jaak

Actually they are not. I got an old extra set of tail light housings, I just stick them in where the tail lights go when I prime and paint... I used them on the other car too when I was building it. Just saves time pop those in instead of masking/taping out the tail light openings, to keep overspray out of the trunk area. Jason

Wow, haven't realized it has been so long since I updated. Still working on the Charger when I get a chance, but the last few months I have been doing the body work and prepping a 66 Chevy Nova for paint. During this past summer I finished all the rust repair on the body of the GL. I put in the lower rear quarter skin, wound up having to buy/replace right rear valance cap, and had to cut out and fabricate patch above the right rear wheel well, and in front of right rear wheel well. In hind sight, probably would have been quicker to just put a whole quarter skin on the right side.... but Its all solid now. Also fabbed up patches to fill up the round marker holes on the fenders and quarters. I still got a couple of small areas of rust that need attention, but they are in jamb areas, I will take care of that when I prep the jambs. I went ahead and shot the outside with epoxy primer to seal and protect it until I get to doing the body work and paint prep. It looks good in primer, all in one color, but it really shows all the dings and straightening that needs done. I finally got me a set of wheels I am happy with last week. I showed some pics of other wheels I have bought, started off with turbo vecs, then picked up a 14x8 vector from a junk yard, found a pair of 15x8.5, and a 14x7 vector off craigslist... long story short I have bought sold several wheels and finally picked up a vintage set of 15 x 7s with original centercaps off ebay. After all the buying, selling, etc. right now I have around $250 in this set, but still have a couple of 14 inch vectors that I'm trying to sell. Wheels as I purchased them... Wheel after a little cleaning and painting.... So thats where I am now, haven't been doing a lot on it lately, because I am working on other stuff, but the money I am making, I am buying up parts and supplies I need. I bought all the stuff to do a front disc brake conversion, all the stuff to rebuild the rear drum brakes, got all the new parts I need for my engine, etc. Maybe when I finished the Nova, I can start up body and paint prep. Jason

I was saddened to hear this. James Best was a great actor. He and Sorrell were a great comedy team on the Dukes of Hazzard (which he and Sorrell took very seriously)... I think their act was very much as part of the success of the show as the car chases and stunts. Jason

Thanks for letting me know Roth Potter, didn't realized it was set for private. I changed the settings, see if you can see it now. Jason

I have been putting some time/effort/money in the General Lee Lately.... thought I would do something to my 69 R/T. I pretty much have not done anything to it since I finished it (other than a couple of needed repairs). I have been thinking lately I want a more aggressive sound. I installed a repo exhaust system with turbo style mufflers when I put the car together... well I installed a pair of Summit Racing's 2 Chamber Flowmaster knock offs today. I think the car sounds better. Here is a quick vid (sorry made with my cell) of my 69 with its new 'Feaux'Masters on it. Jason

