67/68/69 cuda dilemma

[moparmat2000]

I have a set of 1992 dakota V8 lines but they route up high on the block instead of along the oil pan. They just sit really wrong looking for me. So I went on a junkyard hunt today. A 1999 Ram B350 van gave up its transmission lines. I plan on using AN-6 fittings and braded line at the front going to the trans fluid thermostat. Then I will run hard line from there to the front mounted cooler. After I cleaned em up and blew em out with alcohol and compressed air I mocked them up. The rear one just about fell into place. The FWD line needed a little more careful tweaking to fit at the transmission end. I went with the 99 model van because at the front on this van, the one line doesnt make a hard 90° right turn under the balancer, and I needed them to come out for the most part straight at the front. I even grabbed the dandy line mounting brackets. 5th pic shows them with the stock bends in the front. The last pic you can see where I straightened the tubes and cut them even. Finding a set of almost straight bolt in lines was bothering me. I'm pretty happy i found what I did, and with the results. Heres pix.

 

[moparmat2000]

Part of my mock up is to figure out how I want to route these lines past the power steering pump. So I bolted it up. The water pump, the pulleys and brackets i will use are all 1974 vintage off a 74 dart. The pump pressure side hose hits the LH motor mount support on the K frame.

I come to find out after looking at a bunch of hoses on rock auto, that the hose on my power steering pump is a 76 Aspen/Volare V8 hose for a car with air pump. This seems to fit the best off the back of the pump. I will cut and mod the K frame hopefully making it look like a factory deal so the hose fits. You can see the silver sharpie for the proposed cut and reweld. It may not end up being that drastic depending how the new hose fits in the back of the pump.

On the steering box end, normally the fitting is a male, and the hose has a female fitting. That was changed around 1973. My box was rebuilt awhile ago, and had a tag stuck on it as such. It's a 67-72 small sector shaft box, but the rebuilder must have put a 73 up valve head on it, with an adaptor to use a 67-72 hose. I spun that off and my male threaded volare hose threaded right in.

Better to figure out all this **** now before it's all rebuilt, cleaned and painted.

 

[moparmat2000]

Cooler and cooler thermostat showed up. I finally took the time to order all the AN-6 fittings, hoses etc. for the flex lines from the front of the engine to the LH framerail. All that should be here on tuesday next week. I am still mocking this up, however the bracket offered seperately for the cooler thermostat seemed a bit weak looking, so i ordered it without the mount bracket. I made my own out of 11 gage 2x3 tube. More to go on this, but heres pix so far. Note the cheezy bracket in the last pic. Only $12 through summit, as thin as it appears, but I picture it eventually cracking at the mount tabs.

 

[moparmat2000]

A bit more today. I had an old steel shelf that was made out of 16 gage steel. Perfect for brackets. I also drilled out the LH side of the radiator support to mate up with the trans cooler thermostat and lines I intend to run. I have 4 inches from the front of the cooler to the sheetmetal edge of the grille header. Hope it's going to be enough.

 

[JDMopar]

Looks good Matt. Last few cars I've done, I mount a stacked plate cooler just about like the one above, and mount it solid like you did. Then I buy 2 bulkhead fittings to mount to the radiator support, and run hard lines from the cooler to them, and then from the engine compartment side....down the frame rail behind the steering box, and stop them on the frame rail even with the fittings on the transmission. Then I get some steel braided lines made to go over from the hard lines to the transmission fittings. The braided lines provide the needed flex, heat protection from exhaust, and they are up against the floor pan out of the way. You also don't have to wrestle with them if you need to replace a starter. Kind of a simplified explanation, but it works slicker'n cat poop on linoleum! I'm gonna do the lines on my 65 Barracuda project that way.

 

[moparmat2000]

JDMopar, sounds like a great idea. I'm going to use the ramvan lines I picked up that route alongside the oil pan. I will route a short set of AN-6 hoses and fittings to the trans cooler thermostat that i will be mounting on the LH framerail. Will be using 68 340 exhaust manifolds and a mini denso starter. This should provide enough room if the starter ever needs to come out.

