1969 Race Dart w/ 426 Hemi- garaged for 45+ years

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Demonracer said:
My guess on pulling the tunnel ram would be because he wants streetability. Over the years I've run tunnel rams in street cars and race cars, the tuning on the race cars were one thing, but trying to tune a tunnel ram on a street car is a totally different ball game.
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I never had a problem streeting my tunnel ram
 
Maxcustody said:
Any of you parts hounds….. posted a wanted ad previous but person who has one not correct year…….. may just get a new one from AMD as Jared @MidnightSwinger pointed out to me

Looking for the torsion bar crossmember part for a ‘69 Dart 4 speed. The arrow in red is pointing to what I need. Let me know if anyone has anything available. Thank you

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I bought a new AMD cross member and cut out the center hump to install a T56 and have the hump section laying around collecting dust in a corner of the garage:

Upper hoop cut out.jpg
 
just for thought.....

post 183 shows what was done on the Leal car. the top portion of the torsion bar / transmission crossmember was modified to be removable to ease servicing the clutch.


Turning back the clock
 
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Just a little update. I took the car back to Sean on January 5th before we got any snow. It was a quick round trip. Left at 0330 and got home at 1715. Long day but glad I got it done before any bad weather. He is working on going thru everything and putting it back together.

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It's good to see the old girl back together, I'm sure your FIL is smiling down at your accomplishment.
 
you are right....it is friggin cold out there and unfortunately I drew the short straw to get the coffee.

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I am guessing the torsion bar cross-member was cut out due to my FIL putting a B-body 4-speed in the car. No idea why he did not weld a support back in, he usually overbuilt everything he did.

Sean got it welded back in yesterday.

Thank you again to @340sFastback and @Kern Dog for sending me cross-member parts to get the car squared away. :thumbsup:

Before...........

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Completed...........

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Cutting that brace out was an old time trick to get the 4 speed linkage to clear the floor pan on cars that didn't have the 4 speed hump. A good friend bought a 70 Challenger many years ago and shelled the clutch in it. He called and asked if I'd help him put in a new clutch assembly and flywheel. I went over to his house taking my trusty floor jack and stands. We set everything up and as I jacked the nose of the car up on the K member, both doors popped open. To my surprise, that brace was cut, the car didn't have subframe connectors and there was no 4 speed hump in it. As soon as we got the new clutch in it, I told him he had some serious work ahead of him to get the car straight again. After a stint in the frame shop and welding in a piece to the brace and installing subframe connectors, the car no longer sagged when you jacked it up.
 
Demonracer said:
Cutting that brace out was an old time trick to get the 4 speed linkage to clear the floor pan on cars that didn't have the 4 speed hump. A good friend bought a 70 Challenger many years ago and shelled the clutch in it. He called and asked if I'd help him put in a new clutch assembly and flywheel. I went over to his house taking my trusty floor jack and stands. We set everything up and as I jacked the nose of the car up on the K member, both doors popped open. To my surprise, that brace was cut, the car didn't have subframe connectors and there was no 4 speed hump in it. As soon as we got the new clutch in it, I told him he had some serious work ahead of him to get the car straight again. After a stint in the frame shop and welding in a piece to the brace and installing subframe connectors, the car no longer sagged when you jacked it up.
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Thanks. It was originally a 4 speed car, was it modified to clear the B body transmission you think?
 
Maxcustody said:
Thanks. It was originally a 4 speed car, was it modified to clear the B body transmission you think?
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I have no doubt. That (18 spline / Trac-pak) B- body transmission would not fit without the clearancing mod. The thinking was the 4-bolt transmission mount held everything together.
 
As I said, that was an old time trick, but people didn't realize how big of a part that brace played in keeping the body rigid. The only part thr B body transmission played was the fact that the B body tail housing was longer than the A body housing.
 
Demonracer said:
As I said, that was an old time trick, but people didn't realize how big of a part that brace played in keeping the body rigid. The only part thr B body transmission played was the fact that the B body tail housing was longer than the A body housing.
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not to mention they used the heavier duty 18 spline version which IMHO is why they used the B-body trans.....otherwise use the short tailshaft A body version.
 
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