ChgrSteve67 Charger Rebuild

[69bronzeT5]

It looks GREAT

[tan top]

 ...........    awesome looking first generation ..nice work 
      

[ChgrSteve67]

The Charger is finally home.

Took her out for a drive Sunday and a trip to the folks house.

I still have some touch up to do.
I need to take her back to the suspension shop and have the front end raised and stiffend a bit. I'm rubbing the wheels on the fenders when turning hard or going up driveways.
My turn signal switch has also decided to act up.

Anyways here are some pics.

[Ghoste]

It looks great Steve!   

[tan top]

awesome !!  good pictures 

[ChgrSteve67]

Shaking out the bugs I now have a bit of a todo list.

New Injectors
O2 Gauge
Ingition Switch
Dash Lights Fuse
Get chip in windshield fixed
Raise front height 1\2 ince
Install spring in lower radiator hose
Replace oil pan drain gasket
Over Flow bottle

Well I got 2 knocked off the list tonight.

Here are pics of my new overflow bottle

[skip68]

    Steve, your 67 has to be the best one here.        That is one fine looking ride.         Chuck...........

[ChgrSteve67]

Thanks Chuck!

I know some people have issues with some of the things I have done to this car but its my car and I enjoy stepping outside the norm.

My goal is to make it reliable enought to drive it to the 45th birthday party Sema Club show in 2011 and Carlisle someday.
Each would be about a 2,500 mile trip to get there.

I still have other issues that need to be addressed. I will get to those as well but for now its a matter of making her as reliable and driveable as possible.  She is definately a driver and not a trailer queen.  Speaking of trailers I need to post some pics one of these days of the tear drop trailer I am building to pull behind the Charger when I go cross country.

Thanks for checking out my posts.

Steve

[ChgrSteve67]

I got the O2 gauge installed and working last night as well as my ignition switch replaced and my dash lights problem resolved.
Only took 3 1\2 hours of splicing and soldering wires to get the gague installed in the proper location and working.
Now I can install the 90# injectors I picked up for her and start tuning the FI system again.

Tonight I will get my dash and steering wheel re-installed and hopefully make it to a local car show tomorrow in Galt.

I have of course added a few more items to the list.

I can't seen to find a anti-colapse spring for the lower rad hose.
Guess its time for a trip to the local recycling yard.

Steve

[ChgrSteve67]

Big Red got his Stripes today.

The guy (Mike) that did the stripes was a perfectionist.  He also had this cool masking tape the perfectly taped off both sides of the stripe so the edges were perfect.  He finished off the start and end of the stripes by hand.

Here are before durring and after picks.

[ChgrSteve67]

Mike took his time a did a great job.

[tan top]

 looks great the stripe really sets  the roof line off i you know what i mean 

awesome looking first generation 

[ChgrSteve67]

The Fuel Injection system has been a long story, lets just say I'm tired of worring about it and baby sitting everytime I go somewhere in it. So I decided to remove it and go back to a carb and ECM distributer setup.

It's been a long two days......

I got the Fuel Injections system off my Charger. I think I took as many wires off the Charger than are still on the car.  Got the new Edelbrock 650cfm installed with only minor modifications to the throttle linkage. Got the new radiator installed and cut 1 3/4 inches out of each side of the radiator support to open up the air flow. I installed the MOPAR distributer and ECM I took off the car two or so years ago when I installed the fuel injection system as well as the mechanical fuel pump.  The fuel pump was a pain in the ass getting the fuel lines rerouted to the pump since with the fuel injection they ran up the fire wall to the back of the throttle body.

Finally got everything hooked up last night around 9:30PM and waited until today to fire her up.

This morning started well and went downhill after that.
Primed the system with the electrical fuel pump I left in line. My Uncle has run an electrical fuel pump in line with a mechanical pump for many years without any problems so I figured I would leave it in.
The motor fired and of course needed to be timed and tuned.  I started at 12 BTDC adjusted the idle and adjusted the idle mixture screws. Having the Wideband O2 gauge really helped in this department.

Jumped in to take her for a test drive and when I ran the motor up to about 3,000 rpm it began spitting a farting and running erratically. WTH?  Pulled the Air Cleaner off and did some checking, ran the motor up to 3,000 RPM and noticed the motor running really lean so I replaced the rods to richen up the motor under higher RPMs. Ran the motor a little more and it seems to be doing ok so I hit the road to see how she would do.  The trip was not smooth, the car behaved good one minute and acted like it was going to die the next. Got back to the garage and left it running to adjust the timing and then make another run and the car died.  WTF???

