Firewall stripped

We pulled the windshield and began stripping everything off the firewall and cowl. Someone has replaced the windshield in the past. Instead of gluing it in they installed it in a bed of butyl caulk. It was a big sticky mess and cutting it out was a chore. Also, the upper corner of the glass on one side had almost no clearance between it and the window frame. Either they installed it cockeyed or something is tweaked.

The stainless header/pillar trim and visors were attached with a hodgepodge of mismatched screws all thoroughly corroded in place.

The cowl beneath the wiper motor was packed with dirt and debris as was the passenger side drain area. Seems the Chrysler engineers could have come up with a better solution for draining the cowl under the wiper motor than to have it dump out on the firewall just above the gas pedal mount. While I'm not positive, I think this is the source of one of my water leaks. I can't find any rusted out areas inside the cowl.

There's a center cowl drain just above the gas pedal mount.

The heater box and evaporator cover were in really poor shape with a lots of cracked and broken fiberglass. The mounting points are also a good place for water to get in, especially given the condition of the box. The blower motor is seized.

Inside there was no shortage of surface rust on the dash frame, pedal assembly, and underside of the cowl. It'll take a lot of work to get it all cleaned up. The wiring's a mess as is the myriad of vacuum lines for the heater system. A non-AC car would be a piece of cake.

Open heart surgery

This evening we pulled engine and trans as a unit. Again, all went pretty well. There's a torque cable on the driver side mount which appears factory - certainly not homemade. The passenger side mount was broken.

Austin shows off his "guns".



Austin enjoys this kind of work - at least until he gets hungry. As soon as we had it out and the trans separated from the engine it was quitin' time for him (dinner).

"Let me show you how it's done, Dad."

Here he is at age 6 supervising the removal of the engine from the Duster. Boy, how time flies!

We pulled the remaining fender. This is where more "hack" repairs were discovered. Some inner fender fasteners were missing. In fact, when I went to remove the bolt for the fender brace that's buried behind the wheel opening it was gone - or at least it looked like it was. Upon closer inspection I found that someone had tack welded the brace to the mount on the cowl. Not sure why unless they simply lost the bolt and it was faster to weld it. Used a cutoff wheel on the weld to finally free the fender from the car.

Someone welded the fender brace to the cowl

The tear-down begins...

My son, Austin, and I spent a couple hours pulling most of the front end off. It went a little smoother than I expected considering the corroded fasteners. The car spent who knows how many years in the Seattle area near the ocean. That salt air rusts things fast. When we first got the car I pulled the hood to make a repair and most of the bolts snapped off with little effort. No broken bolts so far on our tear down.