**Mickey Thompson Challenger IV restoration**

[KaiserM715]

Found this thread yesterday and have read the whole thing. I have been a lifelong fan of Mickey. Very cool to see one of his vehicles restored. Rory, it is very, very cool of you to take this on.

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[Rory]

Working on some t-shirt artwork for Challenger IV. Hopefully we might have them done in time for Vegas 2 Reno next month.



Got a TON of photo's from www.tracksidephoto.com that have helped a lot, thanks Mr. Ober. As for an update on the vehicle itself, Just got the A-arms back from Sway-a-way (broaching) and a new set of upper torsion bars that were custom made. Waiting on the front hubs to be finished by Sandy Cone and I will post pic's. There's not much to look at right now but hopefully that will all change in the next month or so. If you'd like to help us out, please come over to the house and buy our class 12 race car. buy it now and run a short race before the 45th annual Baja 1000!



Details here: http://www.race-dezert.com/classifie...tails&id=26657

Sorry for shameless plugging

[EBryant]

Working on some t-shirt artwork for Challenger IV. Hopefully we might have them done in time for Vegas 2 Reno next month.

Well...are they going to be ready?

[Rory]

Well...are they going to be ready?

Erin,

Yes, the new t-shirts SHOULD be delivered early Thursday morning to my booth and ready for purchase at the Racers Only booth. Please come by and purchase a couple, all proceeds go towards the restoration of Challenger IV!

[EBryant]

Looks awesome! C U there.

[Rory]

So here we are, a little over a year since I picked up Challenger IV from Oregon, It's amazing how time gets away from you. I thought I'd give you a quick rundown of what has been happening over this past year.

Last June we picked up the racer in Oregon and got it home to Az. The first priority was to get the body off and take as many pictures of the car as possible before I started unbolting stuff and putting them in boxes. I took approx 100 high rez photo's and started a file in the computer.



As you can see, non of the suspension was on the car but we did have A-arms and the axle tubes for the rear end. Challenger IV was missing a motor, transmission and magnesium Dana 70 center section on the rear end. As each part was removed from the car, it was tagged and all nuts and bolts labeled, then placed in freezer bags.



The front suspension was pretty much all there except for the Drivers side front hub/spindle and upright. From what I was able to put together, Challenger IV's final race was the 1980 MINT 400 and MT had hit the underpass destroying the Left front suspension. I sent the Right upright off to Bear Race Cars in Kingman Arizona to have a new one built and also a jig. At the same time i knew i was going to have to have a drivers side lower front A-arm built since it was badly damaged from the impact at the MINT but upon further investigation, the other A-arms were slightly damaged also meaning I would need ALL brand new arms instead of just one. The building of the uprights took approx 1 month while the A-arms took a couple more since I was at the end of the line on getting stuff done in front of guys who were racing within the coming weeks....unlike myself.





As December rolled around I started working on stripping the old powder coat off the chassis. The A-arms were still being built at this time so I was trying to keep busy. As I was stripping the chassis, I had sent some parts up to Collins Motorsports to have magnafluxed. Everything came back in pretty good shape except for one upper torsion bar, it had what appeared to be a small crack so 2 new ones were ordered from Sway-A-Way. Once the chassis was stripped, the chassis got magnafluxed for cracks (Macrae Glass- KC HiLiTes class 8) and then welded up by Pete Corwin (same guy building the A-arms).



In February I picked up the chassis from ALLCOAT POWDER COATING in Kingman Arizona. Gary Messer (TL Champion) took care of the powder coating and it turned out BEAUTIFUL. His guys did a great job and the finish was better than I expected. From there it was back to the shop so we could start bolting up some parts to the racer.



The front A-arms were finished in late April and we had finally located some front Halibrand hubs that Sandy Cone (Cone Industries) had been sitting on for years but said he would give them up for our project. The torsion bars were still on order and everything just seemed to be taking longer than normal....always seems to be the case with these restoration projects. One of the BIGGEST purchases was the Magnesium Dana 70 from Henry's machine. This rear end I had been looking everywhere with no luck. Byron @ Henry's finally broke down and finished one for me since he had a couple lying around in his shop but still needed work......this was HUGE for us, THANKS BYRON.



As with everything on this project, nothing just seems to fit after purchase, it always needs some sort of machining or fabrication to get it to fit just right, the rear end was no exception. Sooo, off to Sandy Cone the rear end went to have it put together and machined to fit the Titanium axle tubes.

With that being said that's where we stand now, the front end is almost complete but still needs some finish work to get everything cycling smoothly. I'm hoping to get the rear end back by the Off Road Expo so i can have the rear cycled and finally get this thing on it's wheels again. I appreciate everyone that has helped me out so far: Collins Motorsports, ALLCOAT Power coating, Macrae Glass, Pete Corwin, Bear Race Cars, Sway-a-way, Jim Ober, Henry's Machine, Charlie Englebart and Bruce Parrish. If you want to help, PLEASE buy our race car for sale so I can finish Challenger IV



Link to the ad on RDC: http://www.race-dezert.com/classifie...tails&id=30345

[freddy]

Looking good Rory, thanks for the updates.

I would really like to support you by buying the 12 car, but I think I'll start with the new t-shirt you made for this project. If you can ship to Sweden that is.

[Rory]

The following is not really an update, more of a sniveling or whining session for me:

went and picked up 4 races for the front bearings (Halibrand hubs) from my buddies at the local auto parts store. Seems this is the "Standard" when trying to find parts for Challenger IV. In my head i'm thinking.......i'll go down to the store, pick up some races and then put this front end together. Nice try!

After some digging in his computer for about 20 minutes he finally found the odd ball races for the race car. I saw his eye's get really big as he looked at the screen and then looked at me. I know this look, I've been getting it ever since I started getting parts for Challenger IV. He say's, "Wow, you might want to sit down for this". I deal with these guys all the time and are good, honest guys and they give me a pretty good deal on parts so I knew whatever the price was they were still saving me money.

The guy tells me, of course, that the parts are not in stock and have to be shipped (no biggie) and they will be here in a couple days. I'm already reaching for my wallet as the guy squints as he says "it's gonna be $99.23". I laugh and shake my head as I hand him the $$.

2 small races and 2 large races = $99.23 That's with my guy saving me around $20 (much appreciated too). These are the small things that most of us don't think about while setting a budget for building a race car, hot rod, jet boat....whatever. Just when you think your going to run down to the store for some $20-$30 item, it turns into a C-note in a blink of an eye! Keep smiling, it will all be worth it when its finished.............

[Mark Stahl]

Hey Rory, show or tell us the part numbers on the bearings and races. We might have some laying around for really cheap. Like trade for some t-shirts. Did you get your race car listed on eBay?

[Rory]

Mark, I'd rather not post the numbers because as sure as HELL someone will have some for next to nothing and I'd rather not know...LOL. As for the race car, no, I didn't put it on ebay but its back up on RDC. Got a call on it yesterday with someone possibly coming to look at it next week......we'll see.