Got a project 70, now the fun/pain begins

[AKcharger]

i Admired your tenacity and resourcefulness ...and the finger picture is great! 

[toocheaptosmoke]

Thanks, some parts just deserve the one finger salute. 

In the boxes were a flywheel and some misc. suspension parts I forgot.  I never ordered the LCA bushings or suspension bump stops. 




Picked up a couple wheels the other day off c-list, some sweet old school slots.  They are 15x7, need to get those special lug nuts now.

[Baldwinvette77]

* Bender voice* Awwwwww Yeeeeeaaaa!!!! slot mags rock  i have a set of 14 x7 chevy style slots, with new tires, i'd like to use them, but.. well there chevys and i doubt they will fit disc brakes 

[toocheaptosmoke]

Had to clean up the beads a little bit, but the wheels looked pretty good.






Scrounged some old tires from the pile out back, these tires started life on my jeep, then were on my toyota for a while, now they're on my 3rd vehicle.    The other wheels came with the car, they are 15x6 wheels off something, they don't even match.  I cleaned and painted the beads but left the outer patina. 






Had to "visualize" a bit. 



Gonna need some smaller tires up front, I think one of the local shops should have some cheap used tires laying around, but 15" tires are getting harder to find. 

[Baldwinvette77]

Man, thats looking mean 

[toocheaptosmoke]

I think this is pretty much the low point of the build, the car is about as taken apart is it gets.   So, I guess that means it's all up hill from here? 






This is about the only parts for the car that are actual mopar, the leaf spring perches.  Almost threw my back out removing them from the mailbox...








Got the k frame back in.






Put most of the front suspension back in, haven't tightened everything down the whole way yet, in case things have to come back apart.






I went with a Lares stock '73 steering gear.  Thought about the firm feel or steer and gear boxes, but figured I'd give this a shot first.  The entire cost of this box is less than what they would have charged me for a core at steer and gear.  So, if it turns out to be junk I'll at least have a core to trade in.






All new TRE's and stuff, used the larger e body ones.






The disc brake kit surprised me when it came with real timken bearings, but the races and the rotors are still chinese crap.     







Put in the column so I could steer it.  I like the fact that "the 500" steering wheel is awesomely retro, but it just seems a bit on the small side.   






Spray bombed the rear axle






Of course nothing goes easy, the ford 8.8 has larger diameter tubes that take special u-bolts.  I drilled out the stock mounting plates but the u-bolts just wouldn't fit right, ended up grinding flat spot on the axle tubes to make things fit.






Another gratuitous engine shot. 

[Baldwinvette77]

Holy hell, you got alot done today.. or whenever you did this all i did today was test fit my steering column  

btw what are you doing for paint? 

[toocheaptosmoke]

Haha, that was over the weekend.  I also put a new master cylinder on my jeep, pretty much wrenched all weekend. 


As for paint, might just go with more primer.   Then I could call the car "50 shades of grey," cause you know it will also get the women all hot and bothered!!!!!   

[Baldwinvette77]

my boss has a bmw i nick-named that, it honestly has about a dozen or so different shades of greys/silvers on it. ... also its a bmw 

im thinking of leaving my car in whatever colours its in now, that way i wont have to choose between them   

[toocheaptosmoke]

That's always fun if you have to fill out a parking pass with VEHICLE COLOR __________   

[Baldwinvette77]

All of them  just like the model year 

[toocheaptosmoke]

Worked on figuring out how to setup the clutch.  The NV3500 uses a hydraulic system that's a weird one piece, pre-bled sort of deal.  Not cheap either, cost 100+ for the whole thing.  I would have preferred a traditional type that could have had the line ran any where.   In the end I settled on the setup from a late 90's dakota, it looked like it would work from the pictures online.

Eye balled things and punched a couple holes in the firewall, the pushrod goes where the original linkage went.  Things are close, had to grind a bit off the top of the MC to clear the captive nut.





Hope that tubing can be bent








Went to remove the pedals and the spring on the clutch pedal broke.     Is that really needed?  Or will the throw out bearing drag if it doesn't have a spring to keep it held back?






Upon closer inspection it looks like the spring was already cracked






The stock push rod looked pretty close, but I may have to modify later on if it needs adjustment.

