Here's a slide show of a walkaround of the car with the second round of primer on it.

Here's a slideshow of a walkaround of the car just before I started spraying. The various highs and lows exposed during block sanding are now much more level than before and are about to be covered up again.

We recently had the treat of having my niece and nephew over at our house for a couple of days. While they were here, my son and I took my nephew out to the garage and showed him how much fun it is to sand on my Charger. The boys both did a really good job, and it was fun to teach them some of the things I've learned the hard way - not to mention it was really great for me to see that side of the car being sanded much more rapidly than when I'm working alone. Thank you, kids!

Not only is it wonderful to spend time with my son and get things done, but an added bonus is seeing his growing enthusiasm for about the upcoming restoration of his 1967 Satellite. (You can see a picture of his car here.) Working on my Charger together is excellent training for him, because when we're done with my car, his is next and he will be doing much of the work on that project.

From what I have read and what my buddy Howard Holland told me, on the initial block-sanding, I didn't have to worry too much about seeing small patches of metal show, because I'm in the coarse leveling phase. When I'm done with this round of block sanding, and I've dealt with anything that is far too high or low, I will shoot more 2K primer and block it out again with finer paper, and be more concerned about not cutting as deep from that point on.

So far, the blocking out of the Charger has been a lot of fun, and I'm really enjoying seeing the car's body get straighter and smoother with each pass.

Since I had everything ready to go on the rear end, I decided I would put it under the car and put some junky tires on the car. The photos below chronicle the sequence I went through in this part of the project. One of the neatest things was, this was the first time that I was able to start emptying some boxes that had held new parts.

These first two pictures show the rear end stripped of its original 10-inch brake parts, with the axles put back in place. With it hanging from my engine hoist, I had just completed sandblasting the entire rear end.

These two photos are of the assembled and painted rear end, with the 11-inch heavy-duty brake hardware, the Mopar Performance OEM-style 440/Hemi leaf springs, all-new bushings, new hard brake lines, and the new rubber brake line. The gears in the 489-cased third member are 3:55's with the large 440 yoke. All that is ready to be rolled under the car.

In this photo, you can see everything in the new 11-inch rear brake system has been replaced: wheel cylinders, all the springs, self-adjuster parts, brake linings, everything new and shiny.

Here the rear end is all bolted in. The tires are tall, skinny 7.00-15 Bobcat tractor tires that I had from past projects. They allow plenty of room for me to work around the wheel wells, and I won't care if they get paint all over them. With the rear end in place and my stoutest jack-stands moved as far forward on the frame as I can get them, my Charger is now rock-solid, and I'll feel a lot better working those panels over as I block things out.

Mopar Collector's Guide's January 2009 issue had instructions for creating a Mopar-themed wreath. My twelve-year-old son whipped one up for the shop door in about five minutes.

Well, finally I was able to get my 2K primer on my Charger. I am a year and a half or more behind where I thought I would be, but I spent that time learning better ways to straighten and perfect the body of the Charger. I am glad that I waited, as things are looking fairly good now, with three coats of the high-build primer on the car. I have begun the blocking-out process, and so far it is a lot of fun. Once the blocking-out is done, another several coats of primer will go on, and the car will be blocked out again. Hopefully by that point the body will be ready for paint. However, experience has shown me not to get in a rush, and to take time to do it right no matter how long (or how many tries) it takes.

Upgrading the brakes is not the only thing I have in mind for this phase of my project. When this goes back together, I will install Hemi .960 front torsion bars and stock XHD 440/Hemi leaf springs. I have all new polygraphite bushings to install throughout, a firm-feel steering box, 12-inch front rotors from a Chrysler Cordoba riding on disc-brake spindles from a '73 Valiant, and 11" HD drums out back. I will also upgrade to a 1 1/8" diameter front sway bar.

My son, just completing the removal of the steering column.

This picture, in addition to showing the absence of the suspension, shows fairly well what I have been doing these last months on my car. I have been working very hard to get my body lines straight and appropriately crisp. I think they show fairly well in this photo.

Rear view of the car; rear-end, springs and shackles all had to go as well.

Having the engine bay this clear should make it extremely easy to get the primer and paint everywhere I need them to be, prior to reinstalling the restored and upgraded front suspension and K-member.

It is really something I thought I would never see, looking at this pile of parts in the side of my garage. It will be a lot of fun this winter to disassemble, clean, restore, and upgrade all of these assemblies prior to installation, after the paint goes on.

As the day to put primer on my Charger draws near, I realized I had neglected to strip the old paint and minor surface rust, etc., off the inner part of my doors. I had used a wire wheel on my grinder to remove all the paint from the door jamb area of the car body itself, but wanted a good fresh start on the doors. My son and I removed the doors, gutted the latches and window regulators etc., and set them outside for sandblasting. The red tank-looking object between the doors in the first photo is my inexpensive but very serviceable sandblaster.

This is a closeup of the areas I sandblasted. I protected the outside edge of the door, which already has primer on it, with a heavy layer of masking tape prior to sandblasting. I was very pleased with the results. All the rust, all the paint, all the years of glue, etc., are gone. After this, the doors were taken inside the garage and etching primer was applied to all the bare metal.

In the near future, we will be adding more detail and hopefully some new progress pictures.