1970 Coronet Wagon - "Queen Bee"

[MaxWedgeWagon]

Copied from my welcome wagon post---

Proud new Mopar owner from Colorado. I run John's 4x4 in Boulder and have been a Mopar fan for years but never owned one other than sweptline pickups. I have had a 440 in my garage for 6 years waiting for the right B Body!

Picked up a mostly together 1970 Coronet Wagon. Bought it sight unseen and had it shipped from South Dakota. Been looking nationwide for a 68-70 Wagon for a few years now, constantly on Craigslist or Facebook (my wife is happy I finally found one). While I would love a Roadrunner or Superbee, my family and English Mastiff I haul around swayed me to the rare wagons.

Few pictures show after I stripped the carpet out and cleaned her up to get a game plan. The entire underside of the car is super stout. However the quarters, tailgate and a few other small spots on the exterior body need alot of attention. If anyone has a lead on a 70 front valance, I would be very interested as mine has been put in a ditch by the looks of it.

Looking to do a 440 stroked to 500 With Max Wedge Heads to make a fun daily driver and kid hauler.

Time to get after it!


--- Update

I apologize for my writing or ranting, theres a reason I went into the auto industry...

I Found a 440/727 to slap in this thing while I build my stroker. Believe it or not I found it in a 5 series BMW built for a roadkill drag event - funny because I sold my M3 last year... Its an RV Motor with 906 heads and decent cam and terrible compression ratio. I did a quick refresh and slapped some thin cometic gaskets on it to help this pooch as much as we could.

I apologize in advance but I am putting a sporty set of bucket seats in the front out of an e36 m3. They are full manual, extremely adjustable, accept a harness, and look kinda close to b body buckets minus all the bolsters of course. They are called Vader seats and in my opinion are some of the best seats out there. To complete the look I picked up a modern hellcat center console for $100 shipped to my door. I think this will be pretty nice for a driver and it has cup holders something all of my cars are lacking.

I decided to get after the body work before I throw all my money at this thing. Because its a wagon I decided to try Super bee quarters and make it work... Boy was I wrong. wagons are different. About 4-5" longer and the rear of the quarter hangs lower as well.

Keep in mind other than small patch jobs this is my first real attempt at metal work and given this is a driver and not a show winner, Im not shooting for perfection. But I am hoping for Zero Rot and doing things the right way or at least the right thing the wrong way.

I started by cutting out all the rot on the rear bumper support and inner supports, tailgate support, all that crap needs to be rebuilt. I found some scraps that would do the job and did some fitting. I decided to wait to weld everything up until the quarter was mocked up

I hung the quarter by eye ball over the existing sheetmetal or lack of it. I quickly realized my Bee quarters wont fit for ****, and started to hack them up, letting the body lines determine my cuts. I also cut the rear most section off as I prepared to lengthen them. Once chopped up I used Clecos to hold it in place and did a rough form of the door jamb. The new quarter is now looking more frankenstein than anything. I then mounted the rear piece using the bumper as a guide and cleco'd it in place. My second ohh **** moment is realizing my bumper hangs down 2-3" past the bottom of the quarter... I will be addressing this later. Once everything was lined up to the best of my ability, I traced the gap on a section of replacement quarter left overs and tack welded it together... Now it's long enough it just looks terrible. Spent a good while on the floor with some hammer and dollies and hammered the body line in the new section and did my best to make it look decent.

Hung the quarter again and marked out my cut lines. Made my cuts and quickly realized just how much of the door jamb I will be rebuilding. Grabbed some flat bar and bent it around a 55 gallon drum which matched the wheel well perfectly. Slid the bent flat bar between the door jamb skin and wheel house. Cleaned the metal, spray with some weld through primer, Mig weld it up. Finalized all my rear brackets and supports now that its matched to the new quarter. Prepped the car and back side of the quarters with weld through primer and rust encapsulator paint and bedliner.

Tack welded the quarter to the car and prepared to do some shaping. The new quarter also looks like **** by the door as the new quarter sticks out past the door. So I broke out the cutting tools and hacked and hammered the body lines to the best of my ability. Then proceeded to fully weld this thing onto the car. I used Mig where difficult and Tigged the surface or main cuts on the body.