[Baldwinvette77]

NICE! i remember on the corvette i took 2 a/t pedals welded one to the cross shaft chopped them up and made a manual setup  i thought i could do the same with the charger a/t pedal, but looks like a completely different animal  as for the spring, its needed, without something to bring it back to its normal position it will either stick, or come back too slowly  , mechanical parts are there for a reason, electronics can be thrown away     

[toocheaptosmoke]

Yeah, electronics are way over rated.     I'll have to look on my jeep, I swear there was no return spring on the clutch pedal.  On the charger there was only a "positive" resistance for like the first half inch of movement, then the spring would push the pedal to the floor the rest of the way.    If you left the clutch pedal in the up position and bumped it, it would slam to the floorboard with quite a bit of force.  And come to think of it, previous owner had another spring hooked from the hole in the stop arm to the dash, which I already removed.  I didn't know wtf was going on with this clutch setup.

[Baldwinvette77]

HAHA, well i've seen a nova without a spring, and a corvette with a spring, i guess when you get it running you can try it out, nothing beats real world testing 

[JB400]

Well, at least you can adjust your clutch pedal to have the feel that you want now.  Some people complain of having to much spring.  Now, you can push in the pedal and not kill your knee

[1974dodgecharger]

Well, at least you can adjust your clutch pedal to have the feel that you want now.  Some people complain of having to much spring.  Now, you can push in the pedal and not kill your knee

thats how mine is I gotta muscle that clutch some days I dont mind if I dont have to change gears, but in stop and go traffic I feel the fatigue.

[toocheaptosmoke]

See that's the thing, it seemed to be more of an assist spring, to make the clutch easier to push.  After the first half inch of movement it forced the pedal to the floor.  Just have to see how it is when I get the tranny in, if I have to I'll just weld the spring back together and hope for the best.   

[toocheaptosmoke]

Trying to figure out a game plan now, things are starting to come back together and I'm trying to figure what should be done first.  Like if the brakes or wiring should be done before dropping the motor back in, or plumbing things after any "obstacles" are in place?    You guys have any advice for putting one of these  back together? 


Cut out the hole in the trunk for the filler neck.





Then prepped the trunk and coated it with bedliner.






Started mentally preparing myself for the wiring.  I went with the cheap EZ wiring kit, since a stock replacement type harness wouldn't have done me a whole lot of good.   






Went to a swap meet on saturday, was able to find a few things I needed.   Got enough parts (hopefully) for the headlights, got a rear view mirror, window crank, and some front tires.  Also got a few other random deals. 






Tire changer has been getting a workout.







Hmmmmm... 

[Baldwinvette77]

Loving the smokestack    theres really no specific order that things should be put back together in, plus things can always be removed again if need be. obviously wiring should be laid out before the interior goes in, brake and fuel lines can be done at anytime on a unibody car, but yeah, its best to do that after you have all your junk in place so you can bend around them (i've seen people do lines after painting the car) i was told to always get your brakes done before starting your engine, but you can throw it in, just think of it like a complete car that you need to do work on,what still needs to be repaired and what would be easier to do now, rather than later  , if you plan is to just leave it in primer, you may want to clean up all the surfaces youre painting, spray them individually, the reassemble it then throw your parts in 

[70 sublime]

When your dash is all apart like you have it now is the perfect time to check on the windshield wipers
I got my dash and wires all back together and got to hooking up the power for the wipers only to find out that every thing was siezed up
Would have been so much easier to work on before I got all the other stuff back in the dash

[toocheaptosmoke]

Good call on the wipers, I will have to check those. 


I guess the main thing is I'm not familiar with these cars with the drivetrain installed, mine didn't come with an engine, so I don't want to run a line down somewhere that may end up being right next to the exhaust or something.  At first I was going to go straight to putting the engine in, but it sure is nice being able to sit in the middle of the engine bay to work on things.     Might just try to study pictures of other cars and try to route things from there, shouldn't be as bad as the newer cars that have zero space under the hood.

[toocheaptosmoke]

Put the window regulators back in tonight.  The passenger side window was missing the glass clip thing, a 1/4" bolt, piece of fuel line, and some cardboard fixed that in a jiffy.





Have functioning windows finally. 

[Baldwinvette77]

Neat  i have to keep some of these tricks in mind 

[toocheaptosmoke]

You guys are going to love this.    The grille was MIA when I got the car, and finding a replacement within budget was not going to happen.  So, how hard can it be to make one?   Started keeping an eye out for something that would look close enough. 


Then one day I was sorting some scrap (which btw, has been a major source of funding for this project) and there it was!!  Beams of light erupted from the aluminum pile, angels sang, it was beautiful.  A rack from an old Kelvinator.





Quick snip later,





Some paint





It had potential, but wasn't there yet.   Perfect spacing!






Did some more rummaging, a lo and behold the door handle trim off another fridge was almost a dead match fro the center divider.








After some cutting, grinding, hammering, and riveting,





Hit the buckets and the grille with some semi gloss black, and voila





Still need to replace the black duct tape with silver so it matches.