The Official H-Body Internet Community

Man, that is a NICE lookin' car. Way to go, dude!!! Suh-WEEEETTT!

Do you get many comments on it? What are some of them?

Durn, keep up the great work!!!

cheers jer

I've heard a couple times, "That looks like an 80's IROC but its too small"

"That looks familiar, but I can't quite figure out what it is"

"That's a MONZA?!?!?!?!?!?!?"

Lots of "That's really a cool looking car, what is it?"

and I had a guy with a brand new Dodge Charger walk across a parking lot at the gas station to talk to me and see what it is.

Just for comparison sake, this is what it looked like when I brought it home:

download/file.php?id=16183

Here's where we are now, its almost presentable.

beautiful job gerbs. another nice saved from the crusher. get yourself a vega now and bring one of them back like you did with this one and you will have the matching book ends. job well done art

Thanks Art. Its been a lot of work. I don't think my budget could handle another car at this point, maybe some day. I'm kind of glad that I have gotten this far, my wife is finally starting to talk about it and show it to people since I started putting it back together and getting it drivable.... I'm afraid she might regress and be unhappy with another project in the garage.

Just got back from running some errands with the Mirage probably put 30 miles on it. I know it doesn't sound like much but when its a car that hasn't been driven for 25 years I think its a quite a milestone! I'm starting to get a little confidence in this car.

Ok, so I've been looking high and low for hub caps to go on my AER wheels. The ones I found are always too big, even had one company send me 2 different batches of caps, both too big. But I think I've found the solution. I knew those Monza finned hubcaps would come in handy some day. I took one of them that didn't have the greatest center cap and knocked it out. Turns out its almost a perfect fit. What do you guys think of the look? Granted its not the best cap, but its not too bad. It doesn't match the rear caps at which are standard American Racing, but I think its better than looking at the dustcap.

Looks good to me.

rm617 wrote:Looks good to me.

X2

Definately looks good to me!

Dick

Any updates? It's looking really good.

Bill

Hey Bill,

Not many updates this spring yet. My oldest is graduating from High School so I've be terribly busy in the yard and around the house. I have the yard looking better than it ever has, and helped install a sprinkler system for it, cleaning, trimming, mulching, seeding, fertilizing, etc.

Over the winter I did redo the rear spoiler and driver side rear flare, they still had lots of pits in them and are looking really good now, still have the passenger one to do.

I should have much more time after the first of the month to devote to it. I have a Performer manifold and Carb waiting for it as well as a TH350.

Thanks for asking,
Darrel

Took the Mirage on its first drive of the season, other than over to the Walmart and Rita's. Drove it about 15 miles each way, on the highway. It still needs the tires balanced, and the carb REALLY needs to be replaced, but it made it just fine. A nice cool night with the windows down and cruising at a steady 60 mph. Hopefully I'll get to take it to the Father's Day Car show on Sunday.

I took a stab at putting the mounting strips on my car Just before taking it to the Father's Day car show. I used the composite J-channel I found at Home Depot as a replacement. Here's what it looks like. I used some 3M double sided adhesive strips to attach them for now, to see if I have the placement right, etc. It seems to be working pretty well!

I still need to trim up some of the corners, but it looks much better than before with big gaping cracks.

Had to replace the muffler last night, and thought what a pain this was going to be.... I took the hanger off the muffler and RIPPED the rotten muffler off, leaving the clamp and associated end of the muffler on the exhaust pipe. Went to work to get the clamp off, and it came off with a little PBlaster and then went to work on the remained end of the muffler with the dremel, I started cutting a slot in the muffler and when I cut thru the final piece of it on one side the whole thing snapped and flew off the exhaust pipe. I was in shock, I thought I would have to mangle the end of the exhaust pipe to get it appart but the 2 pieces separated almost perfectly. When all was said and done had a new muffler on the car in less than 90 min and that included running to the parts store at 9:30 at night!!!!