Another Mopar Off My Bucket List - Barracuda Fastback

[1967 'cuda]

I finally had a chance to get some pictures of the Challenger in daylight. After searching the internet for photos of red cars, my son chose to go with a '69 Monza Red. He hasn't seen the Challenger in person yet but he's questioning whether or not he made the right color choice. He thinks it may have too much yellow in it. When the car is in direct sunlight it DOES look more like orange. He should be back in Nebraska later today to see it. Personally, I like it.

I've seen a number of new Challengers on the street and in car shows that have had the strobe stripe on them. - And there are several versions of those strobe stripe kits out there. They all look good. But I think the addition of the AAR style hood tends to make me think 'Cuda' instead of Challenger when I see the car. He'd bought the hood before the Hellcats were released. Now it's possible to get Hellcat hoods. - But I'm happy with this hood he chose and I don't think I'd prefer any other.

These aftermarket wheels were already on the car when he bought it. I hated them at first when the car was still black. - And I wasn't too thrilled with them after the car was first shot red. But after blacking out the hood and adding the stripes and trim they've really grown on me. His plan was to purchase different ones but we'll see what he thinks after he looks it over.

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[1967 'cuda]

Yesterday's news had one of the nastiest weather forecasts I've heard in a long time. Rumors of thunderstorms with baseball sized hail, high winds, and tornadoes. I'm sort of screwed if things get really bad. The best I could do was to get everything under the trees. I moved the 'Lil Red inside and dropped the box on the back. I figured that high winds would've probably raised havoc with the box on that cart. I didn't quite get everything under cover before the rain hit. It came down in buckets with strong wind pushing it. - Quarter sized hail. So far it hasn't gotten spooky out there so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

My son hasn't shown up yet from Iowa. I'd hate to have his first view of the Challenger be one where it looks like a popcorn ball. As much as I should get it inside, he's got full insurance coverage on it and I don't on the rest of the toys.

It was raining so hard earlier that I couldn't hardly see across the street. - Not so bad right now. It's supposed to start and stop like this all night long. I'll have to make sure I've got an empty spot under one of the trees for when the Roadrunner shows up.

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[1967 'cuda]

The power went out right after my last post and came back on a minute or so ago. I think a lightning strike must have taken out a transformer. I had to pull the manual release cord on the garage door in order to close it. I was soaking wet from when I was unbolting the truck box from the cart out in the rain so I ran a hot bath and waited for the power to come back on.

My plan tomorrow is to bring the Charger back here from the farm. With the thefts we've had out there I'd rather have it close by. As soon as the Express is finished and I have a chance to tune the Roadrunner, it will be next in line for work. If the city gives me a hard time for having it here I'm likely to have a bit of an attitude with them after all I've had stolen.

 

[1967 'cuda]

My son called me up around 9:30 p.m. The Roadrunner died on his way here. He pulled over on I-680/29 about a half hour east of Omaha. Luckily the rain has let up for awhile. I hooked the Ford to the trailer and headed out. It was a 2 and a half hour trip each way. I didn't run into much rain along the way so maybe it's done for the day.

I think that while my son's washing/detailing the Challenger I'll push the truck out of the garage and get the Roadrunner inside. The fuel injection works awesome when it works but we've got to figure out why the computer keeps going haywire. From the sounds of things the problems start showing up when it's warm. I've never had a decent chance to troubleshoot it since it went to Iowa. I'll probably use it as my own daily driver so that I can watch the screen readout and narrow down the issues. I suspect that it's going to be related to too many grounds. I had read a post that described multiple grounds creating an antenna effect. - And that screws with the ECU. We did our best to isolate the power feeds to it and I know we routed our wiring away from all ignition electrical sources. This thing DOES run great. But the glitches are still there.

 

[Abodybomber]

Damn,what good luck,'67 Cuda?.. Been ripped off before, to the tine of 2100, in car audio equipment .(In 1992 dollars) After that everything became under lock & key. Even then,had a prankster who slid the shop sliding door open,from underneath. I chewed him out nasty,was the end of that. Some people just don't get it.

 

[1967 'cuda]

Well the weather behaved the rest of last night. After moving all the vehicles around again it was time to look at the Roadrunner.

I moved the truck back outside so it wasn't in our way.

We put the battery charger on the Roadrunner first to make sure we'd have proper voltage to fire FAST's ECU. While we were waiting we did a cursory inspection of the ignition components. We found that the coil was bad. The one we were using had a male coil wire post and the tip was broken off inside the boot. The inner windings were loose from the housing too. We replaced it with the ACCEL Super Coil that was meant for the Charger.

