Mods
Current modifications:
- Sprayfoam A-pillars with duct tape patch panels
- Bias ply snow tires on one side of car that were on the car when parked in 1993
- Swiss cheese styled rear frame rails and front subframe
- Rustoleum painted floors
Planned modifications:
- 906 heads, 1.6 roller rockers, HP manifolds, 650 cfm Carter AVS, Edelbrock DP4B, Suregrip 3.55 rear end, Mickey Thompson valve covers, Dodge cop rally wheels with Fratzog dog dishes, rebuilt front suspension with NOS Moog parts, rust-free subframe (everything purchased at swap meets or on Facebook)
- Still need: Comp Cams XE268H or XE274H cam, .30 pistons and 10/10 on crank, electronic ignition swap, freshened up transmission and rear end, dual exhaust
- Also need: A-pillars, cowl sheetmetal, rear window channel, rear frame rails
- Sprayfoam A-pillars with duct tape patch panels
- Bias ply snow tires on one side of car that were on the car when parked in 1993
- Swiss cheese styled rear frame rails and front subframe
- Rustoleum painted floors
Planned modifications:
- 906 heads, 1.6 roller rockers, HP manifolds, 650 cfm Carter AVS, Edelbrock DP4B, Suregrip 3.55 rear end, Mickey Thompson valve covers, Dodge cop rally wheels with Fratzog dog dishes, rebuilt front suspension with NOS Moog parts, rust-free subframe (everything purchased at swap meets or on Facebook)
- Still need: Comp Cams XE268H or XE274H cam, .30 pistons and 10/10 on crank, electronic ignition swap, freshened up transmission and rear end, dual exhaust
- Also need: A-pillars, cowl sheetmetal, rear window channel, rear frame rails
Build story
The story on Delmae starts in 1971, with my great grandmother, Mrs. Delmae Joy, walking into Fulton Motors in Solomons, Maryland with cash from the sale of a piece of family land she had to split with 9 siblings, and leaving behind the wheel of this 1971 Dodge Polara Custom sedan with a 383 2bbl and A/C (first air conditioned car in the family), Torqueflite 727, 8 3/4 rear end with 2.76 gears, power steering and power disc brakes, basic black vinyl bench seats, AM radio, and finished in GA4 Light Gunmetal Metallic (more on that later) with a black vinyl top. From there, the car lived a quiet life, being garage kept in a small shed my great grandfather built for her, and only being used to drive around town or have someone drive her to doctors appointments. On one occasion, however, the brakes failed on her and she ran into a Ace Hardware that her sister owned, damaging the rear right door. As she got older though, the car was loaned out as a spare set of wheels to family members that needed them, including to my father who drove it to college on a few occasions. When my great grandmother passed away in 1992, it was given to my uncle Jody as his daily mode of transportation. Unfortunately, at some point in April 1993, the tags were pulled off and the car sat under a pine tree in his yard.
Fast forward to June 2017. I am an 18 year old Mopar enthusiast who has just graduated high school. I had spent the last 4 years slowly noticing a blue-gray rusting hulk that I passed every single day of my life. At my graduation party, I walked up to my uncle and asked him if I could have the car, and to my surprise, he let me have it on the condition that it was not to be parted out or sold. This is where "Project Delmae" begins, and the plan of getting the car completed before July 2021 to not only celebrate the car's 50th birthday, but to also have it ready to take on Power Tour when it would come through the Mid-Atlantic. It took me 11 months to jack the car up, take off the flat tires at the front, and on Memorial Day 2018, we threw a tow strap around the front cross member and dragged it around the road to my grandparents' yard and begun the initial assessment of seeing how bad the car was. As Freiburger says, "Good looking from afar, but far from good looking", and this fit it to the tee. The 25 years of sitting on flat tires under a pine tree had caused not only the rims to rot to a point where they would leak air gradually, but the rear frame rails had questionable strength and the rot holes in the A-pillars from where the vinyl top had peeled away and the untreated metal underneath it were eaten away by the acidic needles. Surprisingly, the floor pans had not completely rotted away from the rust holes under the rear window trim, as a complete block of plaster had managed to suck up most of the moisture over the decades. Being as this was my first resurrection from the dead, I hired the help of my oldest uncle Glenn (who used to service this car when it was new), and on a payment of Mountain Dew and Hostess Cupcakes, we managed to determine the engine was not stuck and with just a rebuild of the original Carter BBD, Delmae started for the first time on August 26, 2018. Unbeknownst to us, that first start revealed a stuck #2 intake valve, and the pushrod bent a considerable amount. Being a broke college student with a part time job at a golf course, and coming from a line of shade tree mechanics, we threw the pushrod in the vice, straightened it to the best we could eyeball, and threw it back into the engine with a new rocker arm.