Overall Im not mad about it. Considering my skill level and the time it actually took to get to this point, The outcome is not terrible. With some more dolly time and lead filler, this things gonna look fine.

Hopefully I can get the body worked wrapped up and undercoat the car with Chassis Saver black paint within the next 2 weeks. Smooth sailing from there!

 

[MaxWedgeWagon]

Metal work shots.

 

[MaxWedgeWagon]

More metal work shots. Looks like i forgot to get some shots of the new rear brackets and supports

 

[blue69runner]

Good luck on the project. Looks like you have it well in hand.

 

[ckessel]

Great start.

 

[MaxWedgeWagon]

Well... only update I have is that factory undercoating sucks to remove. Looks like I will have the underneath of the car to bare metal by October 2030.

 

[dadsbee]

Hit Harbour Freight and buy a needle scaler.

 

[ckessel]

That factory stuff is very tenacious. I didn't want to buy a one time use tool, needle scaler, so I just did the scrape/chip method. Didn't want to use heat as I don't hang with the fumes. Put on the Pandora and sculpted away.

 

[Scott Rimay]

You needed to start with quarter panels from a satellite/road runner. The Coronet qtr has a distinct body line that our wagons don't have. It would have saved you a bit of time, but it would still need a Frankenstein approach of sorts

 

[MaxWedgeWagon]

After a few hours of needle scaling, I have given up for now...For Now. That being said Ive been cracking (poor choice of words) on the rest of the car. Wrapped the engine up, Reinforced and painted the engine bay, reinforced the K Frame, lots of sandblasting little parts and painting. Ended up making a nice upper radiator support to match the lower from USCT. Got to test out my new dimple dies. Pretty Sweet.

My "frame" ended up being cracked in between passenger K frame Mounting holes. We had to drill and weld to repair.

I am using a harbor freight blast cabinet and Steel It Paint or Chassis Saver Satin Black. Both Finishes turning out awesome and will remain awesome for quiet a few years. I apologize for going black on the engine bay but its a daily and I want it to last. Chassis saver and steel it are perfect for my use.

 

[MaxWedgeWagon]

Next week will have alot of goodies to show off!

 

[MaxWedgeWagon]

Unfortunately out sick this week with the flu. While I don't have many pictures, Heres some of the progress on the car from prior weeks.

Built a 8.25 from a Jeep Cherokee - Why because I had it... I have been hoarding 4x4 parts for quiet some time. The 97+ Cherokee Diffs are actually 29 spline so thats a decent upgrade, I believe 8.75s are only 30. I also slapped some beefier shafts in there with an eaton true trac and new 3.55 gears. Very excited to drive it with 3.55s compared to the 2.55s it had before.

Leaf Springs - I actually like leaf springs and while it would be nice to have a 4 link set up I wanted to try a bastard pack for budget sense. Ive made a few for my wheeling rigs and figured I'd give it a shot. I took my stock springs apart and kept 3 leafs the main leaf a 2 of the smaller ones on the very bottom. I had a few Toyota Tacoma springs that I save for custom leafs. Tacomas are light weight and usually have soft clapped out springs that are perfect for flex. I used a stock taco spring for the large spring keepers and the overload. I stuck the overload on top to lower the ride height and my hope is the overload will also reduce axle wrap. From there I added some freebie aftermarket taco add a leafs. These add a leafs are used to raise the taco and support more weight like a tent or topper. I figured they would be perfect to stiffen up my wagon for handling. To finish it off I used all new sliders both the outers and inner, as well as new poly bushings from Firm Feel. Finished product appears to be like a progressive spring soft at first and then nice and stiff. Crossing my Fingers for ride height... Hopefully its within an inch of what I want and I can fine tune it from there.

