So, my wonderful fiancee and i found a 1972 demon the day after my 28th birthday, and we decided to buy it...

Here are pictures of our Demon. It was moved to the shop the other day. The other parts of the grille and lights are in a box...and the hood isnt hinged properly yet, so it sits a little low.

Drivers side shot


Drivers side from the front


Passenger side corner


Rear shot


Paint up close


Rear quarter without the filler cap


Shot from the right rear




interior shots...this section (aside from the engine) needs the most work...but its all there, just take apart


Its got a BG wheel, but I wont be keeping that on


Race buckets


Inside the drivers door...you can see the parts that are exposed with the door liner on are painted black, and we have the liners


no cluster installed, but it came with three of them


rear deck, new carpeting


another dash and wheel shot


Clean engine bay








Undercarriage...its got alot of cobwebs and such hanging from it...its VERY clean, all redone.


under the front bumper


section of the unibody


underside of the trunk


rear dif, 8.75 rear with sway bar


under the front seats, with a ladder bar


looking back at the rear diff


another underbody shot



all is left now, is to build the motor, and put everything together...




some interesting info...
So, when we bought the demon, we were mostly just con

 

Looks good. Are you planning on getting the interior back to OEM? You should also take a magnet to the lower portions of the body to see what you're dealing with as far as filler goes. Are you also planning on a full restore or just enough to make it look good and drivable? If your current engine turns out to have cracks or whatnot in the block, I'd definately go with a 383. Strokers don't last too long. Also, check into 'year one' for any parts you need, they have enough to rebuild an entire car almost.

 

a few things...

1. no need to take magnets to anything...the entire front end is fiberglass, except for the bumper. the rear quarter panels are new..the car has never had an engine in it since the quarters went on.

2. the car has been restored, shy of the interior..the car had the undercarriage redone, and was painted, but the guy lost interest and didnt bother with the rest. the interior will likely keep the race buckets, although i have two sets of stock front leather seats, i will probably sell them. there are three marks on the body, and those will be fixed. the chrome on the bumpers is not perfect, and im not sure what im going to do about that yet.

3. while im new to owning a muscle car, im not new to dealing with them..my other car has an entire drivetrain out of a 69 cuda. big blocks are way too over rated, and my little low compression 340 in the mirada has swallowed plenty of big blocks...another thing, because so many people have the "you have to run a big block to go fast" mentality, they are MUCH more expensive than a small block. i do have a big block laying around, but the car is a factory small block car, and its going to get a 340, but it wont have the stroker. the mirada which is currently in the mid 12s with a 340, will be getting the stroker motor, and the motor currently in the mirada will go into the demon. i know several guys running MASSIVE stroker small block mopars, and one guy who has a kit that makes his 340 a 440 cube engine, runs in the high 9s, and drives the car on the street very regularly, and has been doing so for a few years now...a properly built small stroker doesnt apply any more stress to the engine than does the stock setup, and im only going from a 340 to a 374....

4. i have already been window shopping on year one, but for the most part, i have everything that i need, shy of the performance parts like the electric fans, waterpump, fuel pump, etc...those will likely all come from jegs. the only thing that i may need are minor things like inner door panels, a gas door...i have all of the light lenses, and trim pieces...

 

Great project! I would love to see the progressed and finished pictures. Congrats

 

I'm sorry, but that car HAS NOT been restored. The previous guy painted it and did some body work to it to make it look good to sell it. Look close underneath it, there's missing brackets, bolts, leaf springs are old and he didn't bother to paint the bottom of them, just the top, drums have been painted silver. Looks like the front end has been rebuilt and the bushings look good, but still sitting low with no motor in it. I did a restore on an original '68 GT500 428CJ and am currently helping a friend with his '68 AMX 390. Yours is nice because it looks good and just need some work inside, but that's not a full restore by any means.
My advice if you want something really nice to take to shows is to strip that all the way down. If you want something really nice, go all the way. Don't half *** it.

 

WOW, looks like someone got his cereal pissed in this morning. From the sound of it hes not to concerned about building a trailor queen (show car) considering that its already has fibergalss denders that kind of takes away from the orginal restore. And its not going to have a #s matching motor or tranny so whats the big deal. It might not be perfect, but its probably going to be driven and will never stay perfect.

