1966 Barracuda-Round 2

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Dan Webb

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Joined
Jun 2, 2019
Messages
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Location
Texas
I found this site recently and after seeing all of the good information, decided to join in and I'm finally getting around to posting.
I have a 1966 Barracuda with what I think is a cool story.
The car was purchased new by my grandparents in 1967 in Montgomery, AL. My mom brought it to Dallas when she moved here shortly after that. My parents drove it until about 1979 and then parked it at our family place in Arkansas where it sat under the pine trees for about 7 years. We brought the car back to Dallas and my dad and I got it running but not much more. I drove it as my car in high school and then did a semi-restoration by rebuilding the engine, front end, and paint and body work. I did this with the help of an old hot rodder but a lot of it I did by myself using trial and error (as the body work shows). Back then we build the engine to be a bit more lively than the Formula S specs. The car was originally a 273 2 barrel car. Fast forward to around 2000, the car hadn't run since around 1997 and with adult life and kids on the horizon, the car was an afterthought, so back to Arkansas it went, this time inside a shop though. The car sat until this past November when my youngest son, who is 15, convinced me to go get it. He inherited my motorhead gene and loves cars. We brought it back to Texas and had it running by New Years. After some tinkering with the engine, while we prepared to do a disc brake swap, we had a intake and head gasket failure and the original 273 was hurt. We pulled it and were going to build it again until my son acquired a 360 out of a 1990 Dodge van. The engine was original with less than 60k miles. We have had it built to be a fairly mild street engine with good sound. It's ready to go back in
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and the brake swap and front end rebuild are progressing, although slowly. My son also got an 8.25 rear end out of a 94 Jeep Cherokee to replace the weak original 7.25. We're going to need some advice on how to make that work though. We'll be going with an original set of 15" Rallye wheels this time around.
Overall this is a fun project to do with my son because it's something I did with my dad. For me it's all about making good memories, and of course instilling the love for this old A body Mopar!
 
Awesome story of a car now in the 4th generation of the same family.

Welcome!
 
Wow! Thanks for telling the great story of your car. That's what this car hobby is all about. :thumbsup:

Welcome to FABO! Where in Arkansas? I found my current wife in Cabot, Arkansas. She grew up in Benton.
 
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Wow! Thanks for telling the great story of your car. That's what this car hobby is all about. :thumbsup:

Welcome to FABO! Where in Arkansas? I found my current wife in Cabot, Arkansas. She grew up in Benton.
It was stored outside of Wickes, a little town in SW Arkansas.
 
Welcome to FABO. Great looking Barracuda and cool story.
 
Nice looking 66 Barracuda it's my second favorite year after 65. Be careful with pudding the 360 from the van into your car because it was an externally balanced engine balanced on the torque converter. Unfortunately the 360 torque converter will not work in your original transmission. If you did not have the 360 internally balanced then you're going to have to use a special torque converter made for your application. You also have to modify the passenger side motor mount from the 273 to make it work on the 360. A little welding is involved there. The exhaust manifolds from the 273 will have to be used on the 360.
Also I don't believe a stock 15 inch wheel will work on the front end of that car because of Fender clearance in front of the tire unless you modify the fender of course. It also me rub on the frame when turning the wheel all the way to the left or right. He might have to do 14s on the front and 15s on the back unless you use a very short profile Tire. A dual Reservoir master cylinder should be in order too to upgrade your braking system. When you change to the 8.25 rear end you're going to have to shorten the drive shaft a little bit or the yolk of the drive shaft will bottom out and the transmission. I am sure there's other things that I haven't thought about yet, but welcome to the site.
 
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