1973 Dart Sport
Worked on it on the last weekend in march. Was a long weekend, mostly full of disappointment but nothing catastrophic went wrong. Just typical engine building ****.
Friday went pretty smoothly. I mostly packed up and tried not too be pissed that the $37 exhaust elbow I bought was a 3" pipe despite being bagged and labeled as a 2.5". Made a quick trip to Advanced Auto and some time with the ole deathwheel and little welding solved the issue.
Saturday started with a leaking water pump. Turns out I didn't torque the 2 bolts behind my belt tensioners. That got fixed and then water was pouring out the back of the O-ring water neck I bought. We tried 3 different times to get it to seal before I said screw polishing this turd and bought a stock style one from Advance Auto. That seemed to be leaking from a bolt hole but after 2 more tries I saw where the water was coming from and it was a crack in the housing by the bolt. Figured that would be fixed with another trip to the store so we primed the oil pump. It started leaking behind the oil filter adapter. Made a post on a Mopar page and after a ton of useless comments on my oil filter and choices on engine paint, I found out I simply didn't torque it down enough, added some sealer to be safe.
Wasn't dead in the water until Sunday morning. I tried moving one of my power steering lines and it popped right off. It was a steel fitting with a band that crushes down on the hose. It looks like it wasn't on right so instead of crushing, it simply pushed the hose out of the fitting a bit. 2 bottles of expensive *** royal purple power steering fluid and a gallon of water were all over the engine and floor. The good news is it did finally turn over and we did finally get spark.
A friend came Sunday and gave me a positive end to a frustrating weekend. First time it's been out of the backyard in years and within an hour we had a Mopar guy stop by and check it out with his 440 6 pack Super Bee when we stopped for Lunch.
And here it is, home sweet home. It'll be little cramped but I've already started pricing some decent cordless tools and they're not too bad actually.
Worked on it on the last weekend in march. Was a long weekend, mostly full of disappointment but nothing catastrophic went wrong. Just typical engine building ****.
Friday went pretty smoothly. I mostly packed up and tried not too be pissed that the $37 exhaust elbow I bought was a 3" pipe despite being bagged and labeled as a 2.5". Made a quick trip to Advanced Auto and some time with the ole deathwheel and little welding solved the issue.
Saturday started with a leaking water pump. Turns out I didn't torque the 2 bolts behind my belt tensioners. That got fixed and then water was pouring out the back of the O-ring water neck I bought. We tried 3 different times to get it to seal before I said screw polishing this turd and bought a stock style one from Advance Auto. That seemed to be leaking from a bolt hole but after 2 more tries I saw where the water was coming from and it was a crack in the housing by the bolt. Figured that would be fixed with another trip to the store so we primed the oil pump. It started leaking behind the oil filter adapter. Made a post on a Mopar page and after a ton of useless comments on my oil filter and choices on engine paint, I found out I simply didn't torque it down enough, added some sealer to be safe.
Wasn't dead in the water until Sunday morning. I tried moving one of my power steering lines and it popped right off. It was a steel fitting with a band that crushes down on the hose. It looks like it wasn't on right so instead of crushing, it simply pushed the hose out of the fitting a bit. 2 bottles of expensive *** royal purple power steering fluid and a gallon of water were all over the engine and floor. The good news is it did finally turn over and we did finally get spark.
A friend came Sunday and gave me a positive end to a frustrating weekend. First time it's been out of the backyard in years and within an hour we had a Mopar guy stop by and check it out with his 440 6 pack Super Bee when we stopped for Lunch.
And here it is, home sweet home. It'll be little cramped but I've already started pricing some decent cordless tools and they're not too bad actually.
