The Cheapest Possible Collective A-Body Build

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shittyslant6

shittyslant6

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I decided to create this thread based off a suggestion from @Murray. After seeing all of those "budget" builds in Hot Rod, Car Craft, and all over the internet I decided that these are not REAL budget builds. All of those guys have enough money to buy name brand parts and new tires. What we're talking about here is $100 engines, free transmissions, $15 dollar gauges, and using lug nuts to mount a starter.

Treat this thread as a dump for all of the mickey-mouse super dirtball fixes, tech tips, modifications, build-ups, rebuilds, etc.

Making stuff work and using your head and not your wallet is something that has gotten lost over the years as any dick, joe, or harry can buy conversion this and swap kit that.

(The only rule is make sure that any seat, seat belt, or restraint system modification is safe.)
 
I’ll bite-
While researching the difference in diameters of PS low pressure lines, I saw a steering box in a pile of scrap metal dumped in the Home Depot parking lot. As luck would have it, the return line fitting was the smaller diameter I needed and fit my PS box. Works great!
 
Customer brought in a Dakota 5.2 with a bad starter. Had around 250k on it and it's an original denso/Chrysler unit. He bought a new chicom starter off Amazon for pennies and I kept the core. Dug around in my pile of other cores and was able to get two good solenoid contacts out of them. Just threw that starter in my slant six 72 scamp. I also was able to scrounge for wheel cylinder cups in a bunch of nos wheel cylinders that had no part numbers on it. Now I got 2 rebuilt front wheel cylinders. Better than leaky. I also reused the valve cover gasket. Popped it in some diesel fuel to plump it back up after I adjusted the valves and replaced the valve stem seals with about 5-6 different kinds of umbrella seals in the back of a drawer. Lol I could go on and on. That was just Friday and Monday.
 
This is going to get nuts- Chevy engine w/ Powerglide, Oldsmobile radiator, Buick seats, Pinto dash, Vega wheels and lets be careless.....Firestone tires. Early Toyota rear end would be great if we could find one. Safety costs too much so forget it.
 
Not a build but car save kinda. Niehbor had head gasket done on 80's Camry but still kept overheating pushing coolant into overflow. Stop leak no help. He gave it to me. I switched the overflow to a gallon jug. Drilled 6 1/8" holes in t-stat. Car would pump out coolant when totally warmed up. By drilling the holes I could drive it for about 40 minutes. Put my wife in it as she comuted 20 minutes each way to work. When I got home I would dump the coolant back in for the next day. She drove it 3 years till the tranny **** the bed.
 
I've told the long version before, so here is the short of it:
Free 71 Swinger with the blown up slant 6 that Dad took in on trade for some work he did on the owner's taxi. Yay me - free car. Dropped in a free 500k mile slant 6 from a wrecked Aspen/Volare taxi.

Not an A body, but gotta mention it anyway..... How about the $20, yes just $20 340 from a totalled 70 Dart that I put in my use to be mine 71 Barracuda ragtop. Only sleeved #8 and bought 1 piston.
 
Bought a 72 slant six Duster with an 8 3/4 rear for $50. Motor was shot. Bought 68 4 door slant six Dart for $50, good motor. I swapped motors in an afternoon, up and running good. Daily driver for 3 or 4 years, till someone in a Cadillac totalled it one icy night. His insurance gave me $700 for the Duster and I sold it to a friend for $50. Best one I got.
 
Back in the early 80's I was a broke just-quit-college student. I bought a 64 Fairlane wagon for $500 that threw a rod a couple of days later. I called the seller and renegotiated the price and got the car for $100. I was working at a gas station-car wash-garage place and the service manager took pity on me and helped rebuild the engine (some kind of straight six). A few months later I discovered the block was cracked on the rebuilt motor and I had no money to do the engine again. I scraped and sanded the area of the crack and slobbered a bunch of JB Weld on it. Let it sit for a day to cure and drove the car with no issues for several years till I sold it for a Duster.
 