The rest of 2018 was spent both cleaning out the interior (mainly ripping out old carpet, as the mice were eaten by snakes before they could attack the seats and headliner) and replacing every single hard and soft brake line that seemingly split and broke each time we replaced one and bled it. On December 19, 2018, I became the first person to pilot the massive battleship under its own power, with a 5 gallon tank held freely between the radiator support and grille, and a lack of any brake lines, I made a half mile trip around the road to my house (which was where my great grandparents lived and where the car was garaged for the first part of its life), and left a trail of ATF caused by a split transmission cooler line. After that line was repaired, I did a quick test run on the main road with no lights, no registration, no tags, no insurance, and no problems. The majority of 2019 was spent buttoning up small nuisances, such as splicing in new wire to the neutral safety switch that the mice had eaten, putting in a new hazard/turn signal switch, filling in the few pinholes in the floor with all-metal putty and then painting the floor with Rustoleum by hand brushes, and repairing the original fuel tank with JB Weld and Rustoleum after buying a new one sight unseen and driving 2 hours one way to only overpay on even rustier scrap metal. I also had managed to find the original license plates to the car, having been removed in 1975 according to the registration date. At this point, all that was left was to wash it, and in theory with a new set of tires and wheel it should've been ready for anything, and had the intentions of even taking it to Day 4 of the 2019 Drag Week race. Unfortunately, the rusted frame portions and A-pillars scared my parents to the point that I decided to buy a subframe from Florida (once again without physically seeing it) and began to collect some go fast parts that I wanted to throw on the car when I had the engine out to swap the subframe.
2019 I also began to network and connect with as many owners of these cars as I could, as it all started with seeing just a single example of this car being represented at Chryslers at Carlisle the first year I attended (2013). In doing so, I discovered that this car had a sister car almost identically equipped (but with a 360), built 6 days later, and owned by Henry Kissenger. That car was turned into a cop car clone, and made me realize that this car was the only surviving example known to date in this color. At the beginning of 2020, I answered a Facebook ad for a set of Dodge Cop Rally wheels for a steal of a price. When I went to pick up the wheels, I was offered a 451 Stroker Mopar big block that the owner had blown up, and needed to get rid of. That engine just so happened to have a set of ported and worked on iron heads with roller rockers, and the price he told me left me running to the bank. Unfortunately Covid struck and it meant I had to wait 4 months to actually pickup the engine, but 4 months and $125 later, I came home with the parts engine, a free parts washer, and a cab full of big block parts I didn't need. Once again I spent most of 2020 just browsing for parts to accumulate for the rebuild (and getting some amazing scores in the process) and plotting to begin the actual rebuild of the car. With 7 months until the initial set date that I had planned on having the car finished, my uncle Glenn and I went head first and started the disassembly of Delmae in January 2021. Over the course of 2 weeks, working a few afternoons at a time, we had the entire front end removed from the car and with the help of my uncle Jody, had the 383 pulled and put onto the engine stand, and the car sits today with the front subframe apart and awaiting rebuild (as of March 14th). As she sits right now, the car only has 48,630 miles, with 4 miles being put on it since I pulled it out of its slumber.
