1970 Roadrunner - again

-
1967 'cuda

1967 'cuda

Dropped on Head as a Baby
Joined
Feb 16, 2013
Messages
5,351
Reaction score
1,038
Location
Nebraska
LIFE IN THE GARAGE - A CAR ADDICT AND HIS TOYS chapter 4000 - 1970 Roadrunner

INTRO:

The first car I ever bought was a 1970 Roadrunner. It was the summer of 1975 and I had just graduated high school. At 18, life was good. It was bronze with a 383 and a torqueflite. The interior color matched the outside. Factory mags with 69,000 miles on the odometer........

But that was a long time ago. It's now 39 years later and I've been slowly approaching crotchety old fart status. A lot has happened over those 39 years. I won't bore you with the mundane details of every day life during that period. Instead I'll speak about the things that folks that frequent a site like this would rather hear. THE CARS!

I've owned a bunch. - Ma Mopar had stolen my heart. But my relationship with vehicles wasn't exclusive. There've been a few Chebbies that managed to catch my eye. - Yes, I wasn't always faithful. The seductive lines of a '70 Camaro first made me stray. She had been my sister's car and she needed rescuing. I won't dwell on the details. At about the same time I met a '69 Camaro. She belonged to a buddy of mine. After seeing the movie ALOHA BOBBY AND ROSE, he attempted to copy the car in the show - adding fender flares, a spoiler and side pipes. After a few years though, he had grown tired of trying to get her to behave and knew it was time to say goodbye. I couldn't help myself. She had all the right curves. Yeah, I know what some of you are thinking. "Run him out of here!" "What kind of jerk is this guy?"

They say that the first thing you need to do to get back on track is to admit you have a problem. Well I refuse! I know where my heart really lies. - And there's a Pentastar there. Since then I bought another Roadrunner. This time a'68. Then a '69 440 Six Pack Superbee. A Hemi Superbird. A '64 Polara. A '64 Fury. A '72 Dodge Crew cab Dually. A '79 Lil Red Express. A '72 440 Duster. A '74 AARCuda clone. A '68 Charger R/T. A '67 Barracuda fastback. An '80 Mirada. A '70 Duster funnycar. And many more. - Including another 1970 Roadrunner. Actually this second 1970 Roadrunner is one of my son's cars. I tend to list ours together because we often have both worked on and driven them.

Another 383, but this time with a pistol grip 4-speed. Vitamin C orange. We picked her up in Missouri last year. It felt really good to sit in the same model of car as what I'd first owned so many years ago.
It may not have been my original car, but IT HAD A 4-SPEED!!!!!

Sorry, I got carried away....


This is the way she looked when we first picked her up.

View attachment 1.jpg
 
This latest Roadrunner was an eBay purchase. Although it still needs a lot of work, much of a restoration has already been done.
View attachment 2.jpg
The interior is new from Year One.
View attachment 3.jpg
Although it's sporting the factory AM/FM radio, it needs work. - Barely any radio reception and almost no volume. - A lot of static.
View attachment 4.jpg
The bottom of the car is very clean. You can see here where the old floor welds had been drilled out.
View attachment 5.jpg
The tic toc tach is not working. According to the fender tag, this car did not come with it originally.
View attachment 6.jpg
The 383 has been overhauled. It's running a 750 Holley and been converted to an electronic ignition.
View attachment 7.jpg
The power steering pump is tight and leak free but the steering box seeps.
View attachment 8.jpg
New window and door seals were already installed.
View attachment 9.jpg
Another picture of one of the 'very clean' frame rails.
View attachment 10.jpg
It's got a new fuel tank and the 8&3/4 posi has been freshly gone through.
View attachment 11.jpg
 
It has had some body repair to the lower quarters. Hopefully everything will look good when we get around to stripping it for paint.
View attachment 12.jpg
The trunk floor and drop offs have been replaced.
View attachment 13.jpg
The new upholstery doesn't seem to have any flaws.
View attachment 14.jpg
The front suspension is tight. Someone's already gone through it too.
View attachment 15.jpg
We did of course, check the serial numbers to make certain this wasn't a clone.
View attachment 16.jpg
Although we're more accustomed to doing more of this work ourselves, it's nice to know that this front suspension is done.
View attachment 17.jpg
Although the exhaust is new, these mufflers are too loud for our liking. I love the sound of a big block but I'd like to be able to hear the stereo without straining.
View attachment 18.jpg
Any of the pictures that we have that show body work in process were sent to us by the previous owner before we made the purchase. Other than a light skim where the quarter patches were done we didn't notice anything that gave us too much concern.
View attachment 19.jpg
One of the things that we have changed since buying the car were the shocks.
View attachment 20.JPG
We had a full new set of these double adjustable shocks sitting on the shelf. They had been bought for our '68 Charger project but my son decided to see how well they'd work on the Roadrunner.
View attachment 21.JPG
 