I had a 71 Demon318 given to me cuz the motor quit running. I put a used 340 timing set on it and sold it for $350 to a kid, with the proviso that I'd give him $50 for it anytime he wanted to get rid of it. A few months later the kid needs $50 so the car shows up at my house, a lil banged up.
So I slap some used parts on it , and sold her to the kid's buddy for another $350. A few months go by, and the Demon is back with a blown rearend. I buy it back for $50.I just happen to have a rear end and shortly she is for sale again. Another $350 to a third buddy. And so it goes for several years. I don't recall how many times I flipped her like that, but in the late 70s, that was a lotta coin.
Some of those boys are dead now, I think most of them. Even my kid brother who was about the third purchaser. I think, at one time, I even sold or rented it to my next-in-line brother, and you guessed it, he's dead too.
Whoa, Demon-car? lol.
Actually I rented that car out by the week a few times.
Hyup, those were the says.

BTW
any of you readers want a great-shifting factory-stock A904, that Demon had the best. I took it out one day, after the car came back with a burned up tranny, and cloned that 904 about three or four times. I kept the original,installed a clone, and resold that Demon,of course. And over the years the clones have gone into other cars. But, I have the original still going strong behind my at-one-time, winter-engine. That was/is the best-shifting factory A904 I ever had the pleasure to drive.
I still got the engine too.
After the last time it came back, I had to retire that Demon, the body was just too badly decayed. And banged up, having seen so many teenage drivers.. I bet I made more money on that car than what it sold for when new,lol.
But think about this;
the car was a 1971, and the sales began in year about 1978. So these boys were buying a 7/8/9 yearold car for 10% of new. Heckuva deal. And it came with a 100% buyback plan, no questions asked. One kid brought it back for the $50 to buy weed with; hey not my problem......
 
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Any free parts that look correct-ish will turn into the right part if you try hard enough. Hell, I got a free radiator from a 1965 mustang because it was sitting in the mud in a buddy's yard. Cleaned the mud off, and ZERO of the fins were bent. Also, it cleared the hood in my duster. The original /6 radiator hoses worked too. Just mounted it with some fancy zinc-plated 36 inch long flat bar from home depot. The only new parts I bought for it were from @halifaxhops and that was a tune up kit and a distributor cap. Yesterday I found some 40 year old dash bulbs in the glovebox and they worked! so, now I don't have to spend $5 on bulbs.
 
Murray said:
This is going to get nuts- Chevy engine w/ Powerglide, Oldsmobile radiator, Buick seats, Pinto dash, Vega wheels and lets be careless.....Firestone tires. Early Toyota rear end would be great if we could find one. Safety costs too much so forget it.
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Firestone tires??? I use walmart specials; $30 a tire.
 
I was called at tech for not having steel fuel line from the firewall to the pressure gage. Made one from Home Depot natural gas piping. (It was the only outfit close enough to track) added about 6 lbs and $9. But was racing that day.
 
shittyslant6 said:
I decided to create this thread based off a suggestion from @Murray. After seeing all of those "budget" builds in Hot Rod, Car Craft, and all over the internet I decided that these are not REAL budget builds. All of those guys have enough money to buy name brand parts and new tires. What we're talking about here is $100 engines, free transmissions, $15 dollar gauges, and using lug nuts to mount a starter.

Treat this thread as a dump for all of the mickey-mouse super dirtball fixes, tech tips, modifications, build-ups, rebuilds, etc.

Making stuff work and using your head and not your wallet is something that has gotten lost over the years as any dick, joe, or harry can buy conversion this and swap kit that.

(The only rule is make sure that any seat, seat belt, or restraint system modification is safe.)
Click to expand...

Two examples;

A harvested for free ‘00-5.9, add a JY distributor, cheap AutoZone Chrysler ignition box with there $20 wires, add the expensive parts now starting with summit racing headers & mufflers, local bought 2-1/2 exhaust pipe & hangers. The one Extravagant! priced part was the Edelbrock rpm intake. $50 used 600 AFB.

It’s just missing a cam and springs for more lower and rpm.

2; ‘79-360, factory intake ($20 back in the day) used small AVS, cheap open air cleaner, JY distributor, dual exhaust off the exhaust manifolds.

