Updating the Super Street Mopar

[ckessel]

If you do invest in some, see if you can get some training on how to use them. I took the two classes from Lazze Metal Shaping in 12/13. 3 days on first, 5 on second. There should be someone on your side of the country who does classes. On the first session we learned the basics of all the machines. Made various pieces so you got the gist. Second set of classes we went much further making parts. All of us in the class were assigned different sections of the car to make. I did the windshield pillars, door window openings and the roof rails. Others did door skins, cowl panels, inner quarters etc. By the 3rd day, Lazze was tacking pieces together. By Friday we had made 85% of the body shell for a 33 3 window coupe. Lazze makes his own machines and will sell them to you if you've taken the 2nd class. Thats when I bought mine. With the exception of the bead roller, none are powered. Nice and quiet as opposed to planishing hammers, Pullmax machines etc.

 

[ckessel]

After repeated work on straightening out the filler off of the spacer, kept bending it at the slightest touch, I decided to remove it and make it out of .062 thickness material I'm going to pick up a sheet of it so I have enough on hand to do the base, lid, wrap etc. I have some small pieces on hand, just not enough for the bigger stuff. I marked and cut out a new filler piece yesterday and removed the .042 one from the spacer. Before I welded it to the spacer today, I did a pre-stretch on it then ran it through the bead roller. Flattened it out some then clamped it and the spacer to my sandbag stand. Repurposed bench grinder stand with a piece of 3/16" on it for a top. Clamping all of the pieces down for welding was one of the procedures I forgot to do on the first go around so this worked much better. Also did the weld as a 2F which is one piece being vertical and the other horizontal. Or 90* when you look at it. Before I was just welding the sheet edge to the spacer edge and not getting a good weld. Way better now.

 

[ckessel]

Did a short vacation to Washington state to see some relatives. First one together for more than two days in about 4 years. Nice. Today I went down to Santa Maria to pick up a half sheet of .062 5052 aluminum and some steel strap material for an upcoming money making job. One of my Saturday C&C guys, same one I've done some welding for, has the local Hague water filtration franchise. One of his work vans has torn out the inner structure of the van where the shelves for supplies are/were attached. He'll get it emptied out so I can do some repairs and improvements to stop that from happening again. On the aluminum, I got it marked out so the next time I'm in SLO, I'll go by Ben's shop and use his stomp shear to cut some pieces.

 

[ckessel]

Haven't done anything on the 65 lately. The last week I've been working on a friends Ford Transit van. He has the local Hague water filtration franchise. One of the van's had some inner structure damage. The shelves tore away from the inner side panels. I cut out the damaged spots and put some patches in. Over the top of that for almost 10', I welded on a piece of .125x3" strap. There are flange nuts welded to the backside to match up with the shelf brackets. Now each foot has 4 bolts instead of two. The install pack for the shelves come with some nutserts to put in the panels. Those are what tore the metal out. That inner structure is like 23/24ga material. Soft and flimsy. I have the strap rosette welded in an alternating pattern. Wonder how many more of these vans have gotten damage like this.

 

[ckessel]

Today I was able to work on the 65 some. Took the SCT, with the carbide bristles on, to the base and strips I cut so they have some tooth for paint/finish to bond to easier. From there, I re-marked the base for the inner and outer cuts/where the filter will be/where the bead will get rolled to help hold the filter in place. After that, cut the base. I used a 4" hole saw to give me a starting point for the shear. I tried the Makita shear but I couldn't quite get the tight radius so I went hand shears. After doing about 6", I remembered I have an airsaw. Much better and easier on the hand. The Makita unit was fine for the outer radius. Tuned up the edges on my little anvil using the body hammer. From there I hit the cut areas with files to get the excess knocked down to the scribe lines. On the strips, which will get run through the bead roller to give me the 1/4 rounds for the base and lid, I re-scribed the lines to keep me lined up in the roller. More to follow.

 

[ckessel]

Today I did a couple of laps through the wheel to pre stretch the area of the base that got bead rolled. After that, rolled the bead in it. Then I figured out a couple of profiles to use for the corner wrap pieces for the base and lid. The base gets the larger radius, lid gets the smaller one. Did some hammer tune up on all and a little hand tweaking.

 

[ckessel]

After flattening out the base some, I cut the lid portion out. Hit it with the SCT before the cuts so the surface is roughed up. Filed the cut edge some to true it up to the scribe lines. From there started running the corner piece through the shrinker/stretcher. Got a little happy with it in some areas so I had to swap the heads from shrink to stretch. Slow going but getting there.

 

[ckessel]

Today I finished off the corner piece after many easy steps through the shrinker. From there wire brushed the weld areas and wiped the two parts down with acetone. Cleared a spot off of my fab bench and got it tacked together.

 

[ckessel]

Here is the tacked together results. I'm holding up a piece of scrap so you can see in general how the vertical side piece will fit to the lid. The other two pics are it resting in its soon to be home.

 

[ckessel]

I did some calculations and measurements to see how much I needed to trim off of the base. 1/4" was what I came up with so out came the Makita shears. I've almost got one side of the corner piece shrunk to match up with the base.

