Thanks. The common theme is fun and exciting. Right now the word is "intimidating". Just gonna start from the rear and work my way forward in small steps.
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Gimme about a week.:icon_thumright:
My 69 Coronet project
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GetX'd
Making Life Great Again!
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Sweet color after a long journey. Glad it turned out so nice. Now get that bad boy on the road!
Roger that.
The Engine
Time to move on to the engine. To recap, the car came with a late-70's 440, pretty much stock. The cam wasn't stock and it had a Edelbrock Performer manifold with a new Edelbrock 650 elec choke carb. Stock log exhaust manifolds, points distributor. When I tore the engine down to the long block I was pleasantly surprised at how new the motor looked; the PO bought the car with the engine already done and only put about 2,100 miles on the car in 10 years; i put another 300 on before starting the resto. The other surprise was that it had 915 heads and a forged crank, so somebody kind of knew what they were doing. But the new pistons were over 90 thou in the hole; compression calc'd to about 9:1. I bought a set of bare Stealth heads from a FBBO member and I figured to just have the heads built, stab in a relatively mild cam, add headers, FAST EFI and call it good.
Of course the cam is the hardest part to choose, and like my paint color I've been going back and forth for months now. My goal is to have a decent idle with enough vacuum to run the power disc brakes but have plenty of juice when the GO pedal is stomped. Searching around I had seemingly settled on Comp Cams hyd roller series, their mildest grind: 224/230 @.050"; .538/.534 lift on a 110 LSA.
By this time the heads were at a local shop - HP by Gerolamy. Nathan Gerolamy does a lot of Mopars and came highly recommended. After talking to him on the phone and visiting his shop I knew he was the guy. The original plan was for him to do the heads and I would swap the cam and put the motor back together. After talking to him about the build he wasn't happy about running the low compression with the aluminum heads and hotter cam.
Back to the drawing board. I wound up on the Hughes Engines site and was blown away by their hyd FT offerings - their FT ramp rates were steeper than the other guys rollers. I called and talked to Dave at length. Dave's reply about the aggressive FT ramps: of course, all we do is Mopars. NO Chevy cams here! I was swaying over to the FT because they had about the same grinds as the rollers. The conversation came to a screeching halt after about 1/2 hour when I told Dave my set up. He also didn't like the aluminum heads with the low compression. Hughes has the Whiplash cam for my application but I didn't like the large duration and overlap. So Dave sent me on my way and told me to come back when I had a better plan.
Now I need to repeat what I've said several times throughout this thread: I tend to buy from vendors that take the time to teach and not just sell. I'm a novice on most everything and appreciate the learning experience. Dave spent the time going over my build and even though we ended the conversation without a sale I had made up my mind which vendor i was buying my cam from.
In the end I'm having Nathan rebuild the engine, and a good thing at that. He tore down the long block and unbelievably the main and rod bearings looked like they came from a 100K mile engine - they were hammered! Either too tight clearances or no oil on initial fire-up. Whatever, it needed new bearings. So here's the build:
- Forged Auto Tec pistons from Race Tec (the same owner who started JE pistons) Highly recommended by Nathan
- Mellngs oil pump
- Moroso oil pan and pickup
- Milodon front cover
- ARP fasteners
- harmonic balancer
- Heads ported, HP valve job
- Manley 11/32 valves
- Block hot tanked, magged, shot peened, line bore
- Cylinders bored/honed with torque plate
- Zero deck
- recip assay balanced
- rods resized for ARP bolts
Got a stout engine, still need a cam. After all this I'm back to a hyd FT from Hughes, homing in on the SEH2832. 228/232 @ 0.050"; .530/.536 @ 1.5 ratio; 110 LSA (going to ask if they can grind on a 112 LSA). Or as Nathan calls it, a baby cam. I realize it's a little small but I'm willing to give up some top end power to gain low-to-mid range torque. The EFI should smooth out the idle some as well. I think this combo will result in a streetable, reliable engine that will produce gobs of torque down low. What do you guys think?
Time to move on to the engine. To recap, the car came with a late-70's 440, pretty much stock. The cam wasn't stock and it had a Edelbrock Performer manifold with a new Edelbrock 650 elec choke carb. Stock log exhaust manifolds, points distributor. When I tore the engine down to the long block I was pleasantly surprised at how new the motor looked; the PO bought the car with the engine already done and only put about 2,100 miles on the car in 10 years; i put another 300 on before starting the resto. The other surprise was that it had 915 heads and a forged crank, so somebody kind of knew what they were doing. But the new pistons were over 90 thou in the hole; compression calc'd to about 9:1. I bought a set of bare Stealth heads from a FBBO member and I figured to just have the heads built, stab in a relatively mild cam, add headers, FAST EFI and call it good.
