The 71blueduster before it was blue

[71blueduster]

Just thought I'd share some pictures of how my car started out its life. I thought I had more pictures of it from when I first got it, but I think they're on a different computer. Oh well.

I got the car in May 2003 the summer before I started college. It started out as a slant 6, auto grandmas car. No carpet, no options at all, besides the aftermarket rust in the quarters, drivers floor, and trunk floor. I think I had the car stripped down a few days after I got it.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/Duster9.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/Duster12.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/Duster6.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/Duster5.jpg


New quarter panels on both sides.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/Duster3.jpg

We painted all of the door jambs, in the trunk, under the hood, and interior parts at my dad's shop.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/Duster19.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/Duster15.jpg

And gave it some go power.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/new2037.jpg

[CrazyPete]

wow nice work i would of never guessed it came in that color from the factory

[71blueduster]

Got it painted in July 2005 with some sweet wheels.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/71905015.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/71905019.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/71905013.jpg

Got it all put together and running a couple weeks after it got painted.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/80605003-1.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/80605008-1.jpg

And took it to the local cruise night with my brother-in-laws 69 Dart GTS and my dads 71 Demon both with 340 6 packs and 4 speeds.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/80605011.jpg

It was too plain all blue and I had planned to make it look faster so I added the stripes then the hood scoops.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/31706001.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/31706004.jpg

And here it stands today.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/Culvers7-27-07004.jpg

Next up for the car will be a small block stroker or Keisler 5 speed manual trans.

[71blueduster]

wow nice work i would of never guessed it came in that color from the factory

Not many of em came from the factory with the mandatory olive green covered by the Macco yellow. Even the bumpers and most of the trim were painted yellow too!

[CrazyPete]

this is a prime example of saving a car you totally gave this car a rebirth to the glory days when they rolled off the assembly line in 1971

[6PackCuda]

Wow! That's a major transformation. Nice work.

[71blueduster]

Cleaned up the engine bay a little bit today. I still want to do something to hide some of the wiring and make it look a little nicer. Some of the orange engine paint needs touched up. Stupid valve covers had to leak oil all over. And the intake manifold needs painted or powdercoated so it will look good. I also stuck on the 750 double pumper I had and cleaned up the interior.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0092.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0101.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0099.jpg

[6PackCuda]

Looks good Brandon. I know exactly what you mean about the valve covers leaking. I've never been able to get mine sealed up.

[71blueduster]

Looks good Brandon. I know exactly what you mean about the valve covers leaking. I've never been able to get mine sealed up.

I put some red high temp silicon on my valve covers then put the gaskets on them and they didn't leak for about 6 months, but I think they are starting to leak a little bit now since I have some oil on the garage floor. I always hate when the oil drips onto the headers then when I drive the car it smokes.

[CrazyPete]

road grime and leaks never go away its a spring job for me every year..............

[6PackCuda]

The part the really ticks me off is all the oil that is burned onto my nice TTI headers and exhaust.

[71blueduster]

Fired it up and the car runs better now with the double pumper carb on it. It took a little bit of messing with the adjustments but was pretty easy to get running good. No more bogging on me now. I also got an advance timing light, so I can finally get my timing dialed in, but that will probably have to wait until next weekend, then I can test it out by doing some burnouts. And I decided my next big modification is going to be a 5 speed manual swap before next fall.

[6PackCuda]

Sounds like your gettin' it all figured out. The five speed will be really nice. By the way, how's the new job going?

[71blueduster]

Sounds like your gettin' it all figured out. The five speed will be really nice. By the way, how's the new job going?

The jobs going good. I'm usually pretty busy and working on a bunch of different things. Even designing some new products and modifying stuff we've been manufacturing for years. And it sure is nice having some money to spend.

[Lepa]

Beautiful car, you did an awesome job.

[71blueduster]

Put in some fresh 10W-30 and finally got around to washing it.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0112.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0113.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0114.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0115.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0116.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0117.jpg

[71blueduster]

Took some pics by Lake Hastings.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0119.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0120.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0122.jpg

[Stein]

Nice!!!!!!:):)

[6PackCuda]

Nice pic.s. That is one bad a$$ car.

[71blueduster]

Ordered a set of Autometer Phantom gauges (not trying to copy you, Crazypete ;)) and a blank gauge bezel from Redline Gauge Works. I had planned for a while to use my tax return to buy a custom dash insert from Rocky Mountian Dashes and the Autometer gauges, but by the time I got the money to order one, they went out of business. They were expensive, but would have looked really good. I got my gauges in and am waiting for the bezel to come in. It'll be nice to have all of my gauges in the dash instead of being strung out all over the place.

http://www.redlinegaugeworks.com/images/large/abodylrg1.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0127.jpg

[6PackCuda]

That's going to look great!

[71blueduster]

Finally got my gauge panel in on Tuesday after I ordered it almost a month ago. They said the supplier had problems with the molds. Drilled the holes for the gauges and got them mounted into the panel. Looks good so far. I'll probably paint the edge of the panel silver and maybe the rest of it black instead of the carbon fiber look. Haven't decided for sure yet. I plan on wiring them in this weekend. I also have 3 lights I have to still put in. 2 for turn signals and 1 for high beams. Then I'll have to figure out something for the lights and wipers.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0161.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0168.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0170.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0172.jpg

[6PackCuda]

Nice work Brandon! That looks great.