Next we checked the plugs. Numbers 1, 2, and 7 had quite a bit of carbon build up and they were all sooty and wet. The thing I hate most about having a computer control fuel mix and timing is that things seem to be taken out of your control. We had another set of RJ12YC's in the toolbox so we swapped them out.

When we tried to reprogram the FAST controller we began to hear some clattering/hammering from the engine. Spooked by the noise we decided to change the oil and look for shavings. I stretched an old T-shirt over a pan so we could filter the oil and see if there was any metal. The Royal Purple Synthetic was awfully dark even though it wasn't overdue for a change. I'd been told by some others that it had a tendency to break down early in their motors so I'm not sure what's going on. I know that the plugs suggest that the car's been running rich. Maybe it's making it past the rings. We ran a magnet over the shirt to find any metal filings that might have been caught. We found a few.

After a short discussion we decided against dropping the oil pan. We pulled the valve covers instead.
I HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS BEFORE!!! The baffle inside of the left valve cover had a large chunk broken off. There was no sign of any trauma that would have caused it. It seems as though the metal was defective when the part was stamped.

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[1967 'cuda]

Well on day 1 of the Roadrunner we found a bad coil and replaced it. When we replaced the coil we also had to replace the coil wire because the ACCEL coil uses a male wire end. We got lucky and were able to get one from a parts store that was open while the owner was cleaning the carpets.

We changed the oil. I think that the purple color of the ROYAL PURPLE oil tends to make it appear on the dark side. Because we had a case of it here we refilled the crankcase with it again.

We found and removed a chunk of valve cover baffling. While the covers were off I took a quick look at the rocker assembly. Nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary. We were able to salvage the cork gaskets and sealed them back up with some Permatex.

We replaced the spark plugs.

We checked the reluctor gap to make sure it was within specs.

The battery is fully charged now.

Although we weren't able to successfully run through the FAST ECU reprogramming, we did discuss unlocking the distributor and letting the MSD equipment control our timing. We could still leave the phasable rotor in the distributor but we'd need to re-install the springs and bushings. We have yet to try disabling the computer's control. If I'm not mistaken we'll have to rewire a good portion of the ignition circuit. I guess I'll be doing some more research on it tonight.

The heat riser on the right exhaust manifold has a small leak where the butterfly rod goes through. My son wants to JB Weld it shut tomorrow. The entire spring assembly seems to be in perfect shape. Everything moves freely. I hate screwing with some of these factory parts.

We're going to try to get the Charger moved tomorrow if time permits.

I'm still hoping to get some quality time with the truck. It shouldn't take long to get the engine & tranny in. I know that the red vinyl dye should be here tomorrow too.


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[1967 'cuda]

I guess you could say that it's a true barn find. We took the Charger from the barn at the farm and brought it up town. I think the neighbors are lighting their torches and heading to the hardware store for pitchforks. I would have rather waited to bring it here until I was ready for it but these thefts have both Spencer and I worried. We'll clean it up before we get it unloaded. Two years sitting in the barn didn't do it a lot of good.

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[1967 'cuda]

We spent the entire day sanding and prepping the Charger for a coat of primer. We know that it will have to spend some time sitting outside before it can come inside the garage. Our goal was to put some protection on the sheetmetal. The body work isn't done and a lot of what we sprayed today will be coming back off when work resumes. It may not look like much right now but it is sporting new front fenders, rear quarters, trunk floor, drop offs, rear valance, and floor pan. Heck, we've got around $400 worth of POR-15 encapsulating all of the inside of the body panels and framework. It's got a narrowed 8&3/4 posi with 4 wheel disc brakes and a spring relocation kit to accommodate the 12&1/2 wide Mickey Thompsons. That dang grill took forever to rebuild. Anyone that's kept an eye on my thread knows that the hole in the hood is for the supercharged 512 that we have sitting in the garage.

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[1967 'cuda]

Back to the Roadrunner again. I insisted that we inspect everything related to the fuel and ignition. I didn't want to 'assume' anything.

One of the issues we had with the installation was that FAST says that they want to have their main power supply coming directly off of the battery and also want everything else isolated from those connections. They frown upon wire splices unless absolutely necessary. The conflict is that MSD also insists that it's main power wires are connected directly to the battery. We had our positive feed to the FAST unit connected to the starter relay and left the MSD coming off the battery. This time we're going to try running the hot wire from the battery directly to the FAST unit and connecting the MSD to the starter relay. It doesn't seem to us that it will make much of a difference, but we want to make sure that we're following FAST's tech support to a T.

