MrMopar goes Topless

i believe you are right that it is a shoulder bolt. the arm for the rear bow pivots there.
 
After inspecting the top system and realizing it was not a major leak I chose to just power through it and put the top down. New cylinders and hoses were ordered.

Here are some pictures to get a better idea to the overall condition of the car and just how cool of a car this is.
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The Spring Special trim (missing its DODGE lettering), also note the grill is polished with no paint.
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Hard to see in this picture but the fender extension is banged up
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Well not much to say here, the other side is just as bad, no buffing this out.
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Both the visor brackets and the mirror mount are heavily pitted.
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The wheel covers along with the 500 trim are polished, will need to be cleaned up and painted.
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Throughout the car it is showing its age but overall it is a solid car.


Alan

They're parting a 69 vert here. Looks like the fender extensions are good...they may even have your "DODGE" letters.

69 Monaco Convertible Parts Car
 
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Time for a run of updates...
McMaster is generally pretty quick with orders and I got the hardware I needed to fix the top pivot bolt.
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Installed the new lines but they were way long, 16" on each side, not easy hiding this semirigid line. I'm going to look into this some more.
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I was curious about the Spring Special trim and went to remove it just to fined 5 studs through the hood holding it on.
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Once i had all the new exhaust in the car it was banging against both the frame and the torsion bar on the left side, this same exhaust was used on a friends car with no issues so I needed to have it looked at.
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So I took the car to an old school exhaust shop and had them look at it, we heated to pipe up and put a flat spot where it was rubbing the torsion bar. When I fired it up it was just as bad, he was still under the car and said I needed to see it. We swapped and he gunned it (in gear) forward and reverse and you could see the engine rolling bad, the engine mounts were like Jell-O.

I had a set of quality mounts already so we spent the morning swapping them out, not as easy as you would think.
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No worries, we had a cradle to jack against.
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When working on it we bumped the distributor and the cap came off, turns out it only had one locking strap (that way when I got the car). It still had the factory original distributor.
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Not wanting to use the original distributor and fix it I chose to get a new one and upgrade to electronic ignition. Like the CHP car I chose to put the module in the fender.
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Not wanting to wait till I had the new electronic distributor I used a slightly used points one, with everything lined up it fired right up.
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Alan
 
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Lets see, take a car sight unseen and drive it 540 miles, no problem.

Bad gas smell (no problem)
Fusible link ready to break (no problem)
Exhaust dragging (no problem)
Starter relay dying on the road (no problem)
Distributor cap held on with one strap (no problem)

How in the heck did this car not die driving out the driveway?


Alan
 
Lets see, take a car sight unseen and drive it 540 miles, no problem.

Bad gas smell (no problem)
Fusible link ready to break (no problem)
Exhaust dragging (no problem)
Starter relay dying on the road (no problem)
Distributor cap held on with one strap (no problem)

How in the heck did this car not die driving out the driveway?


Alan
The car knew you were gonna take care of her and wanted to make sure she showed you she would take care of you.
 
Just when you think a car is interesting enough on its own you learn more of its history.

With the car I got some paperwork that had information on the previous two owners. I started with the most recent and contacted him on Facebook, he purchased the car 1993 sight unseen in Washington and had it shipped to Alaska, a year or so later he drove the car to Arizona and restored it where the car sat unused for most of 10 years.

He then had the car shipped back to Alaska where it again needed some restoration now about 2004. This time the interior was done and the engine rebuilt. Where it again sat for another 13 years or so, occasionally being fired up.

Summer of 2019 the car was shipped back to Arizona where it ultimately ended up being sold at Mecum in March 2020.

Now that isn't all of it, he mentioned that the car had Spain license plates on when he first got it in 93. With the car when I got it had paperwork showing it last being registered in Washington in 1988. Right now I'm speculating that the car came to Washington or changed hands in 1988 and shortly there after went to Spain, then sometime about 1993 it returned to Washington. I'm going to reach out to that owner to see what I can find out about there time with it and if they know of anything prior to 88 (them or other?)


Alan
 
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One thing I noticed when I got the car were these rivets in the trunk opening channel. They don't seam to serve a purpose and don't appear to be original.

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Alan
 
If I was to have a new forward lamp harness made is there any reason I shouldn't put the Super-Lite wire in it? Most likely will, seams silly not to.

Not much else to report, rebuilt the carb, accelerator pump was on its last leg, surprised it ran at all.

Did get it out on the highway after all the tuning and it ran great, still a little hesitant to got too far as the suspension is in bad shape. Not really a problem as the weather hasn't been all that good, rain, cold winds.


Alan
 
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Juneau Alaska winter 93/94, car was intact when he got it (June 93) so he must have started working on it.
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Plate that was on the car when he (the previous owner) got the car., plate is 8x11. Spain
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Alan
 
Just as I posted that I received another picture.

Sitka Alaska sometime between 04 & 08, owner was the Sitka Mayor at that time.
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Alan
 
Great in depth history behind the car. Nice to ( as the owner ) have an understanding of her past.

:thumbsup:
 
Took some time to pull up the carpet and inspect the floors, I had peeked under a couple times and saw enough rust to warrant a more thorough inspection and cleaning. Most of what I saw turned out to be surface rust and cleanup up quite nicely, I did take my rotary tool and go over the full floor hitting all the grooves and areas of surface rust. The only issues were a handful of holes in the front right foot well. Once I take care of those I'll put a coat of sealer on the full floor.

Not bad for a 52 year old convertible that spent time in Alaska.
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Alan
 
It has been a while since my last update. The car went into the body shop last July and five weeks later it was painted. This version of the B9 blue is far better than what was on the car.
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Once I got the car back home I waisted no time in pulling the front frame assembly.
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That out of the way I got the firewall stripped.
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Discovered a rust area, will get taken care of prior to painting the firewall.
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Once again my garage is taken over with a split 69 Polara
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On the left side my socket didn't want to stay on the ball joint, I win.
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The starter bolt was broken and you can see where they tried to drill it and remove it.
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Engine and transmission removed.
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While I waited for my body guy to be available to finish out the firewall I made a patern of what I felt the repair should look like.
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Couple weeks later I have the frame back from the powder coater.
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...more

Alan
 
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The new (NOS) sway bar bushings needed to be put on the strut bars. Boiled the bushings for about 5 minutes and with a mallet and a socket I was able to knock them on (later found out too far)
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I took the transmission to my friends shop where he welded a nut on the stud, it took multiple attempts to get it clean enough to get a good bond. Even still it took me a half hour of back-n-forth to work it out.
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The engine assembly was scrubbed with dish soap, brake clean multiple times.
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I found an NOS brake hold off valve but it didn't have the bracket. This is the NOS valve attached to the original bracket.
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I carefully drilled the rivets and tapped them, it almost didn't work, the wall was quite thin.
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The original bracket was counter sunk and machine screws into the rivets.
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The frame largely together.
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Just need to grease and cotter pin everything
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Original dipstick tube was bent multiple times, took a while but I found a correct one.
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Firewall painted
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Alan
 
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