I just got another new counter and have no idea of how many hits there were between 08/97 and 09/04 so we're starting over.
This is hit number
As I believe I mention in the story this is all from my memory so don't take any of the details as gospel but it should be pretty accurate. This story was hit over 20,000 times between April 10, 1996 and August 1997. Sorry I can't be more accurate than that but I lost my counter when I had to move my pages.
I just got another new counter and have no idea of how many hits there were between 08/97 and 09/04 so we're starting over.
This is hit number
since Saturday, September 25, 2004 at 1:55 PM EST.
I recently talked to Wayne and he gave me some minor corrections to the story. I'm adding Wayne's changes now so he can share in the responsibility for any errors in fact I might have made. <g>
This page was updated Tuesday, November 2, 2004.
Hello fellow Mopar Maniacs: Well Here's the story I promised way back when I joined the list about how I got my General Lee. I don't know how long it's going to be or how boring it will turn out (I ain't got no good writing skills) So feel free to just delete it. [But don't tell me. It would hurt my feelings :( But I do accept praise well. ;-)] [INSERT]: I was getting into this article and as I realized how long it was getting I decided to break it into separate postings. Here's part 1: Well sometime back in '89 I got a call from Wayne Wooten (The Dodge Charger registry). I thought something was up because without even saying hello Wayne asked "Do you have $x you're not using?" My response, "No, what do you think?" His answer, "Well GET IT!" He then went on to explain that we had a chance to get the only surviving General Lees used on the Dukes of Hazzard. Well now I'm just about to bounce off the walls, so I tell Wayne "I'll have to think about it. <g>" So after about half a second of deep concentration I said "OK, I'm in!" I know I must have had a grin that stretched past both ears. I was just about to let out a shout and tell everyone what had just dropped out of the blue. Then I heard Wayne say "First of all, you can't tell 'ANYBODY' about this deal. If you do, you're out." Well now I'm really about to bounce off the walls. AAAAAArrrrrrrggggggghhhhhh!!!, just about the best news I'd ever gotten and I couldn't tell anybody! :( Let me stop here and give a little background on how Wayne got into this deal. I'll try to keep this part short. If you want to know more, there's a real good article in the February 1993 issue of "Mopar Collector's Guide". Contrary to most of my experience with magazine and news paper articles the facts are pretty accurate.
UPDATE: "Mopar Collector's Guide" reprinted the story in the September 1996 issue which is much easier to find. This is the issue with the article about the new Vanishing Point Challenger.
(Disclaimer: this is an abridged version of my memory of what Wayne told me 5 years ago so my facts may not be too accurate.) Sometime after Wayne started TDC he got in touch with Warner Brothers to see if he could get the records for all the Chargers they used in the Dukes of Hazzard. Wayne had been corresponding with WB (specifically the head of the transportation department) for quite a while and they were impressed with the way he ran the registry. Well somewhere in all this correspondence they told Wayne they had quite a few Charger parts left from the show and if he wanted them they would donate them to the registry and all he had to do was come out there and get them. With some frequent flier miles donated by his dad, Wayne (with wife - and probably his three kids - in tow) flew out to California and was greeted by a field full of used General Lee parts. (mostly bumpers, hoods, doors and fenders) (as a side note I believe TDC still has some of these parts left if anyone is interested)UPDATE: I've recently learned that the registry no longer has any of the original parts for sale. They've probably been gone for a long time but I never could remember to ask about them in the past. Sorry about that.
[Note from Wayne] When he made the trip out to get the parts he went alone but when he went back the next time he did take his wife.
After half filling a semi trailer with orange parts, Wayne was taken on
a tour of the studio and its back lots. While on the tour they turned a
corner and Wayne was staring at a field full of about 15 General Lees.
(Wayne had been set up. <g>)
At this point, the head of transportation told Wayne that before he
asked there was no way they could sell him one of these cars. Wayne was
crushed to say the least! Well to make a long story short (is it to
late yet?) just before he left, Wayne worked up the courage to ask
"There has got to be a way I can get one of these cars." After telling
Wayne he was getting worried he wasn't going to ask, he went on to
explain that it would be possible to by ALL the cars as a single lot.
