Deathtrap, My 74 Plymouth Scamp

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FragginDale

Well-Known Member
Joined
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Location
Tacoma, WA
Hello everyone
My name is Jeremy and I've been cruising this site for awhile now and I figured it's time to introduce myself and my project. I have a 1974 Plymouth Scamp I picked up right after graduating in 2015. I was driving to college and kept seeing this old car sitting in a driveway so one day with time to kill I stopped and found that it had a for sale sign in it. It looked a little rough but there was a drag racing sticker from 97 in the window, that got my attention. The year I was born somebody was racing this car! I got super excited and called my uncle for some help. I had no idea what I was looking at so I got him to help. (My uncle has been racing amd building mopars for years at Woodburn Dragstrip) He came on out and took a look at it with me and decided that it was a good start. So I bartered with the seller and ended up picking it up for $800. I got it home washed it and started to figure out what I needed to do. The interior floor pan and headliner were covered in surface rust. So out came the little interior and i got to work. I sanded down everything to remove all the surface rust and then I coated it with some rustleom rust preventer and then a brown paint. The only other rust issue at this point was the trunk. The spare wheel well was shot and had a hole in it, but that wasn't important at the time so I left it. I got a new altenator, regulator and ignition resistor and quickly had the engine running and charging. At this point it became my daily driver. The car had a 318 at the time and my way to town was a 3 mile road that had an overpass. I soon learned that this 318 wasn't stock. I figured I had a small camshaft in it and my 904 transmission I knew had a shift kit. I usually cruised that road at 100mph It was so much fun to drive and I am honestly amazed I never got into trouble or had any real problems! I quickly learned the gas gauge reads wrong though. Anyways at this time I was getting ready to start college and the scamps heater never did work. So I ended up trading it for a 93 Honda Accord so I could make my 20 minute drive to school easier. I regretted trading it and wished that I could get it back. Fast forward to 2016, I was doing an engine swap in my Datsun 240z and it was the swap from hell. Nothing was going right. In my frustration I hopped on Craigslist and started searching for cars. I managed to find my car!! I couldn't believe so I called the guy and the next day went to look at it. Sure enough it was my car! He had swapped in a rebuilt stock 360 and left the 904 with a shift kit, and had started some body work. I managed to strike up a deal with him and work out a deal. He still had the 318 that came in it and he sourced a 727 to go in. So I was luckily able to get those with the car but I payed wayyyy to much to get it back.
All said in done I'm so happy to have the car back. When I got it, it had issues through. The wiring harness was pretty much shot between rats chewing on it and previous owners wiring hacks. So I ended up parking it in my shop November of 2016 and decided to rewire it completely. I had the car stripped of all wiring that month and removed some other stuff to change it a bit. Then I got busy with with college and work and it sat and sat. I would randomly go out and work on it but nothing big happened. Then I bought an EZ wiring harness and started to install it just this past month. It's been interesting since I work 6 days a week, I get home from my job as a diesel mechanic, eat dinner then work on my car for a couple hours. Although it's been slow progress has been good! My light system is all wired in and my new gauges are wired up. I got a new dash insert with autometer ultra lite gauges from fastlane west in California. I have to finish my motors wiring and install a brake booster, master cylinder, figure out mu throttle linkage, exhuast system from the headers back, a jeggs universals heater, block off the cowl fresh air port, mount my dash and install my windshield.

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gauges look tits!

the deathtrap will be DeathProof in no time. The closer you get to finishing it, the more you will kick yourself in the *** for dragging your feet on it!
 
gauges look tits!

the deathtrap will be DeathProof in no time. The closer you get to finishing it, the more you will kick yourself in the *** for dragging your feet on it!
I'm already there! This whole time I have honestly wondered why I didn't just work on it sooner!
 
