Black Ice Superbird...Next Chapter Now with pics !!!

[hotrod98]

Here's a couple of more pics. The first one is me, my grandson and my daughter-in-law. My son and his wife drove Sandra's green car over for the show. They couldn't stand the thought of her car missing out on the show for the first time since we built it.

[472 R/T SE]

Those flat black decals will look bad ass!     One thing about the decals, you can change them out next year just because.  I put the black matte call outs on my hood against the gloss black out & love the hell out of the look.  If I would have won your Daytona sweepstakes I would have wanted the flat black DAYTONA stripe.

One thing's for sure.  There's not another one like yours out there.  Whatever you do will be a first.  Lookin' good my friend.

[hotrod98]

Mike, you do realize that you were a big part in making this happen for us. I appreciate you and Allen placing your trust in me is the whole process of buying a car that's half way across the world. Well, Allen's only seven hours from here, but you get the point. It wasn't easy putting together a deal where all three of us could send funds, etc., but I think we all ended up with some pretty nice cars. I had to put a ton of faith in Tom. I was sending money to a guy that I didn't know and knew nothing about. He came through for me with flying colors...and then some.
It was hard trying to work around here today and not want to go over and play with the bird. There are so many little things that I want to do to it.

[41husk]

All your hard work and simply doing what you said you would do is greatly appreciated.  I can't speak for Mike but I am happy as can be with the Daytona, only wish this weather would vlear up so I could drive it more!

[hotrod98]

They're forecasting rain again for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Crap!!! That makes about four weekends in a row.
At least my son was able to drag race last weekend but the track was kind of slick due to all of the rain. I was too tired from thrashing on the bird to even load my racecar up.
Maybe in a week or so.
The plan has been to go to a car show and then come home, drop off the bird and jump into the truck with the racecar already loaded. We'll see.

[Al]

  great job. Thanks for sharing.

[moparstuart]

Here's a couple of more pics. The first one is me, my grandson and my daughter-in-law. My son and his wife drove Sandra's green car over for the show. They couldn't stand the thought of her car missing out on the show for the first time since we built it.

that there is larry and his mini-ME 

[hotrod98]

You got that right...

I bought a gear vendors overdrive from a friend of mine and today I ordered the conversion kit to bolt it to my 4-speed. That should make the car much nicer to drive on the highway with those 3:54 gears. That will make the final ratio 2:76. I also ordered a new set of seat belts from Mike Ross at BE&A. The orginals look pretty good but I just don't trust 40 year old seat belts. I'll box the originals up with some of the other Superbird stuff.

Mike mentioned that he only has a few sets of the Superbird turn signal lenses left. After these are gone there won't be another run. I ordered a set back when he first started selling them and they look and fit great. I'll order another set for spares in a few weeks. I've been spending way too much money lately.

[hotrod98]

Well...I hit a little speed bump. Saturday, I was firing the car up to go for a drive after the rain moved out and smoke started pouring out from under the dash and from under the hood. Seems that the horn relay decided to come apart and short out against the dash. It fried that harness all of the way through. That thing is toast. I hate it because of the low mileage on the car, it was a nice harness.  I don't understand why they run the horn relay off of the main power wire the way that they do. It seems like the fusible link would have protected everything. All it did was light up and smoke while the rest of the harness fried right along with it.

I ordered a new dash harness and an engine harness as well as a new horn relay and a new style ammeter. Hopefully, I can have the car back on the road by this weekend. I'll have to use the time that I had allowed to install the GVO to install the harnesses. No overdrive for me this weekend. It took a couple of hours to remove the harness from the dash and will take two or three to get it back in.
I did get my new seat belts from BE&A today so I can go ahead and get those installed while I'm waiting on the harnesses.
I guess some people would be totally bummed out but it's just another thing that life throws at you sometimes. I don't waste my time worrying about things like this...I just jump into correcting the situation and moving on.

I still love this car. 

[41husk]

I don't think it matters how nice the car is, there is always issues that come up.  It's just part of the hobby.  At least with you, your well set up with that shop to deal with those inconvienances. 

[superbirdtom]

hey order me a pair and Ill get u the money  unless he has many left. also who makes the housings?  now is p.g. classics going to repop these lenses and the housings sometime?? I will look for that lock rod part your missing  may have one.  the purple runner is at my buddy jimmys house theyre finishing it .  connecting all the wiring  going through all the instruments repolishing it and fixing some dings.  All I need is the rods that go from the fenders that hook up to the front bumper  U or anyone elese got any or where to buy them    ?? thanx  tom

[hotrod98]

