A 68 , with a lot of 69

"The 69 RT is over there". What? An RT? I quickly walked over and there she sat.. "Take whatever you need and can use". The first thing I saw I could use was the rear door top panels. I yanked the visor clips and tried to loosen the seat belts , but to no avail. Needless to say he hooked me up with practically 1/3 of the car.

Finally.... a Donor Car named Marley

The first thing after the shock of Rusty's flame job I tried to think of how I could save her. I needed to find a good donor car or better foundation to transfer Rusty's good parts over. Well, today was the day I found Marley... Rusty's long forgotten cousin. Ok, not exactly, but Marley is real. 1968 Dodge Charger. My wife, Brady, and me traveled to Darlington, PA to get her. More information and ALL the extra parts that came with her will be listed tomorrow.

Engine Mop Up

It is sometimes hard to walk into the garage to look at Rusty in this condition. But it's like seeing a loved-one at the hospital. You see the illness, but you act normal and carrying on being strong. Today I removed the battery and cleaned some of the trim that was nasty. While in the engine area I tried to scrub the valve covers and anything else I could reach. I could see a little sparkle under that soot.

And now we clean..

Where do you start when everything is toast? I decided to clean off the wheels first. I then packed them up and took them to my house. The next step was to lube up everything I could with WD-40 that would or might rust until I get to it. The exhaust pipes, shifter, engine pieces, door hardware...

I saved big money at Menards.. not really. I did purchase a couple drill sanders to start to work off that surface rust. I hate seeing that on the car. We worked the side, trunk, and the back tail for a few hours. it's not done, but it's better. I plan to get all the way around the car and dive into the interior shortly. My dad and I worked pretty hard on it tonight. It has to being somewhere..

Let's get this out of the way

So ofcourse we will have some comments to try and lighten the mood. I'm hurt, but I understand. Let me see what I might hear...
* You always said you wanted a "hot" rod!
* You sure roasted those tires off..
* Waiting to call on that insurance huh? that back-"fired"
* Dude, your car was hot!!
* I love seeing flames shoot out of headers!
* You just like to burn money don't cha?
* That is smoking!!

Did I cover most of them. Please submit if you have any I might have missed. I would write more, but I have a little work to get done. Boy I'm going to "burn" a lot of calories putting the car back together again! ok, that is good.

Pictures worth more than a thousand words

Waking up still in the Nightmare

Day 1... I really didn't want to get out of bed this morning. I still had an ache in my heart. I mustered the energy to get up and get the kids fed. Once they're tummies were full I gathered their things and headed to my dad's. I didn't want to do anything with the car.... I needed to. I called my "body man", which happens to be my father-in-law. We needed a plan and we needed him, Jim, to be our partner in this major resurrection. We are all on the same page and are moving forward to get the car back in shape.