[Correction from Wayne] Wayne, being worried about what they would think, never did bring up the subject of how he could get a car. They brought it up with him just before he was about to leave.
After Wayne's protest that there was no way he could afford to by all 17 cars (There were 19 surviving cars. WB kept 2, the sound stage car and one other car.) he was told that he didn't have to by them all himself. They then went on to tell him how to go about setting up the deal to get the cars. With this information in hand, Wayne flew home and with a list of 17 General Lee VIN numbers he started calling members of the registry. As each person said yes to the deal he got the next VIN on the list. Sight unseen and no way of knowing the condition of any particular car. The only knowledge we had was that the cars were supposed to be complete and that they all ran when they parked them after the show was canceled. (To be continued...)
First let me apologize for taking so long to post part 2 but Sunday night the Computer was down. Saturday night the link to the net was down. And on Friday night I was having a little trouble with my self contained organic data storage system. I believe this was caused by the inadvertent introduction of an excessive number of ethanol molecules which interfered with its normal operation. ;) Well lets see if I can sum up part 1 in a single sentence. Wayne Wooten of The Dodge Charger registry, who had been in contact with Warner Brothers and was offered a deal to by the surviving General Lees, called me and now I'm in on the deal. Didn't that seem a lot more involved in part 1? :-)
Well now that I was in on the deal it was basically supposed to go down like this. Wayne's Lawyer would set up a corporation to purchase the cars. We would by a share in the corporation for the purchase price of the cars and once the corporation purchased the cars we would each get a car for our share in the corporation and the corporation would then disappear. The main reason for doing it this way (aside from the fact that there wasn't any other practical way to do it) was to protect Warner Brothers. If one of us tried to jump our General over a house and were killed we would have trouble taking action against WB since technically we purchased the cars from the corporation and the corporation couldn't take action against WB since it didn't exist anymore. Sounds simple, doesn't it? I don't remember when Wayne first contacted me about the deal but in October '89 I sent the lawyer his fee ($400.00 for each car!*) for setting up the corporation and all the other paperwork he would need to do for the deal. In March of '90 I received a letter from the lawyer that the final draft of the agreement had been sent to WB. (Did I forget to mention that he was supposed to have it done by early February? No big deal? I didn't think so either.) Well it looked like smooth sailing from here. I talked to Wayne shortly after that and it looked like the agreement had been accepted and we should have the cars within a month. Well, sometime in April, there seemed to be a hold up on the cars and in late April/early May we found out from WB that there would be a delay in the delivery of the cars. :( It seems that just after the contract was submitted to WB legal department for final approval some big wig at WB came up with the idea for a 2 hour Dukes of Hazzard TV movie. As a result there would be a hold on the cars until a final decision on the movie had been made. At that point, if they decided to go ahead, they would recondition 5 or 6 of the cars for the movie and deliver the rest to us then. (We would still get the other cars after the movie was finished.) The final decision on the movie was supposed to be made within 3 to 4 weeks. If our lawyer had gotten the proposal in on time we might have gotten the cars before this came up. * Well at the end of June We received word that they still hadn't made a final decision. WB had made the proposal to the 3 major networks and were waiting for a decision from them. But as soon as the decision was made we would get all the cars not needed for the movie. This went on for weeks and months with no decision. Then we got word that the movie deal was dead but still no cars. From this point on we got no real explanation what the delay was but we would get the cars. I heard some rumors later about the reason for the delay but whatever the real reason was, the transportation head fought for us and wouldn't take no for an answer. <g> Finally in March of '91 we got word that the cars were ready to ship and by the middle of March I took delivery on a shiny new (well maybe not too shiny or new) General Lee.
Coming soon to a CRT near you. Part 3, The Car...
