What Are You Doing To/With Your Car Today?

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Took a few days but got it finished up. After about 6 years i wasnt happy with my valve cover breather and pcv valve hose routing anymore. I also thought there is something that would look a little better too. I ended up ordering a pair from billet specialties, they make a billet pcv valve breather that is supposedly suppose to fit a 1” valve cover hole which was wrong, luckily the nipple on the breather itself is about 3/4” and i just had to open up the center of the oem style grommet and fit perfectly. Since billet specialties only makes a open breather without a pcv valve and my air cleaner housing has a nipple on it for a hose to run to the breather i ended up getting a second pcv breather and since the billet specialties breathers and pcv breathers unscrew into two halves you can access the pcv valve and remove the pcv valve by removing the snap ring. The breather for the pass side has a 1” nipple which fit perfectly into the factory grommet.

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with the pcv valve out i can now use it as a breather i can connect to the air cleaner housing. I opened up the old edelbrock breather and found a piece of foam to help filter the air. I didnt want to reuse the foam so i went to the parts store and found a pre filter piece of the foam that goes around a lawn mower filter. Cut the ring and had a long strip of foam, cut out about 6 foam disks that way i can replace them every 2-3 years or so.

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Then screwed the housing halves back together.

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The day before i had my hoses made, ended up finding some dorman pcv elbows in the help section at the parts store. I also used some brass hose barbs and used a short piece of 1/2” hose for the pass breather and 3/8 hose for the pcv valve. Took a little measuring and fitting but the hose routing is much neater

Pcv before:

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Breather before:

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pcv after:

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Breather after:

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matches the other aluminum parts nicely

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Finally started the install on my Innovate LC-2 air/fuel gauge.

It's only been sitting on a shelf in my garage for 5 years, figure it's time to get it done.
 
Got the car aligned... it drives perfectly straight (unless I hit the gas too hard, at which point it wants to go sideways!)
:steering:
About +3.5 caster, -0.5 camber, 0.10 deg toe. Steering effort is non-trivial with the 16:1 manual box, but really not that noticeable except when stationary.
The required exhaust work is a bit more complicated than I'd thought, so that shop is going to do it Tuesday. So far the biggest problem is the engine oil leak (have to remove the front timing cover and straighten the lower rail and reseal it to the stud girdle. Already have a new Proform cover). But it's getting there. Now have 26 whole miles logged :)

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Got the car aligned... it drives perfectly straight (unless I hit the gas too hard, at which point it wants to go sideways!)
:steering:
About +3.5 caster, -0.5 camber, 0.10 deg toe. Steering effort is non-trivial with the 16:1 manual box, but really not that noticeable except when stationary.
The required exhaust work is a bit more complicated than I'd thought, so that shop is going to do it Tuesday. So far the biggest problem is the engine oil leak (have to remove the front timing cover and straighten the lower rail and reseal it to the stud girdle. Already have a new Proform cover). But it's getting there. Now have 26 whole miles logged :)

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Looking real nice!
Is it my eyes, or is something going on with the gas cap?
 
No gas cap... I riveted a round plate over the stock opening. Probably should have done away with the recess entirely but I was not that confident in my body skills :) 10 gal fuel cell in the trunk.
 
No gas cap... I riveted a round plate over the stock opening. Probably should have done away with the recess entirely but I was not that confident in my body skills :) 10 gal fuel cell in the trunk.
Okay, makes sense now! Really like your car!
 
Went to Cars and Coffee this morning, then went to my brother's house to pull the transmission for a quick re-seal.
I thought, hay while I have it apart put in a shift kit.
Then while cleaning the transmission off, I find one of the torque convertor weights had came off! Parts store can't order one new untill Monday.

Now I will get the transmission done and wait till I get a new torque converter.

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Taking 3 A Body Rally dashes apart, testing gauges, doing the IVR fix, and mixing and matching it all to get one "acceptable" one for my '67 Barracuda build. The bar for "acceptable" is pretty low, since the theme for the Barracuda build is late 70's / early 80's High school kid bastardized muscle car. I'm not a fan of these rally dash clusters, and how they are put together.
 
Cranked the headlights up quite a bit (just about aimed at the front tires on initial install). Put a quart of oil in to replace yesterday's drip. Removed the fuel cell sender and checked that the float wasn't gummed up again - nope, I really did use about 5 gallons driving less than 30 miles! Big engine + big cam + 3.91 gears = horrible mileage. :rolleyes:
 
Nice part about 8 3/4 rear axles it's easy to swap out the rear gears for better cruising manners and gas milage.

