hemigeno's Daytona restoration - a few more tweaks... again!

[hemigeno]

Just as guilty on that front too.  D'ya think we'd qualify for full disability if we actually achieve OCD status?  Think of how much more time there'd be to go checking out cars all over the place.

[69_500]

It would be a pretty sweet deal to actually not have to miss work and miss out on money to go look at cars. It would even be nice to go look at a car that I could actually afford for once as well. But who cars, I love  over any of the aero cars.

[moparstuart]

thanks gene got a nice box from you today   

[hemigeno]

Glad you got the box OK, although it wasn't anything super-special.  I hope those lenses polish up, as I didn't look at them really closely.  Vance still thinks he has a few old parts that could be of some use, and if he finds 'em I'll let you know.

[moparstuart]

    thanks again

[Magnumcharger]

So, with the economic downturn, and hearing rumors of some restoration shops feeling the squeeze, I'm wondering what kind of effect this might have on your Daytona restoration?

[hemigeno]

 

Rumors are just that...  Sure hope there's nothing happening that I haven't heard about!

My next planned visit is this weekend, so I'll have another update then.  Jonathan and I are supposed to have another father/son road trip, weather-permitting.

[hemigeno]

Although the weather didn't necessarily cooperate (they got almost a foot of new snow in the 24 hours before I hit town), Jonathan and I did manage to trudge our way to Vance's shop on Saturday.  The south side of Chicago that we travelled through had a fair amount of ice in the trees, etc. but overall the main roads were quite passable.  The southwest Michigan back roads were pretty snowpacked still on Saturday, but they thankfully didn't get any ice.

I will try to post the pictures from the trip on Friday if I have time.  The big news is that the engine is now running!

Almost just as important as that, is the discovery David Patik and I have made in the rubber seal area.  David sent me an email yesterday reporting the results of some experimentation on a section of the seal material.  According to David, we may have stumbled onto a process that will replicate the stiffness of the original rubber seal material almost perfectly!  David had already given the stuff I found a B+ to an A- grade, with the only "problem" being the flexibility of the repro material.  If that's now fixed as we think it could be, David scores it as an A+...  In fact, we've ordered up a quantity of the repro material so that David can crank out a set or two of prototype seals for my car.  Once he's confident that everything looks/feels right, he may start offering sets of these seals for sale again.

There is still the nagging issue of what to do with the nosecone to fender seals.  While I was at Vance's, I collected all of my fender seal pieces - including the original Daytona seals.  My originals are OK, but there are some fairly visible scratches and scuff marks, plus the rubber is not very flexible anymore.  I might take a quick plane trip out West to personally visit a laboratory that may be able to help out with the "creation" of a new set of fender seals identical to the originals.  That whole issue moves to the front burner if the radiator air seal material problem is settled.

Anyway, I'll post the pictures and other details after Christmas.

[hemigeno]

Here are a few pictures of the engine set up on a test stand.  I heard it run for a few minutes while I was at the shop, although there are still some bugs to work out with the carburetion and distributor.  By initially running the engine out of the car, they can check for leaks - plus tuning on it is a lot easier without having to worry about scratching up fenders or fender scoops.

The engine is in primer at the moment, until everything is sorted out on the engine.  Vance is still going to take the engine to a dyno shop, but he didn't want to do the initial break-in under a heavy load.  The first thing the dyno shops want to do is drop the hammer and see what she'll pull...  Not the best for fresh valve springs, which need to be slowly/gently heat cycled a time or two to finish the annealing process.

[hemigeno]

Some pictures of the Harland Sharp rocker assemblies... those rocker shafts are enormous!  Having roller bearings at the shaft plus roller tips is probably overkill.  Overkill is right up my alley though! 

We had the valve covers off because the adjusting nuts were making light contact with the valve cover baffle on the driver's side.  When Vance first fired the engine up on Thursday (it only ran for maybe a couple of minutes this way) he could feel the tapping and knew something was not quite right.  A quick attitude adjustment with a large steel punch took care of things quite well.  Vance and I checked the passenger's side just to be safe, but there was no indications of contact on that side.

[nascarxx29]

Looks good . original detail ?That isnt the starter your using is it

[hemigeno]

I think the starter is just a functional one that Vance had laying around.  He mentioned that he still needed to send off the date-correct starter and alternator to be rebuilt. 

Even though the alternator looks new -- which it is --, it has some issues that need to be addressed in one of the case halves.  If you look closely at the stator (the round ring in the center that looks like a bunch of thin plates stacked together), there is a gap at the edge between the stator and one of the case halves.  The reason for this gap appears to be that this case half was not drilled/machined to receive the locating pins.  When the case was bolted together, this actually caused that case half to develop some very small hairline cracks at the bolt bosses from not being flush with the stator.  It's something that should go away if properly repaired, so it will be sent off with the starter.  They will disassemble the alternator case, do the necessary machining, clean everything up to show standards, and reassemble the unit.  A lot of "NOS" parts were in fact rejects from the supplier or assembly line bins, and this one was probably not used because of that unusual gap.  It's the right assembly number and has a useable date code, so it'll be installed no matter what.

