49thousand or 149thousand?

[Stoga]

This is my 68 383 Roadrunner I've mentioned several times before on the board.
I got to looking at it and realized it may not have the mileage I thought it did, what do you think, does it have 41,902 miles or 149,000?
If you look at the brake pedal in the pic, you'll notice it's worn thru, which makes me doubt the lower mileage. Yet the original 383 is still in place, runs well after tuning and doesn't smoke or use a drop of oil and the tranny shifts well.
It's waiting to go to the frame shop to get the front rails straightened, they're bent up approximately 2 to 3 inches .
One other question, how much do you think I paid for it back in 1998?

[hellhound]

I was looking at the wear on the brake pad.. most usually dont get worn that bad till later on in the vehicles life. Going from what I saw in photo number two, I would have to say yeah this cars probably over 140 thousand

[Dick]

Money wise, I am going to guess you paid around $2200 for it......30 years old with the front end pushed in.

[rharley5652]

Ray Charles could see it's got 140plus thousand miles on it

[Stoga]

Originally Posted by rharley5652

Ray Charles could see it's got 140plus thousand miles on it

Well, for what it's worth, I've seen much lower mileage Mopars in even worse shape and tore to shreds, so you just can't assume in these circumstances. There are cherries out there with 200,000 plus miles on them and cars totally wore out with less than 10,000 miles.
Or to put a different perspective on it, how many HP motors of any kind are out there that have 140K miles, and don'tt either smoke, have low oil pressure or otherwise have problems? I could have just assumed the odometer had been turned over several times, but I figured I see what everyone else thought.
The motor and tranny look to have never been out of the car, if the car ran bad, the tranny slipped or the suspension was shot, I wouldnt have even asked the question. I plan to do a title search eventually, I have the feeling the car was off the road for an extended period of time before it was wrecked, but I never met any of the former owners, just the carlot guy I bought the car from who knew nothing really about the car.
It just seems too tight for a high mileage vehicle, even with the wreck damage, and for what its worth, I'm not to concerned about it's actual mileage or value, I'm just glad to have it.

[Dick]

OK, Stoga.......so how much did you pay?

[Stoga]

Originally Posted by Dick

OK, Stoga.......so how much did you pay?

I got it for $500 bucks!
The guy was determined that it was unrepairable. Even now, I'm still surprised cause even then it had more than 500$ of parts on it. I'll admit one of the main reasons I bought it was to prevent yet one more Mopar musclecar from being scattered to the 4 winds. If I hadn't bought it, the 383 would have probably ended up in a 4x4 or elsewhere and whatever left sold piecemeal till all that was left was a shell to crush.
It's rough, I'll admit, but even now I doubt I have a grand in the whole thing yet. I expect the frame work will be pricy and after it's pulled back straight, a lot of repair left to do. I'm even considering tieing the subframes just to help tighten things up some more.
Still, it's better than having NO Roadrunner, and while it may be rough, you ought to have seen the 70 RR shell I was looking at desperately before I found the 68.

[Dick]

THIEF!

[RAM1500]

149,000 miles.........

no i take that back, if that 383 runs as good as it does and doesnt burn oil or smoke, unless its been rebuilt and you dont it, it could very well have 49,000 miles

[Stoga]

Originally Posted by RAM1500

149,000 miles.........

no i take that back, if that 383 runs as good as it does and doesnt burn oil or smoke, unless its been rebuilt and you dont it, it could very well have 49,000 miles

I'm hoping to get it into the frame shop FINALLY in either June or July, once the kids are out of school for the summer. After that, I'll toss the fenders on and loose bits and see how it runs after I get it on the road and warm it up good.
It seems to run ok around the house, but there's nothing like a good long cruise to let you know how healthy an engine really is.
If I get a summer of cruising out of the original engine plus something to keep the car motivating while repairing the body, I'll be happy.
Later, a set of frame connectors and a freshened up 440 and torqueflite out of another car is very possible.
Having a couple of spare 68 Imperials laying around isn't exactly a bad thing....

[BillyBob]

FWIW, I believe it to have less than 100K on it, but consideraly more than the 41K shown on the odometer.

[custom880]

The odometer has been lipped at least once. If you look closely you will notice that the first numeral from the left is out of line with the rest. That usually means the odometer has flipped. The way the cogs in the odometer are set it has an unequal line after 100,000 is reached. Now for the real fun part......Who says it is the original speedo? No way to tell. It could be out of any belvedere or Satelite or RR.