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Author Topic: Tazet's 69 Dodge Charger.  (Read 526964 times)
XL-erate
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« Reply #180 on: June 22, 2008, 05:46:57 PM »

Don't want to smoke your bandwidth, but thinking here: take advantage of some of the rust & damage. I notice one pic looking at firewall from front, at upper right corner near hood hinge, it's dimpled in, which would cause the frame leg on front driver's side to lift at bumper end.

Let's look at a 'Y', and name the upper left angled line 'A', the upper right angled line 'B', and the vertical line 'C'.

If you picture the Y on its side and with tip of A & B connected to a vertical line [firewall], then line C is horizontal. Line A is connected top, line B is connected bottom.

Look at that dimple in firewall as connecting point of line A of this imaginary Y, which being puled backward lifted the far end of line C, the front left frame horn. Pushing A forward lowers end of line C!

In another pic I see the floor pan just above torsion bar crossmember is but a fond memory. There torsional rigidity of the other line B of imaginary Y has been weakend, such that it could move slightly forward, again imparting lift to line C as front left frame horn. First restoring floor section allows a strong pivot point B for work used to move connection of line A [the dimple] forward, to lower end of line C, the frame horn.

Lower hoist, place heavy wood padding on all but left front frame lifting pads. Chain down left front of frame, causing downward pressure on farthest end of unsupported front frame member. If hoist has precise control, a slight lift of hoist will give a slight downward bend to unsupported left front of frame. If lifted just enough to cause slight tension downward [not visible movement] then heating area of firewall dimple cherry red with a rosebud allows metal to relax [like lengthening line A of the Y] removing an incorrect stress in frame structure.

You may also use the padding as described, and whip a chain around front left with turnbuckle, when tightened stressing downward.

It's a monocoque frame as you know, so it's assembled much like a cardboard box with horizontal walls fixed together above a flat vertical floor. Creasing/bending one wall moves all other walls. All you want to do is tweak the walls of the box, remove incorrect stresses and restore correct stresses to make the box 'square' and rigid again.

So the heat with rosebud at upper firewall starts to relax that stress which is pulling frame horn up. The door mounting pillar contributes as well, so that may need heat applied, wherever there is a wrinkle, crease or dent that isn't found on opposite door pillar. May be necessary to do some light hammer work to coax the metal.

Replacing metal in the floor at torsion bar mount, while frame is under artificial stress, restores strength of mounting point of line 'B' of imaginary 'Y'. Lok at it first to see if you want to replace that first, before putting any twisting stresses to frame.

A very small amount of artificial stresses can cause very large movements, so EASY does it, slowly sneaking up on the overall mis-alignment.

Picture door opening as a square, draw diagonal line from upper right [rear] corner to lower left [front] corner. By exerting pressure along that line the lower left is forced forward, pulling upper left rearward. Drawing out door opening and diagonals, and seeing a Porta-Power hydraulic ram cylinder as the diagonal you see you can manipulate the shape as needed. Moving one section down can cause another section to lift up. May be necessary to weld on a temporary mounting point for ram to suit the force you want to exert, cut/grind off when done. Suitable lengths of heavy wall pipe added to hydraulic ram as extension, and sometimes a chain arrangement to prevent things flying in the wrong direction or causing injury, allows you to manipulate almost any section of body.

Also want to use pads that spread force of ram over a large area, to prevent punching a new dimple of damage into body parts.

Many of us fabricators use 'Picture Puzzle' repairs. You may have a 3 foot long box section with major rust damage. Far too much to handle as a unit, so, don't! Instead cut out a small section 1" X 3" with a die grinder cutoff wheel, cut and weld in a new metal coupon in that one spot, move on to the next. I reconstructed the entire rear section of the lower door opening of my wagon in this manner, dozens of small bits to restore one large section! Your entire door mount pillar could be restored this way, one piece or section at a time.

Applying oxy/acetylene heat with a rosebud tip, quenching with wet rags, causes a huge amount of movement in a metal panel as it shrinks after heating. A friend straightened my driveshaft, mounted stationary in lathe bed with a dial indicator setup to show lateral runout along the length. He heated a tiny section of shaft at one end, about a 1" round spot to cherry red and said, "Watch!" I was amazed to watch dial indicator dial spin madly as metal cooled, straightening entire length of driveshaft! 3 little spots done like that, by a pro, and my 5' long heavy gauge truck driveshaft was straight as an arrow!!

Take advantage of your existing structural weaknesses, as well as taking advantage of sound metal, and work off of them to tweak parts back into shape. Simplest tools are about all that's required, and a warm brain to know what you want the end result to be. Nice to practice on a hopeless wrecked car to hone technique, then set to on the Charger. Matter of fact, a cardboard box and a few minutes of fiddling can teach you a lot about monocogue chassis construction and inherent stresses.

VB can probably explain much of this more sanely and in terms that make more sense. The major point is, YOU CAN DO IT! After 95% of the straightening and metal repair/replacement is done take the chassis to a collision shop, have them throw it on a frame rack and tweak it into perfect frame alignment, MUCH cheaper than Mr. Cu$tom wants to charge, probably a couple or few hundred quid?

Lastly, the rear section of my Wagon was rear ended by a 2006 Ford F350 4X4 doing 25 mph at time of impact. He didn't skid, instead didn't hit the brakes until after impact, talking on his cell of course. Hit so hard it rolled the bottom floor under, accordioned the entire left rear quarter into a vee shape, split left rear inner fender separate from quarter, bent all of rear doors support frames, crushed my 3/8" steel plate rear bumper, blew out 3/4 of the body welds on left side, wracked driver's door opening so door wouldn't open, cracked through all welds at driver door lower step section, threw left front fender and radiator support out of alignment, cracked windshield [!], broke cab mounts connected to frame, cracked welds along rear top of truck body.

