69 Notch Barracuda - Rebirth

I was hearing some engine knocks that coincided with my capping off the headers. I assumed it to be engine noise that was always there, but couldn’t hear it because of the open headers. Also, it totally went away after engine warmed up. But it was getting louder this week, so... since it was due for an oil change anyway, I decided to run about 50 miles or so with some Seafoam through the oil (and gas). I did so and drained it (nothing strange in oil), then changed the oil filter and dumped in 5 qts of Lucas Classic Car Oil (w/ZDDP) 10W-40... Knocking sound was still there :eek: I Took a closer look at the front of the engine (sound was echoing all over the compartment but seemed to come from waterpump area). I’d been checking and retorqueing Lots of bolts and nuts for weeks, but for some dumb reason, I didn’t check the crankshaft pulley. Sure enough... It was missing 2 bolts and the other 4 were very loose. The pulley was wobbling all over. Not sure what happened here, I’m sure I had blue thread locker on the Torqued bolts.

Anyway.. I installed new bolts with lock washers and blue loc-tite. Then happened to strip one of the six (I’ll fix this later)

Also, moved my dist vacuum from manifold vacuumed to ported carb vacuum like it originally was... then reset the initial timing and idle speed.

fired it up and was amazed... no more cold-start idle probs, no more knocking it ticking... it purred like a kitten and roared like a lion. Also, Oil PSI never looked so good. Before it bounced around (mechanical) now it held Super steady at 70 PSI while cruising and surged from around 40-70 psi while accelerating through gears.

Most enjoyment yet driving it around. Had a guy yell, “Do you want to sell it?” My wife just shook her head “no” :thumbsup: