Shae's '68 NB Fish

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xlexl

xlexl

Well-Known Member
Joined
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Location
Graham, WA
Well it took way too long to start, but finally on it. Seemed like every time i wanted to start on it all hell would break loose. First it was coming back from this last deployment and finding out that the person who was supposed to paying my bills didn't and everything was in collections. Than it was my roomate not being able to pay his half of the bills. Than my friggn truck, my pride and joy, was stolen out of my driveway. Kicked roomate out and had to find new ones....well anyway it was one thing after another and end state is finally starting on it.

First up is the cluster **** thats supposed to pass as "wiring" since i'm getting out of the army and on a budget, no painless wiring system for me, have to do this the hard way went to home depot and picked up a bunch of 14ga wire, shrink tube, and corrugated tube for running wire.

After unwrapping everything it went from bad to worse, I now have a list of more stuff to try and order tonight. Firewall wire block...anyone have any idea of where i can order a replacement?

Ok so here are the car **** pix. Outside and inside was taken earlier, took a couple of engine bay tonight when i pulled it into the garage.

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you got a 67' burled walnut dash inset; rare and nobody reproduces them.
 
jaxle said:
you got a 67' burled walnut dash inset; rare and nobody reproduces them.
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Good to know, wondered where that came from. Iv'e got 2 other gauge clusters in various forms of disrepair in the trunk.
 
Ok so just woke up, waiting for my coffee, and thankfully no more hangover (damn xmas parties). So hopefully get more done today than yesterday.

Plan for today is to empty out trunk, pull seats out and run a good Hot wire from trunk mounted battery. One that hasn't been spliced and pigtailed off of 8 different times.

Also may relocate battery shutoff from bumper mounted position to inside trunk, since this car will never see sub 10's and not being set up as a drag car anyway. The shut off may as well get used as an anti-theft device.
 
Wow! I wish all my projects started out in the shape this one is in! Perhaps some one here can help you out with that crimped up piece of trunk trim that has a notch jabbed in it?
 
NukeSec1 said:
Wow! I wish all my projects started out in the shape this one is in! Perhaps some one here can help you out with that crimped up piece of trunk trim that has a notch jabbed in it?
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I hope so, that's going to be one of the few hard to find, high dollar, pieces that I have to track down.
 
Ok, so more pictures of how bad the wiring was first.

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Don't have pictures of trunk yet because haven't done much but rip out old unnecessary botched wiring...but here's how under the hood is coming

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Slightly modified the way that it's supposed to be ran, the reason is my abhorrence of splicing wires together and the fact that the battery is located in the trunk. Basically I treated the battery cable like a trunk line, like I would set up a network. I used 2 distribution box's to do it. The first one takes the 2ga trunk line and necks it down to 2 4ga, one is running to the starter relay and than the starter. The second runs to the second distribution box that necks it down to 4 8ga+ slots. My firewall Bulk head connector isn't in the kind of shape I feel comfortable with keeping in the loop. So today I ordered 3 12pin quick connect Painless connectors, which will be in tomorrow morning. Gives me plenty of slots for expansion, but the main reason was because they didn't have 8pin, but the 12pin still has row's of 4 so I can keep the wires in stock positions for future diagnostic reasons.
 
Ok finally got her rewired, charging and working...FINALLY. Not too bad got vast majority of it right didn't know about grounding the VR, and had a good life lesson of the correlation between cold cranking amps, and starter draw...anyway going back out to tiddy things up ill post pictures from the last couple days tonight.
 
Ok got her all wrapped up nice and tiddy :-D have to give my self kudos...I kick ***...LOL

I should probably start working on working neater...lol had wires all over the floor too

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This is the panel I made to replace the bulk head connector I removed...it's now wrinkle black with a grommet and the wires running through it.

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And the final product..

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Looked back at my original pictures before I started, doesn't even look the same, great feeling.

Still have to pick up a new hi/low switch found it was broken but everything is running and charging great now.

Yes that is a Ford MSD Blaster Coil lol...needed to get rid of the stone age Mallory that was on there. Had given my brother a new coil for his Fox body as a birthday gift so swiped his old one, custom made a bracket for it and slapped her it...it'll work until I feel the need to spend the money to replace it.
 
The burlwood dash pieces are reproduced by pg classics Doesn't look like you need new anyway. The 68 trunk trim can be substituted with a piece of plastic trim ( belt molding ) found on a silverado pick up truck. It don't match perfect but don't look bad either for the price. First time I saw it used was on the 68 hemi under glass car.
 
interesting fact redfish thanks for the heads up have to look into it, great idea.

So finally got around to registering her today...only cost 68 bucks tax title and licence lol...less than half it cost for the POS I picked up lol.

Took her out driving today it was wonderful! still grinning...picked up all the gaskets and stuff to service it, being a bum tonight start back in on it tomarrow.
 
Just went through carb, really need to track down a new intake manifold the Streetmaster on there has 0 throttle response. Found a good use for my dining room table finally, carb rebuilds...was feeling like a pansy and didn't feel like rebuilding it in the 30deg garage so brought it inside..

