68' Coronet Build, *56k Beware....*

[68CoronetRT]

Hello! I finally decided to start documenting my MOPAR build and figure I might as well start a thread with lots of pics(56k Beware.... haha remember that!?) .

So for starters, I guess I will throw in the back ground story as to how I acquired the car itself.

It was a cold winter here in SoCal and my GMC pickup 1500 was having some issues with the front alignment. I took it to my local guy and he explains to me that his alignment rack could only do passenger cars and in about a week he would have the full size truck rack installed. This of course was not soon enough since my DD(95' Civic) was having some head gasket problems and I needed it fixed THAT day to drive it for a few days. So my trusty mechanic buddy explains that the shop on the corner of Main st. should be able to fix me up just right, so on I went down the highway with the alignment all over the place.

I show up at the shop and the owner says they will have it together in about 3 hours, so I headed home with my Dad to await the phone call. About an hour later I get a call that says the alignment wont come into spec at all, and he asks me to come down, so I do. I show up and we are looking over it and I explain that he needs to turn up the torsion keys to see if it fixes it or not, he cranks them up and wala!! its starting to come into spec. So as I'm standing there I see this faint shadow of a B-Body Dodge covered by boxes and a car cover. I go on to ask the mechanic if that's the "White Dodge Charger thing" that a buddy of mine had told me about, about a year prior to this event. He tells me "Yea, if you want go check it out and pull the cover off." So I do and this is what I saw.


Whoa!! I said as I unveiled this beautiful B Body! But I was confused as I've never seen in my 28 years of life a "Coronet" so I ask him, "What is this thing!, I know its a Dodge and I KNOW its a B body, but it's not Charger" He then explains that this is a 1968 Coronet that was bought and lived its life here in SoCal . I was in shock and awe as I gazed at it for almost an hour. He then tells me "It's for sale if you want it", so of course I asked how much. He responds with "I'll take 16k and I even throw in the 440 I have for it." WOW! B-Body with a BIG BLOCK and 4 speed for 16k!! Oh man I need to sleep on this one, I thought. So I tell him that I might be interested and give me a few days to decide.

So here I'am sweating bullets about this car. Should I buy it or not? What will the Fiancee think? I decide that if he will take 14k and the 440 is a good running engine we will have a deal. I line up my form of payment and call him up 4 days after first sight. I tell him I want to see it in person again and go for a test drive, he says to come on down whenever. So I head down there and we rack the car so I can get a good look from down below and man is this thing clean, minor surface rust along the bottom but not a single rust hole anywhere. Notice a few oil leaks but nothing serious. So off we head on the test drive and she feels good, lots of power(Or so I thought ) and shifting real nice through all 4 gears. I tell him at the end of the test drive "I want it but I will give you 14k for it, as long as the 440 is usable and can easily be swapped in." He tells me that "The 440 is in great shape, I just never got it to run right with the iron heads and low(91) octance. But when I put 115 and 91 mix she runs like a rapped ape. I got sick of it so I put the 383 in so I could run 87 gas and actually drive it" He also explains that he has the original build sheet and originally it was a 318 auto car.

At this point I'm sold. Here I'am with a B BODY DODGE!!!! I'm on cloud 9 as I cannot wait for my funding to come in and pick this thing up and drive her home! So the next 3-4 days I'm in total agony. "I want to drive it NOW!" I explain to my Fiancee. She tells me to "Calm down"

So Saturday finally gets here and I scoot down there right when they open with my 14k in my pocket. Here Iam!, Now give me the car!!!  We sign the paperwork and I'm off! Man I'm feeling like a total bad a** right now crusin down main street in a B Body big block 4 speed car. Here is the first day owning as I let my brother drive her home after we went to breakfast.

[68X426]

Let me be the first to say .... I hate you.

No, actually I love you and your Coronet.

Keep the posts coming as you learn more about the ride. See you at next year's Spring Fling!

[JB400]

 

I want to get my popcorn early.  Might not be any left later on

[68CoronetRT]

So I get the car home and I'm going over it with a fine tooth comb. I find a few minor/fixable issues. It had a fuel leak from the sending unit, easy fix with some new hose. Done. Find the carb choke is all messed up, so fix that up and she starts running a whole lot better.

Here it is after it was ready to go put some miles on it.