After about 20 minutes of trouble shooting my Uncle and I figured out it was not getting any gas, so I kicked on the electric fuel pump and fired up the car to get it back into the garage.  We thought maybe the mechanical pump was having a problem pulling gas through the electrical pump so I took out the electric pump.  Started it up again and did some more tuning. 
Here is where it gets weird.

At TDC (0) with the vacuumed advanced plugged in I take the motor up to 3,000 RPM it will advance up to 50 BTDC. If I plug off the Vacuum advance and do the same thing it will go up to 30 BTDC and then down to about 25 BTDC. The interesting thing is that the timing jumps around about 5 degrees in each direction. I'm thinking my distributer and ECM is crap.  Left the vacuum advanced unplugged and figured I would take another ride, put her in reverse and she started dying again, O2 went up to 18 so I threw her in 1st and launched for the garage. Car died 2 feet from the door. For most this would not be a problem however the garage floor is 6 inches above the ground with wooden ramps, no pushing the Charger into the garage,guess I should have left the electric fuel pump on the car, so out comes the can of WD40 and got her limped into the garage.

Ok so my fuel pump is also a POS.  Of course being Sunday all of the speed shops are closed so I called the local NAPA, also closed, tried Kragen and they have a pump but all of the connections are for 5/16 inch lines. Since my Charger is setup for 3/8 inch line now I don't want to convert it back so no pump today and we called it quits.

Time for another summit order.

[PocketThunder]

Damn Steve, tough goings with the conversion back from Fuel Injection. I remember when you were putting that in and i was hoping it would work well because i was thinking of doing the same.  But now i'll stick to carbs.  Thanks for doing the R & R though.. 

Paul

[ChgrSteve67]

My new fuel pump and distributor arrives today.

[RIDELIKEHELL]

Great work Man!

[ChgrSteve67]

got all of the new parts installed today and she runs 100% better.

I haven't tried any WOT burnouts yet but the RPM range is smooth and no spitting, farting or hesitations.
I'm still verifying all my hookups and checking for oil and gas leaks.

I relocated the voltage regulator to the front of the inner fendor close to where my electic fan control box is.
Eletric fans circulate air there so it should stay coolerthan on the firewall above the motor.

Also I'm pretty sure I have a bad ground for my dash cluster, getting some incorrect readings for temp and voltage and some flickering in other readouts.  Easy fix just a pain in the ass to take the dash out.

Temp gauge in dash was reading 305 and my infrared temp gun reads 182 at the temp sensor.

Getting closer

[TA70455]

Wow thats one heck of a ride you have been on, I had a 66 way back in the 80's so I really like your car. looks great  keep up the good work, hope the carb works out well too.

[G-man]

Im not really into the 66-67 CHarger but I admire your 1. Hope you have lots of fun with that and congratulations on making it nice.

The overflow bottle... is that the spring looking thing? Custom bottle I assume? Nice touch. 

[ChgrSteve67]

The spring looking think is a overlfow bottle from billet specialties.
http://www.billetspecialties.com/item.asp?cid=7&scid=86&pid=208&sb=overflow&pg=1

Thanks for checking out my ride. 

[68X426]

Temp gauge in dash was reading 305

Man, I hate when that happens. 

Congrats Steve on nearing completion on your beautiful project.

[G-man]

The spring looking think is a overlfow bottle from billet specialties.
http://www.billetspecialties.com/item.asp?cid=7&scid=86&pid=208&sb=overflow&pg=1

Thanks for checking out my ride. 

You are welcome. The 66-67 adds flavour to the general 68-70's. Nice due to the fact they are not that common so its "Wow cool" (though not for me) when its seen.

Thanks for the link.

[ChgrSteve67]

Temp gauge in dash was reading 305

Man, I hate when that happens. 

Congrats Steve on nearing completion on your beautiful project.

I got the same distributer you have (exept for a 383) and it works great. I do need to change the advance stop in it and change the rods in my carb again.

Went to a car show on Monday and she ran great. There is a poker run and car show in Cool this weekend so I'm excited to see how she will run in the mountains.

[Finn]

Gotta love working out all the bugs when you do something out of the box like this. Awesome job! I think we need some videos though... 

[ChgrSteve67]

Thanks!

Video is on the list of things to do.