Mystery noises

[lloyd3]

When I put the car away last November, it had developed a rather obnoxious clanking and banging when I would go over a certain section of road near the house. It sounded like either a broken shock mount to me or maybe even an exhaust hanger, but when I would climb under it to check it, nothing appeared to be amiss.  I did everything I could think of to find it, even going so far as to take out the spare tire & jack (I thought they might be part of the racket back there).  I drove it one last time today before re-interring it for the remaining few weeks of winter here (about six from this point), and it sounded even worse, like maybe the shock mount had finally broken or a spring perch pad had shifted. Bad! Very bad. I dove under the car one last time and then I saw it.... the passenger-side shock shroud had detached from the weld at the top and was laying on the shock body. Any movement would have it rattling around like a bell on a clapper.  I did a temporary fix with some electricians tape and a tongue depressor between the shroud and the top of the shock and, voila!, almost none of that nasty clanging metal racket back there any more. This Spring will have a number of little of car projects that need to be done before I can go back to my usual easy motoring experience with this relic. I finally have put enough miles on the car since I've owned it to have it need yet another fairly complete going over (points/plugs, cap & rotor, carb rebuild, tire rotations, brake adjustments, etc).  Shocks will also obviously be on that list.  I wish I looked forward to these types of tasks like I used too (that damn Honda has spoiled me).  Oh well, maybe I can include my boy in the process and demystify some of the car stuff for him.  

[charge69]

Ahhh, these old cars seem to need constant attention and, as we get older, the tasks become more and more of a "task" instead  of something we enjoy fixing!  Get your son involved and, maybe, it will ease the irritation of the maintenance involved in keeping these old cars on the road!

Yes, new cars do spoil us as far as maintenance goes but, they just do not have the "soul" of our old Chargers! Like you, I do not look forward to the maintenance involved in keeping these relics on the road but, I love and am sure you do also, the attention these Chargers seem to command!

[ws23rt]

 

Owning these cars back in their day was more then just driving them
Those days where working on them was a part of the adventure of driving them brings back lot's of good times.

[Alaskan_TA]

Look for a broken front leaf spring eye.

It happened to a pal, similar issue with her car & it is not a place most would think to check.

[lloyd3]

I will do that. There seems to be more going on back there than just a bad shock.

There is also a pretty competent restoration shop just east of me that does little side jobs for fill-in income. The owner is a solid Mopar guy and has been very reasonable in the past on other work I've had him do on more modern stuff.  I'm probably also going to ask him about what he'd need to charge for a "Spring tune-up" on this car. I don't doubt that I'm no-where near as competent on this stuff as I used to be (it scary how much you forget!) and I suspect he'd have better diagnostic capacities for final tuning.  If it's too-much, I'll do it myself but I am curious about how he'll respond.