65 Barracuda daily driver

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The seller lives about an hour north from here and I drove the Barracuda up there today and heard the engine run. It looked and sounded great, I checked what I could check and I think this is the ideal candidate for what I want to do!

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I just gave the guy a downpayment and he is going to jank it out of his very nice '68 Dart GT convertible that he wants to drop a 383 in and turn into a GTS clone. He said he might come down to L.A. next weekend to check out a 383. Or I'll have to find a friend with a truck who's willing to spend half a day to go pick up an engine, haha. Anyways, I'm very excited! One huge step closer. I want to wait until I have it in the garage to assess what parts I will still need. I also just had an idea to save a few bucks. Since it's fairly stock I'm thinking I might get away with modifying the current 2-1/4" diameter single exhaust behind the slant 6 that I got not that long ago. Anyone know where I can get a (new) cheap y-pipe for the stock '65 manifolds?
 
Finally got the 318 home!

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So it's a 1969 block, not a 1968 like the Dart it came out of.

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I know a bunch of stuff changed between 1969 and 1970 concerning water pump, timing tab, and accessories. I need to find pulleys and brackets that will fit with a Sanden compressor and alternator. I guess that stuff is easier to find for a 1970 up, but but I also kinda wanna keep a somewhat original appearance. I know the Sanden doesn't look very original either way. But I've seen them mounted further down and i like that. I might actually design my own and have them laser cut. Might be cheaper and that's what I did for the slant 6, but never connected the hoses.

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Gonna have to find a carb. The seller recommended a 1403 w/ electric choke. I also found a '66 Barracuda Formula S Carter AFB 4122S on Offerup for 100 bucks that I was considering, but seller said it wouldn't work with the choke pocket on the intake?!

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I talked to a guy who rebuilds A904s and he recommended to install a later model input shaft in my cable shifted A904. He mentioned it would be much easier to find torque converters and wouldn't require that adapter bushing. Thoughts?
 
I agree. Install the larger input shaft.

I planned to keep my 66 A904 when I did my 5.9 swap. Contacted PTC and ordered a converter for a small input shaft and a large snout.

Well, I didn't find out until it was all buttoned up and wouldn't engage, they sent me a converter for a large input shaft. Annoyed, I called and spoke with the owner, Kenny, who said "well, your better off changing to a large shaft."

I sourced a 73 transmission and rebuilt it. He's right, but I wish I would have known before installing it!!!

Yes, have him install the larger shaft if he can.
 
Did you find a cable shift V8 904? If so, using the later input shaft would be a good upgrade. Hopefully, if you found a V8 cable shift 904, it came out of a car with a floor shifter and not push buttons like in a 64. Do some checking to verify, but I think the rooster comb in the valve body is different between the push button and floor shift transmissions. I went thru all that crap when trying to put a big block, cable shifted slip yoke 727 in a 64 Belvedere wagon. My car had push buttons, and the trans came out of a column shifted 65 Coronet. :BangHead: Never did get it to work right, and finally scrapped it and put a later 727 in it with manual linkage.
 
I need to keep the cable shifted transmission because I do not want to change the console shifter at all. I verified the # on the flange to make sure it's the '65 console cable shifted A904. I know they changed to larger input shaft in '67 - what is different about the '73 transmission?
 
That's great that you have the correct transmission to swap out! I think once they went to the larger input shaft, they stayed the same until the moved to lockup converters in the 998's and 999's. Swapping to the later input shaft in the 904 may be a question better asked in the transmission forum section of FABO.
Were you able to snag some motor mounts from the dude in Louisiana?
 
I was looking for a '65 A904 for years and found it some time last year. It seems the larger input shaft makes a lot of sense. The dude was asking 200 plus shipping for the motor mounts. I'm gonna take my chances and try to find cheaper ones. Someone suggested using truck mounts. It's gonna be a while until I have all the other parts together anyways, so I'm gonna wait and see.
 
When I got my 65 Barracuda a few years ago, it had a 360 in it, and it was bolted to the original 904. I "think" the mounts that were on it were truck mounts. I saved them when I got rid of the 360 and will be using some factory mounts that I have had for decades when I put my 273 in the car. I will try and remember to put them side by side for a comparison and let you know. The 360 sat fine in the car, and I didn't even notice it had later mounts on it until I removed the motor.

:thumbsup:
 
When I bought my 65 Barracuda it had a 318 with truck mounts and it sat way too high air cleaner rub'd the hood and the 904 trans also rubbed on the tunnel
 
MonkeyMadness said:
When I bought my 65 Barracuda it had a 318 with truck mounts and it sat way too high air cleaner rub'd the hood and the 904 trans also rubbed on the tunnel
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The guy who suggested the truck mounts used them without insulator and he said the passenger side needed a 1/2" spacer. I thought about just shortening them and redrilling the holes to use them with insulators. We'll see.
 
65barracudaLA said:
what is different about the '73 transmission?
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Sorry, the 73 is just the one I found. No difference that I know of. Except, at some point part throttle kickdown wS added. That's the "passing gear". My 66 didn't have it and you must nearly come to a stop for it to automatically downshift.
 
66fyssh said:
Sorry, the 73 is just the one I found. No difference that I know of. Except, at some point part throttle kickdown wS added. That's the "passing gear". My 66 didn't have it and you must nearly come to a stop for it to automatically downshift.
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Yeah, Part Throttle Kickdown would be great and apparently it's another fairly simple upgrade after reading up on it. Thanks for the input!
 