Even the Goodrich TA radials were new when we got the car.
View attachment 22.jpg
Another picture of the new trunk floor as it was being installed.
View attachment 23.jpg
The previous owner had also replaced the panel beneath/behind the rear window. Apparently the window channel had been rotted out.
View attachment 24.jpg
I was surprised at how much had been done. Even the rear leaf springs had new bushings.
View attachment 25.jpg
The new shocks that were on the car will have to sit on the shelf for now.
View attachment 26.jpg
The brake lines were new too.
View attachment 27.jpg
New blinker indicators in the hood. They didn't work when we got the car until we solved a grounding issue.
View attachment 28.jpg
The wiper motor has been rebuilt and the wiring in the engine compartment was all new.
View attachment 29.jpg
Looking down the left quarter.
View attachment 30.jpg
Looking down the right quarter.
View attachment 31.jpg
 
Unfortunately it's too hard to read the fender tag in this picture.
View attachment 32.jpg
New Vintique wheels.
View attachment 33.jpg

As good of a start we had when we bought the car, it did have it's issues. We picked it up from a storage facility that was gated and gave us limited area to drive it around. So although we weren't able to take it on a lengthy test drive we had a few hundred feet to run the car. When first started it was a bit cold blooded. I wasn't too concerned because I knew the Holley wasn't running a choke. I hadn't run a manual transmission in a long time and although I consider myself pretty adept with them, I couldn't tell for sure what was going on with the clutch. It definitely didn't seem to be adjusted correctly.

We were eager to get back home so after completing the transaction we loaded the Roadrunner on our trailer and headed back to Nebraska.

It was late before we got back home. - Too late to play with the car that night. Even though the car was capable of being driven as is, we knew that clutch still needed attention. The prior owner had said that he was aware that it wasn't quite right but assured us that everything was new and it was surely an adjustment issue. The next day was time for us to really try the car out. The 8&3/4 was running a set of 3.55s. Although we were aware of those issues with the clutch, we still hadn't tested the engine much.

We live in a small town of about 2500 people in a rural area. So there are open highways with limited traffic only minutes away. We drove to the nearest gas station first to make certain we wouldn't run out of fuel. I didn't want to assume that the 40-some year old gas gauge was accurate. After finding a secluded area we proceeded to run it through the gears. It was pretty disappointing. Although it didn't seem to run bad, it was sorely lacking power. After a few minutes we returned home.

I popped open the hood to see if there were any tell-tale signs of a problem. Although I couldn't see anything wrong, I almost burnt my arm on one of the hood hinges. The engine temperature gauge hadn't even reached 180' yet. Further inspection revealed that the heat was coming off the exhaust. - A possible sign that we were running awfully lean. Without having any replacement jets on hand we decided to investigate the motor further. When we put a timing light on it we noticed something strange. The initial timing was set at around 16' BTDC at 850 RPM. As RPM increased, the advance kept climbing until it was over 70' advanced and still climbing. We had only gone to around 3200 RPM. As far as how the car seemed to be running, - it was very sluggish on the bottom end. Unless you took it up to over 4000 RPM when you left from a standing start, you couldn't even bark the tires. Over 4 grand and it seemed to develop a decent amount of torque and HP. There were no signs of detonation as the timing advanced. So I was confused. Too much timing could have caused an increase in engine temperature, but it didn't run like there was too much timing. When we felt the firewall behind the engine, - it was still cool and the intake and block were actually cooler than the inner fenderwells of the car. The heat was definitely coming off the exhaust. Adjusting the initial timing back and forth didn't affect the exhaust temp.
View attachment 34.jpg
When they rebuilt the engine they installed a COMP cam. We aren't sure which cam because the previous owner never supplied us with the info. When we asked him over the phone about the build, he told us that the block had been milled but he didn't know how much. He couldn't tell us much more.
View attachment 35.JPG
I began to wonder if the cam and crank were synchronized correctly. The prior owner had done the assembly and he didn't degree the camshaft. One other theory I had was that there wasn't enough valve lash after the block was milled. The engine was still running stock rocker arms and pushrods. So, I decided to test my theory by shimming the rocker shaft with some brass shim stock. The effect was that we seemed to lose some power and increased the valve train noise. I pulled the shims back out. I put a degree wheel on the front of the motor and used a piston stop to see if the 0' timing mark was accurate on the harmonic balancer. It seemed to be within 1'.
View attachment 36.JPG
So I figured that I should focus on what I did find out from my tests. I was certain that we were getting way too much advance and indications were that we were probably running too lean. We have always been big proponents of MSD equipment, so we ordered an MSD Pro-billet distributor and an MSD Digital 6 Plus control box. Then I went ahead and ordered the full set of replacement Holley jets to experiment with.
View attachment 37.jpg
When the parts arrived I began to play around with them. After doing multiple jet changes we ended up increasing the sizes by about 8. The exhaust temps normalized. The switch to the MSD equipment seemed to give us a substantial increase in power throughout the entire RPM range. Although not a super powerhouse, the car was beginning to behave respectfully.
View attachment 38.JPG
We had a friend of mine test drive the car who was much more experienced with manual transmissions. He made some clutch adjustments which improved things but said that we should check our Z-bar bushings. When we did, we found that they were actually missing. He set us up with some extras he had on hand. Viola! The clutch problems were gone!
View attachment 39.JPG
 
