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70 Coronet R/T refresh

70Del493 said:
Awesome thread, did you decide on wheels?
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Magnum 500s, 15x7 and 15x8, RWL 225/70/15 and 275/60/15.

Did a LOT of rewiring and cosmetic stuff. Car is now at a trusted mechanic for 1-2 months for all the stuff I have no ability to do myself (exhaust, fixing various brake problems, some engine stuff, etc.) Once back I think I can finish all the remaining work by March.
 
Although I decided not to do a blow-by-blow build thread I can't help but post pictures of my rebuilt heater box. Rich at http://heaterboxguy.com/ did a fantastic job. Will be a while before I get it installed (not looking forward to that job, getting it out from under the dash was annoying enough), but I'm sure it will work fine. They were even able to save the original fiberglass finish of the box.

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Got the new wheels, tires, valve covers and full new exhaust with cutouts installed. God, these Magnum 500s and fat RWL tires look so much better than the blingly early-2000s crap that was on there before. It looks like a REAL (if not factory-correct) Mopar finally, and the exterior is pretty much "done done" now. Sadly though the car wouldn't start after I drove it back from the performance shop; it just backfires immediately after cranking. Since I had them replace the dizzy this is suspect number one, but my troubleshooting skills were not enough in this area to make progress so I towed it back. Grr. Well, I'm still looking to be ahead of schedule, probably will be "done done done" end of January. New heater box is in and I was just about to drop in the cluster and trim pieces. I think the oil sender is bad and will need to replace that, but it should be easy. There may still be oil leaks to track down, which I will try to identify with some UV dye... that's the only big mystery left that could have a large downside. (I am OCD about fluid leaks -- I insist that none of my cars leak, no matter what the cost. I have had perfectly good engines rebuilt before just to eliminate leaks.)

Oh, and I discovered the ORIGINAL 1970 California plates were hiding underneath the dealer plates! My plans for personalized plates are now canceled since these are basically priceless.

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Much better. I wouldn't change a thing now. I even like the green. What happened to the old set of wheels? It didn't look bad with those on either.
 
6PKRTSE said:
Much better. I wouldn't change a thing now. I even like the green. What happened to the old set of wheels? It didn't look bad with those on either.
Click to expand...

Pawned them off cheaply, this being the Bay Area I don't have much room to keep extra stuff around I don't really need.

I'm sure hoping those backfires didn't grenade something. The first time it happened I had the air cleaner off and it literally sounded like somebody set off a 12-gauge right next to my head (and I was sitting IN the car!) Did not see any obvious damage to the carb or anything else, though, just magic smoke. Still waiting to hear back from the shop regarding the diagnosis. Hopefully it's just a bad distributor.
 
Finally got the car back... something was loose in the dizzy cap. Then there was a wiring failure in the ignition switch, and finally the neutral safety switch failed. (Aren't old cars fun?) Rear shocks were bent so got them replaced with new Year One repops, and the bargain Costco battery got switched with an Optima Red-Top. The oil leak from the valve covers seems fixed for the time being, but another leak remains; it might be coming from around the front driver-side corner of the engine.

I bought some UV oil dye and will see what that reveals. I'm all set to start re-attaching the instrument cluster and dash trim, along with a RetroSound radio. Should be finished up with everything remaining I can handle in a couple of weeks, then after the rain calms down the car goes back to the shop to deal with the remaining minor mechanical issues. (Or major, depending on the cause of this oil leak. I'm taking it to a different shop this time, the same one who rebuilt my GTO engine perfectly, so I'm sure they'll be qualified to tackle any work required.)
 
Oil pan gasket is probably leaking. Nice car been following your threads.
 
Billccm said:
Oil pan gasket is probably leaking. Nice car been following your threads.
Click to expand...

Thanks. You are probably right. I used the UV dye technique to diagnose this and it seems to be leaking from the back and the front of the oil pan. The bolts in those areas were kind of loose but tightening them all up to spec didn't help. I dropped off the car at my trusted engine shop and they will dig into this. There might also be a coolant leak at the back of the driver's exhaust header because I've been seeing steam and bubbling from that area occasionally. My guess is they will want to yank the engine to do a proper job on these issues, which won't be cheap but I know this guys are thorough.