As I was going through the setup process I discovered a 3/8 vacuum line that should have been plugged on the base of the throttle body. I'm fairly certain that it used to be plugged. We may have put on an undersized plug that could have split and fallen off.

As sooty and carboned up that the plugs had been, we removed the O2 sensor to examine it. We wiped the soot off of it and soaked it in gas to try to get it as clean as possible. My son did not think that there could have been a problem with it because the computer's air/fuel readouts had stayed within normal ranges. I argued that if the O2 sensor was giving inaccurate feedback to the computer, the fuel supply would have been adjusted by the computer inaccurately to maintain a false ratio.

 

[1967 'cuda]

Once again the mosquitoes have chased us back inside. Everything is moving forward great with the injection. The instructions for setting up the phasable rotor had never been very clear. I finally figured out the proper way to set it. After running through the setup wizard all seems good. We took it for a quick trip out of town knowing that the 'self learning' computer would need some time to get the timing and fuel mixture taught. Part of the process of teaching the computer is to go through the gears at about half load. In low gear we've got a major hesitation. After a few passes it seemed to start settling down. But it was getting dark so we parked it for the night.

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[Cuda68Scott]

What is that Chevy Suburban doing in your driveway?!!!!! That's okay, I have one in mine also. Quite a collection of mopars you have in your yard, if I lived in Nebraska I would want to see them firsthand.

 

[1967 'cuda]

What is that Chevy Suburban doing in your driveway?!!!!! That's okay, I have one in mine also. Quite a collection of mopars you have in your yard, if I lived in Nebraska I would want to see them firsthand.

The pictures were taken in my backyard. The house with the Suburban in the driveway is my neighbor's. I think he must feel like he lives next to a car lot. But, there's only so much room on my own driveway.

The black '69 Chevelle parked behind the Roadrunner is mine though. I would like to get a picture of the dually and the 'Lil Red lined up with the rest. - Maybe even park the Sebring with them. The 2 Ford trucks and the trailer are hiding further back on the lot. I'm afraid that the days are numbered for the Fords. Once the Express is done I'll probably get rid of them. Teresa is partial to the Chevelle and I'd sort of promised her that I'd fix it up for her some day. I guess it's sticking around.

My son and I were joking about how there are more Mopars on our yard than there are at most of the car shows around here. One of these days when he takes the Challenger, Roadrunner, and Charger all to Iowa I'll have to put the funnycar together to keep the herd from getting too thin. LOL.

If you ever make it up this way, bring some bug spray!

 

[1967 'cuda]

I'm afraid that I lost my help. Spencer hopped into the Challenger and took off for Columbus (Nebraska). He wasn't sure if he was coming back before his week from work ends. I was hoping on getting a hand installing that 360 in the truck.

I realized that I may have a health issue today. I think I'm suffering from ADHD. (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) Maybe not so much on the hyperactivity portion, but my attention is constantly drawn to one project and from it, to another. I got a wild hair today and decided to paint the roll cage orange in the Duster. What a mess! I didn't want to gut the interior (but I did pull some of the carpet) and trying to crawl around those bars when they're wet with fresh paint wasn't easy. I ran out of solvent to clean up with so I used gasoline. I think I better lay off of the smokes for awhile.

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[1967 'cuda]

I dyed the Express's interior panels last night. I used Dupli-Color vinyl & fabric dye. To my surprise it's got a very dull, flat finish. Teresa is going through Columbus today so I asked her to pick up a few cans of Rustoleum gloss clear that's made for plastic. I'll try to coat these pieces later and see how it turns out.

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[1967 'cuda]

Our weather continues to screw with me. Yesterday was extremely hot and extremely humid. Today it's struggled to get out of the 50s. Heavy rain again last night.

The swarms of flies and mosquitoes have been joined by an invasion of noisy crickets. Teeny tiny ants have set up camp in our kitchen. I'm not sure if anyone else in town has problems with bugs because it seems as though they've all come here. What next?

The gloss clear Rustoleum seems to have done the trick on my parts. I'm not sure why the Dupli-Color had been so dull and blotchy but the clear coat took care of it. Before applying clear I noticed that there was some wrinkling in the finish on the glove box door. I had it dyed by a shop out of Columbus, Nebraska several years ago and apparently it didn't like the new dye over it. I'll most likely have to strip it all off and start over on the glove box.

I pulled the trunk lid off of the Duster. I'm going to try to lay out a mural on it. As I've said before, it's just a race car so I feel free to play around with the paint on it.

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[1967 'cuda]

I'm armed now. Trying to swat those flies with my hand wasn't working. Either they've gotten faster or I've gotten slower. The second I showed up with the fly swatter most of them seem to have backed off. You may laugh at me but THEY KNOW.

