Right Side Sport Mirror - Installed

Last weekend the passenger's side mirror didn't get installed because I couldn't find the drill. I realized much later that night that I had loaned it to a friend and hadn't gotten it back yet. The drill has returned, and I was able to finish the mirror installation.

I used the gasket as a template to mark and drill the holes. I used one of those stepped drill bits to get the holes drilled.


Taped off the holes to put some primer down on the exposed metal to keep the rust at bay.




And viola... installed. Looks real nice with the matching one on now.

Hot B-Body Wagon

This was linked off of a MoparStyle, it was an eBay auction. This B-Body wagon is pretty frickin slick, very similar to how I want the wagon to end up. The copper color is pretty close to what I want on the Aspen, not sure yet about just the roof as a two-tone or the color of the two tone. Still, this is one hot wagon.

I Finally Found It

Yesterday being Tax Day, I was working late to support the biggest day of the year for my company. Before I went into work, I decided to make a quick junkyard run to see if there was anything new. The first yard I went to, I had almost given up when I saw the front fender peeking at me from the end of the last row of Chrysler cars. It ended up being a 1978 Dodge Aspen Custom 4-door sedan, green exterior with a green interior (how 70s).

The first thing that caught my eye was the chrome trim wrapped around the front marker light, which meant that this car had the same side trim. But would any of the pieces be usable. As I got closer, i saw a perfect passenger door piece. I quickly snagged it off the door. The vinyl trim is green, but now that I have the piece I will be redying all of the pieces to match (since mine is faded). The only question, redye it red or dye it a different color? The trim is supposed to match the interior, but I'm also about to start changing over the interior, so I may dye it a different color. Heck, if I don't like it I can just redye it back to red.

After getting over my initial excitement of the trim, I looked the car over for some other usable parts. The interior had a dash cap that was in pristine condition, with no cracks. I carefully removed it to take with me. I also removed the speedometer and took that with me. I needed the circuit board (the one in the wagon is cracked) for the back of the cluster. There were some other parts, but I did'nt really need them so I left with my three finds.

Pictures to come later.

The Missing Piece

No, not a post about Shel Silverstein. My last trip to the junkyard, I thought I had hit pay dirt on the piece of missing trim that's gone from the passenger's side of the Aspen.




I spotted a white sedan with the trim from about 10 cars away. I rushed over, and saw that the passenger door did have the trim on it. I was very happy, until I got right to the car and found that the jackass had riveted all the vinyl trim onto the stainless trim (probably to keep it from falling off). Every single piece had at least 3 rivets in it, nothing was usable.

Oh well, back to the waiting game.

Stripping The T&C

Today, I spent the morning cleaning up and organizing the garage to make room for the T&C. Once I got the T&C into the garage, I started pulling parts off of it.

I started at the rear, and pulled the taillights off (they will go to eBay).


I pulled all of the interior pieces out from the rear cargo area. Trim panels, the carpeted areas on the cargo floor, weatherstripping aroudn the tailgate opening, etc.


I then moved to the front seat area. I pulled the Instrument cluster, instrument panel, and dash pad and top.


At that point, it was getting to hot and sweaty in the garage and that became a stopping point. More disassembly coming soon.

Pictures Of The Town & Country

The previous photos I've posted of the Town & Country were from the original web posting that Nick had to sell the T&C. Now that I've gotten it home, and things have slowed down a little bit, I have finally gotten a chance to snap a few photos of the car. I haven't yet started parting it out, that will begin shortly. Here she is in all her glory.

Here are a couple of shots of both wagons in the driveway. These photos show that the Town & Country is essentially a luxury version of the Dodge Aspen (even though Chrysler called the Aspen & Volare an "F-Body" and the Chrysler was called an "M-Body"). On the outside, the roof, doors, tailgate, rear quarter panels and all glass are completely interchangeable between the two.

In this photo, you can compare the rear side windows. The Town & Coutnry has a small vinyl trim piece that is attached to the D-pillar. This effectively makes the rear window shorter in length than the Aspen, but if I had to guess there is window buried under there.

Here are some photos of just the Town & Country.

A neighbor of Nick's backed her car into the driver's door of the Town & Country. Here you can see the damage left behind. This causes the lock mechanism in this door to always be locked, so you either have to keep the window rolled down, unlock it with the key all the time, or climb in another door.

The vinyl top is coming off.

Here's a closeup of the taillight area. You can see that the taillgate has the same cut around where the Aspen taillights went. Also, you can see below the taillight a filler piece that was poorly installed to fill the gap where the Aspen's taillights should have gone.

The main reason for this parts car, the 318 4V V8 engine. The engine in this car is actually a cop motor out of a 1989 Dodge Diplomat police car, so it makes a bit more power than the 318 that would have been in this car in 1978. Runs real nice. Once the engine is out, I'll do a mild rebuild on it.

A few shots of the interior. Tan & Brown, to match the exterior. The leather front seats are torn up, but the driver's seat is a power seat. The back seat is in suprisingly good condition for it's age.

Power windows too. I think I may transfer these parts to the Aspen, to give it some new features it never had.

Here are a few shots of the dash and gauges. I'm still contemplating moving these parts also over to the Aspen. One part that makes the Aspen an Aspen is the square speedometer and instrument cluster. However, most of the mid 60's and early 70's Chrylser products had a standard dash and a Rallye dash. The standard dash was very plain looking, typically square or rectangle in shape (of the instrument cluster). The Rallye dash had round gauges, and more of them. There never was a Rallye dash for the Aspen, but I'm thinking I'm going to create one. Just have to see how that works out.

This is definitely more luxurious than the Aspen. The entire cargo area is carpeted. These parts are definitely coming over to the wagon. The rear tailgate even has speakers (the Aspen came from the factory with one speaker in the dash).