Both had excellent power returns for the money spent and I got 20 mpg’s out of the ‘79-360.
 
Had a 75 Dart with 2x8 stacked as high up as possible on each side of the trunk to keep the rear leaf spring shackle from popping through the rotted out trunk.
 
I'm likin this thread!

So I'm 18 years old,find out about a 72 340 block in a backyard garage. Go to see it and find a pristine short block ,standard bore .20,000miles on it. Taken out of a wrecked Cuda. Guy wants 200.00 for it. I see another engine on the floor next to it with 340 unsilenced air cleaner, original 340 intake, thermoquad carb, full of dirt and grease. Does it run I ask. yes just took it out of a 72 Demon but its a 318. How much? $50.00 he says. My price point so I buy it. Get it home and take it apart. Score! X-Heads, Purple shaft cam, 284/484, thermoquad was just rebuilt, original 340 intake and unsilenced air cleaner. Can't believe my luck! Gets better.. I meet the seller at a car show and inquire if he still has the 340. Yes and he needs to sell it fast , needs money. I've got 125.00. (just got paid!) ,he takes it! Now I have everything to complete my engine including all the brackets and pullys. So, for $175.00 I've got a complete engine that looks stock with 20,000miles on it! Less than the seller originally wanted for the short block alone! Still have that engine in the garage on a cart. Ran great and never an issue with it!
 
Oh, I see I had the wrong idea earlier.
Try this;
It's 1974, and a buddy wants some power for his 69 Satellite 318, and of course he wants a 340. So we hit the junkyards and score a cheap engine. We get the top off and it's full of rainwater.
No biggie we clean the heads and intake up, and I pull the 340 cam out, and put all that stuff onto/into his 318 , then tune her up a lil, and he's happy boy. For my time, I get all the leftover parts.
Which I then clean up and assemble, total cost; gaskets and sandpaper. Then I bought an old worn out 273/904 take out, for the trans and the bracketry, I think for 50,delivered!
Then I swap all that into my 65 Valiant StationWagon, throwing the oil burning slanty in the corner. Of course I have no exhaust, but Hooker had fenderwells, and Canadian tire had the rest including two shorty Thrush "mufflers".
I think the headers were 400 or 500. Total cost so far maybe $200 plus headers
Now imagine this 22 year old, with this big-bore 318 in an early-A wagon on 13s; yeah those tires went around the block a couple of times and that was that for them,lol.
That's how it started for me.
 
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Just did more of this to the 72 scamp. Needed two tires for the front as 35 year old bias plies weren't cutting it. The valve stems were shot and instead of buying new I pulled a couple dead ford TPMS units out of the round file and repurposed them. Now I got some fancy metal valve stems for free.

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oliver said:
Just did more of this to the 72 scamp. Needed two tires for the front as 35 year old bias plies weren't cutting it. The valve stems were shot and instead of buying new I pulled a couple dead ford TPMS units out of the round file and repurposed them. Now I got some fancy metal valve stems for free.

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So, if you run the pressure low on them, some poor guys dash light is gonna come on?
 
Cheap build squashed.
1976 Senior in HS. My 1st car my dad scored for my mom to teach her to drive. 1968 Dodge Dart covertable for $50 buck in a Junkyard that needed an alt ! Top had a tear (duct tape). She wanted no part of driving so I paid my Dad $70. At Highschool a guy has a beatup B5 blue 68 GTS 383 4 speed. I bought it for $75 ! Me and my friends waited for Saturday when my Dad left to work and ripped the drivetrains out to swap. He came home early and stopped it. Said I'd kill myself.He contacted a guy in a Mopar club in Nahant Ma. and they all started showing up and bought everything. I made $600 ! But my Ragtop was apart and I had to reassemble myself ( where are my friends now lol) taking me a month before I could drive it again. Later that year I bought a 273/904 from a friend for $50 and mickey moused it to the Kframe until finally I bought correct frame. Then sold it after my dad painted it got $800 and bought a 72 Demon 340/4spd. for $1100.
 
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