Then I believe she is ready for her first test drive/cruise so I call up a buddy and we head out on the open road! She feels real good while crusing even though the gears seemed a little short(3:91). Oh well, I figure I'd much rather have the short gear for light to light action anyway . So the first night out it gets us all around town and gets us home safe and sound. Unfortunately this will be the first/last time this happens for more than 6 months.

So after 3 weeks of my new project/toy. I decide to drive her on a short 30 mile trip to go run some errands on a nice cool January morning. Windows down, sweater/beanie on and I'm crusin. Start the trek back home, and I'm crusing in a solid 4th gear pulling 2500-2800 RPM and I start getting this shake from the engine, a shake that I have never felt. It got worse and worse as I drove. Finally got to the next street light and it stalls out and dies. WTF? I thought as I sit there cranking the motor. She fires back up and starts idling fine again... So again off I go. Shift through 1-2-3 and on my way into 4th here comes that sound that every car guy never wants to hear. CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK from the deep deep down. Oh great! this motor is DONE! I was able to pull into a church parking lot and called in for my tow home(Luckily I own a flatbed and have a really nice brother to help out).


Ugg! I felt like I had been ripped off! But alas! I forgot about my 440 that I needed to go pickup!! So I call the guy I bought it from that day and tell him what happened and he says to swing by and get the motor whenever. So here I'am again back in the ball game!!

I drop the car off and arrange the 440 motor pickup. I head down to his house and I see this pile of parts and a short block that somewhat resembles a big block dodge, but this cant be MY engine that he sold me with the car. He told me it was "Complete and with a set of aluminum heads will bolt on and go, but the iron heads should work with race gas mix". Right? WRONG. He tells me "Here it is!!" My response was "Your kidding right?" "Nope!" He explains.

So now here Iam with a blown up 383 and a 440 that is in pieces. Learned my lesson with this guy to never trust anyone's word on car parts again. So of course I haul my new somewhat assembled 440 block home with NO HEADS

And there it sat for roughly 3 weeks while I started looking into heads. All this time I keep telling my Father that "The bottom end is FINE, leave it ALONE" and he keeps nagging me that this guy has now lied 2-3 times and at least go have the machine shop check it out. After 2-3 days of this I finally decide to take it down to our trusty old school machinist and have them tear it apart and check it out.

[68CoronetRT]

At this point I'm anxious to get this motor back and see what is up with it. I finally get a call from my guy and he says "I got some bad news"... My stomach dropped . He goes on to say, "half the main bearings are shot, the cam bearings need replacing and it needs a hone/re-ring job." Ugg... Again with this guy and his lies! He then tells me that he believes the oil pump drive gave out and broke and most likely that is why all these bearings are messed up.

So I decide to go forward with the work and get her done! That was a LONG 4 weeks(I know, they are old and slow but do amazing work and are very honest!). All this time, every day after work I'm researching heads/cams etc etc... hours and hours of researching forums for random questions I might have and start building my wealth of knowledge. By the time I got the engine back I had enough knowledge and a plan.

First up of course was to get it on an engine stand. Here it is after I got it back from the machine shop.

All new freeze plugs and they even gave me a new oil pump/hardened drive gear

So now what? I needed to pull the trigger on some heads and I needed it done ASAP. After all my research and budget looming over me, I decided on some 440Source Stealth heads. I figured that the newer casting had a good rep and they were within budget and still an aluminum head. Of course I knew I needed the 10* locks/retainers, so I ordered those up along with the heads.

The heads show up promptly and off they go to get their valve work done.

Around this time the one sole person that I have to give credit too on my entire build comes into play. Ron (Firefighter) begins to answer my PM's regrading some minor details about crane iron ductile rockers which I decided that I wanted to run for a solid valve train. And from here on out it was all down hill with the questions/concerns/scary moments etc... But every time, he responded with a simple quick response that would put my fears to sleep.

I get the heads back and start mocking up the rocker valve train and nothing is lining up properly. Back and forth, back and forth with the PMs and seems like this is going no where. But Ron was patient and I kept at it trying to figure all this stuff out.


Finally figure out that you need to space the rockers over with shim kits.Shimmed them all up and walaa! its starting to look good!