 

[ckessel]

So today I finished up shrinking the corner piece. From there, put it on the bench, clamped it down, got it tacked together. Once that was done, I checked the fit between the lid and base. I calculated correctly. I need to shear up a piece about 1 7/8" for the vertical part. But before I weld those together, I need to make the pieces from the throttle body spacer to the base. After I checked the fit, I stopped for the day and did some yard work. God was good to me today!

 

[ckessel]

More.

 

[ckessel]

Yesterday I sheared up a piece of aluminum for the vertical portion and a piece of 20ga steel for the firewall connection. Today after I positioned the base and clamped it to the rails, I started working on the filler from the base to the spacer. I also decided to roll over the edge of the spacer flange to ease the airflow into the throttle body. On the filler I made two units. The first one I worked over my plastic mallet to flare out the lower portion but it seemed like it was slow going. The second one I ran through the stretcher some and then made some passes with it through the English wheel. That one seems to fit a little better. I still have some tweaking to do on the top edge but the lower seems ok so far. After I made some passes through the wheel, I remembered to put the rubber band on the upper wheel. That helps get parts rounded. Pic #3 shows me using what's available to use for contouring. Pic 8 is the type of latch I'll use around the perimeter to hold the base and lid together.

 

[ckessel]

Last week I was only able to cut out and work another filler piece. My working on the car was postponed as we needed to get Rheemed. Not to be confused with reamed. LOL! In English I needed to replace our water heater. The GE unit would not stay lit, but hey, it was 12 years old. So got a new unit from Depot. The house looks like 2 story but its on a perimeter foundation with stilts and cross braces underneath in the "crawl space" which is 12' high on the north end and about 6' on the south. The access hole to the space is 26"x36", so a neighbor helped me get the new unit through the hole. All good now, have nice hot water. Man I forgot how heavy a full unit plus sediment etc can weigh. I let it drain out under the house onto the sand, we're on a massive sand dune out here and the next time its yard/garage cleanup day with the trash company, I'll drag it out from under the house. For now its out of the way.
Today I worked on the new filler piece, 3rd times the charm and got it to where I could get it tacked. After I got it tacked I noticed it had some oil can going so I put it in the shrinker and tightened it up. Next go around will be making the back filler piece/pieces. After that I'll get the vertical filler tacked on and from there start working on the firewall ducting.

 

[Kern Dog]

Nice work.
What serpentine belt setup is that? That doesn't look like a Mopar alternator!

 

[ckessel]

Got it from SD Concepts some time back. The alternator is a 94-02 Dodge truck/van/Dakota ND replacement, Sanden compressor, 99-04 or so Jeep Grand Cherokee p/s pump, S-10 tensioner and idler, Milodon straight vane pump[ because its reverse rotation]. SD made the brackets and pulleys, accessories you source but they are readily available units as opposed to Billet Specialties and some others which are proprietary/only available from them. No ffn thank you!

 

[Kern Dog]

Yeah....The drawback of some custom setup is the limited availability of replacement parts.
Holley sells a replacement front accessory drive for the 3 G Hemi swaps. it supposedly uses an alternator from the LS series Chebby...Hey, at least availability wouldn't be an issue.

 

[ckessel]

Replacement parts availability is a priority for me on several of my upgrade choices. Like the Doc's brake packages. 03-7 Stang GT. Get that stuff anywhere quick.

 

[Photon440]

we needed to get Rheemed. Not to be confused with reamed. LOL! In English I needed to replace our water heater. The GE unit would not stay lit, but hey, it was 12 years old.

My water heater stopped staying lit as well earlier this year. I replaced the thermocouple and pilot light, it was only about $40 on amazon once I found out which model to order, and took ten minutes to swap out. I don't remember the exact part but it looked like this one. www.amazon.ca/SP20075-Assembly-Replacement-Compatible-Richmond/dp/B0CHRN5JHY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1WUJK5JHCYH93&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Z7FiVgFwqAkA6xljpPrM2XBJVyskFwoaCZnsstyQjUDBCccHBMYvphjyfjMatPI_fx0HplxTPEEjgiA5TMZw-iYe_8AXk8_P3SwRNTU5thOWSWW2V9REz337Hq5CTPM31HDUGjdRwny0xk1JcKDPP03oFSXbsDg1KVW68ISSzS09RUebbSUouCfvDXBPcf1mhBp51en3_QQ23C0VzdBnvNzv-n6MYhkEpDA9XX-9WdrB-GH4VH4ChUrvOXzEzzBBBBLFQXPZjGgEShcazSWVLxZUPvEorZjHtDRnICwRUpo.Qm1zDldbrk4o4PPyqInBL4d-djV-FO1zVKnXEeiCmAM&dib_tag=se&keywords=GE+pilot+light+assembly&qid=1714439937&sprefix=ge+pilot+light+assembly%2Caps%2C140&sr=8-1

 

[ckessel]

I was thinking about replacing just that portion, I did clean it off too, but the downtime waiting for the unit, 0 hot water
and the age of it I figured time for the boot. All good for 9+ years now.