1966 coronet 2dr sedan general overhauling

[Thedeputy]

The finishing touches are finally done. The Latest progress is captured in the pics.

I found some KONI shocks that should fit my coronet. When I tried to install them I found out the lower eyelet was to small. A little grinding cured that. Then I noticed they were to short. The difference between the KYB's was about 2". So I made two extension brackets to fix it.

When installed the bracket looks good and is more than capable to handle it's job.
The stance is hard to see right now but I haven't had time to wake up the motor yet an drive her out of hibernation.

The end result is exactely how I intended it. The ride height in the rear is about 1,5" higher than before.
The front end is getting 0,96" torsion bars and a pair of KONI shocks to complement the rear. I hope it will give me a good handling car with a nice stance.

 

[Thedeputy]

Since there was nothing on tv tonight I went back in the garage to install the 0.96" torsion bars and front KONI shocks. Because they were only in for about a year the old 0.90" ones came out smooth. In all it took me about 1,5 hours.
I keep finding more things to do. All that's left to get her on the road is install a phenolic spacer between the intake and carb and give the new fuel filter a place away from the heat of the engine.

The shocks, KONI 80-1538 painted stealth black. These fit right away and are the same lenght as the old KYB shocks.

And the torsion bars. They measured at 24.5 mm which is about 0.96".
The car should handle great now.

 

[Thedeputy]

I took the dodge out for the first time this year. Up until 100 mph the car still handled good and there were no noises coming from the diff.

 

[Thedeputy]

Now that the rear end is finished I feel an itch coming up.
I found a very nice grille so on to the next project.......

 

[Mike67]

Love post cars! Sounds like you had a pretty nice little drive!

 

[Thedeputy]

The grille project was pretty nerve wrecking. In the end I had to cut up two very nice grilles. I think the endresult is awesome and makes the car look even wider. Please share what you guys think of my 'improvement'.

 

[Thedeputy]

After a long summer of enjoying the Coronet it's time for some more wrenching and updating this topic. The pics above were actually digital improvements. Before actually cutting up two grilles I wanted to make sure that it would look allright so I used photoshop to 'remove' the inner headlights.

Allthough photoshop took quite some time, the actual cutting was even more nerve wrecking. The end result however is very nice I think and looks just like the photoshop pics.

 

[Thedeputy]

Another upgrade that I did was install a small sound system.
It consists of an MP3 amplifier which can connect to my smart phone and a pair of 4" speakers.
On quiet evenings it's a nice feature to be able to hear the music I like as well as the sound of the 440.

This is the amplifier I ordered through ebay. You can adjust the volume and plug in a 3,5 mm jack plug to connect to your smart phone.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/172438919708

I installed it on the heater panel bracket.

The speakers. Simple 4" 50 W three way ones. They installed on a piece of hard board. They can be mounted underneath the stock speaker grille with the studs from the speaker grille itself.

The finished result.

 

[Thedeputy]

The next task at hand is the installation of front manual disc brakes. I'm finishing it up right now but during the summer time I started on gathering and cleaning the parts.
I started with a set up from a 1978 cordoba. I'm going to use the knuckles, pin type slider calipers and the big 11.75" rotors.

Cleaning the rotors

The brake parts after blasting, a coat of rust inhibter and some cast iron looking paint.

The calipers were also blasted and rebuild with new phenolic pistons and seals from Rockauto.

I had some spare calipers lying around and since the phenolic pistons were on a discount I rebuild them all. It turned out te be a wise decision since the cordoba calipers (top rusty ones with the large bulge on the lower part) didn't fit on my rear hung caliper mounting b-body.

 

[Thedeputy]

Like I said, I've just now started the installation of the brakes. Updates will follow soon.

What I started with, 10" front drum brakes.

They are still in a great shape since I rebuild thos 1,5 years ago and haven't driven it a lot since then.

The ball joints and bushings need no attention since that job had also been finished at the time I rebuild the brakes.

The calipers need to be rear hung since they would otherwise interfere with the front sway bar.
Test fitting the knuckles and calipers going through all the motions of the suspension to make sure the hoses don't bind.

