OZ Duster
 

Hello everyone, have been watching and admiring the fine cars on the site and am still amazed at what people achieve. Living in Australia makes access to american iron at reasonable prices difficult, a camaro or GTO is just too much of a financial hit at the moment.

I had been working on a 65 Falcon hardtop for some three years before the restrictions on doing what I really wanted became to much of an obstacle

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so sold it and moved onto the next project.

A 1974 Plymouth Duster. Had been looking at a Pontiac hardtop until I layed my eyes on this sitting in the shadows. I had never seen or heard of these before and found they are as rare as rocking horse poop in Australia. This one has newish paint, no rust and is straight as.

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Unfortunately I only had the car a week before the motor spun a bearing and needed replacement. Now the next step will be sorting the suspension now with 17 and 18 inch rims and modern rubber underneath. After a couple of performance oriented toys this one will need a lot of work to improve the handling and then the bench front seat will need to go, dont want to be sliding over to a right hand drive inadvertently:D

Any suggestions on suitable mods would be appreciated as the information base and suppliers over here is very limited, I get a lot of blank expressions when I mention the car and even stranger looks when people clap eyes on it.:cheers:

Welcome aboard. We have quite a few members from Australia. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

For the Duster.....
www.bigblockdart.com and www.forabodiesonly.com

Also check out RMS (Reilly Motor Sports) or FirmFeel for suspension upgrade parts

Good lookin car

cool.
rick k:cheers:

Very nice car down under... what are your plans for the motor now that you spunthe bearing?

New motor
 

The new motor as gone in. I am going to tear down the old engine and assess the damage. If things work out it will get worked over for some more poke.

At the moment just want to get her out on the road and enjoy it, all of the intended work will be done on the side to limit the time off the road.

Engine Damage
 

While sorting some crap in the shed found twenty minutes to pull the heads of the old motor. This engine must have got an absolute flogging from the owner in the states. On closer inspeection there is a lot of damage to the cam lobes. I dont think they are related to the dropped piston as a lot of the nicks and dags look old.

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The piston has let go of the rod. No damage to the the top of the bore or the rest for that matter. There are small marks in the piston heads from the valves which I think may be some movement from the crank, and probably some bearing damage to boot.

Will drop the sump off and have a look at the rods etc later in the week.

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sorry bout your engine troubles, what engine did you put in for now?

A 318 reco with a mild cam (specs unknown) little lumpier than the old motor.

As time and money permit will look at working the old motor over.

Dash and Paint
 

Entered the car in a show next saturday so time for a clean up. A few hours with a machine polisher and a good coat of wax.

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When cleaning inside decided that the dash just was not going to cut it.

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After a lot of carefull masking and then a quick spray of gloss black to eliminate the groty green. Has really changed the feel of the interior looks 100% better. Now just need to replace the crash pad and restore the instrument cluster with some new guage inserts and a new overlay.