My 1970 Charger 500 is almost done

[imabozo]

Your profile says Alberta, but I could've swore the pic with your car at the shop was in Newfoundland. I saw a green '70 parked by it a few years back. Maybe I'm hallucinating.

You're not hallucinating. The shop I used was a family friends. Cranfords Auto Body in Roaches Line.

Right on. I have a white '70 R/T in Bay Roberts. I few years ago I was driving Roaches Line and noticed the sublime green Charger in at Cranfords. I hit the brakes pretty hard and circled back for a look. Never saw anything for a few years till I saw your thread the other day. Small world.

Do you live around CBN?

[darbgnik]

Your profile says Alberta, but I could've swore the pic with your car at the shop was in Newfoundland. I saw a green '70 parked by it a few years back. Maybe I'm hallucinating.

You're not hallucinating. The shop I used was a family friends. Cranfords Auto Body in Roaches Line.

Right on. I have a white '70 R/T in Bay Roberts. I few years ago I was driving Roaches Line and noticed the sublime green Charger in at Cranfords. I hit the brakes pretty hard and circled back for a look. Never saw anything for a few years till I saw your thread the other day. Small world.

Do you live around CBN?

I grew up in Clarke's Beach. Any pics of your white 70 on here?

[imabozo]

Your profile says Alberta, but I could've swore the pic with your car at the shop was in Newfoundland. I saw a green '70 parked by it a few years back. Maybe I'm hallucinating.

You're not hallucinating. The shop I used was a family friends. Cranfords Auto Body in Roaches Line.

Right on. I have a white '70 R/T in Bay Roberts. I few years ago I was driving Roaches Line and noticed the sublime green Charger in at Cranfords. I hit the brakes pretty hard and circled back for a look. Never saw anything for a few years till I saw your thread the other day. Small world.

Do you live around CBN?

I grew up in Clarke's Beach. Any pics of your white 70 on here?

I'm from Labrador and moved down here 6 years ago. Bought the Charger shortly after I moved. I have a few posts on here.

I have never seen the 68 that's parked by your Charger, around here. Does it get out much? You should bring your car down to the Klondyke show on Sunday.

[darbgnik]

I love white on these cars. That 68 and the Olds in the picture with my car, are both owned by Mike, the owner of the body shop. That 68 was redone years ago, before they made any repop sheet metal for it. When I saw how well his turned out, and still looks, that's when I started trying to convince him to do mine. That and the fact that he was a long time friend of my father, meant I could trust it would get done and done right. My car gave his shop lots of attention when it was being worked on, but he says that's the last one he'll do. Doing a car like this gave him and his guys a feeling of accomplishment at every milestone, but it was just too big and too long of a process for his business model. They specialize in collision, which is in and out, with parts readily available.

As of June, this cars been home with me in Alberta, so it'd be a bit of a commute to the Klondike show......

[BDF]

Road trip! 

[darbgnik]

Road trip! 

Well, I did put in those 3.55's...... that would help. lol

[darbgnik]

Well, not much has changed in the last little while, seeing as my garage is stacked up for winter like a closet in a spare room.

But I have accomplished a few things. I ordered a Nippodenso alternator per the upgrades sticky in the electrical section. Ended up buying some 1/4" gas nipples, hogging the inside out to 3/8 for a nice tight fit on the bolts, and cut them to the length needed. I packed up the old spacers with the old alternator. Bought a shorter belt, a Gates 7440, and ran a 8 gauge power wire to the starter solenoid to take most of the load. I ended up welding a turn stop onto a 5/16 nut, and used a 2" long bolt on the adjuster side, so it's still a one man job to tension it. Fired it up, and lo and behold, 14 volts at a low lopey idle, I'll call that a win. The belt definitely doesn't sit as low in the new pulley as the others, but it works.

I ordered a new(actually used, off of eBay) passenger side chrome strip that holds the door card at the top, below the upper door pad. When I removed the arm rest, to take the door card off, I noticed the door screws were mismatched and didn't hold the arm rest on that well. And since I had to pay for shipping, I also ordered new arm rest bases, along with the new armrest mounting screws. The chrome on the front arm rest bases was long gone, and had been painted silver somewhere along the line. It didn't look bad, but since they came off, they weren't going back on. Surprisingly, out of the 4 bolts I removed, only 1 was the proper size. The new screws managed to take all the play out of the arm rests. Also installed a set of door end seals, as one of them didn't survive the restoration.....

Rumour has it, Santa has hidden a Holley Sniper kit somewhere till Christmas, we'll see!

[Dodge Don]

Not trying to be critical but why do both of you have the hood callouts placed at the edge of the scallops instead of in the middle as designed? Curious 

[Bronzedodge]

How about a pic of the gears you removed?  - If that chip is by the edge, and not where the ring gear contacts, it will likely be fine.

[darbgnik]

Not trying to be critical but why do both of you have the hood callouts placed at the edge of the scallops instead of in the middle as designed? Curious 

To be honest with you, I've seen them both ways, and never did know which was correct, as the car was made 10 years before I was born. That being said, as my car is nowhere near correct, I prefer them there.

[darbgnik]

How about a pic of the gears you removed?  - If that chip is by the edge, and not where the ring gear contacts, it will likely be fine.