Good find Patrick, if I showed this thread to my dad he would be so pissed LOL he loves the mopar muscle cars and has been trying to talk my mom into letting him get one again, but she won't let him unless he gets another job LOL. Keep us updated on your progress

-Jesse-

 

Dodge made some nice cars back in the 60's and early 70's. I had a few and they were always fun to drive and tinker with. Brings back some good memories.

I hope you have fun with it. I'd like to do a project like that, but I don't have the patience or the talent.

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

the car was not being restored to be a show car..it was being rebuilt to be a mover. the guy who "painted it and did some body work to sell it" did so 21 years ago, so id say that his work held up pretty nicely. and of course there are missing brackets and bolts...like i said, the car is less than half done...the rear sway bar doesnt have the links mounted, and the springs are in good shape, but the under carriage of the car is very dirty...its very clean otherwise...nothing about the car is original, and there isnt any rust on the car, top of bottom...but the underside is so dirty that the pictures dont look very good...the front end is low because the torsion bars are all the way down...but im well aware that its needs work...notice, the thread is called 'new toy', not 'platinum cert show car'. i gather from your comments that you might know something about cars, but comments like "some suspesion work" show that you dont know much about suspension, or you didnt look very closely...the car doesnt have inner fender wells, and when all of it was cut out, the control arms and front shocks were relocated and we arent sure how sturdy that is, so the car will possibly be caged. For what its worth, the car was gone over by a body shop owner who specializes in "restorations", and his only complaint was that he didnt like the paint...

considering the car only cost me a weeks pay, and im getting a stroker for my other car out of it, im pretty pleased....im luckily not one of these old guys who stresses about whether the bolts holding the springs up were actually made in 1972..."restorations" are for guys who like to sit and drink light beer behind the car at car shows...

for what i paid, its in great shape, and when its done, with the amount of weight reduction, compared to the other car, the same engine should put it into the high 12s, which i dont think is too shabby considering it will only have a 373 or 410 gears, and will be running on 87 octane...

 

Just trying to offer some insightful advice. There's nothing like tearing into a nice looking car to find out it's a total piece underneath. my old boss's Shelby 500 was just such a case, and as it's turning out, so's the AMX me and another guy are currently starting a ground up restoration on. Yeah, I noticed your inner fenders are missing, or at least chopped. Also saw a structural tube welded onto the subframe going into the fender. Was this a drag car in the first place? It just pains me to see some classic muscle get the hoosier treatment.

 

i figured that the questionable suspension relocation would be the first thing that someone who looked close would notice...it was my biggest concern.

that aspect of it is going to be overlooked by the guy who sponsors my white car. he builds drag car chassis, so if he doesnt think that its sturdy enough, its going to get a cage. i am concerned that when they removed the inner wells, it will have weakened the unibody...so worst come to worst, it will get a cage.

i dont know what "the hoosier treatment" is...this car was being redone to be a "pro street" car...hence the fiberglass front end, ladder bars, and race buckets. im sure that the reworked front end would be fine for the track, but this is going to be a daily driver, and i dont know how well it will hold up to the **** poor roads of detroit. [:@]

i dont ever plan on this car being a plat cert car, but if you look around on ebay or muscle car sales sources, youll get an idea of how much cars are going for that are in MUCH worse shape...and i had been pricing around for a while, and i paid about half of what i expected to pay. the car is bought from a friend of a friend, who planned to make it this pro street car, but he was in a car accident, and couldnt continue building it...so its been sitting since 1985. there are lots of things not finished yet, but i dont plan on this being a "mirrors under the car at the show" ride..if that makes sense. the body is very straight, and the floor is solid. the interior is filthy, but its in good condition..it just needs some TLC. i may buy new panels for the interior.

the body is in better shape then some of the cars in the mopar nationals judged class this year, so im sure that we will hit a show or two, but thats not the purpose of the car. hoenstly, even if we do get to some point where we find that something is bad, like the floor or something, i paid so little for it...i could sell the stroker kit and the extra interior, and i will have already made my money back...

when i went out looking for a muscle era car, i wanted something that didnt need a ton of body work...this body is straight enough for me...nw front end, new doors, new quarters (when i say new, they were new in 1985, but the car has been stored since then). the roughest part of the exterior is the rear bumper..its pitted, and i dont know what im going to do about that, but that is among my lesser concerns...