Lucky me!

[Rukee]

A friend (customer) who has a few really sweet muscle cars brought me over his 1971 Challenger 440 six pack 4-speed car to work on. The thing is as near perfect as you can get!! I had to watch myself for getting any hand prints under the car as the undercarriage is like brand new right down to paint marks on the rear axle, correct bent lines everywhere, brand new everything including correct leaf springs, correct brake hoses and retaining clips, new correct exhaust, new gas tank and straps, it`s just beutiful. It came with a 4.10 rear gear and he just hated buzzing it so hard on the highway let alone putting all the gas into it. So I swapped out the 4.10 for a 3.54 gear. I didn`t drive the car before the swap but did after and I must say, this is the first older Chrysler unit I have driven that wasn`t a POS. It`s a super solid car that appears to be factory correct in every way and looks brand spanking new. I had to take a couple pictures next to the GTO. Enjoy, I sure did working on it!

 

[Balton]

hehe, J & K Auto?
I'll show my friends pics of your GTO later.

 

[Rukee]

hehe, J & K Auto?
I'll show my friends pics of your GTO later.

Cool, I have a bunch of GTO pics from the restoration in this album.
Password is 'GTO'
They are in no order at all, sorry bout that. Just added the splitter tipped exhaust last week.

 

[QUALTHWAR]

that's a nice one. my friend has a restored 70 challenger with a 318.

 

[Rukee]

How`s the rust factor in Florida?? Does the sea salt rust the cars at all along the coast?

 

[QUALTHWAR]

The sea spray certainly factors in, but there is a big difference between here and states that salt the roads. The first time I came to florida was on a plane to Tampa. It was remarkable how nice all the cars looked. I was used to seeing rust buckets all over the place and I didn’t see any here.

However, while working on cars, I remember commenting about having a problem with rust and said something to my boss about the car being from up north. He knew the car and said no that it’s never been up north, but the people lived near the water. But the rust was not on the body but more on engine and chassis parts.

Since then, I’ve come to the conclusion that although the sea spray can affect unprotected metal, it doesn’t do much to the body that is painted and has wax on it. I drive back and forth to work across a bridge and sometimes get salt spray when it’s really windy, but I’ll stop at a car wash and spray it off before I get home. However, we live less than 500 feet from the sea water and you can tell that it takes its toll on metal parts. I think most cars are in the junkyards here before the bodies get rusted out.