kotik

Hello,

So i joined charger forum about 5 years ago in hopes of finding a 68 charger. At the time my funds were slim, and i could only afford a rust bucket. So a 73 came across that i really liked, it was 4speed manual, with a 440 from a 68. It was a bit moded, restored at some point in dudes garage. So a few things needed attention, and over 2 yrs of ownership i have done some maintanance (engine mounts, rear diff, number of seals, radiator, etc). I got orders to germany, so i took my 73 here, and that car was a rock star, it attracted a lot of attention, and after 6 months i decided to try and sell it.


I sold it pretty good to some german, and decided to start looking for a 68 again. And to my surprise, prices grew significantly, where in the past i could get a nice big block for $25k, now they are closer to $50k. My budget was $35k and nothing came up, one sold from under me, another few had some shady history. I made a post on this board about looking for one, and a member told me that he could sell me his (he lives in sweden). After 3 months of back and fourth, i finally decided to pull the trigger. Car was described as a fully working and operational, with everything being in working condition. So, i got my plane ticket, funds arranged and set of to sweden (it was easier for me to travel there and check out the car, then drive it back, than dealing with flying to the states and then shipping). The price was more than i wanted to pay, and the car is in worse condition than i imagined. I dont think seller intentionally misrepresented things, but i have a certain standard in mind for the price, and after having my 73 i know whats ok and whats not. But in the end, i just couldnt resist the urge to have a 68, and being there and sitting in the car made me want to pull the trigger.



So, i set off from gothenburg sweden, to ktown germany, 800km trip (plus 14 hour ferry) in a car i just bought. I took a bunch of tools with me, in case something goes wrong. I test drove around the village, and didnt really get it past 50mph, everything seemed fine, but once i set off on my way, i noticed some kind of vibration past 60mph... It doesnt seem like the wherls, almost like the drive shaft is out of balance or hitting something (though when looking under the car, it looked new, all the joints and everything). So there i was, no more than 60mph then :/ my old 73 had 3.23 posi, so i always cruised at about 60mph (around 3k rpm), and i hoped that the auto transmission car would be much lower on the rpm, but i dont think it is. Seller told me it is also 3.23, tach is not working, but by the sound of it at 60mph i think im turning over 3k. Oh, and at 60mph im getting 10mpg my 73 got 12. Aside from that, the car drives well, but the heater system is not working and controls are not connected. U can manual let the heater corculate by turning a switch under the hood (its installed on the hose), and it just lets hot air in, but there is no motor regulator. Under the dash it seems like components are there, but perhaps just not connected (im dreading trying to figure this out and connect everything). So here i was, driving an hour through sweden, all windows down, 85f. Got to the port in sweden and loaded the car onto the boat. Car def gets attention with everyone asking about it.














Finally get into germany, and every few minutes ppl honk at me and give me thumbs up. From the port, navi said 6 hours, but in reality it took me 9. A. Because i couldnt go more than 60, and B because i hit a few traffics. Good thing is that the car doesnt overheat (my 73 did). A cool feature installed on the car is the electrical cut outs, the car sounds menancing with them open, and decent when closed. Although, one of them broke in open position after i opened it for the 10th time. So i really need to fix it soon, cause polizei dont like that kind of music. Any ideas? Can i just manually close it for time being?



About an hour away from home i hit heavy rain (which sucks, but forecast showed for rain most of my trip, so im glad i only caught an hour of it). With this heavy rain i discovered a new issue, the car is leaking!! To the left of the steering wheel, it was dripping pretty bad onto my foot. Normally i dont plan on driving it in the rain, but its germany, and rain can happen any time. So i need to figure out where the leak is coming from.




At the gas station i checked all the fluid levels, it doesnt eat engine oil, but the tranny fluid seemed high (though i checked it 5 min after shutting down the motor and it says to check while motor is running).



The speedo is very optimistic, almost feel like they tried to conver it to km/h, but it shows a bit less (so 80 on speedo is about 86km/h).




Overall the car rides better than my 73, the steering is tighter (on 73 the steering box was shot), so that makes me happy. The brakes are horrible, im think of converting to disc brakes. Once i got the car home, i put it up on jack stands and crawled under the car, looking more precisely at everything. Tranny seems to be seeping oil, but it looks like it was rebuilt, paint is fairly new. Other than that, everything looks better than i expected, it will prob need new tie rods, but other than that its all good. No rust, seems solid. Again, tried to move the drive shaft around and there is zero play and it doesnt look like its hitting anything... Hmm..

