I've patched up my replacement door panels the best I could. The original door panels on the 'Lil Red had fake wood grained inserts on them. I had to cut holes in the replacements for the attachment tabs of my inserts. I had replaced one years ago because they do wear easily from the sun and cleaning. New inserts are no longer available but there are aftermarket sources for wood grain vinyl to refurbish them. The installation instructions call for a lot of Windex. We'll see how it goes.

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[1967 'cuda]

The death toll mounts. They're trying to keep a low profile but payback is a *****. As many as I've nailed, I ought to be knee deep in fly carcasses. I think they've sent for reinforcements.

I am very pleased with the vinyl wood grain that I've put on the first insert. It seems to have been cut to perfection. I was very careful to align it and I can see that the Windex was really a necessity. The instructions call for me to let it set for a day before taking a hair dryer to it. There is a slight contour on the ends that I should be able to get the vinyl to conform to with a little heat.

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[cawley]

Once again the mosquitoes have chased us back inside. Everything is moving forward great with the injection. The instructions for setting up the phasable rotor had never been very clear. I finally figured out the proper way to set it. After running through the setup wizard all seems good. We took it for a quick trip out of town knowing that the 'self learning' computer would need some time to get the timing and fuel mixture taught. Part of the process of teaching the computer is to go through the gears at about half load. In low gear we've got a major hesitation. After a few passes it seemed to start settling down. But it was getting dark so we parked it for the night.

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One hell of a collection you got. All of my favorite body styles. We have the same taste in cars lol

 

[1967 'cuda]

All of my favorite body styles. We have the same taste in cars lol

Cawley, how can you go wrong with any of the muscle car era cars. As much as the Chevelle that's in the background is out of place with all the Mopar tin, it still gets a fair amount of attention. I wish I had my old '69 Superbee in the lineup.

 

[1967 'cuda]

It took a long time to strip the glove box before I was able to dye it again. Once again the finish was too flat so I sprayed it with clear. It came out pretty good this time. No wrinkles on it now.

I think that I've gotten the size of the trunk mural figured out. I've made some templates but I think it needs something more. I'm not sure. - Maybe some cornstalks in the background or a barn. - Maybe I need to add the 'CROP DUSTER' logo above it.

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[1967 'cuda]

I know that I should try to break up this thread into separate ones for the Barracuda, the Duster, the 'Lil Red Express, etc... - But I don't know how to do it without losing continuity on each. If I had been smart I would have kept them separate from the start. I apologize to any of you guys that started reading this thread with the expectation of seeing just the 'Cuda build. - Blame my ADHD.

 

[Abodybomber]

Saying hello,you have been busy.....

 

[1967 'cuda]

Saying hello,you have been busy.....

Hey, Abodybomber. Out here in the sticks I don't have the luxury of an endless Summer like you California guys . When it cooled off here yesterday it reminded me that Winter isn't that far off. I sort of like it here in fly over country but I sure wish I had your weather. I'd gladly swap you guys our tornadoes for your quakes too. I've never been to Cali yet. The closest I came was when I was in Baker City, Oregon.

No offense intended but most folks around here still refer to California as Ya Ya Land. - Everyone is supposed to be bonkers over there. I imagine that Nebraska is viewed as decadent by folks in the Bible belt though. I've heard that there are more millionaires per capita here in Nebraska (that happens when you have only 3 people living in a state and one of them is wealthy), but I think you're regarded as the land of the rich and famous. - And there aren't a ton of people from here that are big names. We did sprout Johnny Carson, Warren Buffet, and Larry the Cable Guy. - Who needs more? LOL.

I've been really trying to fulfill everything I can on my 'bucket list'. As much as I enjoy the projects that my son's drug me into, it's made it difficult to finish my own. I still want to get to my 'glass T-bucket, the Model A pickup, the '69 Chevelle, the '66 Impala, and the funnycar. I usually don't talk much about the non-Mopars but they're awaiting completion too.

 

[1967 'cuda]

:banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead:

When I reached puberty my dad


never told me about the birds and


the bees. Maybe other kids had


parents that were more open with


them. Without the internet (Al Gore


had not invented it yet), I had to


resort to magazines. In our small


town the selection of 'reading material'


was limited. Some would say that


the sources of information I was using


were inappropriate. But I had heard that


others had magazines secretly tucked


away in their rooms under their


mattresses. I didn't want


to be the only guy around that was in


the dark about these things. So that's


the source I sought out.


It wasn't until years


later that I found out that I was supposed


to have been buying Playboy instead of HOT ROD.





I still love these Birds and Bees!

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