My latest progress

[Tejas]

I brought my Duster home from the sand blaster today.
It was completely blasted down to the bare metal then painted with epoxy primer.
Along with the body shell I had the same thing done to the doors, front fenders, trunk lid, K frame, front valence, header panel, hood latch support and the interior sail panels.
You can see how bad the rust was in the spare tire well and floor boards, you can see right through them.
I've already received all the replacement panels so I can get started on it right away.
Man, I got a long way to go!

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[Tejas]

More pics!

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[CudaDon65]

Good luck with your project. Keep us posted..we like pics here.

[Bakaruda]

That is the only way to go.

[fasttcars]

awesome man good luck ....what are all your plans for the car?

[eldubb440]

looks all too familiar  .........now the fun begins

[Tejas]

awesome man good luck ....what are all your plans for the car?

To start with, 4 new floor pans, trunk floor, trunk extension panels, both quarter panels, both door jamb panels, subframe connectors, spring relocation kit and mini tub.
I already have all of those parts so I have a lot of cuting and welding to do.
After that I'll do the suspension with new ball joints, 11/16" tie rod ends, poly bushings, some of Bills A arms and strut rods, .920 torsion bars, XHD leaf springs and sway bars front and rear. I need to find an 8 3/4" rear end.
The engine will be a 470" stroker motor running about 500 horsepower with a 727.
Eventually it will be B5 blue with a blacked out fiberglass six-pack hood.
Like I said, I have a long way to go. 

[west]

did the sandblaster do the primer too,what did it cost?

[Tejas]

did the sandblaster do the primer too,what did it cost?

Yup, I took it to Tri-City Contractors in Arlington Texas http://www.e-tri-city.com/
They sandblasted the whole thing along with all the other parts down to bare metal and painted all of it with an epoxy primer for $900.
I think that was a pretty good deal considering a few other shops around here quoted me $1800 to $2000.

[west]

i wish i had gone that route,not a big fan of the media everywhere but it sure saves alot of time and effort,and it will be a much nicer resto too.
900 sounds like a deal to me too.

[440WIP]

Yep, I agree - thats $900.00 well spent. After just changing the heater core in one of my Dusters I can really see why some people go that far. Anything less is just not enough. I'm actually surprised that there are any Mopars left at all, and not all just a bunch of rusting hulks. Mother Mopar did not build very watertight cars. Good luck with your build.
Daryl

[doug 371]

looks great. nice way to start a build

[dangerdawg]

    

[Tejas]

Off to a start, sorta.
I had to remove the bucket seat floor plates to start to fit the floor pans in.
I whipped out my trusty die grinder with a cut off wheel and made short work of the welds on the floor plates.
Then I get out this cheap grinder I bought to grind off the remaining weld smooth. I bought this POS grinder at a flea market for $6. Yea, six bucks.
I plug it in and fire it up and the damn thing is growling and vibrating like crazy and I knew this was going to be interesting.
Just barely touching it to the metal to be ground resulted in an instant stop to the wheel and and lots of white billowing smoke pouring out of it.
Well I figured I would get six bucks worth of entertainment out of this thing before I pitched it into the trash so I kept using it till it stopped turning anymore.
When it stopped working (it never really worked in the first place) I threw it into the driveway so it could stop smoking and cool off.
The neighbors are now convinced that I'm crazy because of all the smoke coming out of my garage and off the melted hulk of a grinder laying in my driveway and me laughing my ass off! 
I'm off to Home Depot to buy a real grinder.
Later!

[loiq]

I like the Makita 4" - it's like $50 and comes with a case.

Your floors look like mine.

[Capt Jack]

wow.  that pic of the spare tire well had me thinking "whats all that white stuff on the sheetmetal?"

until I realized it was sunlight.   

I envy.  I also agree that anything less that $1k is a good deal for that work.

[440Dreamin]

looks great - keep the progress reports coming!

[Duster440]

Wow, nice clean slate to start from. Should make life a lot easier. Keep the pics coming with your progress.

[Tejas]

I thought I posted the floor-pan and door jamb pics but I guess I didn't, here ya go.
The drivers side door jamb had a rotted out hole the size of my fist and the passenger side was f**ked up as well.
I cut out the bad metal and made some patch panels to fit back into place. I welded them up and spray bomb primed them for now.
Both of the rear and the drivers side floor pans got replaced with replacement pans, again spray bomb primer for now.
Added US Car-Tool laser cut sub-frame connectors which didn't fit as advertised. They didn't tuck up close enough to the floor pans to weld them to the floor so I cut off the contoured portion of them and boxed them in to make them more rigid, it seemed to work pretty well. More spray bomb primer!
Today I removed the trunk floor and trunk extensions, it was a bitch. Just getting everything cut out took about 6 hours.
Tomorrow I'll do a little more trimming and start fitting of the new trunk floor in and hopefully start welding it in this weekend.
Here are a bunch of pics!

[Tejas]

More pics!

[Tejas]

Two more!

[Cpt Panzer]

wow I wish I could just find time to make that kind of progress looks nice ...the only question I have does your sand blaster use a 12ga or a 16ga because it has a pretty tight patern. Iwonder if I could borrow it . I could clean up at the turkey shoots

[Tejas]

wow I wish I could just find time to make that kind of progress looks nice ...the only question I have does your sand blaster use a 12ga or a 16ga because it has a pretty tight patern. Iwonder if I could borrow it . I could clean up at the turkey shoots

Shotgun, that's funny!    Yep, that trunk was pretty rough.
When I took it to get it sandblasted the guy asked me..."You are going to restore this thing?"
I looked at him proudly and said Hell yea! 

[Cpt Panzer]

git-r-done I should be out in the toy box sanding not in here typing . but I just cant help myself.

[ValiantOne]

WOW! That is such a great start. I can't wait to see it come together. I will have to live vicariously through you for a while:)

C

[73tartdart]

I'm doing the same thing you are! I primed the car after blasting myself. Make sure that you pull all the body plugs under the cart and use a water hose and clean out ALL the sand!!!! If you don't, water will keep the sand moist and wet and rust will be soon to follow. Don't forget to clean the cowl area with water as well. I used a good seam sealer from Keystone in a caulk gun. Seal everything!!!!!!!!! I'll post some pics of mine when I get home.

[Tejas]

Here are some more progress pics.
This is what I've been working on this weekend, welding the new trunk floor pan in.
I still have to do a little more welding to get it finished but it's in there and solid as a rock.
I also still have to install the trunk extensions but I think those will go in at the same time I replace the quarters.
Woo-Hoo!

[CudaDon65]

Hi Tejas, nice work. Are you going to minitub, move springs?? Keep up the good work.

[Tejas]

Yep, next is the spring relocation kit and mini tubs.
I'm going to save the quarter panels and trunk extensions for last.

[CudaDon65]

Please keep the pics coming. .