 

[famous bob]

I am also mocking up the transmission cooler. Specced a Derale 17 row plate/fin cooler. Will have to plumb it in as a stand alone with a trans cooler thermostat since the 42RH uses 3/8" lines. Going to hit the wrecking yard for a set of 3/8" trans lines off a 1990-1992 V8 ram van . I scoped out the wrecking yard today and found 2 candidates I can pull em from. I used the dimensions at the Derale website to make a cardboard mockup to figure how I want to mount the cooler, and to be sure I have enough room to fit it since i havent ordered it yet. Also plan on using a 69 camaro Z/28 chin spoiler as others here have done. This will help air flow through the cooler and radiator.

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Let us know how the camaro spoiler fits the barracuda , I`ve been thinking about the same thing------bob

 

[moparmat2000]

Let us know how the camaro spoiler fits the barracuda , I`ve been thinking about the same thing------bob

Will do. I havent ordered one yet, but plan to.

 

[moparmat2000]

Back to the power steering pump hitting the K frame. I did a little K frame surgery to move the front part of the LH mount tower back. I did not have to add any metal to it aside from welding wire lol. I just made cuts and worked the steel to where I could nicely weld it up, and grind it smooth to create some room for the 73- up pump, and brackets to work.

 

[moparmat2000]

Decided to flare the van transmission lines for the fittings today, and mock up everything some more. I have Goodridge stainless/black nylon braded hose I will be using. I still have to make up the braded hoses. Also starting on plumbing the hard lines from the cooler. Holes in the radiator support will need to be made bigger for the AN6 nuts to fit.

 

[340mouse]

Part of my mock up is to figure out how I want to route these lines past the power steering pump. So I bolted it up. The water pump, the pulleys and brackets i will use are all 1974 vintage off a 74 dart. The pump pressure side hose hits the LH motor mount support on the K frame.

I come to find out after looking at a bunch of hoses on rock auto, that the hose on my power steering pump is a 76 Aspen/Volare V8 hose for a car with air pump. This seems to fit the best off the back of the pump. I will cut and mod the K frame hopefully making it look like a factory deal so the hose fits. You can see the silver sharpie for the proposed cut and reweld. It may not end up being that drastic depending how the new hose fits in the back of the pump.

On the steering box end, normally the fitting is a male, and the hose has a female fitting. That was changed around 1973. My box was rebuilt awhile ago, and had a tag stuck on it as such. It's a 67-72 small sector shaft box, but the rebuilder must have put a 73 up valve head on it, with an adaptor to use a 67-72 hose. I spun that off and my male threaded volare hose threaded right in.

Better to figure out all this **** now before it's all rebuilt, cleaned and painted.

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I think that adapter is what I need to put PS on my 383 68 Cuda.

 

[moparmat2000]

With a little time at my disposal today, I finally cut my braded hose down and installed it on the hose ends. I use a piece of tape on the hose after threading the female end on all the way. This way when I assemble the fittings I can see if the hose is trying to push out. The lower line actually sits slightly higher than the K frame at the lines lowest point. A couple drops of oil on everything, and these fittings and hoses spin right together. Theres actually about 2" of clearance between the PS pump belt and the upper line. That's plenty. If I decide later that it's too close, i can fabricate a metal plate that bolts on to shield the hoses from a power steering belt failure. I decided to countersink 2 of the thermostat mounting holes, since the bracket will fit tightly against the framerail, and button head screws in this spot will hit the frame rail overlapped flange.

 

[mygasser]

that all looks very professional

 

[moparmat2000]

Thanks Neil. This small stuff is very time consuming to "get it right" just to have to pull it all back off, and stick it in a labelled box for later. I farted around with the hoses, and then the hard line at the cooler for hours to "get it right". But I can rest easy now knowing I can move on to the next thing knowing that when the time comes, this part will all be a straight up bolt together affair.

I needed to get this all done, because the block is going to the machine shop first week in june, and everything is getting pulled off the dolley. When it gets back home, it's going on a build up stand, and the trans will be back on a wooden movers dolley. I will be finishing up my subframe connector install, then onto likely the floor pan install next.