Of course the cam is the hardest part to choose, and like my paint color I've been going back and forth for months now. My goal is to have a decent idle with enough vacuum to run the power disc brakes but have plenty of juice when the GO pedal is stomped. Searching around I had seemingly settled on Comp Cams hyd roller series, their mildest grind: 224/230 @.050"; .538/.534 lift on a 110 LSA.
By this time the heads were at a local shop - HP by Gerolamy. Nathan Gerolamy does a lot of Mopars and came highly recommended. After talking to him on the phone and visiting his shop I knew he was the guy. The original plan was for him to do the heads and I would swap the cam and put the motor back together. After talking to him about the build he wasn't happy about running the low compression with the aluminum heads and hotter cam.
Back to the drawing board. I wound up on the Hughes Engines site and was blown away by their hyd FT offerings - their FT ramp rates were steeper than the other guys rollers. I called and talked to Dave at length. Dave's reply about the aggressive FT ramps: of course, all we do is Mopars. NO Chevy cams here! I was swaying over to the FT because they had about the same grinds as the rollers. The conversation came to a screeching halt after about 1/2 hour when I told Dave my set up. He also didn't like the aluminum heads with the low compression. Hughes has the Whiplash cam for my application but I didn't like the large duration and overlap. So Dave sent me on my way and told me to come back when I had a better plan.
Now I need to repeat what I've said several times throughout this thread: I tend to buy from vendors that take the time to teach and not just sell. I'm a novice on most everything and appreciate the learning experience. Dave spent the time going over my build and even though we ended the conversation without a sale I had made up my mind which vendor i was buying my cam from.
In the end I'm having Nathan rebuild the engine, and a good thing at that. He tore down the long block and unbelievably the main and rod bearings looked like they came from a 100K mile engine - they were hammered! Either too tight clearances or no oil on initial fire-up. Whatever, it needed new bearings. So here's the build:
- Forged Auto Tec pistons from Race Tec (the same owner who started JE pistons) Highly recommended by Nathan
- Mellngs oil pump
- Moroso oil pan and pickup
- Milodon front cover
- ARP fasteners
- harmonic balancer
- Heads ported, HP valve job
- Manley 11/32 valves
- Block hot tanked, magged, shot peened, line bore
- Cylinders bored/honed with torque plate
- Zero deck
- recip assay balanced
- rods resized for ARP bolts
Got a stout engine, still need a cam. After all this I'm back to a hyd FT from Hughes, homing in on the SEH2832. 228/232 @ 0.050"; .530/.536 @ 1.5 ratio; 110 LSA (going to ask if they can grind on a 112 LSA). Or as Nathan calls it, a baby cam. I realize it's a little small but I'm willing to give up some top end power to gain low-to-mid range torque. The EFI should smooth out the idle some as well. I think this combo will result in a streetable, reliable engine that will produce gobs of torque down low. What do you guys think?
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Didn't get a whole lot done this weekend, a lot of visiting with family and friends. Did get the front blacked out, a few gaskets installed, and the Pentastar emblem attached.
Working on the trunk area. Got the back panel, lights and bumper in place. Weather stripping and rubber bumpers installed. Rear lights are wired up.
Ya know, it takes a lot longer to put a car back together than it did to take it apart! For instance, it took 10 minutes to take the tail lights out and over two hours to reinstall. They were hazed over pretty bad, didn't notice so much before but with the new paint job they paled in comparison. Used some left over Mothers Headlight Restore. The stuff worked great, but I couldn't use the power ball attachment because the lens were too faded and it wasn't cutting the haze. Wound up polishing them by hand.
The tail panel went rather easily - especially the second time…lol. Forgot about the lock cylinder. I had put fresh dum-dum in the attaching nuts and it was still soft when I pulled the panel. A little messy.
The angle makes the tires look so skinny; they're actually 275's.
Ya know, it takes a lot longer to put a car back together than it did to take it apart! For instance, it took 10 minutes to take the tail lights out and over two hours to reinstall. They were hazed over pretty bad, didn't notice so much before but with the new paint job they paled in comparison. Used some left over Mothers Headlight Restore. The stuff worked great, but I couldn't use the power ball attachment because the lens were too faded and it wasn't cutting the haze. Wound up polishing them by hand.
The tail panel went rather easily - especially the second time…lol. Forgot about the lock cylinder. I had put fresh dum-dum in the attaching nuts and it was still soft when I pulled the panel. A little messy.
The angle makes the tires look so skinny; they're actually 275's.
Basket case
Well-Known Member
lookin good!
Rear window refurb
What took me forever was refurbishing the rear window regulators. What a PITA!!! Even before the resto the rear window mechanism was a little troublesome - the windows were aligned just fine but the crank was sticky in places enough that you had to torque the handle to raise or lower the window. During disassembly I only removed the driver's side mechanism to keep the other side as a reference. To any of you contemplating refurbing the rear windows, take out one side at a time if possible. If you have to take both sides out then take out the one, reassemble outside the car using the other one as a reference, then remove and reassemble the second side. Then put them away someplace where they won't be disturbed until you're ready to tackle them.
Before turning a wrench, soak all attaching bolts/nuts with penetrating oil. Then come back the next day. I used WD-40 and still broke off one of the bolts securing the window to the frame. Drilling out the bolt and re-tapping the hole is two hours of my life I'll never get back.
I sprayed all the attachment nuts and bolts with rattle can paint to create witness marks. The rear window mechanism has 5 tracks with 5 rollers and an almost infinitesimal number of adjustments. Creating the witness marks allows the window to be reinstalled in almost the exact place it started.
View attachment 263028
There's only two main parts - the window regulator and the frame. Four of the rollers each have their own track in the frame, and in turn two of them ride up and down on the front track, one more is attached to the end of the regulator arm, and there are two more tracks towards the rear - one more vertical and one horizontal. Yeah, it's a bit like Tetris meets the Rubiks cube.
I bought the rear window roller rebuild kit; you can find the kit at most of the large parts houses, I got mine at YO with a 30% off discount. The frame will be dirty and caked with OEM grease that has the consistency of petrified peanut butter. If you have access to a blasting cabinet maybe you want to clean it up. I don't have one so I used a rice cake, wire wheel and sandpaper to clean it up. And once I reinstalled it, it looked exactly like the other one! In other words, you can't see 'em once they're inside the body. It all boils down to replacing the worn out, cracked rollers with fresh ones and cleaning up the tracks to smooth out the ride.
The frame tracks were stripped of ancient grease, lightly sanded if needed and final dressed with steel wool. Same for the three adjustment tracks.
This picture just illustrates the difference between the dressed side (left of the roller) vs. original. Also notice the stress cracks radiating out from the center of the roller - it will be replaced.
A few pics of the frame - the tracks are shiny after being polished with steel wool
This is a new roller, the rear-most one, compared to the two originals (one for each window). The top wobble is supposed to rotate on the ball axis. The original ones barely moved. The flat roller on the bottom rides inside a vertical track while the wobble glides horizontally inside the frame track. This is probably the most important roller of the 5. Who came up with this design?
Here's one of the front rollers with a new roller in place. All four original rollers had stress cracks in them.
There are also two smaller rollers inside the body. They rode on the front vertical track, the main roller went in the frame. Even though the two smaller rollers are not included in the rebuild kit, I pulled off the torsion spring and removed, cleaned and reinstalled them. It didn't make a difference, they're in bedded really tight so they don't roll as much as glide. I didn't take apart the other three.
As for the regulator arm, it's assembled with rivets so I just scraped off all the old grease, polished the reciprocating teeth with steel wool, douched the inside with WD-40 and called it good.
As for reinstalling the mechanism back in the car, there's no easy way to do it. In fact it took me twice as long to install the passenger side as the drivers, so experience didn't play a part. One roller kept jumping the frame so I had to call it an evening and finish it the next day.
Once installed the nuts and bolts are back in their original position.
Now each window crank rotates smoothly and easily. In retrospect, like most other things I've tackled on the car, the rebuild wasn't extremely difficult or complicated. I wouldn't recommend it if you don't have to, but if you decide to go for it plan ahead and it will go fine.
What took me forever was refurbishing the rear window regulators. What a PITA!!! Even before the resto the rear window mechanism was a little troublesome - the windows were aligned just fine but the crank was sticky in places enough that you had to torque the handle to raise or lower the window. During disassembly I only removed the driver's side mechanism to keep the other side as a reference. To any of you contemplating refurbing the rear windows, take out one side at a time if possible. If you have to take both sides out then take out the one, reassemble outside the car using the other one as a reference, then remove and reassemble the second side. Then put them away someplace where they won't be disturbed until you're ready to tackle them.
Before turning a wrench, soak all attaching bolts/nuts with penetrating oil. Then come back the next day. I used WD-40 and still broke off one of the bolts securing the window to the frame. Drilling out the bolt and re-tapping the hole is two hours of my life I'll never get back.
I sprayed all the attachment nuts and bolts with rattle can paint to create witness marks. The rear window mechanism has 5 tracks with 5 rollers and an almost infinitesimal number of adjustments. Creating the witness marks allows the window to be reinstalled in almost the exact place it started.
View attachment 263028
There's only two main parts - the window regulator and the frame. Four of the rollers each have their own track in the frame, and in turn two of them ride up and down on the front track, one more is attached to the end of the regulator arm, and there are two more tracks towards the rear - one more vertical and one horizontal. Yeah, it's a bit like Tetris meets the Rubiks cube.
I bought the rear window roller rebuild kit; you can find the kit at most of the large parts houses, I got mine at YO with a 30% off discount. The frame will be dirty and caked with OEM grease that has the consistency of petrified peanut butter. If you have access to a blasting cabinet maybe you want to clean it up. I don't have one so I used a rice cake, wire wheel and sandpaper to clean it up. And once I reinstalled it, it looked exactly like the other one! In other words, you can't see 'em once they're inside the body. It all boils down to replacing the worn out, cracked rollers with fresh ones and cleaning up the tracks to smooth out the ride.
The frame tracks were stripped of ancient grease, lightly sanded if needed and final dressed with steel wool. Same for the three adjustment tracks.
This picture just illustrates the difference between the dressed side (left of the roller) vs. original. Also notice the stress cracks radiating out from the center of the roller - it will be replaced.
A few pics of the frame - the tracks are shiny after being polished with steel wool
This is a new roller, the rear-most one, compared to the two originals (one for each window). The top wobble is supposed to rotate on the ball axis. The original ones barely moved. The flat roller on the bottom rides inside a vertical track while the wobble glides horizontally inside the frame track. This is probably the most important roller of the 5. Who came up with this design?
Here's one of the front rollers with a new roller in place. All four original rollers had stress cracks in them.
There are also two smaller rollers inside the body. They rode on the front vertical track, the main roller went in the frame. Even though the two smaller rollers are not included in the rebuild kit, I pulled off the torsion spring and removed, cleaned and reinstalled them. It didn't make a difference, they're in bedded really tight so they don't roll as much as glide. I didn't take apart the other three.
As for the regulator arm, it's assembled with rivets so I just scraped off all the old grease, polished the reciprocating teeth with steel wool, douched the inside with WD-40 and called it good.
As for reinstalling the mechanism back in the car, there's no easy way to do it. In fact it took me twice as long to install the passenger side as the drivers, so experience didn't play a part. One roller kept jumping the frame so I had to call it an evening and finish it the next day.
Once installed the nuts and bolts are back in their original position.
Now each window crank rotates smoothly and easily. In retrospect, like most other things I've tackled on the car, the rebuild wasn't extremely difficult or complicated. I wouldn't recommend it if you don't have to, but if you decide to go for it plan ahead and it will go fine.
Ron 73
Deceased, But not forgotton
WOW, two great looking rides, You guys should be happy cruisers!!!
BigBlock61
Well-Known Member
Looking good and glad to see it going back together.
Basket case
Well-Known Member
that's why I bought a Postcar!!
looks great btw!
looks great btw!
Thanks Lil Bro. Happy Father's Day.
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Ha! Like my Dart.
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The camera hides a lot. Other than pinging out a small ding in the chrome the panel is unrestored. Looking forward to the day that we can park our cars side-by-side somewhere.
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Dennis is there already, I'm working on it.
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Thanks BB; one step at a time.
The cam and valve train arrived from Hughes a couple of days ago. I stuck with the FT hyd. The roller rockers, lifters, springs, timing set and all hardware came from Hughes Engines.
Admittedly it's on the small side, but i like the lift compared to the duration. Should have good low end and mid-range.
The Doug's Headers showed up too. I ordered them raw because I want black ceramic coating and they only offered silver.
Admittedly it's on the small side, but i like the lift compared to the duration. Should have good low end and mid-range.
The Doug's Headers showed up too. I ordered them raw because I want black ceramic coating and they only offered silver.
showard
Well-Known Member
Thank you for your window regulator detail. I will be rebuilding mine soon and appreciate your pointers.
Your welcome. It's paying back for all the great advice and input I've received from other FBBO members.
Hello Gents, now that the rollers are in I'm going to be reinstalling the quarter windows and trim. I have two questions: Does the quarter glass install first and then the window felts, or vice versa? And what is the best way to install the rubber weatherstripping in the chrome channel between the side and quarter glass? Either you start it at the top, use dish soap water as lubrication and slide the rubber down the channel, or line it up and use come flat tool to drive the rubber in. Thanks again FBBO.
Basket case
Well-Known Member
it's easier to install the felts first, without the glass in the way.
Thanks BC. I started installing the felt on one side and then stopped myself wondering about the glass. I does look like the front edge of the glass would get in the way of the last two front clips.
themechanic
Oklahoma is OK
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I haven't done it yet but will in the near future but read that you can leave the bottom stop out and lower the glass to install the felts then raise he glass and install the stop.
http://www.chargersourceguide.com/sidewindows.html
http://www.chargersourceguide.com/sidewindows.html
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