rear valance finally in color. Left rear quarter is next. Taking this in small bites since body work is such a pain.
1968 Barracuda Notch 340
- Thread starter I8NEMO
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An hour this morning to reassemble. Looking a bit more continuous now.
Sound check, completed exhaust with quieter 40 series Flow Masters
jeff alder
Well-Known Member
Looks great! That license plate looks famiilar...Like maybe off of a 71 340 Cuda I once saw.
Thanks man, yeah I had never seen it before , my wife blurted it out one day and I was on it!
I sold my business and am retired, man what a feeling of freedom! Cuda is at the house now: 10 lbs of **** in a 5 lbs bag kinda but getting things sorted. Working on whatever feels good ,Ordered a new dash pad and glove box, door glass will be going back in and slowly finishing the interior. It needs carpet, seat covers, head liner. Not going to paint the car, I can't bear to tear it down again,
Working on finishing dash related stuff, went to install the 2 defrost vents, I noticed I'm missing one heater vent hose barb clips so out comes the coffee can of interior hardware fun puzzle game. I also needed exactly 6 of the right size speed nuts and whaddya know, found everything I needed.
The factory reverse indicator lens was wasted, tried to make a new one years ago to match the hi beam lens I made but destroyed the housing tabs. Bought a new unit that comes with a solid black hot wire. My new under da
sh harness didn't provide for this option so tested the bulk head, purple in is switched for reverse, visited the old harness and bingo, found what I needed!
Ordered a new top dash pad,Lower
dash pads are still good, installed those. Got the ashtray beaten back into working perfectly. Reverse indicator good to go
I always thought black for carpet. What about green? With green door panels. All black interior gets dark really quick. Green was the factory color.
mygasser
Well-Known Member
green sounds good to me 
neil.
neil.
Awesome, thanks for chiming in!green sounds good to me
neil.
Wiper motor in, pivots and connecting rods next. This stuff i refurbished years ago. Thankful I left the reminder tag for pivot caulk rope.
Old wiper harness was a bit fried so ordered a new one. Got the reverse light connectors free from the old connector, ready to slide into the new harness when it arrives
It's alive! Sounds good, too!
Haha yeah, thanks Rusty
very coolI waited 12 weeks for the Cuda Tribute grille to arrive. After dismantling a factory 2014 Chally grille months ago, I found the Cuda Tribute Grille by accident on-line, go figure. I chose this grille because it is fiberglass (actually a cap) and does not have all of the surrounding "stuff" to cut away and build returns for. I knew I would have to at least shorten it so being fiberglass, I can re-glass, shape, add, delete and I've done some reverse mold work in the past so I felt comfortable spending the money. The grille has been shortened 7" via cutting headlight buckets loose and trimming each side of the center section. The Cuda Tribute "buckets" are way too small to center on any protruding lens feature of the headlights so I had to enlist the 2014 grille buckets to aid in this purpose
Thanks to Gorilla tape I've been able to mock up 2 distinct looks. Look 1. was to recess the center section so as to leave the factory car nose piece alone. The grille rectangular openings are truncated or funneled , reattaching the forward portion of the center piece ie : recessing the grille section, towards the rearward opening on the light buckets meant pinching the upper and lower horizontal sections together. Not optimum, but I was surprised how much I didn't hate the look.
This morning I thought it was time to mock up the 73 Cuda bumper (yes it will get shortened and tucked) as I knew it would cover the lower portion of the grille and it also lends itself to the natural bow of this late model Chally grille too. With the bumper in place I could start to wrap my head around extending the factory steel nose piece to reach the front of the upper grille as Look #2 and NOT recess the grille center section. I mocked this up with some black closed cell drawer liner I had (used for door seals in my heater/vent rebuild) and put the car back on the ground.
Pics are from eye level, the headlights are starting to look more sinister and with gaps closing up the look of the lights is starting to pay for the time they required to get right. Imagine away the droop in the drawer liner, and a softer vertical radius off the grille and I think this look #2 has potential plus fabbing a new nose piece won't be any more work than all the glass filling needed for Look #1. Once the grille is reunited with the buckets, I'll lay up 4 or 5 more continuous courses on the back for strength (remember this thing is a fascia designed to fit over a factory grille), I will also include hard points for mounting. After this, the next biggest hurdle is the custom trim filler pieces that will join the grille to the inner fender radii. I'm not a big "Murder/Black out" guy so I think the grille will be or have some silver...at least on the 73 Cuda centerpiece... we shall see.
I know some of you guys will hate this...just go easy on me!
Now I'm wonderingo I still have enough A body parts left to qualify for this forum?
Enjoy
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retired, sitting here with my coffee let’s pontificate. I went hard on this car for four years I guess starting in 2017. Actually had it down to a shell on a rotisserie I purchased with plans for new paint etc . The 8 barrel hood idea forced the engine and transmission back in, then, shortened rear end, next thing you know I thought well, may as well make a driver to work any bugs out before paint. FF to today paint is not on the radar and I’m still driving it and going to finish the car. So ditching the original plan and gravitating into whatever you call this has led me to the wiper pivots recently. Yep, with the dash and steering column in there. With seats out yesterday I made my first attempt at the driver side pivot, gonna be a fun one. Looks like instrument panel may need to back out of the way. Being retired with the car at home I don’t feel rushed anymore so stopping and regrouping is pretty common. I wondered if anyone out there has done wiper pivots with everything else in the way. At any rate, maybe I get up under there again today.
Prior to wipers I finished integrating the factory courtesy light harness since the new under dash harness didn’t provide . I get geeky when it comes to electrical stuff working right. So I now have timed key switch light, glove box light, map light and reverse light indicator. The only electrical items left are dome and heater box
Today I was successful at installing the wiper pivots ( assembled to connecting rods) with the complete instrument panel, column etc. in the way. Right side was easy, driver side not so much. The fuse box needed to be unbolted and the Speedo cable detach. When reattaching the ( new) Speedo cable I broke the retaining clip off. Anyway, to get the driver side pivot in I had to hold it in place at an angle due to instrument panel then start jamming the cowl seal into the hole bit by bit with a long screw driver. The original wiper arms are in great shape, just need to scare up the wiper frames/ blades
Moving to door glass installation. Got the remaining parts cleaned, inspected and lubed where needed. Waiting on new glass /to /lift channel rivets and channel guides for rear edge of door glass.
Door glass and new felts installed awhile ago, moved on to rear quarter glass. When I disassembled the car years ago I knew the rear quarter glass would be a treat to install. Couple hours yesterday to get my bearings, then 4 hours this morning to finish the regulators. I tested without glass first to see if glass could install after regulators. It worked out.
Sure. Just hit it with soapy water and slide your new quarter window seal right in. But we knew nothing was sliding didn’t we.
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