The Great Pumpkin - '71 Duster
My first update of 2024 marks a somewhat somber occasion - it's going on 10 years since the last time this car ran. I really can't believe that it's been that long. It actually makes me upset to think about it.
The pic below is from February of 2012 from this site - yes, I bought it on here. The seller registered to post the ad but never came back afterwards. They were out in Southern California. I paid a friend from San Diego $100 to go up and look at it for me. He said it was good to go so pulled the trigger. Zero rust, original paint. 7,000rpm solid cam W2-head 340 with a FMVB 904 and a 4.30 gear that went a best of 11.97. All for under $10K! Deal of a lifetime.
I last raced it in November of 2014. It was a random test and tune day at Englishtown. I'm still upset about ETown closing in 2018 and not being able to run the car there again. There was hardly anyone there that November day though because it was cold. I got like 4 runs in and maybe won one round before I went out on a double breakout. At the time the car was running low 12s. I had changed the rear gears from 4.30 to 4.10 which was a mistake, it made no noticeable difference on the street. I was driving it almost 2 hours one way to the track and back through NYC traffic.
The motor was tired. It had been built in the mid '90s straight out of the Mopar Performance Small block bible. It was still going when I bought it in February of 2012. A couple weeks after that last ETown meet, it was running rough. I did a compression test and found #7 was way down. I took the engine apart and found a broken piston ring in the 7 hole. The bearings were also down to the copper so it was time.
Engine pic from the seller.
Pulling the old 340 out in December of 2014.
While the engine was out in 2015, things snowballed and I ended up taking the car apart much further than I had planned. The garage at my old house was nowhere near what it is now so it wasn't the best environment for efficient work. The motor had been done and ready to go since April of 2016 but by the end of that year the rest of the car was still in pieces. In February of 2017, my wife and I decided to move our family from Long Island, NY where we were living at the time to CT where we live now. (the house I grew up in) Work on the car stopped in the Spring of 2017 because I renovated our kitchen to help sell the L.I. house (it helped!) but I never finished the car before moving.
Right before we moved, the car went into storage since we were renovating our house and the garage wasn't even built yet. At the time, having it apart for two and half years didn't seem like a big deal. We moved in August of 2017 and lived here while the house was renovated which ended up taking almost two years. In May of 2018, I bought a '68 Coronet to have something to drive until I got my garage fully set up.
I bought the Dodge because it was complete and running but I couldn't help messing with it. At that point I hadn't done any car stuff in a couple of years and was itching to get back into it. I convinced myself (and my wife) I'd only do a couple things to make it run better but that went out the window pretty quickly when I found how crusty everything was. I didn't even have my garage set up then though, I was basically working on the floor.
This from the day I bought the Dodge home. May of 2018. Garage had just been sheetrocked but that was it.
Ultimately, that car ended up getting completely taken apart too. It got rewired from stem to stern, received all new steering and suspension, converted to EFI and became a 4 speed with a new bucket seat/console interior. Only things I didn't touch were the body/paint, rear diff and the front brakes.I managed to get it back together within two years but the Duster sat in storage the whole time that was happening.
After the Coronet was done I realized that time was slipping by and I needed to get back on the Duster. I finally took it out of storage in June of 2021. It ended up sitting for a while longer while I decided what I was going to do with it. Eventually I came to the realization that it all needed to be re-done.
That's also when I decided to remove the undercoating from the chassis and paint the engine bay and trunk. The car was completely stripped of everything. The only things that remained attached were the doors, glass and dash frame. The paint project was started in November of 2021 and took almost a year to complete. In April of 2022, I had hip replacement surgery so I was out of commission for a while which is why the paint stuff ended up taking so long.
Work on the mechanical stuff began after the paint was done so that would have been the Fall of 2022. I've been working on it slowly but steadily since then. Everything I had done back in 2014-2015 like the brakes, rear end, suspension, plumbing etc. has all been re-done for the second time.
My main problem with these cars is that I've got a tendency to start new projects before finishing existing ones. Right now everything is somewhere between halfway and three quarters done. Yesterday though I finally managed to fully complete one task by finishing the brake lines. I started working on them in 2022. I plumbed the master cylinder to the new Wilwood distribution valve on my bench but stopped there. At some point last year I picked it up again and did the rear brake lines but stopped again.
The last part left was the right front lines. I had decided to move it off the firewall and run it around the front to protect them from getting severed by a blown up transmission. I had seen the RF lines done this way on one particular car I really admire and then subsequently noticed it on other fast cars and just thought it was a good idea. I seriously doubt I'll ever blow up a transmission but either way it can't happen now.
Along the front rad support.
Passenger side. Note the use of -AN fittings and a short length of heat shield sleeve where the headers will pass by.
Left side going forward.
No more brass block. Having the distribution/prop valve attached under the master cylinder frees up a lot of space along the driver's side frame rail. I ended up using one factory-style brake line clip just 'cause it worked out that way.
Not going to bleed the brakes just yet in case something has to change. Feels good to have one thing done now though. Hopefully this will help propel more progress.
Thanks for reading.
