71DusterSwe
Well-Known Member
Warning for wall of text, if you dont like to read just scroll down 
Hello, I introduced myself some time ago and was going to make a little project thread about my Duster. Never got that far though and now I came in contact with a guy from Sweden who also hangs out here so I figured it's better late than never.
I am 25 years old and I have some experience in working with cars, rust repair, electrical and such, although I have little to no experience with taking apart or putting together engines.
So this seemed like a great project for me to learn more about that.
Last fall i got to know about a Duster with slant 6 and a 904 trans for sale in Umeå, about 25 swedish miles away from me. At the time I had a 78 Camaro which had been really abused by its previous owner and I still had plenty of work left on it.
I called the guy and he said that a 15 years old boy had called several times but couldnt make up his mind, so I just said that I wanted the car and I went to get it as fast as I could
We drove there and it was kinda cold outside, test drove the Duster for maybe 2 minutes, paid and went home. The heater core was not installed until the night before we looked at it, and the seller had just put it in its place with some zip ties. It wasnt really a warm drive home but the car ran great.
Except for the awful smell of ammoniak, cat piss, boiling trans oil maybe? We stopped several times when the smell was too much, but we couldnt find the problem.
Apparently a cable to the voltage regulator had come loose, so it overcharged the battery making it boil. It had also taken over 40 liters of gas, and when we filled it up back home it leaked large amounts out on the ground, through the filler neck.
Enough about that. The Duster has plastic front fenders, 8 3/4" rear axle, disc brakes up front and drums at the rear. Interior was okay, but needs some work. Luckily my mother in law does great upholstering. The paint job looks good from a little distance, im not gonna do anything but repaint the back lid.
A little rust in the rear fenders, no big deal though. Seems like its in good shape rust wise at least.
The car got parked in my fathers garage, he has a pretty large tractor garage with good storage.
I started looking for an engine and just stumbled upon a 74 360 which the seller said was in great shape. He wanted about $1350 so I obviously (being a swede and all) bargained and got it down a few dollars and he also threw in an edelbrock perfomer intake. The engine did not include any ignition stuff, no starter, no generator and such.
I worked on the Camaro almost all winter, ordered some parts and started taking apart the engine this spring.
It was really dirty and I was just going to change seals and install a new cam.
When we got the heads off, the top of the pistons were really rusty. You could feel the scrathes in the cylinders with your fingers. We also saw after getting the cam out, that the cam bearings were cracked and the cam itself had pieces broken off off it.
We decided that it would be best to take the pistons and crank out of it just to see how everything looked.
I tried cleaning the pistons but they were damaged. The crank was scratched, main/rod bearings were junk.
Basically nothing were in good shape. I contacted a company and turned in my heads, block, pistons, rods and the crank.
The crank needed grounding, 0.010 and 0.020 i think. The cylinders were also kind of bad so they needed to be bored 0.030 and honed. They said that the block was really rusty, so it must have been stored outside for a very long time.
Then they checked the heads, original x heads which the seller said was one of the best heads for porting and stuff. They were cracked, and the company suggested not to spend the amount of money needed to get them in shape and instead they offered a set of engine quest aluminum heads.
I was already up way over my budget, so I said no to the heads. Stupid..
I still haven't found any heads, and sometimes it takes a couple of months to get stuff from the states.
Oh, the engine company has had my parts since April, and they are still not finished.
I calculated a bit and I think im already in about $5-6000 on the engine and its not even finished or assemblied.
Engine specs should be something like this when its finished:
Block, bored 0.030 over
Original crank
Speed Pro pistons 4.030
Comp cams 20-224-4
Holley 650 DP
Edelbrock RPM intake
Hopefully some aluminum heads, otherwise ported j-heads with the larger valves
Paired with a stronger 727.
I hope I didnt bore you too much, but here comes some pictures.
These are the seats that my mother in law fixed for me in the Camaro
Hello, I introduced myself some time ago and was going to make a little project thread about my Duster. Never got that far though and now I came in contact with a guy from Sweden who also hangs out here so I figured it's better late than never.
I am 25 years old and I have some experience in working with cars, rust repair, electrical and such, although I have little to no experience with taking apart or putting together engines.
So this seemed like a great project for me to learn more about that.
Last fall i got to know about a Duster with slant 6 and a 904 trans for sale in Umeå, about 25 swedish miles away from me. At the time I had a 78 Camaro which had been really abused by its previous owner and I still had plenty of work left on it.
I called the guy and he said that a 15 years old boy had called several times but couldnt make up his mind, so I just said that I wanted the car and I went to get it as fast as I could
We drove there and it was kinda cold outside, test drove the Duster for maybe 2 minutes, paid and went home. The heater core was not installed until the night before we looked at it, and the seller had just put it in its place with some zip ties. It wasnt really a warm drive home but the car ran great.
Except for the awful smell of ammoniak, cat piss, boiling trans oil maybe? We stopped several times when the smell was too much, but we couldnt find the problem.
Apparently a cable to the voltage regulator had come loose, so it overcharged the battery making it boil. It had also taken over 40 liters of gas, and when we filled it up back home it leaked large amounts out on the ground, through the filler neck.
Enough about that. The Duster has plastic front fenders, 8 3/4" rear axle, disc brakes up front and drums at the rear. Interior was okay, but needs some work. Luckily my mother in law does great upholstering. The paint job looks good from a little distance, im not gonna do anything but repaint the back lid.
A little rust in the rear fenders, no big deal though. Seems like its in good shape rust wise at least.
The car got parked in my fathers garage, he has a pretty large tractor garage with good storage.
I started looking for an engine and just stumbled upon a 74 360 which the seller said was in great shape. He wanted about $1350 so I obviously (being a swede and all) bargained and got it down a few dollars and he also threw in an edelbrock perfomer intake. The engine did not include any ignition stuff, no starter, no generator and such.
I worked on the Camaro almost all winter, ordered some parts and started taking apart the engine this spring.
It was really dirty and I was just going to change seals and install a new cam.
When we got the heads off, the top of the pistons were really rusty. You could feel the scrathes in the cylinders with your fingers. We also saw after getting the cam out, that the cam bearings were cracked and the cam itself had pieces broken off off it.
We decided that it would be best to take the pistons and crank out of it just to see how everything looked.
I tried cleaning the pistons but they were damaged. The crank was scratched, main/rod bearings were junk.
Basically nothing were in good shape. I contacted a company and turned in my heads, block, pistons, rods and the crank.
The crank needed grounding, 0.010 and 0.020 i think. The cylinders were also kind of bad so they needed to be bored 0.030 and honed. They said that the block was really rusty, so it must have been stored outside for a very long time.
Then they checked the heads, original x heads which the seller said was one of the best heads for porting and stuff. They were cracked, and the company suggested not to spend the amount of money needed to get them in shape and instead they offered a set of engine quest aluminum heads.
I was already up way over my budget, so I said no to the heads. Stupid..
I still haven't found any heads, and sometimes it takes a couple of months to get stuff from the states.
Oh, the engine company has had my parts since April, and they are still not finished.
I calculated a bit and I think im already in about $5-6000 on the engine and its not even finished or assemblied.
Engine specs should be something like this when its finished:
Block, bored 0.030 over
Original crank
Speed Pro pistons 4.030
Comp cams 20-224-4
Holley 650 DP
Edelbrock RPM intake
Hopefully some aluminum heads, otherwise ported j-heads with the larger valves
Paired with a stronger 727.
I hope I didnt bore you too much, but here comes some pictures.
These are the seats that my mother in law fixed for me in the Camaro
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