Big engine has plenty of low end power to pull through the gear change higher ratios.
 
After installing the billet specialties pcv valve and breather along with the radiator cap i also decided to see if i could use the same cover for the oil fill and power steering. They came in yesterday and got the oil fill together pretty easily, had to cut the two tabs off of the oil cap and lightly tweak the lip of the oil cap to fit snug in the aluminum cover. The power steering cap was a pain as the outer diameter is a bit smaller than the inside diameter of the aluminum cap. I had to cut the two outer tabs off and had to grind down the bulge on the top of the cap and the edges of the lip so it would sit down in the aluminum cap, then i had to work the outer lip of the cap so it would fit tightly in the aluminum cap. I also swapped out the wing nut on my air cleaner for a scott drake billet one. Had to polish it with some mothers and a dremel as it came satin. I like the look much more than the plain factory caps, ties in nicely to the other aluminum.

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True, I could have a spare pig with highway gears (and a matching speedo gear). Although I could buy a lot of gas for the cost of a center section.
But with 272 @ .050, it's surprisingly soggy on the low end even with 451 ci. Above 3000 it's a whole different story
:steering::thumbsup:
 
After installing the billet specialties pcv valve and breather along with the radiator cap i also decided to see if i could use the same cover for the oil fill and power steering. They came in yesterday and got the oil fill together pretty easily, had to cut the two tabs off of the oil cap and lightly tweak the lip of the oil cap to fit snug in the aluminum cover. The power steering cap was a pain as the outer diameter is a bit smaller than the inside diameter of the aluminum cap. I had to cut the two outer tabs off and had to grind down the bulge on the top of the cap and the edges of the lip so it would sit down in the aluminum cap, then i had to work the outer lip of the cap so it would fit tightly in the aluminum cap. I also swapped out the wing nut on my air cleaner for a scott drake billet one. Had to polish it with some mothers and a dremel as it came satin. I like the look much more than the plain factory caps, ties in nicely to the other aluminum.

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Nice work, I like it. Details ---------------
 
Working on the floor pan in the Roadrunner. Little by little....

packed, loaded and set up at the WPC swap meet this weekend, all work is on the back burner until this coming week.

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Spent the afternoon replacing the timing chain cover and (hopefully!) fixing the major oil leak up front.
I pulled the radiator and Contour fans as an assembly, then the water pump housing, and crank pulley. It took a fair amount of grunt on my flange puller to get the fluid damper off. The Proform cover I bought has a new seal already installed and greased. But then I couldn't find my balancer installer tool, and heating it in the oven for a while didn't work, so I made a run to O'Reilly and rented the tool. It was brand new and I may just keep it ($45.99). I have a feeling I'll need it again ;)
 
I did this today. Finished the install of my handbuilt gauge cluster.
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Details beginning to end are in my "cluster V2.0" thread. This is what I will see now when I get in the car.
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I did this today. Finished the install of my handbuilt gauge cluster. View attachment 1715467503 Details beginning to end are in my "cluster V2.0" thread. This is what I will see now when I get in the car. View attachment 1715467505
Looks great man, and that's the same air/fuel gauge i'm installing right now.
Just wondering where did you drill the hole to get the cable from the 02 sensor into the cabin?
 
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Looks great man, and that's the same air/fuel gauge i'm installing right now.
Just wondering where did you drill the hole to get the cable from the 02 sensor into the cabin?
Couple things----I came through the floor near the edge and ran the sensor cable along the edge and up under the dash from there. The Innovate unit cable is calibrated to the computer so you cannot cut or change the cable without changing the computer unit so be sure to get the long cable.
 
Couple things----I came through the floor near the edge and ran the sensor cable along the edge and up under the dash from there. The Innovate unit cable is calibrated to the computer so you cannot cut or change the cable without changing the computer unit so be sure to get the long cable.
Well, I bought the whole LC-2 kit so i have all the right cables and stuff, just trying to figure out the best way to get into the car without making huge hole.
Thanks
 
Leaving the Duster alone, so maybe I can get my truck back on the road!

Switching from an 85 318 to a 68, and found something I never knew!
The passenger side ear spacing is different between the two blocks!
Truck will get van lower control arms and a front hanger flip, transmission is rebuilt with lockup deleted, wheels are redone with new tires. Just want a cool parts hauler.

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