Thoughts on the front suspension/steering setup on this 65 Barracuda

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65 Cuda 340

65 Cuda 340

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Friend of mine is interested in this 65 Barracuda currently listed on Facebook by the son of the deceased builder. Seller admittedly knows very little about it. Very homemade looking (to me), not at all sure about the geometry of those rear-facing struts. Also, right now, no motor mounts.

Floors are pretty funky looking, too.

Whacha think?

orange 65 Barracuda 1.jpg


orange 65 Barracuda 2.jpg

orange 65 Barracuda 3.jpg
 
It has a rack and pinion mounted in place of the standard Mopar worm and sector box. The normal struts were removed to make room and those others added to the rear. Geometry certainly is suspect! Those top bars might be the beginning of home brewed motor mounts. All can be converted back to stock pretty easily with an unaltered K member. Lots of extra holes in front rails.

Those floors are "interesting" to say the least. If kept, custom seating, tunnel, etc would have to be worked out. Take a close look at the front frame rails. If the floor was rusty the rails may be too. All that stuff looks like a Roadkill special, something Freiburger would do. Why was all that bastardized? Maybe the son knows the story.

If the rest of the body is fairly good, something could be done with it. You didn't ask but I wouldn't go more than 1000.
 
............And there's only one guy on here I can remember claiming that a rack setup such as that works "somewhat." Turning the steering arms front from rear can really screw things up. I cannot tell what might be original or not
 
KosmicKuda said:
It has a rack and pinion mounted in place of the standard Mopar worm and sector box. The normal struts were removed to make room and those others added to the rear. Geometry certainly is suspect! Those top bars might be the beginning of home brewed motor mounts. All can be converted back to stock pretty easily with an unaltered K member. Lots of extra holes in front rails.

Those floors are "interesting" to say the least. If kept, custom seating, tunnel, etc would have to be worked out. Take a close look at the front frame rails. If the floor was rusty the rails may be too. All that stuff looks like a Roadkill special, something Freiburger would do. Why was all that bastardized? Maybe the son knows the story.

If the rest of the body is fairly good, something could be done with it. You didn't ask but I wouldn't go more than 1000.
Click to expand...

Thanks, can't remember where he started, but he's down to $3900 now.
 
I wouldn’t touch that thing with a 10’ pole.

I seriously doubt the suspension is streetable. Getting the Ackerman angle right when converting the Mopar rear steer to front steer for a rack is nearly impossible. Guys have done that and run it but it’s basically a drag race only set up. It’ll go straight but don’t plan on turning.

Floors are a whole different story. Even assuming that they were welded in well and there’s no structural issues (a big assumption) you’ve got no reference point for anything that bolts to the floor.

This was probably a rusty shell that was being turned into a cheap strip only car. It might be functional in that role, but as a place to start a ‘65 Barracuda project I’d stay away from it. It’s not like ‘65 Barracuda’s are super pricey, you could do a lot better than that for $3,900.
 
65 Cuda 340 said:
After reading all your comments, my friend decided to pass on this one.
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That's probably wise. Without knowing the history, reasoning and explanation for all of those modifications it would be hard to move forward and keep all that stuff. If you knew the guy or were able to talk to the person that did all the modifications it might be a different story, but buying something like that with all of those non-standard modifications and a seller that can't explain them is a recipe for disaster. And for that price you can get something a lot more standard to start with.
 
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