[CrazyPete]

NICE! awsome choice in gauges

[Stein]

Thats going to look way cool!!!:woot:

[71blueduster]

Got the gauges mostly wired in. Just have to run and get a few connectors tomorrow morning and put two more screws in the gauge panel. Also had to buy a new speedometer cable. Luckily the O'Riellys had one in stock. Hopefully they all work, because the wiring isn't pretty. I think there were 32 connections on the 6 gauges. I'm probably an expert wire crimper now. I'll probably leave it the carbon fiber until I get tired of it then take it out and paint it how my old gauge cluster looked. And I accidentally took some paint of the dash when I was marking the mounting holes with tape. I pulled the tape off and some paint came with it.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0177.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0178.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0179.jpg

[6PackCuda]

You don't waste any time do ya. That looks REALLY nice! Well done.

[CrazyPete]

looks really good nice clean and simple i like it what are the led 's for?

[CrazyPete]

cause ive got my dash stuff all done but the turnsignals im not 100% sure where im gonna put those

[71blueduster]

looks really good nice clean and simple i like it what are the led 's for?

The green lights are for the turn signals and the red one in the middle is the high beam indicator.

[71blueduster]

You don't waste any time do ya. That looks REALLY nice! Well done.

That's what happens when your bored and there isn't anything else going on. It took up most of my day yesterday getting it all put together.

[71blueduster]

Well I got all the wiring finished and attached the new speedometer cable. All the gauges and turn signals work (still have to lube the bouncing speedo cable) and I didn't start my car on fire.

It looks a lot better than stock and is well worth the effort and the $550 for all the parts.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0180.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0181.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0182.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0183.jpg

[71blueduster]

Sharktooth!

Finally got my argent silver wheel paint in this week, so I worked on the grille. Here's how it came when I bought it of ebay. Someone decided it would look better painted all flat black.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0209.jpg

Sprayed the middle section satin black then taped it off. I was thinking about masking off all the fins individually, but with 168 of them it would have taken me two weeks. It still took a while to get the sections taped off.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0249.jpg

Painted the black part of my original headlight buckets silver to match the grille.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0251.jpg

Painting the silver.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0252.jpg

The paint job is finished. Well I still want to clear coat the grille before I put it all together and back on the car.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0256.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0254.jpg

Much better and more aggressive looking than the plain old stock grille.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0255.jpg


And for good measure a picture of the new A-body Barracuda parked next to the old Duster. Can't wait to start working on this one.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0219.jpg

[71blueduster]

Pics of it on the car coming tomorrow after I get it all put back together and installed. This is the last big project on the Duster for a while since I'll be putting my funds towards the Barracuda.

[6PackCuda]

Wow! Nice work Brandon. I can't wait to see pic.s of it on the car. You're a lucky man to have those two cars in your garage. What are your plans for the B-cuda?

[71blueduster]

Wow! Nice work Brandon. I can't wait to see pic.s of it on the car. You're a lucky man to have those two cars in your garage. What are your plans for the B-cuda?

I might make the Barracuda into more of a street/strip car, since the guy that owns Hastings Motorsports Park is supposedly going to build a drag strip out by the track. A stroked small block would fit right in there since it's already a small block car and we already have a complete 360 and tons of parts laying around my dads shop, but I've been looking into big block and strokers since I saw the 440source.com kits and parts. I want the outside to look pretty stock, maybe paint it 1969 R4 Barracuda Orange or Black. Hopefully I can get the body work (quarter panels and patches on the front fenders) done sometime next spring. Then I'll start working on the drivetrain.

[CrazyPete]

lookin great BRANDON THAT NEW GRILLE ALONE WILL CHANGE THE CAR SOME :Thumb:

[Stein]

You can't beat the look of the shark tooth grille! As usual, great job Brandon.

[71blueduster]

Almost have it all finished up. Still have to get a different set of turn signal lights, as the connectors on the ones for the sharktooth grille are the twist in style, where as the old ones were connected to the grille with 2 screws. Makes the car look more aggressive than the plain old standard grille.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0269.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0270.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0272.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0271.jpg

[6PackCuda]

Looks great! NIce work.:Thumb:

[Bryx512]

WOW, that looks great! :Thumb:

[Charger Chip]

That REALLY looks good. I likey alot !!

[CrazyPete]

:Thumb:

[SupraGirl]

Way to go Brandon, that looks awesome. Since you were so good at painting, if I ever need a painter can I look you up? lol how are things?

[71blueduster]

Some better pics with the new look and a good time to get some good shots for the calender. :Thumb:

The first ones my favorite.
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0295.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0285.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0287.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0288.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0292.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y119/bmiller65/100_0294.jpg

[6PackCuda]

Lookin' good. They're all nice pictures, but I also like the first one the most.

[Stein]

Cars looking great Brandon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:elephant: