My 1978 Dodge Monaco 4 door sedan.

[blue69runner]

Good job. We have to do what we can when we can. It rides and drive's and you are enjoying the car. That is all that count's. If you make it too nice then they get trailered and never driven. That is not what we build them for. Have fun buddy and Yes getting some kind of paint on one is better than none.

 

[Gary P]

Good job. We have to do what we can when we can. It rides and drive's and you are enjoying the car. That is all that count's. If you make it too nice then they get trailered and never driven. That is not what we build them for. Have fun buddy and Yes getting some kind of paint on one is better than none.

Thanks blue69 - we really are enjoying it!

 

[Gary P]

Here's a couple of videos for you guys. Nothing exciting, I had to wire up a horn - could not figure out what's wrong with the center of the steering wheel so I went rogue and wired up an O'Reilly's horn button...



and here's a pointless pan around while she's running well. Need to get that Lean Burn computer outta there as she is stumbling a bit on acceleration.



That'll be the next project, but that requires some dollars so it'll be a minute. The Lean Burn is being ousted!!! And an ignition kit from Mancini Racing will replace it.

 

[Gary P]

Getting right down to it at the end of the afternoon, I wanted to see what this beast looks like...well, firstly, the computer is mounted to the air cleaner which sits about 4" above the valve cover, so I was expecting liquid computer remnants to trickle out... but hey, Chrysler did put some heat reflection on the under side....

So that's ok then...

I pulled the casing off and took a peek inside...

The electronics are encased in some kind of resin, and all looked to be ok as far as I could tell - by that, I mean I could see no broken stuff, no burnt silvery bits, and no cracked-looking stuffs. Except for that blue round thing with the melted looking rubbery stuff near it. Technical terminology.

So I cleaned up what I could, and threw it all back on, and lo and behold it ran better!!! For about 3/4 mile. Then it went back to stumbling on initial acceleration. Yes I can live with that BUT after it's hot, it idles a bit lumpy, and the stumble gets worse - with this, I feel it's the beginning of the end, so I would like a) more power, and b) smoother sailing from what is essentially the best V8 Chrysler ever made. Yup, that.

Mancini Racing have what I need, unfortunately I don't have any bread to grab it from them. I have a non-Lean Burn carb and distributor, and the will to switch this out....we wait for the dollars to flow.

Best wishes to you all.

 

[Don Frelier]

If you have a vacuum advance distributor. You only need an ECU a ballast a the odd shaped 4 or 5 pin connector and find the start and run wires. I have a new connector if you would like it. I'll sell it super cheap

 

[Gary P]

If you have a vacuum advance distributor. You only need an ECU a ballast a the odd shaped 4 or 5 pin connector and find the start and run wires. I have a new connector if you would like it. I'll sell it super cheap

Hi Don - thank you! I'll be talking to Mancini Racing soon, so I'll get back to you on that! I appreciate you!

This weekend, as with all the weekends over the last three months, was brutally hot. I've never experienced Utah being this hot, in 9 years of living here. We braved a car show in the morning, which was hot but great. We then braved another that evening which made wifey almost pass out, so we sat her in the Mall to cool down then I took her home. Car ran great all day though.

Here I am talking to the only guy who knew what it was.

 

[Gary P]

I'm thrilled that I get to daily drive my Monaco. Despite the occasional stumble and slightly lumpy idle, she's a beauty to cruise the 5 miles to work each day. Plus I can proudly park her outside my shop.

The next little job is to connect the antenna cable back so we can have our amazing one-speaker optioned, AM only radio playing in the car - this might seem silly, but here's the story - we went for a cruise up Santaquin Canyon just after I removed the vinyl top (pics way back on page 3 approximately), wifey was nestled up in my right arm as I drove, with her little lap belt on. She reached down and turned the radio on and through a very authentic sounding single speaker on AM frequency, we had "A Horse With No Name" by America accompany us up the mountain roads - it was a perfect sound track.

Here it is for your listening pleasure.


After that, we agreed AM radio is staying in the car. If we want "choons" we will take an ipod (yes I still have ipods) and a bluetooth speaker.

So I'm now figuring out how to get this...

to extend all the way back to the trunk here...

where I've mounted the antenna now.

I'm thinking an Uxcell adapter and a longer bit of coaxial cable should work, but I will find out I guess!

 

[HawkRod]

Gary, my Road Runner was built without a radio (AKA a "radio delete" car), so I did not have an antenna. I decided to hide an antenna under my trunk (P.S. the antenna doesn't work well, but that's another story). Anyway, they do make coax radio cable extenders - it has a male end and a female end and is perfect for extending back to the trunk. Below is an example, but there are lots of lengths and manufacturers available.

Good Luck!

Hawk

https://shop.advanceautoparts.com/p...8/12005352-p?product_channel=local&store=6682

 

[Gary P]

Gary, my Road Runner was built without a radio (AKA a "radio delete" car), so I did not have an antenna. I decided to hide an antenna under my trunk (P.S. the antenna doesn't work well, but that's another story). Anyway, they do make coax radio cable extenders - it has a male end and a female end and is perfect for extending back to the trunk. Below is an example, but there are lots of lengths and manufacturers available.

Good Luck!

Hawk

https://shop.advanceautoparts.com/p...8/12005352-p?product_channel=local&store=6682

Hawk that's great brother, thank you! Hopefully that's my ticket!

 

[Gary P]

Daily driving my Monaco is the greatest! Unlike the lens on my phone, which clearly hasn't been cleaned in a minute. Hope you are all safe and well.

 

[Gary P]

Hello you guys! I hope that you are all good and well, healthy and happy.

Just a little update, and although I've not worked on the car once in months, I have been driving it a lot. It's proving very reliable and very fun. I just rolled over one year of ownership, here I am a year ago this week, buying it...

and here I am yesterday still loving the car and passionate about it, driving it as much as I can

The oil leaks are still there, and so is the stumbling on initial acceleration, but I'm living with it, until such a time as I can pull the engine out and get to fixing all that. 1000miles since I bought it, not a single hic-up. Feeling lucky there.

 

[Chargerjase]

Hey Gary, great to see you enjoying your car. I hope you managed to get through this tough time and remain in business. Thanks for the update.

 

[BeatersRus]

really enjoyed the story you shared with us.
was thinking,i do have an extra 4bbl 318/360 perfomer intake and a used eddy carb that would probably solve your carb issues.
i do Not have the conversion linkage piece you would Need to make the kickdown/throttle linkage hook up.
thats always sold seperately anyways.

the intake needs to be cleaned,and the carb is dirty but ??
lmk if interested,id make you a great deal for both if you can use them.

 

[Don Frelier]

At least around here, the intakes used to literally get plugged with carbon from the EGR back then.
They had a plate underneath held on by rivets that you could remove and clean out the whole mess.
I did a couple of them back in the 80's along with a tune up and they ran real well afterwards.
No lean burn though... I had one of those and promptly converted it to the plain electronic ignition.

 

[Greg Ducato]

Glad to see you are still enjoying your car, it has been fun to follow your journey with it and hope that you will continue.

 

[QOTHL]

Hello you guys! I hope that you are all good and well, healthy and happy.




Really nice to see you enjoying your dream car! Great story! Keep up the good work and the positive attitude.
The background of the bottom photo resembles something out of Vanishing Point.

 

[HawkRod]

I will echo the rest of the comments above - great that you are still enjoying the car and driving it!

I too, hope business has picked up and you have survived that whole mess.

As far as the stumbling, my first guess would be the carb. Putting on a 4 bbl and new manifold (offered by BeatersRus) would wake the car up some for sure! On the other hand, if this is not currently in the cards, a simple carb rebuild could very likely clean up the issues. Most carb rebuild kits are still available, although I admit I haven't checked for yours.

Good luck regardless!

Hawk

 

[Don Frelier]

The accelerator pump plunger is likely shot.

 

[Gary P]

Thanks you guys! I appreciate your comments.

Unfortunately it looks bleak for the business, and I am currently trying to work out how I can operate in this climate, and I'm not coming up with much. It's a tough time for everyone so I'm not boo-hooing, but since you guys kindly asked, that's where we are. Closing our doors is imminent, bar a miracle I'm sad to say. Shame really, the wifey built us a really nice website, see... www.graphicelementsutah.com

BACK ON TOPIC, thought this might be an interesting pic...

1199 miles in a year. No breakdowns or issues except the oil leaks and stumbling. Who knows what the winter will bring but maybe I can get all those issues fixed!

Best wishes to you all!

Gary

 

[Greg Ducato]

That is a nice site and showcases the terrific work you do, hope things turn around for you soon!