NOT MINE. Junkyard car with disc brakes Northern CA

[Kern Dog]

I have toyed with the idea of buying a clean Fifth Avenue but there is no way I'd buy one and try to make it emissions compliant for this state.

 

[Kern Dog]

As far as the car goes quite honestly those cars ran like ****.. I spent two years doing drivability on them & hated it... Customers hated them... People who had owned Dodges for years bought those turds and I heard plenty of them saying they would never buy a Dodge again...

Leaving Dodge & going to Ford was the best thing ever... Ford built a few turds with VV carbs... But with a few adjustments you could make those run pretty good... The Dodges? Take that **** off & use a normal Distributor & carb... But that isn't legal... And here in California you can't get around it...

I wonder if you could swap in a Magnum 5.2 or 5.9 with the original EFI, converters and all emission equipment and somehow be compliant? It used to be that you could install a newer engine but you had to implement all the OEM emission equipment to result in equal or fewer emission readings than original.

 

[Islandkent]

Really Greg? What a pain in the butt. That would certainly take the fun out of it.

 

[Kern Dog]

You think so?
If I ever do move from here, it will be to a place with either NO emission testing or something more lenient.
The 318 2 barrel in the 4000 lb luxury car would be S-L-O-W !

 

[Islandkent]

Nothing like that here yet. But give them time. I think we will bypass that and jump right to a combustion engine tax. If those Castro followers get their way.

 

[DeltaV]

plenty of them saying they would never buy a Dodge again

and so they traded them in for an Imperial with fuel injection.


My coworkers at the time swore off anything from the Big 3 and bought Hondas or other Japanese makes even though there was a wait time and dealers were marking them up from MSRP!

 

[DeltaV]

When I was doing drivability work at the local dodge dealer in 82-84 they had different names but those two plugs on the aircleaner all plugged into the same big scope style tester , they all had similar problems and they all sucked... Honestly I'm amazed there was still one running recently enough to get to the Rocklin PnP.... Probably dead in a garage for the past twenty plus years.... Cause they surely can't pass a California smog test...

I knew of a Mopar dealership mechanic that said he made a special test harness for the "Lean Burn" computers. One end had the mating connector for the computer and the other end had a household 110V plug.

That was the only way they could get a warranty replacement computer for the customer.

 

[toolmanmike]

I knew of a Mopar dealership mechanic that said he made a special test harness for the "Lean Burn" computers. One end had the mating connector for the computer and the other end had a household 110V plug.

That was the only way they could get a warranty replacement computer for the customer.

We had a guy at the GM dealer do the same. He would spark circuit boards to short them out and then mark them so he didn't get them back.

 

[cr8crshr]

I would most definitely grab those disc brake parts as they are adaptable to our MOPARS...cr8crshr/Bill

 

[Kern Dog]

I wish I had a set of 8 1/4" axle 3.55 gears. That axle would fit great in most A body cars once the spring perches are relocated. The 2.45 gear is only good for a car with the low gear set transmission. This car may have that. In 1995-96, I pulled a 904 type trans from a junkyard car and didn't know at the time it was a low gear version with a lock-up converter. I wore it out and ended up replacing it a few years later and the car felt less peppy in the lower speeds. I found out that the latest transmission was the standard 904 and the first replacement was that lower geared one. I think they had something like a 2.75 1st gear instead of the 2.45 1st gear. It isn't much but it sure seemed to give the car more punch out of the hole.

 

[1 Wild R/T]

I wish I had a set of 8 1/4" axle 3.55 gears. That axle would fit great in most A body cars once the spring perches are relocated. The 2.45 gear is only good for a car with the low gear set transmission. This car may have that. In 1995-96, I pulled a 904 type trans from a junkyard car and didn't know at the time it was a low gear version with a lock-up converter. I wore it out and ended up replacing it a few years later and the car felt less peppy in the lower speeds. I found out that the latest transmission was the standard 904 and the first replacement was that lower geared one. I think they had something like a 2.75 1st gear instead of the 2.45 1st gear. It isn't much but it sure seemed to give the car more punch out of the hole.

From 2.45 to 2.76 isn't a big change, but multiple it by the axle ratio and it becomes a somewhat big deal...

3.23 x 2.45 = 7.91
3.23 x 2.76 = 8.91 so slightly more than a 3.55 with the standard 2.45 ratio..

3.55 x 2.45 = 8.7
3.55 x 2.76 = 9.8

 

[DeltaV]

I hope someone that is looking for this stuff gets to the car before they pull and crush it.

Looks like the wheels are already gone. Some of those Cordoba and Mirada cars had nice looking wheels. Do the yards quickly recycle them (steel or aluminum) for cash, or are these wheels in demand by car owners?

 

[Kern Dog]

I am not sure. The Pick-N-Pull organization is owned by Schnitzer steel, a major metal recycler. Maybe they pull the aluminum wheels strictly to recycle them?

 

[Sixpactogo]

I recognize the part of that Air cleaner with the computer. I bought a new Charger SE back in 76. It had a lean burn 360 4bbl engine. I thought it was plenty snappy as it was quicker than the 350 Impalas and Fords in that era. That car gave me zero trouble that I can remember. I put close to 100K miles on it before giving it to my son. He was (still is) hard on vehicles and used it up pretty quickly. He crashed it a few times and finally get rear-ended but I think it ran well until the end. I remember it getting around 15 MPG which was much better than the 10 mpg my 440 powered truck provided.

 

[440 4 speed]

Nothing like that here yet. But give them time. I think we will bypass that and jump right to a combustion engine tax. If those Castro followers get their way.

Careful people might think you are referring to some country!!.

 

[440 4 speed]

We had a new Fury Sport 318 Lean burn. As soon as we had a problem, on went a carburetor. When the lock up torque converter went South, we put a regular 904 in. Car ran way better all around.
So had a 78 Lebaron. Put a c clamp on the housing to squeeze it a little. Worked.