Cool Thread! I guess to me, I am building mine to replicate the early California years. I haven't decided for sure which orange I am going with, but more than likely it will be Chevy 'Hugger' Orange. I know there is a lot of debate about which orange, but most say GM Code 70 'Corvette Flame Red' was what was used on the series. Hugger is GM code 72, and is a standard pre-packaged color for a lot of paint systems. Prepackaged=cheaper. But I am going to check the price on getting some Corvette Flame mixed before I purchase my paint. I plan on getting my decals from a guy that goes by 'Crazy-C'. He sells several decals to cover all the variations of the General Lee, he has Georgia Style, Early California, Late California, Reunion Movie, and Remake Movie decals. You can also mix/match if you want to, so I am thinking about getting Georgia Style 01 and Flag, but getting early California General Lee text. My reason for that is on Lee 1, 2, and 3 'GENERAL LEE' was hand painted on the roof, but on Lee 4 and on they started Using decals for the text. Lee 4 is the first 68 converted to 69 used on the show, So I thought about doing my graphics like it was Georgia Style 01/Flag but Early California Text, sort of be a tribute to the first 68 Lee used, seeing as how mine is a 68. Wheels, I will be using 15 x 7 Vectors. I know most early cars had 14, but I got a great deal on a set of 15 x 7 reissues, and tire selection is better with a 15" wheel. It will not have white lettered tires, I want it to look more like a series car and on top of that, me personally, I don't really like white lettered tires on anything, I don't ever put them on any of my vehicles. I have a pretty decent set of wheel well trim, haven't decided yet if I am going to use it or not. Engine, I am installing a small block 360 engine. 2 reasons... I actually already had the engine, I bought it months before I bought the Charger, just because I got a great deal on it and couldn't pass it up. And two, the Charger had a 318 when I bought it, it wasn't running and was missing a few of the parts (carb, distributor, and few other things), so swapping a small block for a small block is an easy 'bolt' in installation... less parts/mods than doing a big block swap. I have a 440 in my RT, so it will be cool to have a small block and a big block Charger. I had a 73 Charger at one time, it had a 360 in it... was a peppy little engine and didn't drink as much gas as the 440, lol. As you can see in my thread I went with the narrow push bar. I like both, and I know the wider one is more beefier/sturdy, but I think the smaller one compliments the grille/bumper better, while the large one I think hides them. I don't want any emblems on the car, no Charger emblems on the roof pillar, no tail panel emblem and no grille emblem. Most cars on the show did not have any emblems showing (or they were painted over) and I want mine to be that way. I don't want any exhaust tips on my General either. A lot of replicas have them, but on the show most cars had turn downs at the rear, the only series car I can think of off the top of my head that had tips was LEE 3, it had the factory tips on the back, but they were painted orange when the car was painted. My car will not have side markers, because I will weld a patch/fill where the 68 markers were, and I am not going to fool with buying all the parts to install 69 markers (and of course on the show that was the way 68 were done). I did however bought, and installed 69 reverse lights for the rear valance, just personal preference, I wanted reverse lights. Interior, I am just wanting to make a nice, clean tan interior... I am not really copying any specific car. I just picked out some tan paints I liked and going from there. If you look at interiors on the show, there was hardly any consistency. I am still up in the air about putting a roll bar in it. I know it's part of the General's look, but having kids that will be getting in and out of the backseat, It will probably be more feasible not to have one at all. I am though thinking of Ideas to make one and have it easily removable if need be. In a nut shell, I basically want an early series looking car, but it probably won't be exact. Plus, budget plays a big role in what I do to. Just some of my Ideas and reasons on how I am building mine. Jason

Small Update... After buying the one Vector from a wrecking yard, I scored me a set of 15 x 7 Vectors. I will probably keep the 14 x 8 I just got from the yard for a spare seeing as how I got it cheap. It will be a couple of weeks before I get the 15" set, because the guy that has them still has them on his car at the body shop, his car is being painted soon. They are the reissued set, and are used and in good condition, and I got a heck of a deal on them. I will post pics, and tell the story of how I got them, after the transaction is completed. Jason

Cool pics you keep posting, Roth Potter! That coloring/activity book brings back memories, I remember having one when I was a kid. Jason

Like I said, I started back working on the car, so hopefully some updates soon. The only thing right now to share is, I bought a push bar for the General. Since I had some extra cash after fixing the van, I saw an ad online the other day for the narrow type (used early in the series) , so I went ahead a bought it. Of course when It showed up.... I had to throw the bumper back on and mount it up, just to see how it looks. I am happy with it! Another part I bought... A friend of mine who fixes up old trucks, told me he was at a junkyard a couple of months ago and he saw a set of 'General Lee' wheels on a truck there. Well he called the other day, and said he was back at the yard, and he described the wheel, and said it was on a Ford Ranger (which is the same bolt pattern as a Charger). Sadly the other 3 where gone, just one left. I went ahead and told him to get it for me since it was just 30 bucks.... Maybe I can luck up and find 3 more, if not, it will be good to use for the spare tire. Makes me wished I could have got the other 3.... that would have been 120 for a set of Vectors!!! My one vector throwed on the car... Until Later, Jason

Just wanted to post, to let you know I'm still around. Not much knew news, but I am working on some rust repair on the body, but will be posting that stuff when I finish and have all my pics. The last couple of weeks I haven't been working on the Charger though. My wife was coming home around 8 p.m. one evening after running an errand, she was in her minivan, and a deer ran out in front of her. She hit it on the left front corner of the van, then it rolled down the side, putting a couple of small dents in the drivers door, caving in the rear sliding door, and leaving a couple of more dents in the rear quarter. The first estimate on the van was $3400 worth of damage, and they wanted to total out the van. I told them I planned on repairing it myself, so the adjuster worked with me on lowering the estimate to keep from totalling the van out (it runs good, and the damage wasn't that bad). Anyways, after my deductible, I wound up getting a check for a little over $2600 to fix my van. I installed new aftermarket fender, headlight , bumper cover, wheel cover, and tail light (tail light was already cracked before the accident). I repaired the doors and quarter panel, and I also repaired a dent on the rear hatch that has been on there for a little while. I pretty much had to paint the entire left side of the van, blending on the hood and quarter, and blending in the spot I repaired on the rear hatch. After parts, paint and materials, I spent around $600 repairing the van myself, so long story short.... I made me a little $$$$ to spend on the General! Here is a couple before/after pics of my wife's van...

