PICTURES

Here are a few pictures of my 68 cuda convert after I bought it from a Mr. Bill Turner in Galveston, TX. where it lay in his garage since 1991. He lives right down the road from the old NASA space complex where the moon rockets used to launch from. While Galveston is a great area, it is by the sea so all the chrome and electrical parts of the car were corroded. The car looks straight but it is a bondomobile.

A rainy day in Austin, lost my garage space so I had to work outside for six months. First step of my restoration is to swap to disk brakes and the rear to a bigger unit (7 1/4 to 8 3/4). What fun it is to remove corroded upper control arm bolts.


Out comes the rear end and if you look closely the gas tank too as it was rotted out from storage. I initially filled it up a little and then all the gas leaked out. Somebody called the fire department due to the fumes. Had a little explaining to do, they were pissed.

 

8 3/4 waiting for the Moser shortened axles and prior to a total paint job. 489 pumpkin.

 

8 3/4 installed (before I bought new springs) with the shortened 4.5" axles by Moser. The big brake backing plates and axles were from a 1973 Fury III cop car with 11" drums and 2.5" wide shoes.

1975 A body front spindles already installed with a new front suspension bushings too. The spindle is set up for rear caliper mounting. The rotor sitting there is a 11.75" 1976 B body Coronet as I did the big brake swap. I sold off my 68 K member later that month and swapped the whole thing to a 73 - 76 sway bar type K member with the 11/16 C body tie rods and a 87 Diplomat cop firm feel steering box. More pictures on that later.

Big brake swap almost finished. Rotor has a little surface rust due to a few rainstorms. Now comes the joy of running all new brake lines and swapping out the proportioning valve, master cylinder etc.

Car still on jackstands with the 225 60 x 15 front and 245 60 x 15 rears on cop car rims. I used a black epoxy paint on and I will eventually spray them argent silver. Progress but far from done.

 

Dash right before it was ripped out. I have the wonderful privilege of having to remove rust from under the windshield and while it is out I might as well paint the dash too (you cannot get the dash out with the windshield installed). If you look to the far left under the dash you can see the rust through the factory leaded seam. Lots of fun!

 

A nice picture of the floor before I welded in the console brackets and shifter. Under the white primer spray are rust spots. The car was restored by somebody eight years ago and they made it worse. It is loaded with bondo and every rust spot was covered over in primer. Lots of wire brushing, beer, cursing and POR15.

Ok just welded in the console shifter brackets. This was harder than it looks trying to get everything aligned right.

Reinforced  1973 - 1976 sway bar type unpainted K member. This K has had it's perimeter welded all around, support plates welded around the steering box, skid plate installed and washers welded around the lower control arm tubes. Nice and stiff.

Here is a picture of the 79 Diplomat steering box in my cuda on the 75 K member. Notice the late model spool type motor mounts .

Here is a picture of my, soon to be replaced with a 360, 318 with a jetted down Holley 3310 vacuum secondary on top of an adapter plate on top of a 78 4bbl factory manifold. Notice the 73 - 76 power booster, 79 Diplomat flex fan. Want more pictures? Look under "bodywork" on the home page for tons more.

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