MrMopar's 1969 California Highway Patrol restoration

[MrMoparCHP]

Interesting stuff. I had a guy contact me about a year ago wanting to sell a fully restored 69 CHP car. Frame off, painted black. Upgraded suspension. He claimed it ran 168 mph on the Road Atlanta race track & had the slip to prove it. He wanted 35k for it.

I don't doubt that one bit, there are plenty of accounts of these (the 1969 CHP Polara) running in that range from Dodge in 1969. I'm not fully sure where the speed came from but will be looking into it in detail as I go through my engine as I know it is totally original and unmolested.

Alan

 

[polara71]

Stories abound of engines being worked while in service. Don't be so sure she's never been opened up and played with, even when new

 

[71TC440]

2.76 gears maybe? Hmmm

Interesting stuff. I had a guy contact me about a year ago wanting to sell a fully restored 69 CHP car. Frame off, painted black. Upgraded suspension. He claimed it ran 168 mph on the Road Atlanta race track & had the slip to prove it. He wanted 35k for it.

 

[MrMoparCHP]

Stories abound of engines being worked while in service. Don't be so sure she's never been opened up and played with, even when new

I still do not buy it, I have spoken with auto techs that worked with CHP at the time and they said they didn't. We never hear stories of the 68's or 71's going 160+, so did they never play with those and only played with the 69's?

The 69's were unique, I just want to find out what made them different.

Alan

 

[MrMoparCHP]

I was frustrated in some of the repairs that I was doing after the show and chose to recruit help. I’m glad I did because every time I turned around he was discovering more problems.

By now I was having him look over all the work that I have done and one thing he wanted to fix was the rear window header. I had left about 2” of the roof attached to the replacement section and he wanted to cut the roof back and but weld the roof to the section.

By now we were will into bodywork and there are still discoveries. This time the wheel opening, good this I still had the parts car and that piece was still there (not by much). About 3” of the inside as well needed to be replaced.

Even though I had already patched part of the lower quarter it turns out the rest was bad as well, fortunately the inside panel was in great shape.

With this repair we were pretty much done with rust repair.

 

[commando1]

He claimed it ran 168 mph on the Road Atlanta race track & had the slip to prove it. He wanted 35k for it.

And it had the 440 Hemi.....

 

[MrMoparCHP]

And it had the 440 Hemi.....

It probably did, the way many of the retired officers talk you’d believe they existed.

Alan

 

[fc7_plumcrazy]

Interesting stuff. I had a guy contact me about a year ago wanting to sell a fully restored 69 CHP car. Frame off, painted black. Upgraded suspension. He claimed it ran 168 mph on the Road Atlanta race track & had the slip to prove it. He wanted 35k for it.

I do definetly not belive 168mph.
I have (and had) lots of Mopars and tested quite a bit on the german autobahn. No way any factory stock c-body runs 168mph. Not in real conditions (meaning on the asphalt, not on a power absorption roller without aerodynamic drag). Never ever.

 

[71TC440]

I do definetly not belive 168mph.
I have (and had) lots of Mopars and tested quite a bit on the german autobahn. No way any factory stock c-body runs 168mph. Not in real conditions (meaning on the asphalt, not on a power absorption roller without aerodynamic drag). Never ever.

I believe one factory '69 CHP road test gave it 149mph which seems doable... albeit a bit buzzy with 3.23 gears. Had my stock '71 Polara Custom 440HP pegged on the calibrated 140 speedo with same gearing...maybe had 2 mph left, was getting scared for the motor.

 

[fc7_plumcrazy]

the 69 Polara was supposed to be clocked at 147mph. Out of my head the CHP used 2,94 gearing.

You can't do it with a 3,23 gear. Had a 1969 Hemi Charger (original, full matching, engine rebuild to stock specs, still had the original 10,25 pistons, had bigger exhaust than stock, bigger fuel system). It was a factory export car and had an automatic with 3,23 gearing. At 6.000 rpm in 3rd gear it ran close to 145mph according to the speedo but that was it.

And today? Use your navigation for the speed check and it will stop some myths

 

[72Fury]

The Louisville Police (Ky) dept had (4) of the Polara pursuit cars. A brand new box stock one ran 146 mph, checked with the radar gun over a long run. They constantly broke motor mounts. The fix was to chain the engine to the frame.

 

[MrMoparCHP]

the 69 Polara was supposed to be clocked at 147mph. Out of my head the CHP used 2,94 gearing.

You can't do it with a 3,23 gear. Had a 1969 Hemi Charger (original, full matching, engine rebuild to stock specs, still had the original 10,25 pistons, had bigger exhaust than stock, bigger fuel system). It was a factory export car and had an automatic with 3,23 gearing. At 6.000 rpm in 3rd gear it ran close to 145mph according to the speedo but that was it.

