68 valiant signet

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i had a deal earlier this week, included with the free garage was 11 8x4 sheets of 11mm osb board. i sold them for £100 this week which covers the cost of the mini digger to level the ground for the garage. that'll be next weekend.
i also collected a prop' to fit the 727 box today. thanks to stuart 'stu twin' on the mma forum, nice to meet you mate.
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plus i bought a hardly used 'shiny' 750 holley off ebay for £108 posted for the 383, bargain.
 
the torsion bar removal is news to me too
but then again, i never messed with a RHD mopar before....and i thought Jensen interceptors were only used in the mad max movies
Ummm no. No Jensen Interceptors in mad max movies. Jensens were British cars equipped with Mopar big blocks. Mad max was an Aussie movie. Aussie ford falcon 4 doors and a black falcon 2 door XBGT. The pursuit special they wrecked at the beginning was a Holden Monaro. Aussie version of a chevelle
 
They did have a Jensen Intercepter in one of the later Fast and Furious movies. Not sure which number it was because I'm not a big fan of em. It was in the movie with the red Daytona, or should i say "Dayclona"
 
the front and rear bench seats were both collected today by a courier and were on there way north to be retrimmed for fitment to a dart (67 i think). as i think i've said it'll be cheaper to fit standard black leather seats from another car (i've got a ford granada scorpio set for £100) than get the benches retrimmed so....
all i need to do is make the front seats 'tip' forward for rear seat passengers, how hard can that be?
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just had a sweep out inside the car now the seats and carpet remnants are gone. there are just 2 1/4" holes together on the pass' floor (dead centre in the last pic, show as 2 beige circles) which is about what i expected. this car is excellent rust wise, it just looks a pos
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You may have some SUVs with tilting seats in your junkyards. You may have to poke around a bit.
there are lots of german 2 door cars in junkyards here with black leather seats cheap if i can't sort these to tilt. our ashley will have the scorpio fronts for his zephyr as i fitted the same to that when i built it in 2000 and one of the motors has failed on his passenger seat.
 
Good looking floors. Usually leaks on these cars can be traced back to the windshield wiper pivots. Theres a small seal that seals each rotating wiper arm shaft that wears out. What i have done in the past and will do to my project 67 and my sons project 69 is drill and add a zerk fitting to the aluminum casting on each pivot and pump them up with grease. This eliminates the leak.

For seats i have a nice set of correct factory buckets for my 67. I have given up hope on 68-69 buckets for my sons 69. However i own a nice 2007 mustang GT and the seats are dimensionally perfect. These would easily fit the A body bucket seat tracks i have collected up for it if i ditch all the power crap off them. As a bonus the way the upholstery is stitched it can easily mimic the 69 barracuda rear seat upholstery.

Now i am patiently waiting for a 2005-2009 mustang LX or GT to hit my local wrecking yards with dark charcoal seats. I check every few weeks. Blasphemy Ford seats in a mopar one might say?? Well i am putting a Ford Explorer 8.8 under it too so why not lol.
 
Good looking floors. Usually leaks on these cars can be traced back to the windshield wiper pivots. Theres a small seal that seals each rotating wiper arm shaft that wears out. What i have done in the past and will do to my project 67 and my sons project 69 is drill and add a zerk fitting to the aluminum casting on each pivot and pump them up with grease. This eliminates the leak.

For seats i have a nice set of correct factory buckets for my 67. I have given up hope on 68-69 buckets for my sons 69. However i own a nice 2007 mustang GT and the seats are dimensionally perfect. These would easily fit the A body bucket seat tracks i have collected up for it if i ditch all the power crap off them. As a bonus the way the upholstery is stitched it can easily mimic the 69 barracuda rear seat upholstery.

Now i am patiently waiting for a 2005-2009 mustang LX or GT to hit my local wrecking yards with dark charcoal seats. I check every few weeks. Blasphemy Ford seats in a mopar one might say?? Well i am putting a Ford Explorer 8.8 under it too so why not lol.
i've heard of the wiper shaft leaks and intended to check/sort that when i'm under there to remove the dashpad for a refurb. a zerk fitting's a good idea, i'll use marine grade waterproof grease (the thick almost waxy white stuff) that they use on inboard type boat propshafts. and re ford parts on a mopar, i'll use whatever is to hand that works. this car almost got a twin turbo 383 chevy so........
 