Here's a pic from when I pulled it. You can see its the outer edge in the middle of the ring gear. It could work fine I suppose, but being chipped, I'd never be able to sell it as a complete unit. But it's fine, it'll be a good spare I can build in the meantime, while using the other. If it had been perfect, I would have sold it off to save some garage space.

[darbgnik]

Well, it looks like I was good this year, or at least my girlfriend thought so.....

Found a Holley Sniper kit and fuel injection tank under the tree. 

[kent]

She's a keeper!

[darbgnik]

She's a keeper!

Haha, yes she is!

[darbgnik]

Well, not much to report on the Charger these days, but I did manage to get the Holley Sniper EFI fuel tank assembled. As far as I can tell, it's a rebadged Tanks Inc setup, which is fine by me. Comes with the Walbro pump with hanger assembly, and fuel level sending unit. Plus new tank straps, and roll over valve/vent with a tee.

Putting it together isn't complicated at all, but it is a little time consuming, as you do all your own depth measurements, then check, re-check, cut, assemble, and check again. Couple things of note that the instructions didn't spell out is on the sending unit: The bolt holes in the sender flange and the sender hole in the tank it bolts into aren't equally spaced, so it has to be clocked a certain way. And the sender itself can be calibrated for the high(Full)OHM value by adjusting the stop the rod sits against with a pair of pliers. Then readjusting the rod length again as per their instructions. The values out of the box were pretty dead-on as delivered though.

[Simonic]

great looking build,look forward to tracking your progress with the Holley kit 

[komninon]

did you install the tank in the car? do the fuel lines clear the floor?
thanks

[darbgnik]

did you install the tank in the car? do the fuel lines clear the floor?
thanks

I haven't installed it in the car yet, and most likely won't until spring. Right now the garage is packed tight with all my summer-only vehicles, with my Viper parked above it on the lift...... But there is a decent sized recess that the sender and fuel lines sit in, and the fittings on the fuel hanger are at a 90 degree angle, so I don't anticipate any problems with line fitment.

These winter months I'm mostly just a parts collector. But the one good thing about installing in the spring is the instant gratification of driving afterwards, as opposed to installing it all and then staring at it, not even being able to drive for the EFI to self tune.

[komninon]

ok thank you

[Derwud]

did you install the tank in the car? do the fuel lines clear the floor?
thanks

There is a decent sized recess that the sender and fuel lines sit in, and the fittings on the fuel hanger are at a 90 degree angle, so I don't anticipate any problems with line fitment.

I installed the Tanks inc. on my 70 R/T (Yes, same tank), it fit's perfectly. My only word of caution, Install the fuel lines first and make pigtails for the sending unit and fuel pump. I made pigtails with connectors so if I ever have to drop the tank again.

[darbgnik]

I installed the Tanks inc. on my 70 R/T (Yes, same tank), it fit's perfectly. My only word of caution, Install the fuel lines first and make pigtails for the sending unit and fuel pump. I made pigtails with connectors so if I ever have to drop the tank again.

Thanks for the words of wisdom, from experience. I was thinking of doing the same thing. I'm going to run the power for the fuel pump inside the car to follow the factory sender wiring. And put an inline connector on both, then leave the grounds long enough to attach to ground, after the tank is in place.

[darbgnik]

OK, this was so cool I had to share it. A friend of mine, who lives thousands of miles from me stumbled across this story in a botched google search. This is a story written by a kid who got a first job at the body shop my Charger was restored at. He got the year wrong, as the shop owners car was a 68, but still.....  I like the fact that my car seemed to inspire him.

Actually, I like that a lot:

steemit.com/cars/@rwilliamson/cranfords-auto-body

[darbgnik]

did you install the tank in the car? do the fuel lines clear the floor?
thanks

Well I finally got around to the EFI install. And to answer your question, the soft lines fit, mostly....
I tyrapped the soft lines to the factory hard line for now, and they are not visible below the pinch weld, but they are side by side, not top over bottom. There really isn't that much room behind the pinch weld. And there isn't enough room for two soft lines through the torsion bar crossmember.

Wiring was straight forward. The only Holley Sniper wire that seems on the short side is the O2 sensor wire. It fits now as I have it run above the transmission, but it wasn't long enough for the route I would have liked, over under the brake booster away from the headers.

My car still has the ballast resistor in it. And even though I wired the start wire through a diode to the load side of the ballast resistor, as well as the primary side, the split second it takes to cycle the ignition from start to run will kick it off, forcing a reboot. For now I jumper the primary side of the ballast resistor off the battery during crank, and fires like a dream. I ordered a time delay off relay for this issue.

Once the system figures it's life out, it really is a great piece. The engine now revs so quickly in neutral I get belt squeal... lol. No more vapor lock. No more cranking when it's been sitting for weeks. Once second flick starts. My kit came missing the flash drive for the handheld, as well as the throttle pin that will work for both the throttle cable and kickdown linkage. So I drove without the kickdown today, I ordered the pin.

[Willomet_Motor_and_Fab]

Just caught up on your thread. Beautiful car, and great work.

David

[darbgnik]

Just a little update. For some reason, my diode across the ballast resistor started working flawlessly??? Dunno why exactly, but the car starts up every time, no problem now.

I also received the longer Holley throttle stud, as well as factory kickdown return and throttle return springs from Megaparts. Got it all rigged up, and seemingly working smoothly, but I need to wait for the monsoon rains we've been having here to get the car out to test the function. I've included a pic of the linkage for the experts to pick apart, or comment on.