Next up was painting of the block. I was able to do this on a nice sunny afternoon. Here is the pic just after I finished and started instilling the accessories.


Now onto the heads being bolted on and pushrod checking. Here is my pic I sent to Ron to make sure my geometry was spot on for the ductile rockers. 1-2 threads showing.



Then I ran into another snag. The pushrod checker was hitting the intake runners where the pushrod goes. Dang it! I read online that people only had issues with 3/8 pushrods and I was going to be running 5/16th! Oh well, she had to be cleared out! So off I went to get my carbite tool from the local hardware store that I was told will make that aluminum fall off like butter. Took about an hour of grinding but finally got it to where the checker would clear just fine, adjust them up and called up Smith Bros to order my custom length pushrods. They arrived in 3 days and I was ready to start final assembly.

[68CoronetRT]

So final assembly begins and now she is really starting to look like a real engine again!

With my new pushrods in, I decided to start setting them up with around .030" of pre-load. Here it is with all the pushrods in and adjusted up.


Now during my final assembly time I arranged for a friend of mine to help me with the swap at his shop. He tells me that he is ready whenever and I tell him that I'm almost ready.

So we decide on the following Saturday to make this happen. This gives us 2 days to knock this thing out and get it running again. Upon arrival they egg me on to do a burn out and give the 383 it's last hurah! Here is the pic. My marks are at the bottom left side(Pretty weak), then a bunch of friends came by during the day and decided to add to the collection.



So now begins what I will remember for the rest of my life as the "24 Hours of MOPAR". We got her racked up around 10am and had the motor out by 1pm Saturday.


Now for the next 21 hours we did not sleep, hardly ate anything, and as time went on became very sleep deprived. We had our share of issues along the way including things like engine mount put in incorrectly which caused the motor to not go in the engine compartment correctly, then once we got it in there the trans was NOT going in at all. Turns out the mount's have to be on the forward side of the engine, if you put one towards the rear and one up front then you will have an alignment issue .



Morning was getting light out and my friend said he had a date at noon that he wanted to get some sleep and shower and be ready for... ugg.. after all this time and he wants to bail! Guess I cant blame him since he did stay up for almost 24 hours at this point. So we are kinda starting to feel rushed and the heat is starting to come in the shop from the sun.

I stab the distributor which I thought was correct based on all my research again . Wired up the MSD wires to the new distributor (383 to 440 had different plugs on the wiring), added the coolant and oil, added some gas to the carb and decided that she was ready for initial break in. "OK Crank it!" My buddy yells... crank crank crank... nothing. Ugg what now? "Battery seems low, lets throw a box on it" Do that and WOW that mini starter came to life! But turning this big rotating 10:1 TIGHT bottom end was no easy task for that little guy. Finally it gained some momentum and BAM! she lights!!! Wow what a feeling that was. I have video but cant post right now.

So we adjust the carb and set the throttle to around 2,000 RPM and start looking for leaks. Nothing so far Awesome, a HUGE life accomplishment has been made , I built a 440 big block that actually runs!(My dream motor since high school)

But then it started... Oil coming out of somewhere on the bottom end of the block!! "nooooooo" I yelled as we shut it down right around the 15-20 min mark. My Buddy says " ok it runs, now lets get it out of here" So here she is loaded on the trailer again and ready to head home.


After almost 35 hours of being awake I finally started to crash. Went to sleep Sunday afternoon and got up early Monday for work.

[68CoronetRT]

So now begins the next 3 weeks of issues. First it was the oil leak. Started it up and thought it was power steering. Buy a new power steering line and still leaks. Finally decide it must be coming from the CENTER of the oil pump. . So 1 day after work I take the oil pump off and tear the cover off, and guess what? the BRAND NEW o-ring had a tear in it. Why cant anything go right? I put all that back together and fired her up again and got the temps up and Walaa! no more oil leak. By now I had a small coolant leak from the temp sending unit. Tightened that up and she sealed up good. NO MORE LEAKS!!!

On to the timing now.

I finally get to take her for a drive! , I go to set the timing and my timing mark is not even close to the ZERO indicator, I figure something is up with the balancer and set it to where it runs best.  I head out and roll on the power and all I hear is PING PING PING PING PING PING PING PING, and literally my 85hp 95' civic has more power than this monster 7.2L V8. Something is wrong here... I get the car back home and re check timing... everything seems to be good

So all this time I'm PMing Ron and he simply says "Whats your #, Ill call you tonight with some solutions". Wow! This guy is gonna call me and talk this all over the phone! There are some good people left in this world!

