65 Barracuda daily driver
Finally got a ton of work done! First, I painted the dash and installed the brand new instrument cluster bezel! I still have to redo the the glove box- it came out weird. Maybe because I painted it at night and it was too cold.
That all was the easy part... Next I put new bushings and ball joints in a pair of upper control arms that I had laying around. I got one ball joint out myself and I had to take the other one to a machine shop, because it didn't want to come out.
Once I had the strut rods out, I looked at the mounting holes in the k-frame and they were sooooo bad. Like I mentioned before, a repair welded in a piece on each side, because they were broken out (see pictures somewhere above). They did such a butcher job though. And the worst part was that they put in the metal cups of the strut rod bushings in backwards, which caused the driver side strut rod to break and the other one was severely bent... Well, I had a nice, powdercoated k-frame sitting around, that I bought at a swap meet a couple of years ago. I just had no idea, how to get it in, without taking the engine out. But once I had most of the suspension out, it actually looked doable. I secured the engine with a wooden beam from inner fender to inner fender and then a jack under the oil pan and tried, if the frame mounting bolts would even come out and they did! The leaning tower of power unfortunately started leaning a little bit to the passenger side, but that was not a big deal. I bolted it in and was very happy about that!!!
Then I installed control arms and the QA1 adjustable strut rods, replaced the brake shoes and put everything back together, torqued it to spec and lubed the new ball joints.
The alignment is really bad, even though I took pictures of the control arm positions and marked the ride height adjuster. Well there is a tire shop two minutes from my house and I was going to get two new tires for the front (they are pretty bad due to the bad alignment before) and an alignment. Well, they didn't have the tires I wanted and they said they their equipment wouldn't work on a car this old... I went back home and called a couple of places and it was the same story. Then I remember this repair shop across the street from where I used to work that always had a bunch of old mopars parked outside. They worked on my '71 Beetle about ten years ago and they did a good job. So I called them up and the owner told me he had a '65 Barracuda himself and he would do the alignment. He didn't have the tires, but I was able to order them online and they should be here within one or two days. I'm still debating whether I should get the car towed there or if I should drive there slowly. It's about 4 miles from my house. Maybe I can get the alignment at least little bit closer.
Anyways, next up is installing the new carpet and I'm supposed to get the new seat covers and foam in about a week. Then come the door panels and and the metal and plastic panels that go around the windows that I still need to paint.
On the mechanical side, I need to replace the fusible link (slack joint) and install the lokar kickdown cable. Since I bought the car, there always just been a piece of wire that is in one position and it kind of works, but I have to shift down manually and it's bad for the transmission. It's a super six, so the original linkage does not work. I still want to figure out a way to use the original gas pedal that I found in the trunk when I bought the car. I don't like the later model one that's in there currently, but it work with a cable instead of a rod.
Then it's time for a road trip!
Finally got a ton of work done! First, I painted the dash and installed the brand new instrument cluster bezel! I still have to redo the the glove box- it came out weird. Maybe because I painted it at night and it was too cold.
That all was the easy part... Next I put new bushings and ball joints in a pair of upper control arms that I had laying around. I got one ball joint out myself and I had to take the other one to a machine shop, because it didn't want to come out.
Once I had the strut rods out, I looked at the mounting holes in the k-frame and they were sooooo bad. Like I mentioned before, a repair welded in a piece on each side, because they were broken out (see pictures somewhere above). They did such a butcher job though. And the worst part was that they put in the metal cups of the strut rod bushings in backwards, which caused the driver side strut rod to break and the other one was severely bent... Well, I had a nice, powdercoated k-frame sitting around, that I bought at a swap meet a couple of years ago. I just had no idea, how to get it in, without taking the engine out. But once I had most of the suspension out, it actually looked doable. I secured the engine with a wooden beam from inner fender to inner fender and then a jack under the oil pan and tried, if the frame mounting bolts would even come out and they did! The leaning tower of power unfortunately started leaning a little bit to the passenger side, but that was not a big deal. I bolted it in and was very happy about that!!!
Then I installed control arms and the QA1 adjustable strut rods, replaced the brake shoes and put everything back together, torqued it to spec and lubed the new ball joints.
The alignment is really bad, even though I took pictures of the control arm positions and marked the ride height adjuster. Well there is a tire shop two minutes from my house and I was going to get two new tires for the front (they are pretty bad due to the bad alignment before) and an alignment. Well, they didn't have the tires I wanted and they said they their equipment wouldn't work on a car this old... I went back home and called a couple of places and it was the same story. Then I remember this repair shop across the street from where I used to work that always had a bunch of old mopars parked outside. They worked on my '71 Beetle about ten years ago and they did a good job. So I called them up and the owner told me he had a '65 Barracuda himself and he would do the alignment. He didn't have the tires, but I was able to order them online and they should be here within one or two days. I'm still debating whether I should get the car towed there or if I should drive there slowly. It's about 4 miles from my house. Maybe I can get the alignment at least little bit closer.
Anyways, next up is installing the new carpet and I'm supposed to get the new seat covers and foam in about a week. Then come the door panels and and the metal and plastic panels that go around the windows that I still need to paint.
On the mechanical side, I need to replace the fusible link (slack joint) and install the lokar kickdown cable. Since I bought the car, there always just been a piece of wire that is in one position and it kind of works, but I have to shift down manually and it's bad for the transmission. It's a super six, so the original linkage does not work. I still want to figure out a way to use the original gas pedal that I found in the trunk when I bought the car. I don't like the later model one that's in there currently, but it work with a cable instead of a rod.
Then it's time for a road trip!
