70 Coronet Winter Odd Jobs

[Chargerjase]

At the beginning of winter, my wife and I went to visit the in laws in Texas for Christmas. I had been gathering parts for my car and decided to bring some back. This allowed me to address some issues and also correct some of the things that have always bothered me. My car is currently in Germany, but I will be shipping it back to Texas at the end of this year and it will wait there until I finish my contract in Germany approximately end of 2025, early 2026. 50lbs was the max allowable baggage I could bring back, so I was limited to that. Here is what I started with. Not too bad a stash.

I will finish the car properly when I get back to Texas. This is not a restoration thread, rather putting missing stuff back on the car and cleaning things up. Replacing broken, missing or incorrect parts for proper ones.

The car looked like this. Lots of things removed over the years which is typical of a 54 year old car. The only down side to that is that every part you buy is expensive, especially NOS. Oh well, the car is worth it.

So, easy stuff first. One of the rubber hood bumper stops was missing from the cowl. Found a NOS one on eBay and replaced it.

Next I replaced all of the broken plastic clips in the engine bay. Some for the windshield washer tubing, some for wiring. Used a nice little kit from DMT. I have left everything long at this stage because in the future I will replace all of the engine bay wiring. You will see later on that it's in need of it. But here I do not have my workshop and all my tools. I only have a 3/8" socket set, 1/4" socket set, screw driver set, side cutters, pliers, grips, open ended ring spanners etc. The normal stuff you would find in your breakdown kit. I have wiring that I purchased from Evans back in Texas.

 

[Chargerjase]

Next job was a bit more for the aesthetics. The original horns were gone and replaced with these aftermarket types. I found some NOS ones and installed them. When I say NOS, they are the correct part numbers, but obviously manufactured later as they are not quite identical to the 1970 versions. Its ok, they look and sound the part.

Before

After

The next thing was my repro air con compressor tag. An easy thing to install and makes a world of difference to the looks.

Then I managed to find an original AC compressor to condensor hose that was missing off this car. These I believe were only available on Roadrunners and Coronets from August 1969 to Jan 01 1970. Then they changed styles. Please somebody correct me if I am wrong about that.

Before

And after

The AC is not functioning at the moment as that will also be a Texas job. For right now, the system is complete and closed to the atmosphere. The rest of the parts to complete this job are in my parts stash. No need for AC in Germany, that's for sure.

 

[mbc0724]

great work so far--love the car.

 

[4mulas]

Nice car! Good work

 

[ckessel]

Nice project you have there.

 

[71RRHI]

Nice work, great looking convertible.

 

[kiwigtx]

Lots of nice improvements Jase....it's a great looking car too.

 

[Chargerjase]

Thanks for the compliments. Now for some front end goodness. My car came coded with bumperettes front and rear. The rear ones were present, but in need of new rubbers, the fronts were missing altogether. I managed to find a pair of NOS ones from a member here on FBBO. Not cheap as you would expect, but well worth it.

I installed them on the car. Looks fantastic.

Before

After

Onto the emblems. The PO decided he was going to clone this car to a Superbee convertible. Well, sort of. They didn't do much of a job and it was easily reversible. It has a Superbee hood on it which I love and will keep. Car was actually a Coronet 500, so it gets its hood emblem back.

Marking and drilling the holes.

Installation

I found a used hood emblem on eBay and restored it. Sorry no pictures of the restoration, but here is a before shot.

It required a spray with black spray paint. Then a rub across the top with a cloth wrapped around a tongue depressor. The cloth had a hint of nail polish remover (acetone) on it to easily clean the paint off the top surface. The red was applied with a dropper purchased from Hobby Lobby and some Testors enamel paint. Turned out pretty good I think.

 

[Chargerjase]

I also managed to find some NOS Coronet 500 Fender Emblems. Well mostly, one emblem was in excellent used condition but the rest were NOS. Painted the black on it and got it ready to install.

I was able to locate the original factory holes from inside the fender and slowly work a small pilot drill through the filler to reveal its location from the outside. With these cars, the front of the script goes forward of where you can reach from the inner fender. I was told by a few people that the only way I was going to be able to do this was to remove the fenders. That was not a job I was going to tackle here, especially since there is plenty of evidence that they have never been removed. So I found another more practical way.

Made a template to find the hidden holes. On this side, the 500 pins are poked through the two that I was able to locate at the inner fender. I gently worked through a small drill bit by hand to brake out the filler.

Then I touched up the paint to prevent any rust issues

 

[Chargerjase]

Once the holes were drilled, I had to find a way to secure the emblem nuts. I found some at 521 Restorations that are a re-pop of the factory originals.
I removed the grill, then the headlight shield and last of all the headlights and bracket. All pretty easily removed.

This gave me full access to to tighten the emblem nuts. The factory conveniently put cutouts for access as shown below.

And the finished product. Turned out nice.

 

[Chargerjase]

Ok, onto the part that has been driving me nuts for the longest time. The previous owner moved the battery to the trunk. I know its a thing and people do it to give them more room in the engine bay and also for weight distribution, however this is not a race car and I want the stock appearance. Its also better if there is an electrical incident in the engine bay , then I only have to run to one place to remove the negative to cut power.

Anyway, I found a nice battery tray kit complete with all fittings from DMT. Their products are top notch. I know this is an AMD part, but it is assembled into a nice kit.

Her is the battery in its before location.

Somebody ran the battery positive cable from the starter through the frame rail and up and in through one of the grommets in the trunk to get the cable back there. As you can see, its pretty rough.