- Greg
My first update of 2024 marks a somewhat somber occasion - it's going on 10 years since the last time this car ran. I really can't believe that it's been that long. It actually makes me upset to think about it.
The pic below is from February of 2012 from this site - yes, I bought it on here. The seller registered to post the ad but never came back afterwards. They were out in Southern California. I paid a friend from San Diego $100 to go up and look at it for me. He said it was good to go so pulled the trigger. Zero rust, original paint. 7,000rpm solid cam W2-head 340 with a FMVB 904 and a 4.30 gear that went a best of 11.97. All for under $10K! Deal of a lifetime.
I last raced it in November of 2014. It was a random test and tune day at Englishtown. I'm still upset about ETown closing in 2018 and not being able to run the car there again. There was hardly anyone there that November day though because it was cold. I got like 4 runs in and maybe won one round before I went out on a double breakout. At the time the car was running low 12s. I had changed the rear gears from 4.30 to 4.10 which was a mistake, it made no noticeable difference on the street. I was driving it almost 2 hours one way to the track and back through NYC traffic.
The motor was tired. It had been built in the mid '90s straight out of the Mopar Performance Small block bible. It was still going when I bought it in February of 2012. A couple weeks after that last ETown meet, it was running rough. I did a compression test and found #7 was way down. I took the engine apart and found a broken piston ring in the 7 hole. The bearings were also down to the copper so it was time.
Engine pic from the seller.
Pulling the old 340 out in December of 2014.
While the engine was out in 2015, things snowballed and I ended up taking the car apart much further than I had planned. The garage at my old house was nowhere near what it is now so it wasn't the best environment for efficient work. The motor had been done and ready to go since April of 2016 but by the end of that year the rest of the car was still in pieces. In February of 2017, my wife and I decided to move our family from Long Island, NY where we were living at the time to CT where we live now. (the house I grew up in) Work on the car stopped in the Spring of 2017 because I renovated our kitchen to help sell the L.I. house (it helped!) but I never finished the car before moving.
Right before we moved, the car went into storage since we were renovating our house and the garage wasn't even built yet. At the time, having it apart for two and half years didn't seem like a big deal. We moved in August of 2017 and lived here while the house was renovated which ended up taking almost two years. In May of 2018, I bought a '68 Coronet to have something to drive until I got my garage fully set up.
I bought the Dodge because it was complete and running but I couldn't help messing with it. At that point I hadn't done any car stuff in a couple of years and was itching to get back into it. I convinced myself (and my wife) I'd only do a couple things to make it run better but that went out the window pretty quickly when I found how crusty everything was. I didn't even have my garage set up then though, I was basically working on the floor.
This from the day I bought the Dodge home. May of 2018. Garage had just been sheetrocked but that was it.
Ultimately, that car ended up getting completely taken apart too. It got rewired from stem to stern, received all new steering and suspension, converted to EFI and became a 4 speed with a new bucket seat/console interior. Only things I didn't touch were the body/paint, rear diff and the front brakes.I managed to get it back together within two years but the Duster sat in storage the whole time that was happening.
After the Coronet was done I realized that time was slipping by and I needed to get back on the Duster. I finally took it out of storage in June of 2021. It ended up sitting for a while longer while I decided what I was going to do with it. Eventually I came to the realization that it all needed to be re-done.
That's also when I decided to remove the undercoating from the chassis and paint the engine bay and trunk. The car was completely stripped of everything. The only things that remained attached were the doors, glass and dash frame. The paint project was started in November of 2021 and took almost a year to complete. In April of 2022, I had hip replacement surgery so I was out of commission for a while which is why the paint stuff ended up taking so long.
Work on the mechanical stuff began after the paint was done so that would have been the Fall of 2022. I've been working on it slowly but steadily since then. Everything I had done back in 2014-2015 like the brakes, rear end, suspension, plumbing etc. has all been re-done for the second time.
My main problem with these cars is that I've got a tendency to start new projects before finishing existing ones. Right now everything is somewhere between halfway and three quarters done. Yesterday though I finally managed to fully complete one task by finishing the brake lines. I started working on them in 2022. I plumbed the master cylinder to the new Wilwood distribution valve on my bench but stopped there. At some point last year I picked it up again and did the rear brake lines but stopped again.
The last part left was the right front lines. I had decided to move it off the firewall and run it around the front to protect them from getting severed by a blown up transmission. I had seen the RF lines done this way on one particular car I really admire and then subsequently noticed it on other fast cars and just thought it was a good idea. I seriously doubt I'll ever blow up a transmission but either way it can't happen now.
Along the front rad support.
Passenger side. Note the use of -AN fittings and a short length of heat shield sleeve where the headers will pass by.
Left side going forward.
No more brass block. Having the distribution/prop valve attached under the master cylinder frees up a lot of space along the driver's side frame rail. I ended up using one factory-style brake line clip just 'cause it worked out that way.
Not going to bleed the brakes just yet in case something has to change. Feels good to have one thing done now though. Hopefully this will help propel more progress.
Thanks for reading.
- Greg