By 3 weeks later, using a telephone pole as anchor point and chaining up truck, then dumping the clutch on my 375hp 360 I  yanked [no wisecracks] rear end somewhat straight, and using hydraulic jacks as Porta-Power, also a come-along chain hoist [hand winch], heat manipulations, lots of hammer work, picture puzzle re-construction of some areas, you can hardly tell it was hit. Total cost about $25 worth of oxy/acetylene. Po' folks find a way.  Smiley
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XL-erate
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« Reply #181 on: June 22, 2008, 07:45:51 PM »

One other thing: you can make up templates out of cardboard/ cardstock. Take the contours of passenger side door pillar, frame, firewall, whatever and compare to driver side. Make whatever adjustments or weldments are necessary to match the bad to the good. Use cardboard templates to match sections of metal you cut out to new metal sections you'll weld in.

Check out the tool offerings from the company at link:

http://www.eastwoodco.com/

This can give some ideas how to fab up your own tools at home to do the same jobs, and it gives a hint at some bodywork techniques.
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tazet
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« Reply #182 on: June 23, 2008, 07:02:18 AM »

Thank XL for all this info. Think I need to sit down with some photos alongside as I read to fully understand and ready very slowly. It must have taken you ages to write all that and I'm very grateful. Will have a proper read after work once the photo galleries are sorted from the weekend.   Grin

Marcus you are right about the reputation thing and John does come highly recommended, but it's at a price and a price that I just can't afford at the moment and no I didn't hpi it when I bought it.
« Last Edit: June 23, 2008, 02:10:18 PM by Manky Monkey » Logged
XL-erate
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« Reply #183 on: June 23, 2008, 08:48:48 AM »

Sorry for the much words, Taz, but wanted to try to give a picture of what can be done. I had no choice on mine, the money was all gone  Huh [As usual....]
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tazet
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« Reply #184 on: June 23, 2008, 04:23:29 PM »

I know the feeling with no money.  Sad Don't appologise. It's very good of you to take the time to write all that. Now I've just got to take the time to understand it  Grin

« Last Edit: June 26, 2008, 04:34:36 AM by tazet » Logged
XL-erate
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« Reply #185 on: June 25, 2008, 06:34:53 PM »

The point of the exercise was to explain that all components in a vehicle are working with or against compression, tensions, or shear forces.

If shear as in cut, then it's a big old honkin casting, a graded bolt, or a heavy fabrication. In compression it's like the top tube on a bike frame, where the forks are creating a rearward pressure against the walls of the tubing, like stomping on top of a beer can. In tension it's more like pulling force, with tubing or stamping walls used to distribute the pulling force which could cause tearing, like pulling a wad of gum apart.

You can manipulate various pieces, stampings etc. to correct the wrong forces that are caused by the accident. What you're doing is unloading incorrect tensions/forces by reversing the action that causes them. If something got pushed up, which caused something to get squished in, all you have to do is push down and either heat the squished area or pound it out to normal to remove squish.

One huge advantage on Mopars is that magnificent torsion bar suspension! By tweaking the torsion bars on either side you can lift, tilt, or lower either side! Once things are close enough to set camber with either adjustments or shims, and caster is corrected by bending frame components then the torsion bars can solve any remaining ride height problems. The torsion bar boxed frames are extremely important, that they and the surrounding metal be as good as you can get it for strength.

Just a crude pencil drawing to explain to yourself what's wrong is all it takes to realize how simple it is to make it right. Referring to the 'Y' discussion, everything is either up, down, right or left, or a combination. Seeing which direction you want to cause force or release force solves the entire problem, if you have sound metal to work with. It's surprisingly simple, if you let it be....  Smiley

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shabby
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« Reply #186 on: June 26, 2008, 07:54:34 AM »

taz hun get on fleabay and have a look at this http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/440-ci-big-block-V8-engine-comes-with-gearbox-and-prop_W0QQitemZ330246632713QQihZ014QQcategoryZ100952QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
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TIDY
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« Reply #187 on: June 26, 2008, 02:30:50 PM »

Taz Hun's away for the weekend so you're stuck with me I'm afraid. She's at Sandringham in Norfolk, with her boss's carriage driving team.
Engine sounds like it might be worth it -would probably cost more than the current 270 quid asking price to rebuild her old one. Anyone know if the camper van big blocks are the same as other big blocks fitted to Chargers & the like?
« Last Edit: June 27, 2008, 07:00:45 AM by Manky Monkey » Logged

On the last freedom moped out of Nowhere City.
shabby
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« Reply #188 on: June 26, 2008, 10:02:23 PM »

hope it is and hope it helps  Grin Cheesy Cheesy
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« Reply #189 on: June 26, 2008, 10:33:23 PM »

Watching it on Ebay.  Wink
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shabby
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« Reply #190 on: June 27, 2008, 01:49:54 AM »

TIDY  MATE  Grin
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TIDY
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« Reply #191 on: June 27, 2008, 10:03:54 AM »

never took mine out was a 6.9 diesel auto
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More metal than skin
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« Reply #192 on: June 28, 2008, 08:37:16 AM »

Some 413 motorhome big blocks used a different water pump setup and cylinder heads, pumping water into heads in front. Not sure on the 440's if that was still done later.
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« Reply #193 on: June 28, 2008, 12:09:57 PM »

So is it worth buying this one then XL? Would it give her the performance boost of a "normal" Mopar 440? Or should we stick to rebuilding the 383 she's got?
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« Reply #194 on: June 28, 2008, 12:58:32 PM »

I take it that a 440 is 440 cubic inch ?,so therefore 440 is BIGGER than 383,bigger is allways better,where engines are concerned imo Grin
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