The hydraulic hose I use for this is a Rockauto piece, Dorman H99069. It's used on a 1974 dodge charger with 360. It's got the perfect lenght and the banjo fitting is short and can be mounted in different ways, giving you all the possibilities to get the best result.

This is important!! To prevent serious brake failure the hose must be able to move freely without hanging up somewhere.

This is where I left of last night. I still need to convert the single MC to a dual. Therefore new hard lines must be bend, a prop. valve installed and and and .....

Stay tuned.

 

[Cranky]

May have mentioned this awhile back but the color of your car is the same...or looks the same as my 66 Belvedere 2dr post. And I'm still trying to get it put back together. Btw, I like the quad headlights vs the singles.

 

[Thedeputy]

No problem.
The color is light blue poly D2. I see it on lots of 66 b-bodies online. Guess it was popular back then.
It would be great to see your belvedere finished. I like the styling of the 66-67 Plymouth 2dr sedans as well and prefer the grille of the 67 and the taillights of a bare bones 66

 

[Thedeputy]

The next step I took today was the installation of the dual MC. I'm using an original style MC I got from RockAuto. It's a Centric 13063019. It has a 1 1/32" bore and the pushord hole has a recess for the rubber grommet to hold the pushrod in place. The stock pushrod can still be used without shortening or lenghtening it. The bore size should be good for manual disc brakes. I'd rather have a 1" bore MC but I couldn't find one that appears original and can be used with the original push rod recess.

The old MC. It was no time to soon that I changed it. It was leaking as can be seen by the lack of paint underneath the MC mounting area .

The new MC doesn't have a provision for a dust cover, so holes need to be drilled and tapped to mount the original one.

Mounted in it's new location. The rust on the firewall has been treated with a rust inhibiter.
Bench bleeding the MC is mandatory.

 

[Cranky]

I robbed a dual master from a 69 Plymouth Valiant (it was almost new) and it worked great. Can't remember the bore (15/16ths" ?) but it gave me less pedal effort with a bit more travel than the original single pot did. I had to get some line adapters and 'readjust' the brake light switch bracket to make it work but back when I did it, I could still find brake line adapter fittings. Try that now lol

 

[Thedeputy]

Indeed especially overhere with the metric system

I went ahead and with the installation today. With the new dual MC I also need new hard lines and a proportioning valve. Doctor diff supplied the prop. valve. The hard lines hard handmade from special brakeline tubing.

Using electrical wire as a template the hard line is bent and double flared. Some existing hard lines just needed new tube nuts and a new flare.

Pre-forming the brake tubing and pre-assembly of the prop. valve and lines.
Since my coronet doesn't have a brake warning light I'm going to leave it unconnected for now.

The end result.

 

[Cranky]

Nice work. I have an aluminum MC for mine.....that is if I do actually get to keep my place.

 

[Thedeputy]

Are you losing your storage? It would be a shame if you'd have to sell your car because you lose your space.
My space is small and I barely have enough room to wrench on the car. Right now I have about 70 cm of room on each side to perform the disc brake conversion and 1 m between the front of the car and my work bench.

 

[Thedeputy]

But it's enough to get the job done.

Here are the pics from yesterday. All that's left now is bleeding the brakes

 

[Thedeputy]

I had some spare time today so it was back in the garage and time for bleeding the brakes. I used my tried and true method of the 'hose in the bottle' principle.
It's an easy way to do a one man bleeding job. In about an hour I was able to bleed the entire car even though there's a new prop. valve which was dry, some new hard lines and overhauled calipers.

Just connect a piece of transparant tubing to the bleederscrew and slime the screw with a lot of heavy grease. Hang the other end of the tubing into a jar that is partially filled with clean brake fluid. Start bleeding at rear right, rear left, front right and last front left. Fill the MC, open the screw and start pumping the pedal all the way to the bottom.
Press it about 20 times and then refill the MC. Depress the pedal another 20 times and check fluid level. This way go around all the bleederscrews and you're done.

All that's left now is mount new tires on the rims, install the wheels and get the front end aligned.
Any ideas on alignment specs with the M-body spindels in this car? Manual steering and street use only.

Thanks