Hydro Boost - I plan on having a huge cam and while my experience with cams is little to none, I know this. At altitude we need all the vacuum. So I am converting to hydroboost. I have done 1 swap before on my Cummins build and it worked great. I know there are kits out there that are fancy and pre made but I like off the shelf reliability and clear plastic reservoirs for checking fluid. That being said I went to napa and got a 2001 Dodge 2500 Diesel master cylinder and hydroboost. I then ripped my blown factory stuff off and figured out a plan for grafting the dodge parts onto the well... older dodge. Looking at it I figured the easiest way would be to cut out the mounting studs off the old vacuum canister and weld it to my new hydroboost bracket. I did this quick and dirty, just centered it up and tacked. Worked great. Now I had to figure out push rod. Boy was that a PITA to get out from under the dash. For the push rod I simply measured my distance from the old vacuum canister mounting face to the eyelet. then measured on the new unit. Cut the old push rod off the old and welded it to the new. I also grabbed a Wilwood adjustable proportioning valve to control it. The fun part will be figuring out all the fittings and such. My secret is ordering all of them and then returning them all haha.

Wheels - While I love the old muscle car look. the old muscle car handling isn't gonna cut it for me. After a few hours on the forum I found my wheel sizing I needed for maximum tire size possible. That left me with very limited options in wheel styles. I'm actually disappointed in the look but I think its gonna grow on me. small trade for handling. I ended up with Ridler Wheels with Spinners (not in pics) these are 18x9.5 with 0 offset and I got them on sale. I would have preferred a 17 but didn't like the wheels out there. Also I am sure there are some good looking wheels out there, but I needed to stay in budget. For Tires I picked up some 275/40/18 bridgestone potenza's because they were crazy cheap. These should make my wagon have a chance in the turns. To perfect fitment I am going to run extended wheel studs from ARP and add some hub centric spacers if I need them front or rear.


Hopefully Next week I can make some good progress on the car. Lots of Fun Go Fast Parts sitting on the shelves!

 

[MaxWedgeWagon]

Back in Action!

We've been cranking on the car with lots of goodies and properly fixing up parts with that that sand blaster.

Engines in the car with most of the fixings. I was super excited for my headers. They are Hooker Black Heart Long tubes 1-7/8" I even splurged for the Ceramic Coating. Boy... was I disapointed when they hit the steering box, and the torsion bars... When I say hit the torsion bars I mean they arn't even close to going in. After a phone call with Hooker that was a huge waste of time. I ended up ratchet strapping the collectors together and sucking the headers together by over 2". I still couldn't get them in. So I bashed the hell of them with a hammer effectively ruining my ceramic coating. Now they fit the torsion bars... With a ratchet strap. I am going to worry about that later. Most likely will build a bracket thats removable that bolts the headers together keeping them squeezed nice and tight. It also helps align them with the exhaust path humps in the crossmember. I guess Hooker is poo poo? I wanted TTI but I have an account with Hooker and took the savings option.

Because of the cam I want to run as well as the pretty large one thats in my temporary 440, I needed a high stall converter. I found a 3200 Hughes on craigslist new in box for a steal. Because of my high stall I want to keep the trans nice and cool, so I am running it through the radiator first and then through a huge Derale trans cooler with auto thermostat and fan. I also grabbed a b&m deep pan with a temp gauge. Also ran my lines through some reflective heat sleeving

On the Front end I coated the easily cleaned off metal with Chassis Saver while the undercoating got a slight dose of rattle can to see if it sticks. Also testing chassis saver over undercoating just to see how it works. I would love if it could hold up to abuse so I don't have to needle scale all that shite off. I wanted an upgrade but also not go too crazy on suspension. I went with Firm Feel Upgrade Kit with new Poly bushings everywhere. HD strut rods, Tubular UCA, HD Tie Rods, pitman arm, idler, and street/race torsion bars. I also found an autozone steering box for $100. My car came with a front sway bar, however I have been collecting take off sway bars for 4x4s... a Jeep Gladiator or JL (the new jeeps) front sway bar is almost identical to the stock one, but beefy. I am excited to try that out with custom end links. For the rear I'm gonna make some thing work. I have a few f350 rear sway bars and a few fronts off older Jeeps. It would be kinda fun to have a one ton sway bar... For shocks I bought some Hotchkis Fox shocks that are adjustable. For 4x4's Fox are really good, their coatings hold up great in the winter. Thing should handle pretty well.

Got the front end back together. Sandblasted all the bumper brackets and painted with chassis saver. Broke a headlight in the removal process. Plus I wanted an excuse for the yellow high beam look. I went with Holley retro bright highbeams in yellow and the much more affordable Hella H4 conversion low beams. I Really like the way the front end looks on this car. Starting to Look Menacing.