Hosting it on the Ply RR forums, but need to be a member to view them ...its what I'am getting.

Might try making a separate album for them here?
 
Throughout my life I had never been a die hard restoration guy. No matter how good a job the factory had done with their millions of dollars in research and development, there was always something I wanted to change when I got a car. Usually it was the tire/wheel combination first. I think it was the influence of the CARtoons I read growing up.
View attachment 40.jpg

View attachment 41.jpg

View attachment 42.jpg

View attachment 43.jpg

View attachment 44.jpg

View attachment 45.jpg

View attachment 46.jpg
 
After getting the Roadrunner to behave respectfully on the road my son decided it was time to address the concerns with the radio. As sweet as the sound of a big block may be, sometimes a guy wants to hear some classic Rock and Roll while waiting in line at the Burger King drive thru. The static that the factory radio was putting out just wasn't cutting it. We knew enough not to toss the original tuner but it was slated for retirement on a shelf in the garage. We're not into building mobile boom boxes. We like hearing bass but not from the car that's 4 blocks away. Nowadays it's really hard to find a new stereo that isn't sporting micro sized buttons that are really hard to find while driving. There are a few retro radios made that are a lot more driver friendly and are a better fit in the old dashes. I was leaning towards one of those. But my son wanted something more. He felt that the Roadrunner deserved a system that more exemplified performance instead of one that was more akin to a wallflower at the prom. What he came up with was this. A JVC KD-AVX77.

View attachment 47.jpg
What's so special about it? Well, for one thing it utilizes touch screen controls. That translates to having larger button surfaces that are easier to find while driving. It sounds good. - Very good. Without running any external amps it reproduces sound crisp and clear with great highs, lows, and mid-range. There are I-pod inputs. It can act as a DVD player if a person wanted to use it that way. (we weren't that concerned about that option) It could also be used as a monitor for a back-up camera system. (we didn't care about that option either) What we REALLY liked was that it could display wallpaper. - That's right. Wallpaper. Just as a person likes to display their own custom background images on their computer screens, now we could do it in the car.
View attachment 48.jpg
View attachment 49.jpg
The obvious choice for wallpaper in the Roadrunner was to put a picture of a Roadrunner on the background. The radio is only capable of storing 4 images at a time, but you can always swap them out later if you want.
View attachment 50.jpg
View attachment 51.jpg
There are settings that you can adjust that will make the buttons disappear until your hand gets close to the touch screen or you can have them visible at all times.
View attachment 52.jpg
View attachment 53.jpg
View attachment 54.jpg
'Lil Roadrunner rockin' out to the tunes in the back seat.
View attachment 55.jpg
 
To prevent having to cut the original plastic radio bezel I bought a reproduction radio delete plate. - (Hard to believe they ask $100 for them.) While I had the dash apart I found an old insurance card that had fallen behind it and was sitting in the dash frame. According to information on the card, the owner was from the Boston area.

Just for the heck of it I decided to see if I could find him. The internet can really be great sometimes. After doing a Google search for his name I came up with a phone number. Although I wasn't certain that I had the right person I gave him a call. After introducing myself I asked him whether or not he used to own a 1970 Roadrunner. He hesitated for a bit (I suppose the question seemed odd to him). But then he said yes. He had bought one new back in 1970. As we chatted he gave me some of the car's history. He confirmed that the tach in it was not original and said that he used to have an aftermarket tach mounted under the dash overhang in that same area. He had used it as a combination street/strip vehicle for quite a few years, during which time the original 383 had been scattered. He'd run several other power plants in it and had gotten it to run into the 11s.

One thing that I had failed to mention when I originally started this thread was that the car had a salvage title. I was hoping that the original owner might know why.

