My youngest lad (24) went part ownership on the car on the basis that he insured it and drove it and did all the maintenance & upgrades on it. The plan is to Keep It On the Road apart from essential work during the winter only.
First job was to replace the heater valve as this had broken and had been bypassed. Next job was to remove all the A/C as this had ceased working years ago. Engine bay below before we started...
And whilst the A/C was being stripped out, the opportunity was taken to sort out the spiders web of wiring and relocate the battery cut off switch. The previous owner had spent over £6700 in the last four years, £2500 of which was having a replacement engine fitted (shame he let the original engine go) and the rest was pretty well spent on re-wiring, alternator issues, bad starting, ignition leads and other electrical items. Judging by the endless invoices from a well known American spares business in South London it looks to me as though he was taken advantage of.
AT the time we couldn't figure out how to remove the AC compressor and re-route the various fan belts so that's a future task.
The car was used throughout the summer with no problems at all other than replacing the Voltage Regulator as the battery was either being overcharged and boiling or it went flat! the new VR and a new wiring plug soon had it sorted. The We took it to the local Queens Square meeting, 2nd Sunday of the month quite regularly. First time there and what turned up but another Challenger.........the Plum Crazy 71 has just been totally restored by the local bodyshop owner so it was good to make that contact for any future major bodywork or repaint.
Early December the car has been taken off the road for a full front suspension rebuild and a few bodywork and paint issues....The main point is to keep it on the road and NOT do a full bodywork strip and repaint so only some of the bodywork will get done.
Three years ago I came across this garage space for rent just 10 mins from home and with my two boys this is where we disappear to when we have some spare time to mess around with our cars... Here's one last summer
SO the Challenger is now up on stands with the front suspension stripped out. All new bushes and joints are going back in with all parts blasted and painted. Got the front suspension kit from Chris at WASP and new shocks from Rock Auto plus a couple of new front tyres from North Hants Tyres as the fronts had scrubbed out due to poor alignment.
This challenger still had the LH threaded wheel studs on one side. The threads were very poor and a few were almost stripped of thread and the nuts had seen better days. All new RH threaded studs have now been fitted to all four corners.
Offside rear arch didn't look too bad and I was dying to have a poke with a screwdriver
So for now I am just going to patch this up. Ordinarily I would order a replacement panel but that would mean major bodywork for a few months to do both sides, so for now its make do and mend. I fabricated a small patch and welded it in. The chrome wheel arch trims will not be refitted.
And after a little bit of filler and sanding I got an acceptable result that will last for a couple of seasons before we need to do a quarter panel replacement. All the inner arch has also been cleaned back to bare metal and will be repainted, plus there is a small hole into the cill which I will weld up.
Well that will do for now. Other plans are to satin black the grille, paint the bumpers body colour, paint the standard wheels black, remove the badges, de-chrome the rear end, black out the taillight panel and tart up the various little bits of paint damage here and there..... More pics will follow.......
the idea was to have some fun not be buried in rusty metal 
This car will get restored one panel at a time !! 
The passenger side wing is fine other than dents & dings at the front corner.