What is next? Unfortunately due to being a fulltime student, the July 2021 completion date for the car was scrapped, as funds and timing are not in my favor during my final semester of college. However, come Summer 2021, the original cast crank, 8.5 to 1 compression, externally balanced 383 will be sent off to the machine shop, with the goal of breaking the 400 horsepower mark with about 9.5 to 1 compression at its max. Sheetmetal for the rust is still being sought after, however, I have procured the help of a friend who will being using the car as his own learning tool for welding. The whole goal of the car was to revive it for as cheap as possible, and the initial goal had been succeeded. This is my first true project car, as my uncles and father all had their own project cars when they were my age. This car was not meant to be left sitting under a tree and rotting into the ground, as every other sane minded person on Earth would have taken one look and tossed it into the junkyard. The new goal is to drive this car to Chrysler Nationals in 2023 to celebrate 30 years of being off the road. So many of these cars were sent away to junkyards after having their hearts yanked for Roadrunners and Challengers, or destroyed in demolition derbies for entertainment. There isn't the love for C bodies in this world, but there are a few crazy people like myself who want to show them off. The influence of Roadkill has affected many people my age and within this contest, and I set out to do what they do and prove it can be done. In the end it won't be a restomod, but it will be a RUSTOMOD.
Follow the progress of the project on Instagram: @joyboy13257
Fast forward to June 2017. I am an 18 year old Mopar enthusiast who has just graduated high school. I had spent the last 4 years slowly noticing a blue-gray rusting hulk that I passed every single day of my life. At my graduation party, I walked up to my uncle and asked him if I could have the car, and to my surprise, he let me have it on the condition that it was not to be parted out or sold. This is where "Project Delmae" begins, and the plan of getting the car completed before July 2021 to not only celebrate the car's 50th birthday, but to also have it ready to take on Power Tour when it would come through the Mid-Atlantic. It took me 11 months to jack the car up, take off the flat tires at the front, and on Memorial Day 2018, we threw a tow strap around the front cross member and dragged it around the road to my grandparents' yard and begun the initial assessment of seeing how bad the car was. As Freiburger says, "Good looking from afar, but far from good looking", and this fit it to the tee. The 25 years of sitting on flat tires under a pine tree had caused not only the rims to rot to a point where they would leak air gradually, but the rear frame rails had questionable strength and the rot holes in the A-pillars from where the vinyl top had peeled away and the untreated metal underneath it were eaten away by the acidic needles. Surprisingly, the floor pans had not completely rotted away from the rust holes under the rear window trim, as a complete block of plaster had managed to suck up most of the moisture over the decades. Being as this was my first resurrection from the dead, I hired the help of my oldest uncle Glenn (who used to service this car when it was new), and on a payment of Mountain Dew and Hostess Cupcakes, we managed to determine the engine was not stuck and with just a rebuild of the original Carter BBD, Delmae started for the first time on August 26, 2018. Unbeknownst to us, that first start revealed a stuck #2 intake valve, and the pushrod bent a considerable amount. Being a broke college student with a part time job at a golf course, and coming from a line of shade tree mechanics, we threw the pushrod in the vice, straightened it to the best we could eyeball, and threw it back into the engine with a new rocker arm.
