1970 Road Runner 440+6
Owner: Chuck Buczeskie
This is my latest Mopar – a 1970 Plymouth Road Runner in EV2. It’s a numbers matching 440 Six Barrel with a 4-speed, Dana and Air Grabber. Ed found it in May of 2007 while visiting Don Fezell. Don had purchased it with the intent of restoring it but with 80+ cars and several other projects this one was waiting in line. Ed told me about it and emailed some pictures. I loved the car but it was more than I wanted to spend. Over the Summer I kept thinking about the car and talking to Ed about it. We ran into Don at Fall Carlisle and discussed the car and a price. We drove up to look at it and I agreed to buy it. It needs a few things but it’s a very original and solid car. Some of the things I’ll do are replace the carpet, upholstery, headliner and heater core. The transmission’s tail shaft is cracked so I’ll either replace it or have it welded. I’ll rebuild the linkage while I’m at it. The heater core was disconnected so I’ll replace it and restore the heater box. I’m going to replace the rear spring at some point to raise the rear end.
Here’s the car as I received it. It has 15” Cragar S/S wheels. The hood pins are not factory and the key is missing. I’ll install factory hood pins. The vinyl top is in excellent shape but the car is not coded for it. It doesn’t have the dust trails but it does have a reflective black stripe on the trunk lid. It’s a real N96 car. Check out the vintage Road Runner license plate! The interior is complete however the horn doesn’t work and the radio knobs are MIA. The carpet is in very nice shape but the inside got wet and there’s an odor so I’m replacing the carpet, seat upholstery and headliner.
The inner fenders and hood hinge mounts are solid. I need to locate stock exhaust manifolds, valve covers, coil, and coil bracket. I’ve purchase the correct wire straps and installed some of those. The heater core leaked and the hoses were disconnected. The engine needs a good tune-up!
Most of the interior has been removed. The front of the driver’s floor has been replaced. The rest of the floor is solid! Now that the seats, carpet, door panels, glove box and heater box have been removed I will scrub the floors to remove that musty smell. I have cleaned the trunk and installed a new trunk mat.
The heater box has been removed. There was a mouse nest on top. I think that added to the smell. The box is dirty but in good condition. Everything works but I will restore it while it’s out.
You can see where the heater core was leaking. I’ll replace the heater core with a new one. I disassembled the box as far as I could without drilling out the rivets or cutting the welds. It’s missing a couple sheet metal screws and the foam needs to be replaced.
Since it’s winter I cleaned the main unit in my bathtub. It took a lot of spraying and scrubbing but I think it turned out ok. I purchased a new heater core from Auto Zone. I read on Moparts.com that the new cores rarely fit so I was prepared. The tubes were at least ½” off. I used a propane torch to heat the soldered joints and repositioned the tubes. I had to add some solder too. I sanded all the bare metal parts and sprayed them with primer and a metal color. I purchased new foam tape and metal screws from Lowes. The main cover sanded and repainted in satin black. I was able to retain the stamped number in yellow.
Here are before and after shots. I think it looks a little better than when I removed it.
There was hairline crack in the floor by the inner rocker on the right side. I had to cut a 2”x.5” hole and weld in a patch. It’s as good as new. While I was there I removed the surface rust on the floor.
There was a hairline crack where the right rear frame rail attaches to the rear floor pan. I butt welded the crack and cleaned up the weld.
The floor has been primed and painted. The paint matches much better in person. The heater box can be seen behind the glove box area. The Pistol Grip shift lever has been removed to test fit the new Trim Line carpet. Although the carpet fits OK, the ACC carpet that I put in my Belvedere fit much better.
The upper rear seat is getting ready for disassembly. The vinyl held up pretty well with the exception of one tear. The frame has a lot of surface rust but otherwise it’s solid.
Most of the hog rings have been removed by using the two pliers shown on the right. It’s a slow process and you want to be careful not to tear the padding.
The frame has been wire brushed and sanded. A small metal clip that held two sections of the frame together had rusted in half. I had to make a new one using a piece of sheet metal. The frame has been painted black and is ready to have the new upholstery installed.
I bought some parts at the Chrysler Classic Winter Swap Meet on Feb 23, 2008 and decided to install some of them the next day. I purchased a set of the Top Catwhiskers inner and outer door glass seals, small gaskets between the outer door and glass, and the gaskets that seal the door glass to the rear side glass.
The vertical gasket at the end of the door glass pulled right out. I removed the three screws and gasket at the end of the door to give me better access. After cleaning the channel I did a test fit.
These are the new and old seals for the end of the door glass. You can see how worn and distorted the old seal was.
Contact cement was applied and the new gasket carefully installed using a blunt screwdriver to push the gasket into the channel. The missing small gasket was installed next. The inner door glass seals looked great but I’ll replace them since they’re part of the kit. The outer seals appear to be made with the seal installed upside-down from the factory.
The original seat padding has been installed using hog rings.
The new Legendary upholstery has been pulled over the bottom corners of the rear upper seat. I’ll place the seat in the warm sun so the upper section can be pulled over more easily. The metal rod lying across the seat was removed from the original upholstery. It has been installed in the channel along the top part of the cover. The hog rings will wrap around that rod to hold the cover in place.
Wow! That was a lot of hard work. The upholstery didn’t want to go on. I had to remove it and start over twice. I used zip ties to help pull the covers in place. The covers were a few inches short on each end before stretching. The corners were another big problem. I ended up using my seal puller for leverage. It has a rubber handle that was safe for the vinyl.
The upper rear seat is installed. I even remembered to install the medallions. Time to work on the lower rear seat.
The lower rear seat is done and ready to be installed. Both parts of the rear seat are done and test fit. It looks good to me.
The seats looked so nice that I decided that the headliner should be replaced. Everything from the roof has been removed and it’s time to pull down the headliner.
Yuck! The mice built a couple nests up there. That explains the smell! I could have cleaned it and reinstalled it but new headliners aren’t too expensive.
New headliner insulation is installed and the headliner is prepped. The loops have to be trimmed to fit the bows. I didn’t trim enough so I had to trim again after it was installed.
The headliner is in but there are a lot of wrinkles. I fixed that by trimming the bow loops and pulling the edges tight. The next picture shows the finished product.
The speaker shelf and trunk divider get covered with jute padding from Lowe’s. There are 6x9 Kenwood speakers in the rear so I had to trim the jute for the speakers.
The upper rear seat, door panels and other trim are installed. The rear view mirror and left sunvisor are installed. The interior is almost done!
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Mopar Rebellion
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