Also crawled a bit under the dash, but everything is different than on my 73, it looks like the car was equipped with an ac, but i could figure out how to make heater motor work manually.







One of my tail lights stopped working, so need to diagnose that (the previous owner installed new led's), perhaps just a loose wire.

Car doesnt have seatbelts, the seller said 68's never came with them. Can anyone confirm? Ze germans can be pretty tought on inspection.

Im happy the car matches my corvette.







What is this btw



And this relay?


Sorry the report is a bit broken up, but that is all i have for now. I need to get the car ready for a german inspection, i hope all goes well with no major issues.

Ps this is copy and paste from charger forum

UsernameProtected

Awesome! I'd love a 68-70 Charger, but my '73 and I go so far back. I hope I can get motivated to start working on it again after I sell my business.

Dave1998

Looks Great !

Dave

come to Mopars at Carlisle , PA fairgrounds to get any parts you may need

TyBoo

Excellent! I especially admire your confidence to drive it home knowing you could deal with whatever came up along the way.

DonOH

Great cars!

coupeguyz51

Well, you may like the old dodges, I never did, but in any event, why are you posting this on a C7 Corvette forum? I mean, who cares?

Steve Garrett

Love your Charger....that was the first car I ever wanted as a young boy.

rcooper

Charger is cool. As for the seat belts I am pretty sure that it came with them. I had a 67 Plymouth Belvedere that had them, and a '66 Mustang that was equipped with them. And my 66, 68, 70 Corvettes had them, so chances are pretty good that they were in the Charger.

themonk

I have family over in Germany and there is nothing more that i'd want to do than to ship my Corvette over there and tour the whole country.....all of Europe actually.

proexpert

Thank you for sharing the story.

driver9

Cool story. Must be awesome having a C7 and a vintage Charger in Germany.

lakemg

Sweet ride kotik!!! I fell in love with a Charger many years ago...it was orange, had a "01" on the doors and a confederate flag on the roof...it did pretty good at jumping cars and creeks and Waylon Jennings would sing a tune about the guys who drove the car...With that said, your Charger looks just as good in blue...

lakemg

I care so that's all that matters...

FiveStar

Just beautiful! Inquire on the Charger forum about the leak bet someone can tell you exactly where to look.

Astrowing

Required to be offered in 1968. Didn't require them to be worn until 1984 in the US. They may have been installed optionally prior to 1968. Even my 1958 Thunderbird had marks on the floor pans for the seatbelt bolts.

BenCasey

I love the 1968 Charger - its exceptionally aggressive looking. Isn't there a King movie that used a black 68 charger? When I was 15 my best friend, who was 16, bought a 440 68 charger and many times we almost died.

One of his moves was to take a hard corner with babes front and back so that one of the babes, depending on the corner, would slide right into us.

No seat belts. No disc brakes. 3 speed auto with a 410 axel ratio. Many ***** pressed into our arms on many a corner.

BTW, I like the new chargers a lot, they did a great job of resurrecting the 68.

BenCasey

Now I read your post! My friends was 68, blue, with the black stripes too. No seat belts, front and rear bench seats. I can confirm missing seat belts. Man, in the 80s these were serious white trash cars. We bought our 440 charger for 800 bucks.

Vetteman Jack

Great story and a good looking Charger.

AdventurePoser

My dad owned this exact same R/T in 1968. Even though this thread doesn't have much to do with C7s, it brought back some very fond memories!

Globeman

My first new car was a ’68 charger. It had seat belts and a shoulder strap that you could manually attach to the regular seat belt. It attached to the roof just behind the front seat. When not in use, the front of the shoulder strap went into a clip above the window close to the A pillar.

Most ‘68s had a center console. Your center mini seat/pull down armrest was optional (mine had it too).

My Charger had the 4 speed, high performance 383 ci engine; 4 barrel, dual exhausts. The 383 was also offered with a 2 barrel & single exhaust. As I recall, some of the dash controls were operated by engine vacuum, not electrical. The vacuum switches can leak, your rubber vacuum lines may be very old and dry rotted. If that’s the case, best bet is to just replace them all without trying to diagnose what’s going on with the heater controls. That may clear up lots of current and future problems. Before I sold my Charger one of my headlight covers wouldn’t open due to a vacuum issue – I tied it permanently open rather than tackle the mess of vacuum hoses.

…and my radio came with an 8 Track tape player – eat your heart out!

I opened it up for a long stretch in Texas once till the speedo read 140 MPH. At that speed the car was starting to lift.

Good luck with it. IMO, it’s one of the best looking cars from the 60s – 70s era.