Project- Bills Buggy

So... Yesterday was an eventful day.. A week after the dueling A-body race between myself and mr. b, I started yesterday off early in the morning pulling the buggy out of the garage and backing it in alongside mr. b's garage and parking it (operative phrase being 'backed it in') .. this way would get my 'new' 360 that I picked up a few months back loaded up to take to my buddy Ed's shop so we could tear into it.. see how it looked inside, what all mods we could see.. (Since the guy I got it off of couldnt remembr all the details of what he had done to it years ago).

So we got it partially torn down, as I said just for initial inspection.. Its a very early 360.. 71 was the first year for them to my knowledge, the casting date on the block is 6-2-70 .. It has J-heads.. it was nice and clean inside (a very minor amount of rust in a couple cylinders from it sitting all this time that will need cleaned up).. its 30 over, newer lifters, the cam has a 417 lift.. So that was sort of a bummer..(but Ed already has cam plans in mind LOL). had a Edlebrock torker 340 intake (which I am not going to use in case anyones looking for one of those).. all in things looked good, and I am excited that we will be building this over the winter.. New motor goes in this spring..

I leave Ed's, go back to mr, b's to fetch the Dart.. Was going to take it home and give her a bath as we had some car show plans for the evening, however the weather started to look ugly so I decided to put the car away.. in the meantime a bunch of leaves and stuff had fallen on it, so I figured a nice (and quick) spirited ride around town was in order to blow all the crap off before I parked her... The ride was all of 5 minutes.. and fun... pulled around to the garage where I keep her, got out, opened the garage door.. get back in, put the buggy in reverse... nothing... no reverse.. its as if it isnt even there.. Goes into drive, goes into nuetral and park.. but reverse... nothing... Bob (mr b) told me thats common in the 727's... they get up there mileage wise (this one has close to 100,000 miles on it) and the reverse band breaks.. no warnings..

So... we pushed it into the garage.. Despite the fact that I can still drive it (forward anyways) I am thinking being that its October already, that the season just ended for the Dart.. I have another tranny, which I got with the new 360, but I want to send it out to be gone through, and I dont see the point in yanking my current tranny out to be fixed, when the motor is coming out in the spring anyways.. No sense pulling things twice..

Im not bummed or anything, this has been a great season with the buggy, and I have had loads of fun... Im just thankful it broke where it did LOL .. Now the next chapter in project Bills Buggy begins.. next season, it will be the new 360 (details on that to come), 727, full manual shift (forward pattern) with a a stall speed converter somewhere in the 3000-3200 range, and since the rear end needs looked into I am going from 3.55's to 3.91's... She ought to be pretty spunky next year.. LOL Stay tuned gang..

Heres a quick shot of the motor once we started tearing into it...