So the vacant area where the battery originally was, got the kit installed. No picture of the battery tray installed sorry, only the support. At this stage, I have no way to paint it body color as it should be, so it will wear its primer and e-coat for now.

I purchased the positive and negative cables form Bill Rollick, connected them up and installed the battery.

I have never found a definitive answer as to where the factory put the negative cable for cars that had AC. Some say on the RV2 compressor itself, others say under the intake bolt. I put mine under the compressor foot bolt which seems logical to me.

I also installed a new shield on the relay as per factory. Some of the wiring is quite dodgy, but will slowly clean it up.

I am pleased to see the battery in it's proper location again.

 

[kiwigtx]

Wow....previous owner did a magnificent job of bushing that frame rail.....nice use of electrical tape.....

 

[Chargerjase]

View attachment 1628304

Wow....previous owner did a magnificent job of bushing that frame rail.....nice use of electrical tape.....

Lol, yes you can see why it had to go. There are a few more 'caveman' wiring jobs on this car which I will be getting on top of too.

 

[kiwigtx]

Lol, yes you can see why it had to go. There are a few more 'caveman' wiring jobs on this car which I will be getting on top of too.

Luckily cars are DC....that wouldn't fly with AC.

 

[Chargerjase]

Another nice touch is to boot the Chinese air cleaner into touch and replace it with a nice original one purchased from a member on here.

And now

It really sets the engine off I think.

A couple of things to do. Unfortunately I purchased the wrong air cleaner hold down stud, so she will have to make do with the hardware store cut piece of threaded bar until I can get the proper part. It no big deal, its only a small thing.

Also, because my car is an AC car, the pie plate should say '383 Four Barrel' instead of '383 Magnum'. Again, its a small detail that I will correct when I find the right orange 1970 plate.

 

[jimkf]

Very nice work...especially given the distance between you and spare parts!

My 70 Coronet 383 car is a March build and uses the same compressor to condenser hose.

 

[Chargerjase]

That's interesting, thanks for posting that Jim. I took my info from the 1970 parts book

But of course they could have been using up stock into March or a PO swapped in on there.

By the way, I love your Coronet wagon in your Avatar. Very cool.

 

[Chargerjase]

Onwards and upwards. Time to install the radio. Since my car was built in August of 69, I guess they were still using up parts from the previous years production. I have the standard dash with 69 trim instead of 70. So that means that it got the thumb wheel AM radio instead of the 70 2 knob type.
Somebody in the 80's ripped the original radio out and installed a Sony AM/FM with a tape deck. Woohoo, that must have been quite the upgrade. We all did that right? Well, now it was time to install an original radio back in, as music isn't so important right now. Later I may install the upgraded internals to get bluetooth, FM etc, but for now I wanted that radio out.
Here is what it looked like before I got going

So I removed the old radio, all the speakers and the added on wiring.

Somebody butchered the antenna plug and also the original dash wood grain bezel to install this $60 Sony.

As I said at the beginning, this is just about adding missing parts and improving the looks of things for now. I will eventually pull the whole dash and go through the wiring harness completely when I can, but for now the factory radio will sit in the hole and not be wired up. All existing wiring has been made safe not to cause any shorts.

The radio I have is actually for a 68 and says 'Dodge' on the face plate instead of 'Chrysler' like the 69's did. It;s a minor detail.

I managed to find the correct fasteners from AMK to secure it in place.

First I removed the vent piece. Undid the three screws at the underside and let it hang down. This gave me enough room to carefully slide the radio up from underneath and into the dash cutout.

I found a repro face plate from Vans. Actually, it's quite a nice piece and not $200 as I have seen on eBay. It was only $70, which is quite enough for a piece of plastic.

I bolted her in place and then replaced the vent. I installed the new face plate and trim. I think it turned out quite nice. The wood grain is a slightly different color, but it matches ok.

I have some serious warpage on the dash just above the vents. I assume I can only attempt to get that straight with heat. If anybody has any ideas, please let me know.

 

[Chargerjase]

Ok, so after the radio install, I picked up an electrical Gremlin. The issue was that when I had the key on but engine was not running, everything worked. Started the engine and suddenly I had no turn signals and the power windows didn't work. Everything else did.
I pulled out my wiring diagram and worked through the circuits to see if I could figure it out.

I look at the diagram and assume that I have knocked off a wire from the circuit breaker.

Only to realize that somebody in the past has removed it altogether and supplied it from who knows where??

I check every connection as thoroughly as I can lying on my back in a contorted position. Can't see anything at all.

Pulled the fuse box. I was able to remove some redundant wiring from it and see how crusty it was, but nothing obvious there.

I buttoned everything up feeling a bit frustrated. I tried it again and of course now everything worked as normal. As much as I want it working, I hate not finding the route cause as I know it will come back at some stage. Oh well, that will be for another day, right now it works flawlessly. As another bonus, the temp gauge would sometimes work and sometimes not. I suspected the wiring as I made a tank gauge tester and put 10 - 70 ohm into it from the sender. It registered nothing. Now that also works flawlessly after jiggling all the wiring and verifying connections. Oh boy, I am going to find some eye opening stuff when I tear this down properly.

 

[kiwigtx]

Some di-electric grease is useful on the terminals Jase.

I used it also on the heads of the park lamps up front - where water is easily forced in while driving. Doesn't hurt to put a thin smear on those glass fuses either - won't harm them, and make them easier to replace/remove next time.