Everything else on the car is basically done. I got the dash and interior fully put-together and working:

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Aside from the leaks she drives great. Timing was way off when I got it back from the previous shop and the car was bogging horribly. Swapped the old hacked-up Edelbrock 1412 with a new 1812 and learned to use a timing gun and fixed all that. (Although as an amateur I'm sure it's far from being optimally tuned... that will come someday.) Worst case is this will spend three weeks in the engine shop but after that it's dunzo done and ready for spring.
 
Shop is confirming the oil pan gasket needs replacement, but thinks main rear seal is OK. They think this can be fixed without pulling the engine. They also say the valve cover gaskets are still leaking, which is unfortunate, since I had two previous shops claim they fixed those. Ugh. They are also going to look into the possible coolant leak around the back area of the driver's side exhaust headers... they knew immediately what I was talking about when I mentioned that some of these bolts go into the water jacket and are notorious for leaking. As I mentioned above this shop rebuilds muscle engines as their specialty and I can't think of a better place to do this work. (If anyone needs a personal rec in NorCal for an engine rebuild, PM me, they did my GTO 400ci flawlessly.)
 
Christ. I am calling it "done done" for now. Main issue causing the oil leaks was high crankcase pressure caused by having TWO PCV valves (one to vacuum and one to the air cleaner) instead of one valve (to vacuum) and a regular breather (to the air cleaner). Items like the funky oil pan gasket needed to be addressed and were, but due to the high pressure, oil would just force its way out of another place.

Remaining items:
  • There is still a small oil leak that manifests with a bit of oil in the back of the valley pan after a long drive. I'm somewhat confident it's not coming from the valley pain rails since I thoroughly resealed them and that looks good. I can't imagine it's coming up the intake bolts either, now that the crankcase pressure issue has been addressed. My guess is a small valley pan crack? I will leave it be for now, since none of this oil is actually reaching the ground. (Yay, the ground is dry at last!)
  • There is a trunk water leak. I think it's the weatherstripping, so I've ordered new stripping from Metro and will compare it to the existing stripping. If it's obviously "bigger" in such a way that it seems it will seal better, then I'll go ahead and install it, otherwise I'll just deal.
  • Still could use mild tuning on the carb and maybe timing for more oomph on acceleration (as compared to my GTO, which takes off instantly -- Mopars should be like this too, right?). Timing is at 15 BTC and I'm unwilling to add more unless I'm told it's OK. Going to try a larger squirt nozzle on the Edelbrock I think.
  • I haven't tried to fill the fuel tank to full after the last time which I posted a thread about -- it overfilled and leaked out one of the vent lines. That could have been due to the ground at the gas station being angled, so I need to try filling at another gas station to see if the issue reproduces. (This time I will be prepared.)
 
Lots done this summer:

* Went 4-wheel Wilwood disk brakes out of an abundance of caution (I despise drums, even if just on the rears).
* Replaced crap MP dizzie with a new ignition chain (MSD dizzie/ignition box/coil, and new spark plugs/wires). Car now starts faster and as an unexpected bonus I no longer smell like burnt gas after a short drive.
* Solved battery drain issues with a new PowerMaster alt and LED headlights. Ran a 6-gauge directly from the alt to the battery to reduce strain on the notoriously under-engineered amp gauge path.

However, I just dropped the car off at the body shop to fix a leaky back window. After popping the window, they have found rust. I asked if metal needs to be replaced and they say they are still cleaning it and will know soon. I was not planning on having the car sit for three months for cutting, welding, a partial repaint, and maybe a new vinyl roof, but if that's what it takes... (Will any of us ever escape the ghosts of cheap-*** previous owners? Stupid idiots should have done this before the repaint and new roof they put on. This is a guaranteed rust area for ALL Mopars, even California cars that don't have a ******* speck of rust elsewhere.)

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Body shop just told me the rust looked worse than it was... they claim they can fix and seal it without having to cut&weld. Everything I know about bodywork I learned by watching YouTube so it isn't immediately obvious to me how that's possible, especially considering that they told me it was leaking because of corrosion. But this shop has done me well numerous times in the past so I trust them. (I just hope that in another 50 years somebody else isn't cursing me out for being one of dem dere "cheap-***" previous owners lol.)
 
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