 

[ckessel]

No surprise on the headers. I don't believe they have updated the jigs from when they first made the headers. I worked on a 67 Camaro some years ago. You would figure those of any of their units would be perfect. Nope. One hung down like 2" further and 4"+ back than the other side. Coated like yours. $650.00 for headers that didn't fit well, warrant the money for them AND WERE MADE IN CHINA.

 

[MaxWedgeWagon]

Alot of work left. But the car is on the ground! Alignment and torsions need adjusted but the rear ride height I like. No blocks or nothing. Chassis stiffners, wiring next week. Little exhaust work and she should run! Driving In a another week maybe.

 

[YY1]

Nice.

I want that alignment lift!

 

[MaxWedgeWagon]

Set ride height at 1” of rake from the fender to wheel hub. Might be more rake according to the rocker to lift. I will check that for fun.


Tack welded my frame or chassis connectors. Need to put it back on a 2 post to fully weld. Rolling jacks worked beautifully for pushing those new rails in place.

Check out the jeep gladiator sway bar compared to stock… pretty close but beef. Coworker was working on a 2015 toyota 4runner and they have the perfect end links to make it work. 4 runner links have a stem top and a sideways tre on the bottom.

 

[YY1]

That's gonna be a pretty serious car.

 

[MaxWedgeWagon]

Finally got my brake booster and master mounted. Apparently the napa units don’t come with a pushrod in between the master and booster. Clears everything including the shock adjusters. Before calling it quits i was able to install all the -6 fittings on the pump, booster and box. I will make a proper write up on the conversion for folks who want it with part numbers.

Ive been super excited to build my exhaust ever since I got the car. While its not finished, I got alot done in just a few hours. For now its dumped before the rear axle, after the rear axle looks insanely tight… My headers are lopsided and unequal. So it threw off the exhaust system a little. Headers are 3” collectors, to 3” stainless exhaust tubing, black widow X pipe to Black Widow mufflers, to summit electric cut outs, to flowfx mufflers. I also added a bung for an air fuel sensor for tuning purposes.

I wanted that deep nasty black widow sound for when I’m feeling spicy. Then I can close the cut outs and have a mild tone for when the family’s in the car. This is the first time ive built an x pipe, 3” exhaust. Yes my x pipe is sideways but its not going to hurt flow enough for me to care. The x pipe openings are huge. This was done in order to fit all the mufflers and cut outs before the axle. The cut outs need clocked for ground clearance.

Cars coming along really fast and is looking serious indeed.

 

[MaxWedgeWagon]

Still Plugging away. Ran into a few issues and made some solid progress. We are down to the Ol' cardboard list which is a good sign. Lack of pictures on the progress. Not much time lately so I am too focused on scratching something off the list.

Issues.

1) hotchkis shock leaked all its fluid out. they were awesome and fast in warrantying it out. not a big deal just weird.
2) Tie rod end on the idler or passenger side hits torsion bar. Called Firm Feel and got the scoop on the Mopar Technical service bullet repair. The Idler was angled up due to K frame. Had to waller the hole out, pry the idler down to where I wanted it. Then Weld a washer on to make the new hole and correct the mounting angle. I used an angle finder to confirm the Tie rod angles were dialed.

Lots of not so fun but needed small things slowed us down the last 2 weeks like fittings, adapters **** like that.

Made a ignition box, coil, and a new fuse box/relay box mount on the passenger side front of the engine bay. I am making a hybrid wiring harness with the new and old. Basically the cabin stuff and what would be body control module if this were a modern vehicle all goes through the old harness. All the new stuff like gizmos (2step, line lock, cut outs), and engine stuff, headlight relays, goes through the new box for some upgraded power and functionality. I am also installing some breakers instead of using a maxi fuse. We use these with great success on our 4x4 builds.

Mounted my shifter and mocked my center console. Fitting the console is going to be a later project. Might call some reinforcements to help with that.

Was able to Tig the exhaust up- I am no Dime stacker by any means but I can get it done. First time using a purge system to have good penetration on the back side of the weld. Fun stuff, need more practice but it turned out pretty good. Excited to hear this thing come to life.

Hoping tomorrow I can get an early start and get my Dakota Digital Gauges hooked up and grab some better pictures.