Well no updates. My sander broke (gonna try to pick up a new one later this week), And the lower quarter panel I ordered was damaged in shipping, they are gonna replace it, but will probably take another week to get here. Man, I am just ready to finish stripping this thing where I can start rust repair/bodywork! Jason

While stripping the car, so far no real surprises, I knew there are a few areas that need attention. Mostly a small patch of rust here or there that I will have to fabricate a patch and replace. The only area that was worse than expected was the right lower quarter. I noticed the paint was bubbled up here. Here is what it looks like after jabbing it with a screw driver…. Also note the arrow I placed in the pic, see how that looks like a solid, straight line? Well it is, sometime in the past this lower quarter was patched, but only from the arrow back. WTH? Why didn’t they do all of it, would have saved me some work now, lol. Since this area was so large I decided to just buy a lower quarter patch panel. Like always I searched the internet for the best price, I saw these things run anywhere from $90 to $105 (including shipping). Well come to find out, they are made by C2C fabrication (same company that produces the floor pans and trunk floor I used). You can buy directly from C2C, so I bought the panel for $56 plus $16 to ship, so that was $72 total, not too bad. Hopefully it should show up in a couple of days. Pic of quarter patch… Here is another area that needs attention (hopefully the qtr. Patch will reach up far enough to take care of this too, if not, I may have to fab a patch). Right here is why you don’t bondo directly over rust, it will never last. This is near the right rear wheel, I didn’t discover this until after I bought the patch from C2C, If I discovered this first I would have probably bought a larger patch panel. No biggie tough. When I finish stripping, I will begin rust repair. I will update with more pics and stories. The plan is to finish the stripping, repair rust, repair dents, and shoot the entire car with epoxy primer. Then I will begin all bondo work/surface prep. Later, Jason

Well, some of you probably thought I have quit this project, lol. It has been so much going on the last few months I haven’t had time to really work on the ’68 much. Well, being off for the holidays, I had a chance to do a little work on the car and thought I would share a small update. As you have seen in the photos, the Charger had been painted black when I bought it. It was a quick, shoddy paint job. Even though it was somewhat glossy, it had a lot of orange peel, and dust/trash in the finish. I stripped back a little bit to find the car was primed (with red lacquer primer), then painted black directly over the original factory Green paint. So, I decided to strip off all the black paint, and primer and start my work from there, in other words I am pretty much stripping this car to the original finish, not all the way to bare metal all over it. I have spent a few hours on it in a couple of days, and I have over half the car stripped. In the past, I have used chemical strippers, but on this car, I am using a DA sander to sand off the black paint. Hopefully if I can work on it a couple of days after work this week, and on next Saturday, maybe I can finish it up by next weekend. I still like half of roof, left door, left fender and hood. On the left quarter panel, I did strip this all the way to the metal. As I have stated earlier in this thread, this quarter has been replaced sometime in the past (while the car was still Green), the quarter was from a Red car, so it had the original Red finish, bodywork/primer from installation, Green paint, then primed and painted black. That’s a lot of material on there, so I wanted to strip this panel all the way down and start fresh, plus I want to remove the bondo where the quarter was installed to see if any work or re-repairing needs done. I still have to break out my grinder and remove all the old bondo from this panel.

Cool pics Roth Potter, thanks for sharing. In the pic with Rosco Jumping onto the trampoline, it's hard to tell because of the pic quality, but that stunt man was probably Bobby Orrison. He doubled James Best on the series. He actually got killed in a car accident a couple of months ago along with another stunt man. They weren't doing any stunts, they were just travelling in a car. Bobby Orrison...

I haven't posted in my Lee build thread in over a month, just because I haven't been able to work on it in a while. On top of working overtime at my job, I had to repair and repaint the rear bumper on my Mom's car (My Dad backed it into a pole), and just this week I had to replace the head gaskets on my wife's 2002 Dodge Caravan (blew a head gasket). Hopefully I can get back to work on it soon. I come on here every now and then just read, I don't post a lot. Jason