* "All [censored for political correctness] must be shot soon." - Dr. Johnny Fever, WKRP in Cincinnati
I'm sorry I took so long to post this but I've had a few things come up and haven't had much time. Not the least of which was a woman in a Jeep Cherokee rear ending my '70 at a stop light. :( Not too serious thou. It felt like a pretty hard hit but all it did was flex the bumper enough to pop off the triple plating around the bolt heads. She's paying the $285 to have it re-plated so all I'm out is a little time and aggravation. <g>
Well to sum up parts 1 and 2: After shelling out X dollars for the car,
plus $400.00 to the lawyer, plus $900.00* to have the car shipped here
from California. Not to mention all my ulcers from over a years worth
of worrying that the deal would fall through at any moment. My General
Lee was finally sitting in my driveway! <g>
* (That was the only good thing about the long delay in getting the
cars. Originally the best price we could get to have the cars shipped
from California was $1,275.00 apiece but with all that extra time we
found someone cheaper. It's strange but it's hard to find someone
willing to haul a truckload of cars that don't run.)
CONDITION OF THE GENERAL: (Well now, were should I start?)
Well let's begin with what kind of car my General started life as before
it decided to become a TV star. From the VIN "XP29H8B" and code plate
my General began life as a '68 Charger, 383 HP, 727 auto, 8.75 3.55:1
sure grip, Power front disc, PS & AC. It was originally dark turquoise
with a white interior and white vinyl top.
Now on to what it looked like when it came off the truck. It was a sad sight. (Well I'll admit it looked beautiful to me but I'm trying to give an objective description of its condition.) Over six years in the California sun hadn't been kind to the paint. It was oxidized, stained in places, cracked in others with miscellaneous dents and scratches. The hood was so badly oxidized that I would have sworn that it was a completely different shade of orange than the rest of the car.
Some miscellaneous exterior things: The "push bar" is not only welded to the frame but also to the front bumper. The center section of the grill is from a '69 but it still has the '68 headlight doors. The '68 taillight panel was cut to fit the '69 lenses and patch panels were riveted above them. It has 1 '68 front fender and 1 '69. It has 1 '68 door and 1 '69. Both rear quarters have been replaced at least once. There are no backup lights (The '68 backup lights were part of the taillight assembly). The side marker lights have been filled in. The flag is very badly cracked with some big rust spots in the middle. And although the flag and 01 are part of the paint job, the GENERAL LEE lettering is decals. Under the hood: At first glance there is some bracing welded in front of the radiator that seems to have been used to mount an electric cooling fan at one time. The radiator is missing and the air cleaner is missing. The engine is covered with rat droppings and other debris and the rats have chewed the wiring. A closer look reveals that the drivers side motor mount is destroyed and the mount bracket is resting on the dipstick tube. The engine is being held on this side by a heavy chain bolted to the AC compressor and welded to the K-frame.The right mount is intact but the mount "pedestal" is leaning about 30 degrees towards the right fender and the mount bracket is loosely held to the block by one long bolt because the engine has shifted 2" forward and it doesn't line up with the mounting points. 
The oil pan is crushed. (You don't think this car left the ground do you?) All the wiring under the hood except what was needed to run the engine had been "CUT" at the connectors and removed. (They couldn't just unplug the connectors?!?!?!?) The wire for the neutral starting switch is grounded to the fire-wall. Wheels etc.: It has three 14" wheels and one 15" (A mix-up somewhere along the line. The rest of the cars either had all 14" rims or 14s in the front and 15s in the rear.) and the tread on the rear wheels was melted so bad that it looked like they'd been in a fire. (burnouts!) The front discs with the 4 piston calipers are still intact. The 8.75 sure grip is still there with the correct gears but the axles seem kinda loose. A closer look reveals that the adjusting ring is completely unscrewed. Deeper examination reveals that the thrust spacer is welded to the end of the axle and the spacer from the other side is missing all together! 
