1973 Dodge Charger. "The Oly Express"

jimbob_racing said:

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

Can you explain why no road use? Taxes? Inspection? Emissions?

TuV:  It'd need to be in perfect original working condition to pass the technical inspection out here, and I just don't have the life-span or the wallet to do things twice (once for the road, and once for the track ). 

I got in contact with a company that specializes in importing vehicles to Hungary from America and they looked over my paperwork and agreed that I had what was required to show that it was

1) Imported legally

2) listing me as the owner.

So I'm good with that.

Tony Sestito said:

Serious question: if it's not for road use, where can you use it over there? I can't imagine there are many 1/4 mile tracks or things like that. Did you ship over a Ramcharger frame? 

Unfortunately no, no Ramcharger frame for Bill.

I have my sights set on 3-things:

1) HistoCup (Historical Cup Racing around the region):  https://www.histocup.com/

2) The PannoniaRing, HungaroRing, and the SlovakiaRing (all decent tracks within a couple hours of here, all offer trackdays for a couple hundred euros a day).

3) Kunmadras Drag Arena:  https://www.facebook.com/kunmadarasmotorsport.hu/

In that order (or maybe all at once!).

For the HistoCup, I've had a gander at their rule book.  It's small.  Like questionably small...  It honestly looks like as long as I show up with an NA V8 in this thing, then no one cares what other parts are on it (as long as it looks like the Oly Express should).  I'm going to hit the paddock at their August event.  I know there are a couple 70's dodges running, and I want to do some spy work.  More to follow.

GIRTHQUAKE said:

But imagine running donations to Ukraine in a 70s Dodge berkeleying Charger 

Oh dude...  yes.  Very much YES

So, since the decision was made to keep the car off the road that means I can keep the hood pins and get rid of the stock latch and spring assisted lifting assemblies:

It's nice having the decision made because that means I can really start moving without questioning things.  However, it doesn't change the fact that I'm a packrat and have trouble throwing ANYTHING away.  I've kept the glass I've removed as well as the window regulators.  But honestly, where do you think I'll EVER find someone that needs that stuff?

Hence the junk pile you saw in that last picture.

ooh!  Also in the junk pike, goes the charcoal canister (which looks to be leaking charcoal...)

Over the weekend I had a free bit of time (mostly because I'm good and used to waking up at 4am to sneak in the wrench time these days). So I thought I'd try my hand at some CAD (Cardboard Aided Drafting).

Now going back a bit, this was a big reason for my "stall" on this project.  I decided in my head that this support was a requirement (is it's the support for the lower bolt/mounting point, but since it needed to be bent in so many angles at once, I had no idea how I was going to make it into a 3D shape from flat steel...  Luckily the support bracket was mostly intact on the passenger fender so I could do a "measure and check" method of poor-man's blueprinting.

Here's what I got started:

Ok, that was the footprint portion, it's a simple 90-degree bend and I got it matched up almost perfectly.

2-inches up from that, I need to make about a 45-degree bend back towards me...

Pushing it down here the way I did for the photos, I got to thinking "can I just bend this to the curve of the fender by hand"

and it turns out I could (well, I used my knee as a brace but still)

Ok, that's as far as I got on that day.  I need to cut and bend the sides that make it a trapezoidal shape, and then I think I can just weld the three pieces together and Bob's my uncle.

But I can't help but wonder if rebuilding this support is really necessary for a race-car...  Should I have just welded a new tab on bottom that "would work", I wonder?

eh.  Dunno.

I do know that I'm insanely worried about my neighbors.  Running the danger wheel is LOUD, and Mrs. Hungary did report that she could hear it inside the house...  I really like my neighbors and don't want to be "that guy" so maybe I save the cuting and whatnot for daulight hours...

Ok, so not wanting to run any loud tools.  I chucked a wire whip into my drill and went to town on a random section of body work...

There's some pitting there, but I wasn't worried enough about it to make a repair patch to weld in.  That was the last of my epoxy primer though.  I went out in town looking for more last week, and the FLAPS guy tried to give me buildup primer (it was the only stuff they had) so I went online and ordered more.  Yesterday I got a notification that it arrived.

Unfortunately the underside of that inner-fender looks like this:

oof.

Having the hood off but not wanting to run tools, and still having no primer, I decided to take the truck off today...

4-bolts and a wire to a courtesy light later....

(I threw the courtesy light in the junk pile.  Not going to need that!)