 

[moparmat2000]

Heres better pix, and more pix. My advice if your going to flare 37° hard line, buy a Ridgid 37° flare tool. I had none that were defects. The T handle has a built in breakaway. Set the tube flush with the top of the hole, clamp, tighten it till it gives, then untighten it, and viola, perfect flare. I had a couple issues figuring a double bend. Made a bend guide and used that to figure the start of each bend. In the end it was 4 tries to get that one right. Glad I stuck to it. Another trick is to fill the tube your bending full with sand, tamp it down tight, and cap both ends prior to bending the tube. This is old skool mandrel bending and prevents the tube from crushing, linking and flattening in the bender. Dont forget to blow out all the sand when done.

In these pix, you can see why I installed the countersink fasteners. I could have cut u shaped notches in the framerail flange to access the screws, but I thought it would look kinda hokey. Bracket is only in place with a C clamp holding it. All that's left is to drill holes in the bracket and install riv nuts onto the framerail to mount it, but that's for another set of pix.

 

[moparmat2000]

I may start up an A500-A518 fab and mechanical install thread with all these pix as a way to help others wade through the waters with this. I know theres several of these threads, but theres lots of different ways to go to doing this. I added my own ideas, and modified ideas from other members to come up with what I have.

 

[moparmat2000]

Got the mounting for the trans fluid thermostat fabbed up. Time to take all this apart, box it up, and store it away for final assembly years from now lol. I have a riv nut puller that has helped me out of a jam quite a few times. This is no exception. I install riv nuts wet with a little JB weld, then squeeze them in to help prevent moisture from getting between the riv nut and the hole it's going into. Especially being that it's under the battery tray location. Heres pix

 

[moparmat2000]

The "free eighteen" short block and rotating assy is at the machine shop. My machinest is a little backed up with a few jobs ahead of mine, so it will be a couple weeks. They are going to remove all the oil plugs, and the bock is going into the vat to clean it today.

 

[moparmat2000]

My 3 day weekend started yaaaay. Time out for a Mopar Buddy power pizza dinner.

 

[Dave 74 Dart]

Nice !! That sir is what it's all about. Pizza, mopars and hanging out with the family.

 

[moparmat2000]

Haters dont be hating. I got these 68-71 340 exhaust manifolds. The intake we will use has no heat crossover so a flapper is useless, plus we may eventually go EFI down the road. Drilled them with a 7/16" unibit drill, tapped with a 1/4" pipe tap, and put stainless pipe plugs in. This idea may also be a good way to repair damaged heat riser flap holes. Tap with a pipe tap, put brass pipe plugs in, then bore the pipe plugs back out to turn them into bushings for a new heat riser flap.

 

[JDMopar]

That's a good mod! Last set of 340 HP's I did that to, I had a guy at a machine shop make me 2 plugs with the OD the same as the OD of the bushing the flapper shaft turns in. Pressed the bushings out, and the plugs back in with a big C clamp!

 

[mygasser]

if you go efi later those threaded holes may be of use for lambda sensors too
neil.

 

[moparmat2000]

I was thinking drill and tap oversize for an O2 sensor in the one that faces out.

 

[moparmat2000]

Not a whole lot to report. Busied myself this past weekend redoing the front end on my wifes van that got wrecked back in february. I did get some parts cleaned and painted though. Sandblasted and painted these pulleys I got from monkeymadness i think 2 years ago.

Engine block is at machine shop. Should have it back this coming week. Only things i have left to really clean up for this engine build is a set of valve covers, and exhaust manifolds. I used duplicolor engine primer and paint. The primer lays on well. The gloss black you have to do several coats and keep it wet enough that it doesnt dry line. Good enough.

Temps are starting to climb just in time for summer. Last week it hit 99°F. Hard to believe only 5 months ago in february we almost froze to death with minus 8°F. I think my summer gameplan since I am now off Thursdays thru Saturdays for my weekends will be to go out there in the mornings get stuff done, and knock off around noon