Currently not spending a slew of money on it, just driving and enjoying it when weather permits. Trying to get together a grand to go pick up a rolling '67 body thats rust free and only has minor prep work to be done before paint. The plan is to hopefully nab it before someone else does pull it into the garage, tub it, do the modifications for the exhaust i'm going to do and send it to a buddy of mine who owes me a slew of money and have him paint it.
 
Not sure why I keep updating this...ahh well atleast I have a running chronological note of the car. Still waiting on W2, pretty sure thats going to pay for the chassy in OR.

Rebuilt carb this weekend...the more I do on this car the more i realize how ghetto rigged it was. Timing was advanced to about 50deg, apparently as a quick fix to get it running without fiddling with the carb. got carb adjusted-ish starts up nice now, runs nice...once it gets past a dead spot right off of idle...still working on tracking that problem down, have a feeling it has to do with the distributer however. When checking the timing and adjusting it, noticed that it wasn't adjusting with throttle smoothly, in fact wasn't even smooth at idle. Going to pull apart distributer tomorrow and see if I can clean it up and find out if theres a problem.

while cruising get small backfires through the exhaust with neg exhaust pressure, hoping thats related to timing...last 2 cold starts its started up right away as per normal but has ran like dog crap until it warms up...sounds like its missing out of 2 cylinders...also hoping thats related to timing...

anyway keep yall posted, feel free to throw some ideas out there...seems like everything i do reveals atleast a couple more problems...
 
Talked for a long time with Mr Hemi on here have some more ideas now to try with the distributer and tuning it in, still has it's dead spot.

My '68 is becoming a '67 Just called the guy in OR yesterday and told him I was going to pick up his shell this weekend, which means i'll be posting more pix lol.

It also means that this thread is going from running/driving aspect, flipping a 180 and going straight to finish body work and paint.

All the sheet metal work and rough prep has been done for paint, and frankly its the only way ill be able to afford to do the body work on mine for a long time, so even though I really should spend the money on some other things, i'm not passing this deal up. 1k gets me the rolling shell with 9" Crager classics on it.
 
I also have fenderwell hedders,I ran my wiring from the bulkhead down the firewall,along the engine and out the front left where my battery box used to be.The heat from your hedders is gonna give you future problems.Just a heads up.
 
There is a lot more room in between the headers and the wiring now, those pix were pre-completed project.

Crap I need to figure out what i'm going to do for headers.....not cutting up the '67s pretty inner fenders.....I have a feeling this is what this swap over is going to be like the entire time....
 
So....my '68 is morphing to a '678
Yup thats right picked up the shell today...LONG day but well worth it, fiasco getting it but the cheapest way to do my body work for sure
without further ado ill let the pictures speak for themselves.
Next up everyones favorite part of restoration, paint and body, and i'm on a time crunch so keep your eyes peeled for plenty of updates now.

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Interesting new development, pulling all the parts out of the inside that I had to tie down. All sorts of odds and ends goodies....new gas tank with metal lines, new hood hinges and springs, and odd enough a mopar go wing in fantastic shape, minus one mounting braket....unless they only had one mount...not that familiar with them honestly. one bracket 2 end pieces and the wing.

front disk brake conversion already so I guess the one ive got in a tuff box can go to a good home. Still have to measure the bolt pattern to see if its small or big, I think big...since my 68 has both of them lol it seems to match the rear big bolt pattern look better than the front.
 
unknownsnake said:
good looking fish
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Thank you Unknownsnake, this shell is really going to make a huge difference for me. It was nice being able to drive my '68 but the holes in the floor pans really put a damper on doing up the interior nice, and the body outside was shot. About the only thing that ive had to work on that wasn't big bucks to this point was the motor.
 
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Ok so here we go, updates....
Disclaimer: i'm half a bottle of a jack deep...

First off after a month of scratching every inch of my body i finally lost it, broke down, and listened to my friends and went to the doctors... apparently the army gave me 1 last FU before leaving, they gave me scabees which triggered a previously dormant seriuses(since 5th grade, im 28...) though im sure the current stress i'm going through compounded it.

First off prepping the garage to be turned into a paint and body shop/spray booth
my spare bedroom which im supposed to be having someone move into soon looks like it came off of the show "hoarders" Everything in the garage that I dont want over spray on or infecting my sterile environment went into it....
Next up, much to the dismay of my landlord, my bike got moved into the living room :-D

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Really, shes fine with it, she knows im anal retentive in how clean I like my house.
Next up Degreesing the previous wrenching garage into a sterile environment,

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Next up I let my Kerosene forced air heater dry everything up, helped the neighbors jump theyre neon (theyre trying to sell it) ate pizza proceeded to get **** faced off jack and mountain dew (yes its better than jack and coke) than pull in the Fish (the '67 not '68) and start.

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Not done yet...have to pick up another bottle tomorrow to finish
 
HemiDenny said:
of "jack" or rust treatment?.....
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Both, lol, my roomate is on his way to Verizon because his phone crapped the bed today. Than off to drop his Mach 1 back in storage so the garage goes back to being sterile, and I go back to having room to work on her, figured we'd kill 2 birds with one stone, drop off the Mach and pick up Rust Treatment, Jack, and run to the dump...ok thats more than 2 birds...more like taking down a Flock with an open choke shotty....

Btw Just checked out your thread...thouroly impressed will be giving you :thumblef: on it shortly.
 
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