He told me that the accident happened while he owned it. Back in 1982 he was in the habit of parking the car on the street in front of his house. One day a woman was driving by with her kid in her car. It was the child's birthday and she had bought him a helium filled balloon. As they were going down the street, the balloon went out the window. In an attempt to see where it was going she took her eyes off the road. That's when she ran into the front passenger side of the Roadrunner. Although not terribly damaged, the insurance company decided to total the car. When they'd picked it up, that was the last time he'd ever seen or heard anything about it. He had assumed it'd been parted out and crushed.

I sent him what pictures that I had of the car, and send him updates on it as we make progress. He surprised me by telling me that he still had the original owners manual and window sticker from when he'd bought it. He sent them to us. He also sent me a copy of a picture that he kept, - showing him working on the car back in the seventies. He's semi-retired now and spends his time restoring old Harleys.

This is the picture that he sent us.
View attachment 56.jpg
 
The Roadrunner came with a new aluminum Champion radiator. Despite the problem with the heat coming off the exhaust, the motor has always ran cool. No factory shroud, but my experiences with the Champion radiators tell me that the original shrouds don't mate to them.
View attachment 57.jpg
We left the Chrysler electronic control box on the firewall even though it's now bypassed for the new MSD equipment.
View attachment 58.jpg
The radiator support seemed like a good location for the MSD controller. It would be away from most of the heat in the engine compartment and it was still a little wrinkled in that spot from when the car was hit in the front.
View attachment 59.jpg
We wouldn't have been to concerned about the tic-toc-tach not working, but with the 4-speed we wanted to know at what RPM we were shifting. We installed this aftermarket tach beneath the dash overhang just as the original owner had. We even used the same holes that he had drilled decades earlier.
View attachment 60.jpg
Even though we could have fixed the factory tach, my son wanted to have one with a shift light built in.
View attachment 61.jpg

​
 
Very cool!!! My first RR was a used 69, 383 4 speed. In early ?71? I was getting ready to repaint, do the brakes, and a few more things, a friend had a 70 440-6 car. 4 speed, Dana, headers, 800 Holley, the "six pack" was in the trunk. My all time favorite car. If I could afford it, I'd have another one today!!!

http://moparforums.com/forums/f62/my-old-ride-back-day-596/

I have no good photos anymore, thanks to time, film deterioration, and a house fire. This photo was taken in about 73

81sruds.jpg


Me when I was young, about 72 or so

attachment.php


Our RADAR shop at NAS Miramar, no longer there, out off the W end of the bore sight range, just E of the TACAN building which is still there. This is the "usual" for a weekend at t he shop. We had "24 on, 48 off" duty with GCA This day I'm working on my black '64 426 under the tree, to RR trunk is up for tools. I don't remember who owned the Plum Crazy shaker hood Cuda, he was a casual friend through the Auto Hobby shop where I had a part time job. The Ponch Ventura belonged to a co-worker, and the RR with the hood up to the left of my limelight is Dave's 68 RR. He, much to his brother's and cousins and my own dismay, foregone his great wife, married a young trophy wench, and swore off Mopars a few years back.

I put over a 100K on the clock during the time I had the 70, it had about 35K on it when I bought it. I sold it to "some kid" with a 360!!! short block, and early!!! 273!!! Commando heads and intake!!!! He wrecked it, and would never discuss (to this day) what cliff they shoved it over!!!! I think there was some hittish and runnish involved there!!!!

attachment.php


The car when nearly new and it's original owner, George. He's still with us today. He's just trophied I think at Lions in Pure Stock

attachment.php
 
By the way, mine had a tic tock from the factory which never worked. George finally pulled it out, and "they" were supposed to fix or replace it but never did. He actually installed a Sun "back there" right in the empty hole, and it looked pretty good there. Later on, I had a great big Jones Motrola mechanical tach in the car and put THAT back in the dash. The face of the tach was so big, the "rim" of the back of the cluster cutout sat right on the face of that big Jones tach.

