Road Runner Nest

I'm going to give this a try. This is my '71 RR resto. My dad bought this car 32 years ago. He knew the original "Mom and dad" who inherited the car in the summer of '71. Their son bought it in '70, was in the Army, and was killed in Nam. "Mom and dad" drove it to church and the grocery store. The dad died in '83. The mom told my dad she was going to sell the car. At first, my dad dragged his feet about buying it, so she sold it to a different person. Then my dad kicked himself, found the guy, bought it from him in '85. In that time, the guy told us the strobe was coming off, and he took the remaining off, putting on the "Starsky and Hutch" strip on it. . The guy blew the original engine, but a 383 from '69 in it, and found out some other surprising stuff during the tear down. Anyway, this is how we got it. It ran like a rapped ape but needed help. I started to take it apart and now, I inherited it and its mine. I've put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears in it to get it to the stage it's to the present day. Bear with me, I'm trying a re-size program to post pictures (THANKS 71_Bronze_Gtx)! Enjoy, MORE will come as I get acquainted with this program

Another

I'm also on other Mopar sites as well, FBBo and Moparts to be exact. So, If I don't post all here, look over there because I'm going to start a thread, finally. I'm building this car the way I WANT to build it. I'ts not EXACTLY factory but I don't care.
More specifics- The car came with a 383 (NOM), A/C, power steering, power drum brakes. The car is retaining the same components but not necessarily "factory". So, It's kinda like a "Frankenstein".

I have MANY pictures before, during, and after. So if there is something specific anyone wants to see, I might be able to show and help. That's what these forums are for, right? To see what others did, learn, and to help each other out in this hobby.

Nice car and with the story behind it, she deserves some extra respect.

rradar71 wrote:Nice car and with the story behind it, she deserves some extra respect.

That's how I feel and she's getting it and then some. I'm on FBBO as rrTor-red, so check there or here for everything. There, it's easy to post without hardly re-sizing but thought I'd give this new program a try.

Kudo's to you for starting this thread!
It will let others that are thinking of doing work on their Road Runner's that it's not too tuff, but it takes determination.
Around here (southern Onatrio, Canada) there are not alot of these cars around.

Looks like a good solid car to start off with. Without the numbers matching 383 - you have an open slate to make it your own. Good luck!

sdweatherman wrote:Looks like a good solid car to start off with. Without the numbers matching 383 - you have an open slate to make it your own. Good luck!

That's my thinking, Scott and yes it is a solid car. VERY little rust on it. I might take it to a local show but mainly just drive it on nice days kind of thing. I'm sure I'll run into someone who will say "Well, that's not factory", or something. Yet, I don't care

Ok, here we go. Spent the last 2 hours or more going through pictures and re-sizing them. So I'm hoping they all come out. Here are some pictures of the car after I took the motor and trans out. Again, there was a lot of under coating on this car, which was a pain to get off, but in the end it saved the car from rust.

Only rust on the car was a little bit behind the left and right rear and a quarter size on the passenger door and right front passenger inner firewall. The bottom picture is a close up of the top. I forgot to get a picture of the passenger door, oh well. I decided to replace the rear 1/4 extensions and fixed the door and fire wall.

I put the car on a rotisserie that me, my friend, my friends brother-in-law made. My friends bro-in-law had all this steel tubing laying around and a welder. My friend, his bro-in-law have a '69 RR/GTX and a '70 'Cuda, respectively. My car was the guinea pig but then theirs was next. It cost was our time to plan, layout the metal, and beer . I bought some hydraulic rams for it from Harbor Freight and casters that would hold 1,000lbs each.

Before the last two pictures in my last post, I need to show what the underside looked like. I did install torque boxes and frame connectors. Simply for the beast going in it...wait for it....

As I stated, the car was sold to some guy who had it for about 2 years. My dad tracked him down and he bought it. In that 2 years, it had kind of a hard life. I still don't know what happened during that time but the under carriage especially, had a hard life. This guy ran over something to damage the front valence, radiator support, the front of the K, and had many dings under the car. Then I found this out, some other damage, to the hump right in front of the buddy seat. Something had gone right through that area where they "Jerry rigged" a couple of pieces of metal, put some sort of HEAVY caulk to help seal, then put 3"screws with bolts on . Attached is some of the damage and replacement. Then, I found the tranny being held in by 2 bolts because it was changed.

Gotta love this

A little rough in a few spots, but still looks way better than my two projects! Looking good so far.