Hello everyone
My name is Jeremy and I've been cruising this site for awhile now and I figured it's time to introduce myself and my project. I have a 1974 Plymouth Scamp I picked up right after graduating in 2015. I was driving to college and kept seeing this old car sitting in a driveway so one day with time to kill I stopped and found that it had a for sale sign in it. It looked a little rough but there was a drag racing sticker from 97 in the window, that got my attention. The year I was born somebody was racing this car! I got super excited and called my uncle for some help. I had no idea what I was looking at so I got him to help. (My uncle has been racing amd building mopars for years at Woodburn Dragstrip) He came on out and took a look at it with me and decided that it was a good start. So I bartered with the seller and ended up picking it up for $800. I got it home washed it and started to figure out what I needed to do. The interior floor pan and headliner were covered in surface rust. So out came the little interior and i got to work. I sanded down everything to remove all the surface rust and then I coated it with some rustleom rust preventer and then a brown paint. The only other rust issue at this point was the trunk. The spare wheel well was shot and had a hole in it, but that wasn't important at the time so I left it. I got a new altenator, regulator and ignition resistor and quickly had the engine running and charging. At this point it became my daily driver. The car had a 318 at the time and my way to town was a 3 mile road that had an overpass. I soon learned that this 318 wasn't stock. I figured I had a small camshaft in it and my 904 transmission I knew had a shift kit. I usually cruised that road at 100mph It was so much fun to drive and I am honestly amazed I never got into trouble or had any real problems! I quickly learned the gas gauge reads wrong though. Anyways at this time I was getting ready to start college and the scamps heater never did work. So I ended up trading it for a 93 Honda Accord so I could make my 20 minute drive to school easier. I regretted trading it and wished that I could get it back. Fast forward to 2016, I was doing an engine swap in my Datsun 240z and it was the swap from hell. Nothing was going right. In my frustration I hopped on Craigslist and started searching for cars. I managed to find my car!! I couldn't believe so I called the guy and the next day went to look at it. Sure enough it was my car! He had swapped in a rebuilt stock 360 and left the 904 with a shift kit, and had started some body work. I managed to strike up a deal with him and work out a deal. He still had the 318 that came in it and he sourced a 727 to go in. So I was luckily able to get those with the car but I payed wayyyy to much to get it back.
All said in done I'm so happy to have the car back. When I got it, it had issues through. The wiring harness was pretty much shot between rats chewing on it and previous owners wiring hacks. So I ended up parking it in my shop November of 2016 and decided to rewire it completely. I had the car stripped of all wiring that month and removed some other stuff to change it a bit. Then I got busy with with college and work and it sat and sat. I would randomly go out and work on it but nothing big happened. Then I bought an EZ wiring harness and started to install it just this past month. It's been interesting since I work 6 days a week, I get home from my job as a diesel mechanic, eat dinner then work on my car for a couple hours. Although it's been slow progress has been good! My light system is all wired in and my new gauges are wired up. I got a new dash insert with autometer ultra lite gauges from fastlane west in California. I have to finish my motors wiring and install a brake booster, master cylinder, figure out mu throttle linkage, exhuast system from the headers back, a jeggs universals heater, block off the cowl fresh air port, mount my dash and install my windshield.

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Looking good! Like the hood!
 
Looking good! Like the hood!
Thanks Woody'sScamp! The guy I bought it from and at first I didn't like it but now I'm digging it! Now I just gotta clean it up. He hacked the hole in the hood but that's will be gotten to when I get to drag it to work and paint it :)
 
cool story and the car looks bad with that hood ya just gotta love a scoop on a mopar
 
Got off work early today so I started to get some progress made. I took out my heater box and some other bits, thus I had holes in the fire Wall. I cut out some patches and started getting them bolted in today. Only bolt in for now once I can get it driving and running I will weld them at my work. Also decided to run electronics on the firewall to clean it up and make my engine bay neat. Also shop kitty loves to run around on my car

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Update
I got it mostly wired and the motor turns over. I'm going to have to replace my ignition switch though as I have no accesories only run and start. Doesn't seem like much but having all my lights working and the motor turning over, that's more progress than what's happened in a year! Now I just gotta finish off all my small things.

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they may look good, but as headlights, they might be less than perfect
 
They might look good, but they're not headlamps. They're headlite-shaped trinkets from China. You don't have to pick either/or; there are headlamps that look sweet and work great. They cost more than the trinkets, but less than a crash resulting from using the trinkets. See here.
 
They might look good, but they're not headlamps. They're headlite-shaped trinkets from China. You don't have to pick either/or; there are headlamps that look sweet and work great. They cost more than the trinkets, but less than a crash resulting from using the trinkets. See here.
They came already on the car. I read your post and it's a ton of good info! I will look into getting something more road worthy.
 
So it's been a bit since I have worked on the car. I've been trying to figure out my wiper switch and I have no idea how it's supposed to be wired. I have a 3 speed wiper motor part number 3431905 and my switch part number is 3488764. Off my wiper motor I have a red wire, dk blue wire, dk green wire, and brown. These are hooked up accordingly to the switch and pink is my main power supply. When I hook it up to the switch I turn it on and it only has one speed then when I try to turn it off it just slowly rotates. I've tried following the wiring diagram I had which is for a 74 Dart and I can't figure it honestly. Any help would be appreciated

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Well My wiper Switch was an easy fix. Turns out it was just a bad ground. I have swapped the ignition over to a Freightliner switch and push to start button. It seemed easy to do but I have some chasing to do. With the original switch I have no power going to my coil on run, only when cranking. Same with the new Freightliner Parts. SO tomorrow I will be checking grounds on the ECU. My wiring harness is from EZ wiring and I have done everything according to the diagrams I was given, But if I keep having problems I'm going to just cut it and rewire it with my original diagram. We shall see. Next update will have photos! I'm at the point where I just need to get the engine wiring figured out so I can start it.
 
do you have the right plug/ignition box?
 
you are modding the whole thing, why night just go to HEI?
 
do you have the right plug/ignition box?
I pulled it apart last night and the ECU is a 4 pin but has a 5 pin plug in it. So I will run into NAPA today and get myself a new one. As for going to HEI that's going to wait. My current goal is to have it driving in 1 week so I can park my motorcycle for the winter. This spring once it's nice enough I'm going over to 1 wire alt and installing MSD ignition parts. But that's a bit out, so this winter I'm going to do bodywork and get it painted and work on finishing the 318 I've started building.
 
I suggest a Denso vs the 1-wire, and converting to a 4-pin HEI module with an e-core coil is easier than putting in a tank of gas, and probably costs less
 
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