1974 Plymouth Duster - The Rest Was History

If you're of a certain vintage you may either had one of these or knew someone who did. Plymouth Dusters were as common place thirty to forty years ago as Camrys and Accords today. If I'm not mistaken this one hails from model year 1974. 

One of Chrysler's few bright spots back in the early '70s, the Duster was a nice combination of styling, practicality and value. They were also much less expensive to purchase used than an Oldsmobile Cutlass, Chevrolet Monte Carlo or Pontiac Grand Prix. Despite their size they were classified as compacts. Then again, all cars back in the 1970's were bigger than they are today. 

They were, often times, also far less equipped overall than those personal luxury cars were. My only time spent behind the wheel of one was one that had no power steering or brakes. Being as light as it was its "Slant Six" was quite responsive and out and out impossible to steer or brake. Driving it reminded me of my one or two times riding a horse and feeling I could die at any moment. 

Based on the Chrysler "A-body" platform that also underpinned the far more prosaic Valiant and Dodge Darts of the time, Plymouth made the Duster between 1970 and 1976. Dodge marketed a similar looking version of it they called "Demon" in 1971 and 1972.

Plymouth dropped the Duster for model year 1977 replacing it, in essence, with a two door version of the updated Valiant they called "Volare" they had introduced in 1976. I was always fairly lukewarm to Dusters, they were just "ok" to me. That said, they were far more cool than any Volare ever was.

The whole Valiant-Duster-Volare debacle just one of a number of blunders Chrysler made back then that led them to the brink of bankruptcy and the '70's melted into the '80's. Chrysler eventually replacing the Volare with the K-car. The rest, as we say, was history.

Frieze...The Latest

There is a special place in you know where for the inventor wall paper and wall paper borders. I grew up in a house where every room had wall paper and for obvious reasons; to conceal the endless cracks in the plaster. In "modern" homes it's purely decorative but it ages quickly. Nothing says "1997" like the flowery border that was in this bathroom. The same border is in our master bedroom. Seeing what a soul crusher this has been to remove I'm going to leave that as is in our bedroom. At least for the time being.

The "freshening" of our master bath vanity is a back breaking ordeal that has me mixing curse words that would make The Old Man from A Christmas Story proud. The removal of the old wall paper border was a fairly arduous process, particularly the border that was placed around the useless "soaking tub" but it is what it is. My plan for this week is to get one if not two more coats of "skim" up on the top of the room. The "soaking tub" work will take a little longer because I had to remove a bead of caulk at the top of the pieces of marble on top of the outside of the tub. Three if not four coats of skim will finish that off.

Then, next Saturday, my plan is to sand the room and prep for paint on Sunday. Once this major project is done I will be moving to expansion of my workbench/work shop area. I need to expand it to make it more a better work area. I need a better work area and more storage undernearth to work on various projects around the hourse but most importantly I need an expansive area to fabricate, "The Frieze".

Le Frieze and Le Delays

The concrete "Frieze" on the renovated (1976) Yankee Stadium is the inspiration for my want of whimsy

The temperature has plunged across the country lately and particularly here in Cleveland, where on average it's a good 7-10 degrees below the rest of the country. Brrr. Hello, feetie jammies. The nip in the air tells me that I have to get a move on with my projects because I do not want to be working on "The Frieze" in the dead of winter.

10 years ago, this little 10 inch TV ran us, including the funky cantilever mount, over $700. Kid ya not.

The big time sucker and obstacle to the start of my delightful whimsy of the Frieze in the garage has been the updating of our master bathroom. Grant did away with Lee with greater ease than it's taking me to finish the bathroom "update".

Nothing is ever as simple as it looks

Adding our old 10 inch, 10 year old LCD TV to Janet's side of the vanity area took "just" a Sunday afternoon. These simple looking projects are never that simple. I always budget double if not triple the time I think it will take to do a job. This job included splicing cable, running the line down behind the wall, tapping into an expanding an electrical box and finally mounting the TV in a location I knew Janet would be happy with. None of this was easy.

There's a special place in you know where for the person who invented wall paper

It's removing the wall paper boarder that has me reaching for my good buddy Jack. That little amount I have down already, resplendent in its having pulled down the first layer of paper on the sheet rock glory, took me the entire second half the Giants whooping of the Browns last weekend. That, soup to nuts, is probably two hours of neck straining work. This is going to take a while.

Except for paint and the Mrs. suggesting an expansion upwards, this is finally done

Furthermore, I had to finish, "The Stoop" out in the garage just west of the work bench. I finally finished this after weeks of delays and doing it piece meal. It came out ok. I ain't no finish carpenter. My plans for The Stoop include now painting it Yankee blue and white to go with the Frieze/work bench project. That paint job will also include tubes and tubes of sweet painters caulk to cover up my sins.

Gonna miss the Corvette

Meanwhile over at the work bench, expansion has begun. This expansion has to be done so I can start several moulding jobs that need to be done. I don't have the room on my present set up to this correctly. So, larger the work bench gets. I've removed the rake and shovel racks and moved them to window wall (above) here in the garage. Looks dicey having all that stuff hanging so close to der Vette but that stuff is lashed down very well. Besides, "Sweet 77" is going into storage in a couple of weeks (boooo!) so if something falls off the wall it will hit Janet's (company car) Camry. ROFLMAO.

This looks better already. Above is with the racks for rakes and what not that's not on the window wall to the left of the Vette in this pic. Funny, the older I get the more allergic I find myself to clutter.

When I built this originally I built it small because I didn't want something overpoweringly large. Well, so much for that. This weekend she doubles in size!

The expansion itself of "The Bench" will be simple enough. With all the rakes and shovels now on the window wall the right field lower grand stand expansion shouldn't take too look to build. I also plan on adding four outlets and peg boards. And a place for my storage box. And radio speakers. Shouldn't take but a couple of hours Sunday morning.

Like he's never said THAT before.

Rawk.