I may have the fender support rods or at least one side.  That new Year One dash harness was a joke. Some of the terminals won't slide over the spades on the washer pump switch. And the starter relay wire doesn't have power all of the way through the harness. Just to be able to make the show in Hot Springs, Brent had to wire up a start button. It's a sad day when you pay $400 for a harness and it doesn't even work. The last time I bought a Year One harness we had to go in and remove a couple of terminals and remove the plastic sheathing from the wire. They just crimped the terminal ends right onto the wires without stripping the ends. At first we suspected that this was the case here but not that lucky. The strange thing is that the relay wire is a straight uninterrupted wire all of the way through the harness. Well, it's supposed to be.
I was so worried about the overall quality of the harness that I decided to trailer the car. It was a pain just getting it onto and off of the trailer without ripping the front spoiler off.  I need longer ramps. Once we got to Hot Springs we took it off of the trailer and after the show was over, we drove around the city some. Everything worked just fine.
I already have the Moog parts to rebuild the front suspension so I'll try to get that done in a week or so.

Oh, and the car cover came in last week so the car has a little more protection now.

[moparstuart]

my  new dash harness was a joke also and still three years later we are still working out issues with it .


 

[Dave Kanofsky]

Too bad Evans doesn't make dash harnesses, their stuff has been great for me over the years.

[hotrod98]

The way I see it is M&H has the market cornered so they let the customer do the final testing. I don't think they have a quality control department. The last two harnesses have proved that to me. Now I have to decide whether to have YO send me another harness and spend four or five hours changing it out or just spend an hour or less and repair this one. If I repair it myself, it seems like they've won. They meaning YO and M&H.

[41husk]

Yes but if you send it back and are forced to weight weeks to enjoy the car, you lose As with many of these companies your choice is either they win or you lose either way they always come out ok

[hotrod98]

The harness fried on Saturday. I ordered the harness Monday morning and it was here by Wednesday. I installed it that night but didn't get a chance to button everything up until Friday.

[hotrod98]

We got the Black Bird out yesterday and drove about 100 miles. It was 95 out and it tried to run a little warm.
When I installed the new dash harness, I didn't get the auxiliary electric fan hooked back up. I guess I better get on that before Branson.
You talk about one hot car to drive around in. Man that black on black is a killer down here in the south.  

[Dave Kanofsky]

Maybe THAT'S why they didn't paint Birds black?

[hotrod98]

The day before we left for the Branson wingcar gathering, we attended a Mopar show at the drag strip where my son and I race. The Black Ice bird was chosen as Best of Show. After our picture was taken, I made a pass down the strip. Man that car moves when you kick in the other two carbs. We also received a big trophy last Thursday at the local cruise night. We're going to run out of room quick at this rate.
I put the rallyes on the car for the cruise night to see how they looked on the car. I'll take a few pics later and post them. I'll trade back and forth on the wheel combination from time to time.
We leave to go back to Branson this Friday. More heat, more traffic and more fun.

[moparstuart]

The day before we left for the Branson wingcar gathering, we attended a Mopar show at the drag strip where my son and I race. The Black Ice bird was chosen as Best of Show. After our picture was taken, I made a pass down the strip. Man that car moves when you kick in the other two carbs. We also received a big trophy last Thursday at the local cruise night. We're going to run out of room quick at this rate.
I put the rallyes on the car for the cruise night to see how they looked on the car. I'll take a few pics later and post them. I'll trade back and forth on the wheel combination from time to time.
We leave to go back to Branson this Friday. More heat, more traffic and more fun.

[BigBlockSam]

congrats 

[hotrod98]

Thanks...You should have seen the grin on Sandra's face when I kicked all three carbs in on that pass down the track.
She's always been a speed freak. I set the 71 Barracuda up with Simpson harnesses on the passenger side as well and Brent gave her his old Simpson helmet. This track will let you carry a passenger on test and tune night in the radial classes. She can't wait.

[BigBlockSam]

very cool . I'm glad Sandra's  doing alright . i luv my sixpack car . when they all open it's time to hang on . i'm taking the sixpack off the r/t and putting the original carb and intake manifold on it . i'm building a sixpack motor for the daytona . the deal with sixpacks is that there a pain to tune right but when there right , MAN! they go go . i'm glad your enjoying your new toy .

[hotrod98]

We took the Superbird back to Branson this weekend for the Route 66 Mopar show at area 57. About noon a thunderstorm rolled in and almost blew a canopy onto the bird. Fortunately, some people that were standing behind my car managed to grab the canopy just as it swung by the wing. I grabbed the side and managed to help them keep it from flying up again. Very close call. The guy that owned the canopy didn't pin it down and he was off somewhere eating lunch when the storm hit. At least the rain cooled things off for a while.
Here's a couple of pics of the car at the show. It looks different with the rallyes on it. I'll trade them back and forth with the Centerlines from time to time just to be different.

Note the destroyed canopy in the background of the second pic.

Next week is race weekend so the bird gets a break from doing the car show thing. Time to play with the Barracuda.