I decided to remove the back bumper and the rear side indicators as well

2 things

1) it's embarrassing how dumb I've gotten when it comes to the US's measuring system.  I used to be pretty proficient when grabbing the correct size wrench for whatever nut or bolt I was working on.  Now I find myself struggling to remember what comes after 7/16ths...  Nevermind it's a 5/8ths that I actually need

2) this stuff is HEAVY!!!!  I swear the hood to this car weighs more than the rest of the entire car!!!!

good times.

Regarding some metal I found behind the back bumper:

those circled wing looking panels.  Do I need those?  they don't look to do anything (or to attach to anything)

If not, I'll toss them in with the other scrap metal.

If we're careful in our digging we can see how the car survived the 4-main eras of earth. 

Here we can see the silver of PreCambrian gave way to the brown of the Palaeozoic, and then the gold of the Mesozoic before being covered in black from the early Cenozoic and finally the life-giving blue of our current period in the Cenozoic...

I leaned against the front bumper yesterday and almost found out the hard way that there wasn't actually anything holding it in place...  Luckily it didn't fall, but I removed it and leaned it against the wall with the other panels.  In doing so, I gained access to the front bumper mounts, which were CAKED with rust.  This gave me a chance to play with some new stuff as I've been buying tools here and there.  Today I decided I'd try them out and see what did what.  First up was an air powered 90-degree angled doo-dad I don't even know the name for.  At work we call it a "Dotco", but in my garage I'm sure it's called something else.  Either way I'm hoping to use it for small sanding and cutting stuffs:
 

It worked.  I'm more used to using it on aluminum, so I was surprised how quick the steel ate up the sanding discs.  Also, it consumes air like it's going out of style!  My little air compressor can't keep up at all...  It'll be good for small areas where other tools don't fit, but not for bigger jobs.

Next up were some wire wheel attachments.  Nothing special

Again, most of my garage time is early morning so I was hoping I'd find a way to do things quicker with loud tools, or to do things quieter with air tools.  Neither worked, everything is loud, and I'm pretty sure my danger wheel is well into "wear hearing protection" range. 

All in all, I'm pretty sure nothing in my garage is loud enough to bother my elderly neighbors, but I am trying to keep things down anyway.  I've got some spare particle board and might try to build a hush-box for my air compressor, but that's about all I can do I think (besides keeping the doors closed, etc.)

All good times.

I do know this car gets attention like twice a year, and I am sorry for that.  I'm just so darn busy with the work in Ukraine it's hard to find the time and motivation to go work on something "for me".  Well, the weather was nice today so I headed out to the garage and picked up the danger wheel.

With it, I went and chopped off the drip rails.  There's a seam underneath that I'm going to have to wire whip, weld up, and re-grind, but it was a good hour or so of much needed play time (and that put me in a darn good mood).

Good times

Always love when this pops back up

chandler said:

Always love when this pops back up

Thanks, man.  I really wish I could give it more attention.

I was hit with a reality check the other day when I went to exchange my spare argon bottle at the local store and they wouldn't do it.  When I inquired further, they explained that it had been over 2 years since the bottle was purchased from them and I'd have to go to the next higher chain in the command.

2-darn years and I've used my welder so seldom that I didn't even realize the spare bottle was empty.  That one hurt a bit.

Oh!  I did make progress on the high performance coffee table a while back!

I need to support the glass so it cant tip so easily, but it's progress 

One of my favorite threads when it pops up! 

Keep at it as you can!

Reminder to self ... get Argon

Quick video update for you guys.

The thread I mentioned in the video can be referenced here:  http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,13886.0.html

It's pretty much just 15x8 with 4" backspace in the front and 15x10 with 5" backspace in the back.  This is supposed to clear the suspension and tuck underneath the current bodywork but we'll see.  

The slicks I mentioned that I wanted were either 26x9 or 26x10.  My notes have both, and I'm betting both fit (but the 10's probably bulge).  I'm hoping to pick up a dead set of slicks from a race track (is such a thing possible?  what DOES the tire tent do with all the old tires they get?) just for test fitting purposes (plus it'll make the car look REALLY good while I work on it).

I actually got lucky as my dyslexia with numbers knows no bounds.  When I used my notes to order the wheels back in May, I was certain I was all set to "click and go".  On a whim I thought I'd review the order real quick and noticed I had mistakenly written the part number for 15X7" rims in the cart for my rears.  There was a bit of panic as I frantically had to re-start the search from scratch for the 15x10's that I actually wanted (as I had a very limited window of "spouse approval for said spending" AND a willing party to haul them across the pond).

If there was a bright side to it though, it was that in doing so learned I'm going to need 45-degree lug nuts (as I noticed that these were not DOT approved and more googling followed). 

good times.