And today? Use your navigation for the speed check and it will stop some myths

The cars came with 3.23:1 and huge tires, not saying that these car will do that just saying that there are plenty of reports, just another fish story I know.

Dodge certified the cars at 149.6 that is not saying that is the maximum it would go.

I fully plan to test my car when it is done but I need to find a way/place I can do it within the law so I can post something (other than a ticket) showing what it actually did.

Again you never hear these stories with the 68s or 71's (70's were a Mercury), it is those stories that gave the 69 CHP Polara legendary status.

Alan

 

[MrMoparCHP]

The Louisville Police (Ky) dept had (4) of the Polara pursuit cars. A brand new box stock one ran 146 mph, checked with the radar gun over a long run. They constantly broke motor mounts. The fix was to chain the engine to the frame.

The CHP Polara came with a factory torque strap, heck my 318 Polara has one.

Alan

 

[polara71]

http://cbodydrydock.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?104801.0


Alan, do you know Krautmaster?


Read some of this thread

 

[72Fury]

The CHP Polara came with a factory torque strap, heck my 318 Polara has one.

Alan

Any idea if the torque convertors had a higher stall speed?

 

[71TC440]

The HP motors ran the slightly looser 'Hemi' converter, with orange overspray... someone correct me if I am wrong. This is what I pulled out of mine and it had never been out. They were a bit looser than what the std 440 used, I believe

 

[MrMoparCHP]

The HP motors ran the slightly looser 'Hemi' converter, with orange overspray... someone correct me if I am wrong. This is what I pulled out of mine and it had never been out. They were a bit looser than what the std 440 used, I believe

So I have been told, My engine is still mated to the transmission so in time I'll tell.

I'm all about documentation and fact, The 1969 CHP Polara is a thing of legends and myths. There has been talk of what other agencies may have done with their cars but I have no proof that any CHP auto tech has ever played with these cars, I have talked with some. It is possible that a car here or there might have been played with but that is no where near what it would take to give these cars the reputation that they have.

Only time will tell, if this is a standard 375 HP 440 then no way, maybe 150-160 with a little tuning.

Alan

 

[MrMoparCHP]

Well under way the rear half was getting close to putting primer on, he has been stripping the car to metal as he goes then skimming each panel with filler.

We were to the point that he wanted to get some primer on all the work that has been done to seal up the bear metal.

Work progressed forward we installed to fenders and hood and yes I know the core support is backwards but at least you can see the 4” hole put there for the CHP by Dodge. We chose to use the hood from the parts car as the one that was on the car sounded like a baby rattle (it wasn’t the original hood to this car anyway).

Fourteen months later the bodywork is done and the car primered, soon after I discovered a pinhole right in the middle of the roof.

After all the spot filler was done with the previous primer the car was primered again this time with a high build primer.

Even though we have primerd the car there were a few areas that we knew about but didn’t have the welder so we held off till we felt that was all that was left. The passenger fender was replaced by the previous owner and he had filled in the fender top turn indicator and we needed to improve on the repair.

After all the little details were finally done primer was applied to all the areas and we were done with the primer.

 

[MrMoparCHP]

Now 29 months into the project the blocking has started and I need to start thinking about paint. Black and white simple? Not! From the beginning I knew that the CHP had a “custom” white and utilized the factory Dodge black for 69. I didn’t see there to be a reason for a custom color for a white so I figured it had to be a specific white that they requested. In my early research I found references to a DQE-8000 as being the color used but none of the paint suppliers had reference to it, basically if you didn’t have a car (year make model) they couldn’t look it up. I check with both PPG and DuPont and neither had any reference to this color or a code requested by the CHP. Not letting this stop me I kept looking and finally found a website that had a reference to the code and listed models years etc that used it. So I started looking for verification in the form of paint chip/code sheets and soon found that some of them were typos. That left 55 GM Fleet (which makes since because they used Buicks that year and probably wanted to standardize the white starting then). I went to the paint supplier and requested a sample of this color and some clear. We shot a test panel and I started comparing it to different cutoffs and even Ron’s car. I wasn’t 100% sold but I felt 100% sure it was the right color.

In the time I was fighting with the engine work continued on the car. The front and rear windshield trim were installed along with the glass to insure that the gaps would be good, some adjustments were needed.

In the final parts of taking to car back apart for painting I went to remove the door strikers which never have been removed and had problems with the left rear. Needless to say couple days before we’re in the booth we are fixing more rust.

Just over 2-1/2 years into this the car is getting painted. It was a tedious process and we were only able to get the body done as it was all that would fit in the booth, the car was left overnight to dry.

Over the next few days the rest of the body panels were done. We are trying to do this on weekends and after hours as not to impede in the daily operation of the shop that was letting us use their booth.

Three sessions just to get it all done, at least the body and all the panels.

 

[polara71]

I envy you. .....