lights rechromed and repainted. I drove the car to a few cruises and shows and had fun driving it. In the spring of 2002, some fellow mopar fans, encouraged me to repaint the motor and engine bay. They assured me that they would help and we could be done in a few weeks time. How could I refuse if they were willing to help me? Another mopar buddy of mine suggested that as long as I was pulling the motor out, I would be wise to check the compression and get the valves reworked if necessary. And so the project began. Steve, my neighbor, helped me do a compression check and one cylinder checked out low at 75 lbs. compared to 130-140 for the others. The motor seemed to me to run very strong, but as long as it is out, now would be the time to get a valve job, (I am not a mechanic by the way). Bob and Tom came over one Sunday in May and helped me pull the motor. I took the heads to a local machine shop who replaced the valve seats, and reconditioned the heads and valves. Meanwhile, I started the process of cleaning the block to repaint it. After discussion with my mopar buddies I decided that again, as long as I have come this far, I might as well take the motor all the way down, get the block boiled, cylinders honed, (they did not need to be bored as they were still in very good condition). The crank turned out to need the thrust plate rebuilt and had to be re-polished and re-balanced. We replaced the rings and bearings, as well as the cam and lifters (same specs as Doug had put in the car back in the 80's / 284-284-68* lift .484"intake and exhaust, centerline 108). I also replaced the original oil pump with a mopar high volume pump, which still looks stock. I replaced the Edelbrock 600cfm carb with the original Carter 680?cfm AVS which Doug had saved and I had rebuilt.
[This could possibly be from 575 to 630cfm, according to the way they sized carbs to engines back then. -Example here- With reference to a statement on this example, Please note: Chrysler engineers also knew what they were doing.]
As I worked on stripping the paint from the engine bay, I decided that now would also be the right time, (with more encouragement from my mopar friends) to pull the front suspension and get it sandblasted, powder coated and replace all the bushings. And as long as every thing else was out, I might as well pull the steering column (which would be in the way of the repainting anyway) and restore it as well. Wouldn't want to get everything else up front good looking and neglect that, right? My son, Steve talked me into restoring the gauges as long as the steering column was out. So out came the dash and gauges. I ordered a decal kit from Performance Car Graphics and my son Steve did the work of sanding the gauge faces down and installing the new decals. I left because I couldn't watch. When I came back home, he was done and they looked super. One more item that I decided to restore (as long as it's out) was the steering wheel. Doug Lepak did the restoration work on the wheel and it looks awesome. I highly recommend him. Bob and Tom helped me re-install the motor in October. I reinstalled the grill, which I had restored, and they helped me reinstall the hood. All I need to do now is get the front end aligned and I will be back on the road. Unfortunately the snow is coming now as it is December so I guess the fun is on hold until next spring…