Mine looked something like this, and was a "fair" match to the speedo

1374.JPG
 
67Dart273 said:
Very cool!!! My first RR was a used 69, 383 4 speed. In early ?71? I was getting ready to repaint, do the brakes, and a few more things, a friend had a 70 440-6 car. 4 speed, Dana, headers, 800 Holley, the "six pack" was in the trunk. My all time favorite car. If I could afford it, I'd have another one today!!!

http://moparforums.com/forums/f62/my-old-ride-back-day-596/

I have no good photos anymore, thanks to time, film deterioration, and a house fire. This photo was taken in about 73



Me when I was young, about 72 or so



Our RADAR shop at NAS Miramar, no longer there, out off the W end of the bore sight range, just E of the TACAN building which is still there. This is the "usual" for a weekend at t he shop. We had "24 on, 48 off" duty with GCA This day I'm working on my black '64 426 under the tree, to RR trunk is up for tools. I don't remember who owned the Plum Crazy shaker hood Cuda, he was a casual friend through the Auto Hobby shop where I had a part time job. The Ponch Ventura belonged to a co-worker, and the RR with the hood up to the left of my limelight is Dave's 68 RR. He, much to his brother's and cousins and my own dismay, foregone his great wife, married a young trophy wench, and swore off Mopars a few years back.

I put over a 100K on the clock during the time I had the 70, it had about 35K on it when I bought it. I sold it to "some kid" with a 360!!! short block, and early!!! 273!!! Commando heads and intake!!!! He wrecked it, and would never discuss (to this day) what cliff they shoved it over!!!! I think there was some hittish and runnish involved there!!!!



The car when nearly new and it's original owner, George. He's still with us today. He's just trophied I think at Lions in Pure Stock

Click to expand...

AWESOME PICS!!!! I'm still trying to track down photos of my original Roadrunner. Those were the best of times to be a car guy!
 
This forum is dedicated to those with a love of Mopars. Most everyone here already knows the history behind the Roadrunner. Few would question it's legendary status amongst muscle cars.

It wasn't the all-time fastest.
It wasn't the best built.
It wasn't the best handling.
It didn't have the most options.

But it was the epitome of what a muscle car was supposed to be. It with all of it's imperfections, was THE perfect icon to represent the performance rivalry between the automakers. I'm certain that everyone that's ever owned one had to smile whenever they honked... I mean BEEPED the horn.
http://www.69roadrunner.net/mopar/images/smilies/beep.gif

Out of the box there was no mistaking the bulging hoods and that 'lil bird decal meant something special. But they were born during the late 60s and the psychedelic 70s were on the way.

Customizing was becoming more prevalent as performance parts became easier to obtain. No one thought about preserving their muscle car in original condition. - After all, the factory had already started the customizing by installing higher horsepower engines, racing stripes, special body panels, stereos, mag wheels, and wider tires.

The influence of racing had enough of an impact on car sales that now everyone's familiar with the term "What wins on Sunday, sells on Monday!" It may not hold true today but 'back in the day' it was accepted as fact.

Not everybody modified their cars. But some that did created local legends. - The cars that were rumored to be THE fastest. Whether they thought good or bad about them, everybody knew those cars.

In the movie American Graffiti John Milner's '32 was the local legend. Who would have expected Harrison Ford to take him on? lol

There was a yellow '55 Chevy running the streets in the town I grew up. He had a banana painted on the front fenders behind his wheels. http://www.69roadrunner.net/mopar/images/smilies/banana.gif Everybody said it was quick. I never got to find out.

I had my '70 Roadrunner repainted black, modified the 383 as much as I knew how to in order to get more power. I installed the modified torqueflite out of my '69 SixPack Superbee. At idle, going down the street, it would chirp the tires every time it shifted. - Your foot didn't have to be on the gas pedal. I paid a custom car painter to do the flames in a traditional yellow fading to orange with a white pinstripe around them. I loved to flip the switch for the air grabber whenever I was at a stop light next to a guy revving his motor. Usually there were jaws dropping and fingers pointing as it opened. The sight was enough to scare most people off. http://www.69roadrunner.net/mopar/images/smilies/disillusionment.png

I think the guy with that yellow '55 was as scared of me as I was of him. As much as people egged us on to race each other, we never gave in. But here it is almost 40 years later and anyone around here who is old enough to remember those days, still remember our cars.


Today I'm an old fart. And I've returned to my passion for building cars. But I don't want to build just any cars. I want to build legends! http://www.69roadrunner.net/mopar/images/smilies/cool.gif​
 
Sweet find,had the parts/car to build a 69 RR A12 clone,Six Pack & all.Unfortunately, unemployment reared it's ugly head. See ya, in the funny pages.
 
Very Nice I miss my 70 Runner I sold it to a member here a few years ago.I don't think I will ever afford to buy another one.
 
Abodybomber said:
Will this ramp,into something hotter?..... lol.
Click to expand...

My son is determined to drop a 426 in it some day. Part of his decision to go with the FAST fuel injection was to have a system that would keep up with the power to come some day. We're currently working on an AAR theme on his 2010 Challenger. His '68 Charger will be focused on again once the SRT is done. Meanwhile his Roadrunner will act as his daily driver in Des Moines.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Back
Top