[hemigeno]

These are a couple more detail shots, including a shot in the last picture of the #8 cylinder spark plug bracket.  What is on the engine right now is one of the repro sets from Frank Badalson.  They're pretty good overall, but Vance is going to scrounge up a good set of used brackets from one of his sources.  The #8 rear bracket isn't "tall" enough to clear the exhaust manifold, which causes the bracket to kick out a little.  That's one of the ways to tell a repro bracket set from an original set.

[tan top]

motor looks good .....

[hemigeno]

The first picture is a closeup of the starter that is on the car right now.  Somewhere I have pictures (or at least I USED to have them before the hard drive took a dump last spring) that show the difference between the Chrysler gear reduction starters.  I think I swiped those pictures from Moparts anyway, maybe someone else has a picture/diagram?  Allen??

The last two pictures I took to remind myself about the transmission input shaft and bellhousing.  Vance checked the alignment on the original bellhousing to the replacement block, and it needed to be adjusted about 0.005" to be perfectly centered.  With the use of this replacement shortblock assembly, a different crankshaft was used as well.  Sharp-eyed viewers will notice that the crank does not have a pilot bushing installed, as this block/crank was originally installed in an automatic-transmission vehicle.  While that wasn't noticed until right after the rotating assembly was installed (Vance forgot this wasn't the original engine), it will actually end up working out for the best.  I'm not sure who sells it, but someone makes an actual roller bearing that fits into the end of the crankshaft.  That's what is shown in the last picture sitting on the end of the tranny input shaft.  One way to install this bearing is to drill out the crankshaft enough to allow the input shaft to clear the crankshaft, without having to worry about the machining tolerances necessary if the normal Oilite-style pilot bushing was installed.  In the end, the input shaft has greater support, with a smoother-acting actual bearing.  The shortcut method would be to shorten the end of the transmission input shaft, but that will be left intact on my car.

[hemigeno]

One more engine detail shot, by the distributor.  I think I took that shot to point out the clay-red boot on the coil wire.  For whatever reason, those odd-colored boots are found a lot on original HP engine coil wires later in the 1969 model year.  More than a few A12 6-pack cars have them, but the coil wires are not ALWAYS red on those, or Daytonas, or other HP engines.  This is a new set dated the 2nd quarter of 1969, and it had the elusive red boot.  Vance wanted to run the engine with these in place to make sure they still work, after all these years.

I also took a couple of pictures of suspension components that are ready for final detailing and installation.  After bugging Dirk B. (70426RTSE) and a couple of other folks about how they have been able to clean up original parts, I bit the bullet and purchased 30 gallons of Evapo-Rust.  Several of the bare steel components will be dipped in the Evapo-Rust, which seems to produce near-miraculous results in cleaning everything up and leaving a great-looking bare metal finish.  They'll still have to protect the metal somehow with either cosmoline or some other clear protectant, but the goal is to get the right look on everything without sacrificing longevity if at all possible.

The last picture is the fresh black wrinkle finish applied to the air cleaner housing.  It honestly doesn't look sparkly, that's just the camera flash.  I thought I had a pretty nice used housing, but it didn't look THAT nice...

[nascarxx29]

If the starter had ears the 2 end bolts it was later model .There was retro articles in the magazine archives
http://www.moparaction.com/Tech/archive.html
http://allpar.com/history/mopar/electrical3-starters.html

[maxwellwedge]

Most original coil wires have white script whereas the plug wires are that yellow color....I'll have to check the boot color out - I have a bunch of original wires in a box I call "Box - O - Wires"   

Every starter I have seen on Daytona's is the earlier casting # starter...I will post the casting number on the weekend - number escapes me at present.

That motor looks like it will make some noise!

[nascarxx29]

This site had resto correct details .Maybe some starter details

http://www.mmcdetroit.com/2007Events/

[superbirdtom]

my trend micro anti virus detector says this file has a trojan in it .

[superbirdtom]

These are yet a few more shots of the rear glass area.  Vance will still paint the original Charger sail panel areas in color coat even though the headliner will cover everything up.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I sure wish someone made those jagged pieces to hold headliner tight. ? anyone know

[BigBlockSam]

 

[pettybird]

just to beat the rear axle bumper discussion to death did you find white painted stripes on yours?  there was one stripe running from front to rear (as they're mounted on the car) in the ribbed section on the GTX I'm working on--the paint even survived the glass beading I used (which worked phenomenally well, by the way.)

what I have is pinstripe width--i could take a picture of it if I remember my stupid camera... 

[PocketThunder]

No Kidding!!  Geno is setting the bar at 18' in the pole vault.

I see they even partially painted the battery cable in primer just like the final product gets partially painted with color.. 

[nascarxx29]

You can go overboard easily on certain details .Did you know on 4 speed shift rods the excess threads were wrapped with a skinny paper tape.I had seen this a few times .And emailed Roger Gibson who recalled this tape on the shift rods