Summing up parts 1, 2 & 3: Heard about car. Bought car. Got car. Car in BAAAAD shape! <g> Lets see, last time I left off with the condition of the rear end. (As an aside, let me mention that I was lucky I got one of the cars with a sure grip. They had welded the spider gears on the cars with open differentials.) Talk about your limited slip! ;) On to the interior: The interior is spray "painted" tan. Again, all the non-critical wiring under the dash has been cut. The ignition, gauges, and headlight wiring survive. (although the headlight wiring was cut from under the hood.) There is about an inch of dust covering the inside, plus rats nests and rat droppings. None of the windows work. The left rear will almost roll up but not quite. (just needed adjusting) The right rear won't work at all. (A closer look reveals that someone "TRIED" to modify a left hand winding mechanism to work in the right side!) The glass in the drivers door is intact but there is no winding mechanism to roll it up and it is covered in tan paint because the door panel is missing. The winding mechanism in the passenger door is intact but the glass is broken inside the door in about a billion little beads. Speaking of doors, before anyone asks, NO the doors weren't welded shut, that was just TV make-believe. In fact if you listen carefully watching the show you will occasionally here the door close when someone is getting in or out of the car off screen. Can you say "continuity error"? <g> The rearview mirror and sun visors are missing. The fact that they were removed before the interior was painted tan, plus the fact that there are holes in the rear floor that look like mounting points lead me to believe that this car was used for interior camera shots at one time. So much for the condition of the car when I got it. Now on to what I've done to it. The first thing I decided when I got the car was that I wanted to keep it as close as possible to the way it came. I haven't done anything cosmetic accept for cleaning it and a little general rust fighting. Mechanically I've done what I've needed to make the car safe and street legal so I can drive it. I started by straightening the mount pedestal with a wedge and a VBFH and then lining up the engine and putting it back on the mounts where it belongs. After shifting the engine back far enough to line up with the right mount (about 2") it still wasn't back far enough to line up the left mount, so I cut one of the ears off the new mount and attached it with a big bolt and spacer. It seems to work OK and I'm not worried about it's strength since the hold down chain is on that side. I then replaced all the gaskets and hoses; however, I didn't pull the heads. After pulling the intake the inside of the motor was spotless so I figured I'd take a chance. Rebuilt the carburetor. I new that the old Holley would leak after sitting for 7 years. (Strange carburetor by the way. Single pump, mechanical secondary!?!?)
Next I did the rear end. I manually cut new threads into the adjusting ring. (They had gotten chewed up from being run unscrewed.) And had a machinist turn me a thrust spacer to replace the missing one. I left the other one welded to the end of the axle. And to make a too long story not short enough, I rebuilt the brakes (the local parts place ordered the kits for the four piston calipers for only $35), wired the lights and windshield wipers and fixed the windows. Now on to starting the car and some embarrassing moments. <g> Disconnected the fuel line from the carb and cranked the engine to flush out the lines with fresh gas. (everything seemed to be OK) Hooked up the fuel line and primed the carb. Primed the oil pump and hooked the ignition back up and then fired it up. STARTED FIRST CRANK! Ran for 5 minutes and died. :( Diaphragm in the fuel pump. (I should have known better!) Got a new fuel pump and fired it up. Ran for couple of minutes then coolant began pouring out of left head. Corroded freeze plug. (Forgot to check. Should have known better!!) Replaced with nice, easy to install rubber type plug. Fired it up. Ran for 15 minutes, coolant now pouring out of water pump. Pump seal is shot. (Should have known better!!!) Got new water pump. Fired it up. Runs with no problems. (Well, almost.) Well now for my most embarrassing moment. <g> The car starts easy and idles smooth. (Amazing since the carb has no choke.) It runs smooth when cruising. Will burn the tires off the line and chirp them going from 1-2 and 2-3. Everything seems fine except from 1000 rpm up to about 1500 rpm the engine shakes something terrible. It took me forever to figure out what the problem was. It was the smooth idle that threw me off. Can anyone guess what embarrassingly stupid mistake I made? If no one guesses and I'm not too embarrassed, I'll post the answer tomorrow. Aren't you glad this story is finally over? <g> Keith
I forgot about the question at the end of my original post, so here's the answer to my embarrassing mistake. CROSSED SPARK PLUG WIRES! I had the #3 and #5 plug wires reversed causing #3 to fire 180 degrees too late and #5 180 degrees too soon. I swear, I triple checked that before I first started it. Really. <g> Everyone, repeat after me: one, eight, four, three, six, five, seven, two. As to my explanation of why it would idle smooth on only 6 cylinders? I don't have one. As to how it was able to chirp the tires on the 2-3 shift I have a guess. The torque converter (as I later found out) was just about shot. With all the extra slipping that the converter was doing it was effectively giving the car a very low gear ratio. I have since had the converter replaced and on all 8 cylinders I can only occasionally get the tires to chirp on the 2-3 shift. Keith