The Journey
Introducing the Imperial Deathstar, a black 1963 Chrysler Imperial. This is one of the largest production sedans ever built, and arguably the best luxury car of its day.
Join me what will probably be a never-ending saga of grease, aching muscles, and an empty wallet as I work to restore this over 50 year old survivor to a reliable cruiser.
Major Articles
Major articles presented in chronological order.
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Recent Posts
- Wizard 7: Next Version November 18, 2025
- Wizard 6: Prototype Test November 11, 2025
- Radio Installation part 3 November 3, 2025
- Radio Installation part 2 October 27, 2025
- Radio Installation October 20, 2025
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Author Archives: RussD
Wizard 7: Next Version
The first question is how big to make it. The only way to decide is to make different sizes and see. Fortunately this is easy: starting with the existing 4″ design simply scale it 125% to create a 5″ version … Continue reading
Posted in Misc
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Wizard 6: Prototype Test
A bit of background on 3D printers: hundreds of different filaments are available in a wide range of colors and materials. The cheapest and most widely used is PLA, so I’ve been using white PLA for the prototyping. The plan … Continue reading
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Radio Installation part 3
With the new speaker installed in the dash the next job was hooking up all the wiring. RetroSound makes this easier with a two part harness: they have a short harness that plugs into the radio and the main harness … Continue reading
Posted in Restoration
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Radio Installation part 2
Once the filler plate was installed on the radio a bit of fiddling was needed to adjust the width and depth of the volume and tuner shafts. The RetroSound adjustable mounting brackets supported these adjustments, producing a good fit. Support … Continue reading
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Radio Installation
A box from RetroSound showed up. Schlep it out to the workshop. Remove the old radio. Dig out the RetroSound bezel and carefully unwrap it. Do a trial fit to see if it goes in the dash cutout. It fits! … Continue reading
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RetroSound
There is another alternative for radios: RetroSound makes a line of modular radios designed to go in old cars. They do this by providing a radio body (which they call a motor), a set of bezels that contain the display … Continue reading
Posted in Restoration
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New Radio Considerations
If I want tunes in the Imperial the current radio has to go. There are several ways to do this. The cleanest approach would be to get another 1963 Imperial radio. A working one one be expensive. And this still … Continue reading
Posted in Restoration
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Frankenstein Radio
Time to upgrade the Imperial radio. Before talking about the new radio and the overly complex installation process let’s take a minute to look at the “original” radio. Once again I would really like to know more about the history … Continue reading
Posted in Restoration
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Dropping the Gas Tank part 3
With the jack ready to go there was a gas tank that needed to be dropped! It is a lot easier to handle an empty gas tank. And this replacement tank has a drain fitting. The gas gauge is reading … Continue reading
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Getting Ready to Drop the Gas Tank part 2
With the lathe cutting properly and demonstrating that I can cut M24-1.5 threads I could move on to making a retainer to bolt the frame to the jack. Dropping into engineering design mode I defined several requirements for this part: … Continue reading
Posted in Tips and Tricks
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