The rest of 2018 was spent both cleaning out the interior (mainly ripping out old carpet, as the mice were eaten by snakes before they could attack the seats and headliner) and replacing every single hard and soft brake line that seemingly split and broke each time we replaced one and bled it. On December 19, 2018, I became the first person to pilot the massive battleship under its own power, with a 5 gallon tank held freely between the radiator support and grille, and a lack of any brake lines, I made a half mile trip around the road to my house (which was where my great grandparents lived and where the car was garaged for the first part of its life), and left a trail of ATF caused by a split transmission cooler line. After that line was repaired, I did a quick test run on the main road with no lights, no registration, no tags, no insurance, and no problems. The majority of 2019 was spent buttoning up small nuisances, such as splicing in new wire to the neutral safety switch that the mice had eaten, putting in a new hazard/turn signal switch, filling in the few pinholes in the floor with all-metal putty and then painting the floor with Rustoleum by hand brushes, and repairing the original fuel tank with JB Weld and Rustoleum after buying a new one sight unseen and driving 2 hours one way to only overpay on even rustier scrap metal. I also had managed to find the original license plates to the car, having been removed in 1975 according to the registration date. At this point, all that was left was to wash it, and in theory with a new set of tires and wheel it should've been ready for anything, and had the intentions of even taking it to Day 4 of the 2019 Drag Week race. Unfortunately, the rusted frame portions and A-pillars scared my parents to the point that I decided to buy a subframe from Florida (once again without physically seeing it) and began to collect some go fast parts that I wanted to throw on the car when I had the engine out to swap the subframe.
2019 I also began to network and connect with as many owners of these cars as I could, as it all started with seeing just a single example of this car being represented at Chryslers at Carlisle the first year I attended (2013). In doing so, I discovered that this car had a sister car almost identically equipped (but with a 360), built 6 days later, and owned by Henry Kissenger. That car was turned into a cop car clone, and made me realize that this car was the only surviving example known to date in this color. At the beginning of 2020, I answered a Facebook ad for a set of Dodge Cop Rally wheels for a steal of a price. When I went to pick up the wheels, I was offered a 451 Stroker Mopar big block that the owner had blown up, and needed to get rid of. That engine just so happened to have a set of ported and worked on iron heads with roller rockers, and the price he told me left me running to the bank. Unfortunately Covid struck and it meant I had to wait 4 months to actually pickup the engine, but 4 months and $125 later, I came home with the parts engine, a free parts washer, and a cab full of big block parts I didn't need. Once again I spent most of 2020 just browsing for parts to accumulate for the rebuild (and getting some amazing scores in the process) and plotting to begin the actual rebuild of the car. With 7 months until the initial set date that I had planned on having the car finished, my uncle Glenn and I went head first and started the disassembly of Delmae in January 2021. Over the course of 2 weeks, working a few afternoons at a time, we had the entire front end removed from the car and with the help of my uncle Jody, had the 383 pulled and put onto the engine stand, and the car sits today with the front subframe apart and awaiting rebuild (as of March 14th). As she sits right now, the car only has 48,630 miles, with 4 miles being put on it since I pulled it out of its slumber.
What is next? Unfortunately due to being a fulltime student, the July 2021 completion date for the car was scrapped, as funds and timing are not in my favor during my final semester of college. However, come Summer 2021, the original cast crank, 8.5 to 1 compression, externally balanced 383 will be sent off to the machine shop, with the goal of breaking the 400 horsepower mark with about 9.5 to 1 compression at its max. Sheetmetal for the rust is still being sought after, however, I have procured the help of a friend who will being using the car as his own learning tool for welding. The whole goal of the car was to revive it for as cheap as possible, and the initial goal had been succeeded. This is my first true project car, as my uncles and father all had their own project cars when they were my age. This car was not meant to be left sitting under a tree and rotting into the ground, as every other sane minded person on Earth would have taken one look and tossed it into the junkyard. The new goal is to drive this car to Chrysler Nationals in 2023 to celebrate 30 years of being off the road. So many of these cars were sent away to junkyards after having their hearts yanked for Roadrunners and Challengers, or destroyed in demolition derbies for entertainment. There isn't the love for C bodies in this world, but there are a few crazy people like myself who want to show them off. The influence of Roadkill has affected many people my age and within this contest, and I set out to do what they do and prove it can be done. In the end it won't be a restomod, but it will be a RUSTOMOD.
Follow the progress of the project on Instagram: @joyboy13257