I have had purists on here balk about me using a GM HEI 4 pin module to fire a mopar distributor, works great BTW. Its like a "Po Boy" MSD. Using a hyundai tiburon overflow catch bottle, nippondenso alternator, repop parts etc. Who cares it works, looks good, makes me happy. Not a numbers weenie by any stretch. Although thats still cool if your into that and ir have a high dollar rare one.

Almost went with a GM 200 R4 overdrive for my sons car, but the mopar A500-A518 overdrive uses a regular mopar 3 speed shift linkage and indicator and a pushbutton electronic overdrive you can mount anywhere making it an easier swap into a stock console. Early ones have a speedometer cable drive hole, and it uses mopar standard sized U joints. You still have to mod the torsion bar cross member and the trans mount, and use a "GASP" GM trans mount to make it work.
 
So if you like stuff matching then look away now. I've sorted a pair of wilwood calipers for the front at work today. They are nice billet superlite 6 piston jobbies which is all good. Now the bit you may cringe at, as they are ex display ones one is lug mount and the other radial mount. Every other detail is identical so on the basis you can't actually see the mounts when on the car and considering 'i don't care', at about $200 the pair including fast road pads then that's what I'm using. I'll add pics later, Neil.
 
todays question has to do with replacing the slant six in my valiant with a 383. has anyone fitted coilovers to help/assist the six cylinder torsion bars rather than fit big block ones? just weighing up my options as i can get a good deal on coilovers at work with the added benefit of the shocks being adjustable.
cheers, neil.
 
i thought it's time to start fitting the scorpio seats so when i got in today i dug the rear and a front seat out of my van. a quick offer up of the rear and the width is about spot on, the back sections will need shortening at the bottom so the base will slide back under them but that'll be easy enough. once they're mounted i'll see how much of a job making the front's 'tip' for rear seat access will be.

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as an aside i borrowed this '66 fury back from a mate as i needed a car to 'do' a wedding tomorrow. i had it briefly some 10 to 15 odd years ago and painted it then before selling it. the new owner wanted the poly 318 taken out for a 440 instead and proceeded to strip most of the car, selling the 318 and box and buying a 440/727 from duncan watts. the project stalled and he offered it back to me so i knew a mate was looking for something to build so he bought it. it's been back on the road now about 18 months and i thought it'd fit the bill for this wedding.

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when i used the fury i had to borrow the inside door opening handles from my valiant as a previous owner had lost them
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. so i told kerry to leave them for now and i'd try to locate a pair for him. in less than a week i got a pair from the MMA forum which was great. apparently the guy had bought them new for his car but when he fitted a rollcage the doors wouldn't close
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so he took them back off and shelved them 'til i bought them this week. i asked kerry if he wanted the nice shiny ones but he prefers the 50 year old ones so i fitted the new ones to the valiant and he's paying me for them so a free upgrade
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next job was to see how i could get the scorpio seats to tilt for rear seat access in my 2 door car. i removed the plastic side covers and straight away could see it would be an easy job
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. the backrest is held to the base with a basically triangular bracket each side with 2 bolts to the base and one to the backrest. so first i removed the rear bolt each side and loosened the front and hey presto a tilting seat. to keep it from reclining too far i slotted the rear bolt hole and refitted the bolts loose. now it tilts and has as stop when it's back. last part of the job was to cut the plastic cover in 2 as it screwed to both the base and the back of the seat. oh, and i ran a pair of wires to the 'feed' plug to check all the electrical functions which all work fine. i just need to loctite the bolts so they don't back out in use.
one seat done and one to do
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well i sold all the chevy stuff and the twin turbo's i'd bought but i couldn't shake that itch. so..... i've bought a new gt45 turbo for the 383, just to liven things up a bit. i'll add pics when it arrives, the ad showed it dwarfing a 6 pint milk container though
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also now i know the seats will tip forward i've bought another front pair in better condition as the ones i have have some wear.
cheers, neil.
 
making progress. i haven't been getting notifications and didn't know you were updating this thread. can't wait to see the caliper brackets. what's going to keep the seat back from going forward every time you hammer those wilwoods?
 
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