I found motor mounts, 90 degree oil filter adapter and the guy who sold me the engine has a '72 slant six trans that I can rob the input shaft and hopefully Part Throttle Kickdown from. I will still need a few more parts and have to make a few more decisions. One thing I know nothing about is torque converters. I'm really mostly interested in fuel economy. Any recommendations?
 
I started taking off the intake manifold etc. Man, everything was on there with sooo much RTV... But the inside looks really clean to me.

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So the block is '69 and to my surprise the heads are #4027163 heads, which I found out makes them from 1977-86. Can anyone tell me, if those are better are worse compression wise compared to the stock 1969 heads? The seller told me the engine was completely stock except the Edelbrock Performer intake, which I took off, because: I'm realizing how expensive everything is getting. A new 4BBL carb is gonna cost another 400 bucks or so. And I found a '75 2BBL intake including Carter BBD carb. I know how to dial in a BBD and so I'm gonna clean this up and bolt it on for now. The car is still my only daily driver, so it's crucial that as soon the slant 6 is out of the car, that I can get the 318 in there and running in a short amount of time. I plan on re-using the relatively new slant 6 Champion aluminum radiator, the alternator and starter. I want to spend the extra money on the exhaust. Currently I'm thinking single 3" exhaust. Waldron makes a 2.5" exhaust for $478 ($618 with shipping), but I want to go to the muffler shop down the street who built the 2 1/4" exhaust for the super six slant that's still in there. I think I paid a little over 300 bucks for that.

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Can anyone tell me what that metal plate is for and if I can remove it? Also, how to remove it? I assume these plugs are plastic and it will come off easily, but I wanted to check first. I mostly want to clean up the deposits from under there, but at least in the shape it's in, it probably won't do much anyways.

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For now I sprayed it with some Easy Off oven spray to take the paint off, so I can paint it red, because that's obviously the most important thing right now, haha.
 
That plate keeps engine heat off the floor of the intake plenum. If you remove it to clean underneath, try to find a safe way to reattach it. It'll keep the air a tad more dense.
 
mpgmike said:
That plate keeps engine heat off the floor of the intake plenum. If you remove it to clean underneath, try to find a safe way to reattach it. It'll keep the air a tad more dense.
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Thank you - that's good to know! Maybe I can bend it a bit to get underneath, because all that build-up can't be good either. It's not gonna stay on for long anyways, because once I know how much everything cost and I can justify buying a carb, I want to install the 4 barrel manifold again.
 
Still finding and figuring out parts. The guy, who sold me the engine and gave me a free later trans, so I could rob it of its larger input shaft and part throttle kickdown, also offered me the dual exhaust out of his '68 Dart convertible for cheap. I'll still have to get pipes made from the factory manifolds to the trans crossmember, but apparently from the crossmember back it's supposed to fit?! I'd also have to modify the crossmember itself.

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Well, today I went to a junk yard and there were two '65 Barracudas!!! Both 6 cylinder cars, but one had a/c and the other was a manual. Not much left or very much destroyed, but I did find some amazing parts for cheap:

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These plastic headliner covers (?) have always been missing on my car and these have no cracks or any other damage. When I was in that fender bender last year the splash shield was bent quite a bit and I could have still made it usable, but both sides also were rusted through in spots. These only have surface rust and are super straight. I never had these rear set hold down straps. One of my quarter windows are has chips at the side from when the glass wasn't aligned right. I never had these rubber bumpers for the trunk panel - can someone actually give me the right dimensions for where they go? I didn't have a tape measure on me when I took them off. Also took off a trans crossmember to get it modified... All you can see there was $86.80 with all fees and taxes. The cheapest crossmember I saw on ebay was 150 bucks, haha.
 
So, I've had some issues with the car not starting when it's hot and also stalling when idling and leaving a stop sign/ traffic light. At first I thought it was the ECU that is pretty close to the exhaust manifold on the slant 6. I had a couple of them laying around, so at first swapping them seemed to fix it. I'm not so sure about that anymore. I'm sure that there are some fuel boiling issues as the carburetor gets really hot. Also, I ran out of gas not too long ago and in the past that has lead to similar issues. For some reason running out of gas appears to destroy the accelerator pump it - is that a thing? Anyhow, I'm pretty sure I have to rebuild the carburetor, which sucks, because ideally I will swap slant for the 318 soon. Did anyone have similar experiences?
 
Does your fuel line still run up around the front of the engine and above the exhaust manifold? Re-routing it up over the valve cover will keep it cooler. I wonder if the CA summer gas is detrimental to the accelerator pump if its not kept wet or allowed to dry out?
 
geminimotors said:
Does your fuel line still run up around the front of the engine and above the exhaust manifold? Re-routing it up over the valve cover will keep it cooler. I wonder if the CA summer gas is detrimental to the accelerator pump if its not kept wet or allowed to dry out?
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I had it over the valve cover, but that still means it goes over the exhaust manifold. Then I changed to where it goes another way (away from the manifolds), but that didn't change anything. I also had another Carter BBD laying around that I thought might work, but even though I got it to run, it didn't fix the issue. Now I think it might be an electrical/ ignition issue. I really need to get the 318 ready so I can swap the slant 6 out. I'm getting tired of it, haha.
 
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