We had a nice phone conversation and we had two solutions. 1) Check the trueness of the balencer mark and 2) possible MSD wires are backwards. hmmm makes sense.

Tried to build a piston stop but it kinda failed, so my Father says he can probably get TDC pretty close with a screw driver and feel, and we can see where the marks land. So I crank the motor by hand and he says "STOP!" ok we check it and look at this....my mark is WAY off, I then see a scrubbed in line that was dead nuts zero. Definitely one of those "Opps" moments. Also looked under the cap and guess what? It's pointed at #8 cylinder or #2 in the firing order. No wonder it was pinging like crazy! it was firing a whole cylinder before #1 was at TDC!! Was able to align it back to #1 and now I had to wait on my carb to be back from rebuild.

2 days later I get the carb back and throw her in and it starts pumping gas out the top. WTF is going on now!? Must be floats set too high. Start adjusting down and nothing.. still pumping fuel. Tried to take the side plugs off and thought they just POP in, apparently they screw in and we broke the sight plug. The next day I went to the local speed shop and got the standard brass plugs that you check when the car is running. I rush home anxious to go for my first drive with some real HP. I get the car on a level surface and get the old plugs out, let the gas flow out and fire it up. No more pumping out the top and so I start adjusting the floats up, get it to where it dribbles out and tighten it down. Ok great! She's running good now.

Finally going for my first trip around the block and feeling pretty confident my timing is on and fuel issues are over. We warm the car up and head out. Runs really smooth and shifts real good, I take it down and roll on the power a little and she barks and throws me back... WHOA! I get all scared and start putting along in 3rd. I then go through a few stop signs and I hear a POP!!! oh jeez, what NOW? clutch pedal is dead.... ok cool, I'm stuck in 3rd and I think I can make it home. Get it home and stall it coming up the driveway. I then climb under there and see nothing wrong? Move the pedal around a bunch and I hear another POP... and the clutch pedal starts working again.

Man what is up with this thing? I decide last Monday, that Wed was the big off road/car show around 30 miles away and I think she is road worthy. So we drive her around tues night and really get after it this time and WOW this thing defiantly is no slouch.

We set off on Wed evening after a nice wash.


Cruising along in 4th gear and she is feeling good. Doing some nice long 3rd/4th gear pulls and let the motor decel (Ring break in). About half way to the car show I'm idling at the same light that I broke at, 6 months before. I go to slip the clutch and it slips good, then heading into 2nd it goes POP and wont come out of first... pedal dead again... UGG . Crawl up under the car and see the throw out bearing fell off the fingers for the clutch linkage. Burn the crap out of my arm on the header pipe, adjust it all the way up and she barely would go in gear. Decided to charge on to my buddys house near the car show and just park it. Got in his Jeep and went to check out the cars/off road trucks. Spend the next 3 hours under the car trying to get the top clip in. My brother says "Gonna have to pull the trans".

Ok cool, pull the trans back out, fix the problem and be up and running for my "Save the date" photo session with the car later in the day Saturday.

Saturday morning I get the car on jack stands and start looking at the bearing. I see that the top clip is damn near aligned with the fork arm and I think I can force it over and let it clip in on it's own. After about 20 mins of wrestling with it, it pops into place! Clip in the lower clip and have my Dad press the clutch pedal a bunch. Seems to work fine now! Had him pump it super fast and bearing didnt move. Ok great, FINALLY ready for its MAIDEN VOYAGE with no issues. Adjust up the linkage so the bearing is almost touching the fingers(B&B style), and checked the pedal feel. Pedal is fairly high on the grab but it grabs good and no more loose clutch pedal, nice and springy.

So that was last Saturday and now I'm a happy MOPAR owner thanks to Firefighter(Ron) with his help along the way! Dont think I could have done it with out his help.

Next up will be timing adjustments and getting the carb to run a little better. I'm still learning.

[68CoronetRT]

Cheers if you made it this far in the thread...

I guess I will post up my motor specs just for fun.

78' Block (Cast Crank)
Stealth Heads with 10* Locks/retainers
Lunati 60304 Cam with Lunati Lifters
Milodan High Flow Water Pump
Milodan T stat
Holley Street Dominator Intake
Holley 770 Street Avenger Carb
10:1 compression
Forged Speedpro Pistons
Lunati Double roller chain
Smith Brothers Pushrods
Iron Ductil rockers
Stealth valves/guides/springs
11" Flywheel and clutch
DSM Mini Starter
Hooker Super Comp Headers
Flow master 40 series (Soon to be Ultraflows )
Hurst Pistol Grip shifter+Linkage

I think thats about it. This was my first real engine build and I'm only 28 years old so I feel pretty accomplished and learned alot about so many little details.

More to come soon!

[DadsCharger00]

Great Story! Right place right time....still happens. Despite the trouble the experience of the whole thing is priceless!

[cdr]

thanx for sharing your story!!! & yes Ron is very helpful 

[WHITE AND RED 69]

Cool build! And the motor looks great!   

[bakerhillpins]

Wonderful write up young man.    totally enjoyable journey form my end.    Happy to hear that you got the help from the fine folks here. Car is beautiful.  A 68 Coronet is on my must have list.

[69rtse4spd]

 , some good info there, & Ron is a great guy. Nice thing about an older car, you can work on them.

[68CoronetRT]

Thanks guys!! Really loving all the welcoming attitudes from the community.  Very different from the off-road community.

I'm going to be using this thread as kind of my 'build thread' to post up progress pics etc... So stay tuned!

[firefighter3931]

That's a great writeup Rich and a good description of the build process. 

I could tell from the get-go you were enthusiastic about this project and determined to see it through. I knew you were new to Mopar but had good mechanical skilz....all you needed was a little guidance. 

Congrats on a job well done....you stuck with it and didn't get discouraged. 



Ron

[68CoronetRT]

Did some work on Saturday on the car. It needed it's break in oil drained and all new Brad Penn 20-50 installed. Drained the old oil and took the valve covers off to drill out the other hole to allow me to use an oil fill cap and a PCV on one bank and oil cap/breather on the other. Also added .020" more pre-load to the lifters to try and quiet them up. Sold the 383 to an old timer that only does Chrysler BB stuff and is local. He said that if I needed any little misc parts to give him a call, I guess he has practically every part for every mopar from 62-72 in some wherehouse near where I live. Builds motors for fun and puts them on an engine stand and then they sit for years covered up nice guy though!

Here is the pic with some sweet sponsors tagged everywhere...(lol, they were on just for fun)


Took the car on a nice 80 mile round trip up to a local observatory and got this cool shot over looking the lake. Car is running good right now, but still battling some carb issues on startup/shut down. Other than that it's running real good. This was taken around 1am with only the light from the moon(and the running lights of course!)


Next up is the big trip to my future father in laws house this weekend . He's old school and from England and tells it how it is... kinda scared! But she is getting a fine detail on Wed night this week and should be ready to head out for the weekend.

[bakerhillpins]

Great night shot there 68CoronetRT! 

[JB400]

Great night shot there 68CoronetRT!  

X2 and raise you

[70moparman]

x3... COOL PIC / NICE CAR

[tan top]

  x4     

[68CoronetRT]

I have some other still's from that night without the lights on. I will post them up later today.

She drove good all weekend! Put 2 tanks of gas through it and the only thing that is a bother, are these Lunati lifters that clatter around in there. Looking into the Johnson lifters ASAP.

Lots of thumbs up and people stopping to ask about the car everywhere we went! And the old lady's dad even liked it!!

[charge69]

Beautiful Coronet R/T and you are doing it real proud with your build!  Hope you get the idling problems worked out and, who wouldn't love that Coronet?

You have a great example of MOPAR art and you are doing it proud!  Congrats!

[68CoronetRT]

Yea, Thanks! Here is the other shot with no lights.

[Dino]

Great thread!  I'm sorry you had to go through all that but it sure was worth it wasn't it?   

That pic with the running lights under a starry sky is friggin' stunning!

[dodgeguydelta]

Great thread!  I'm sorry you had to go through all that but it sure was worth it wasn't it?   

That pic with the running lights under a starry sky is friggin' stunning!

Wow Very nice ride. GOOD JOB