Here is what $5000 buys you.

[WHITE AND RED 69]

The build is coming along nicely. Great work!

I'm with you on not painting it but I think it needs some brand new flashy wheels. Something about ratty paint but fresh rims always looks good to me.

[Kern Dog]

Thanks.
The tires are old! I will need to buy something before taking it very far from home.

[Kern Dog]

It has been awhile since I updated this thread.
In April, I brought Jigsaw to an indoor car shown at Cal Expo in Sacramento along with my red car. The display was a "Before and after" sort of thing. I was amazed at the positive responses I got with Jigsaw. That car got more attention than the finished car.

It overheated on the freeway on the way to the venue. I never figured out what exactly was the cause. It may have been something as simple as a radiator half full. It always ran normal around the neighborhood. I ended up changing to a different radiator, added a shroud and topped off the coolant. No problems since but I still intend to do a "torture test" of freeway driving in summer heat.

[Kern Dog]

I'm often amazed when I see how much time passes when I get distracted.
The car still runs and drives fine. I had it on the back burner for awhile while I helped a buddy swap a Tremec 5 speed in his 69 Coronet. I also did a Vintage Air kit in a '68 Plymouth Satellite. I have the other Charger that I had to get ready for the trip south for Spring Fling....A/C work, distributor tuning, etc.
I'm back to it though.
The speedometer was stuck at 145. I had it gone through at a local speedometer shop.



 



I found a guy that had a glove box door hinge.





I decided to pull the crappy seat and make the moves to install the bucket seats originally from my red car:





I had to weld on the AMD floor support brackets.



       

[Kern Dog]

The seats are in for mock up.





I pulled them back out to lay down the sound deadener mat on the floor pans. I have the carpet I pulled from the red car in 2021 when I swapped in the 5 speed. The carpet isn't perfect but it is better than bare steel! 

[Kern Dog]

From the start, this car was intended to be a 3/4 scale build compared to the red car Ginger.
Smaller engine, a bit more docile everything. Softer suspension, smaller brakes, etc.
Front disc, rear drum was the plan and for now, I'm sticking with that. I put it together with a manual master cylinder but am now switching to power brakes.
I'm using a single diaphragm booster that I had on Ginger for years...it originally was from a 1973-76 A body but it fits and works in other models. Yeah, a B body specific booster would be better but I had this A body booster right here and the swap costs nothing to do.

[Kern Dog]

I like the look of the NASCAR Chargers.....



I thought about running the same look for this car. Wide black steel wheels, black wall tires too. You can get stick on white letters in a variety of fonts. I'd aim for something with FIRESTONE on them.
I actually have a set of wheels that give that look. A friend had a set made at Stockton Wheel 12-15 years ago. He had them on a 64 Valiant.
Unfortunately, he chose a 16" diameter. I have the set....2 of them are 16 x 7 for the fronts, 16 x 10 for the rear. The rears have a staggering 6 1/4" of back spacing because they moved the springs inboard and the wheel tubs modified. Their whole car was a weird build. It was a street car with a mild 360, certainly not the kind of car that needed 12" wide rear tires.
Regardless...
These rear wheels will not bolt up to a stock width 68-70 B body axle. The sidewalls hit the springs before the rim seats on the hub. I could use spacers and longer lug bolts but to me, that is a crutch. A bolt on adapter could work, or....
A wider axle housing is another option. 71-72 B bodies had a 3 inch wider axle. The E body cars were about 1 1/2" wider. The early 70s C bodies were 3 inches wider. Trucks and vans were about 4" wider.
If you can weld, you can modify.

[Kern Dog]

Who has seen this wheel?



These are ET wheels, Team III. I love the look of them...

[Kern Dog]

Sometimes you can be creative and do unconventional things to achieve a goal at a reasonable price.
Sometimes you try and fail.
I strike out a lot because I'm not afraid to try new things, Some new things, certainly not every new thing.
Case in  point:
Years ago,  buddy gave me a set of wheels that he had on his 64 Valiant. I painted the car in 2015....



His dad had some weird ideas. He wanted to tub it and move the springs inline with the frame rails to run wider tires.
(All of this with a slightly better than stock 360)
 He had 16 x 10 wheels made at Stockton Wheel with Police Car centers. After awhile, the kid wanted a more modern look so he pulled the wheels and bought these:



He gave ME the old wheels and tires. The rears are 16 x 10s with a crazy 6 1/4" of backspacing! The fronts are 16 x 7 with 4" of back spacing so they pretty much will fit anything.
So...I have these wheels that really fit in with the NASCAR vibe I'm on right now...



They sort of fit the car....





This is with this spacer :



....and maybe four turns on the lug nuts...No way I'd drive it like this:





Here is where things get weird....I like the look of these wheels so much, I thought of swapping in a wider axle.

[Kern Dog]

Pick-N-Pull had a '74 B-100 van with an 8 3/4" axle so I grabbed it.



I measured the width of the car body and marked it on the concrete. I had 73 3/4" between the wheel well/quarter panel flanges. Yeah, they can be bent 90 degrees for more clearance but I wanted to see how it measured as stock. Now the mock up....



With the 16" wheels bolted up, I measured the overall width.





Yeah, I'm at 74 7/8"....that is over 1 1/8" wider than the car body. What can be done about that?

[Kern Dog]

The axle shafts in this van axle are 31 3/8" but they can be shortened.





Note how they neck down right below the splines but then are back to the same diameter a few inches down. These could be cut and resplined for an A body application.
I have another way.
Since this axle is at least 1 1/8" too wide...and since one would want at least a half inch from the wheelwell flange on each side, this axle needs to be about 2 1/8" narrower with axles to fit. This means I'd need axle shafts about 1 1/16" shorter, right? 31 3/8" minus 1 1/16" is 30 5/16". Do I have any used axle shafts around this length?



I have a pair of these:

[Kern Dog]

I have a small shelf in the shop with various axle shafts. I do have a pair that measure 30 3/8". If I rolled the flanges, these would work but.....





I looked online for replacement tires since these were over 12 years old and have cuts in the tread. The tire industry had just about abandoned the 16" size. These are 295-50-16s from Mickey Thompson and while I like the look, they don't make them anymore.
There are some manufacturers that offer this size but they are either barely legal DOT drag radial slicks or some gaudy tread pattern that I don't like. Finding tires for the front is easy. I can find 245-50-16s, 255s too. The 85 and up Camaro IROC Z and Trans Am cars came with a 245-50-16 so the support for them is still there.
I want the front and rear tread designs to match but that seems impossible. That alone may kill this idea.

[70 sublime]

Some times could and should do not always work the best

Might just be easier to find different wheels to work with the car the way it is 

[Kern Dog]

Absolutely.
I like to make use of what I have at hand but sometimes that habit goes too far.

[lloyd3]

Neat stuff KD. I like those police rims.

[Kern Dog]

Neat stuff KD. I like those police rims.

I do too. The black wheels and fat tires do scream NASCAR especially if I had raised white letters on them. The tires on the wheels now are 295-50-16 but I could run a 275-50-16 even though the 275 sizes recommend a 7-9" width range.
I go back and forth on this.