Another Mopar Off My Bucket List - Barracuda Fastback

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SNKEBIT said:
You can make the bows out of polished aluminum. :D
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I considered aluminum too, but I'm always concerned with maintenance and figured that I wouldn't have to re-polish the stainless in the future. I do know that there are more design options if I consider all of the extruded forms in which aluminum is made. I imagine I'll try to design a bow that I can just drop in place and lift back out. The utiline box does not have any side pockets in the middle to locate a bow so I'll probably use an angle that rests on the bed rails. I may have to pad it to keep it from scratching the paint.

Most likely I'll make something simple like this.

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This weather sucks. Even though the forecast was supposed to be in the 50s today it hasn't reached 40. - And what's worse is that we've had two solid days of fog. The ground is too wet for me to be able to move vehicles out of the back yard. Without sunshine it's unlikely to dry out. I need to get the 'Lil Red moved in so I can work on it and I'd like to get the Charger in too. Maybe if it gets miserably cold I'll be able to move things.

I haven't driven the Barracuda to find out how the new shocks feel. I'd wanted to take it out on the highway out of town and run it through the gears just so I could feel if there was better weight transfer. I doubt I would do more than spin the tires with these conditions.

When I'd pulled the front tires of the 'Cuda while doing the shock swap I noticed that my left front tire was wearing unevenly. The inside has much more wear. I swear it's impossible to find a decent alignment shop. I'd held off on mounting new tires on the front because I wanted to use the Goodyears up first. These Frontrunners don't have much for tread to start with so I should probably change them soon.
 
Today I was finally able to get some vehicles moved around. The dually couldn't get traction and I had to pull it off the icy patch that it was parked on. I moved the trailer to a spot that didn't have ruts in front of it. I towed the 'Lil Red back onto the street and called a few buddies to help push it into the garage. For the time being, I had to park the Roadrunner out back again.

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Time to install some wood! The expensive stainless steel fasteners that came with the kit are composed of several pieces. The outside carriage heads are actually the nuts.

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There are nylon washers that space the wood away from the sheet metal sides of the box. These trucks did not have these spacers when they came from the factory and moisture would get trapped between the wood and the sheet metal causing rust and wood rot. Installing these is a nice touch.

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The stainless phillips head bolts are similar to the factory design but not exactly the same. There are also small diameter stainless steel washers that help to keep the bolts from gouging into the paint.

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One of the first steps I had to do was to ream out the pre-drilled holes in the wood. The holes were made small so that the knurled nuts don't spin when you bolt everything together but they were so undersized that I was afraid that the wood would split when I forced them in. I ran the drill backwards so that it was less likely to catch and split the wood.

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I pressed the carriage head nuts into the wood with a vice. I didn't want to risk damage by hammering them in.
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I used weatherstrip adhesive to hold the nylon washers to the wood after struggling to get them between the wood and the box sides without dropping them.

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I'd forgotten why I hadn't taken the wood back off after I'd originally tried to test fit it. Five of the holes didn't line up correctly and I wasn't able to drill the wood without screwing up it's ability to hold those carriage head nuts. I should be able to get by with enlarging the holes in the box and still have the bolt head/washers cover the holes.

I had never counted the fasteners when I bought the kit. I am short 1 bolt and 22 of those nylon washers. I will have to contact the company and see if they'll send some out. I purchased everything back in May 2012.


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Thanks Sireland. I won't be attaching the wood flooring for awhile. I still want to finish detailing the frame and the wire for my fuel sending unit had broken off so I'll want to fix that first too. I still have a framework bolted onto the bottom of the box floor from when I got it back from paint. When I set the planks down over it - it kept the wood from laying flat.
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I finally unsealed the plastic pouch that contains the new decals. I suppose I should work on them next.

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What a pain in the *ss it's been trying to put the tailgate decals on. I probably should have removed the wood first so that it wasn't in my way. The biggest problem I had was with the decals themselves. I've put on a lot of decals similar to these over the years and never had this much trouble.

I mixed my solution of soapy water and sprayed the backside of the decals after removing the waxy paper that protected their adhesive. I used a plastic putty spreader to squeegee out the water as I aligned them with my reference points. But when I tried to remove the outside layer of paper it didn't want to release the decals. I fought it for a long time as I painstakingly worked the paper off the decals. The thinner stripes stretched because the paper was so strongly bonded to them. I had to soap them back up and reposition them to correct the stretched lengths. In one spot I had to trim a half inch out of the middle of one of the stripes because it had stretched so much. I hope the rest of the decals aren't so difficult.

Just like the wood, I had purchased these decals a long time ago. Even though they'd stayed sealed inside of a climate controlled house the paper adhesive may have aged out. So once again, it's probably my own fault.

The end results still turned out OK.

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I had to stop with the decal application last night when I ran out of propane for my garage heater. I'll resume later tonight.

Today (after getting more propane) I decided to get those front tires swapped on the Barracuda. A buddy of mine ten miles away has a tire machine and said I could come by for free mounting/balancing. The temperature here has stayed subfreezing for the past few days but the roads are clear so I figured I'd drive the 'Cuda over to his place.

This was my first real drive with the drag shocks on the car. It feels WAY different. It's obvious that the front wants to rise quicker with these shocks and it's also obvious they're not designed to let you ride in comfort. Without more of a dampening effect on the front end it no longer masks the bumps in road surfaces. It's not a miserable ride but it's not the way to ride if you want comfort.

I put Mickey Thompson Sportsman S/R 26X6.00R15LTs on the front. They're 2 inches taller than the Goodyear Frontrunners than what I had before. It was dark before I got home so I didn't get a chance to take pictures yet. The larger diameter has eliminated the rake that the car had before. I liked the rake. I may have to re-adjust the torsion bars to drop the front back down. With the way the last set of tires wore I want to have it aligned again.

I knew that they recommend against mixing radial tires with non-radial but I figured that I could get by until I get some drag radials for the rear. I'm not sure if it was the change in diameter or the fact that I'm running mixed (radial & non-radials) tires, but the car feels 'loose' now. I don't think it would bother me driving around locally but it would probably cause fatigue on long trips down highways with an uneven road surface.
 
I had made enough progress last night that the truck was finally starting to look like a 'Lil Red again.

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WTF!! I'm not sure if everybody else runs into as many obstacles on their projects. It seems as though I have to fight every part I get to make it work.

I bought the decal kit from Graphic Express. They looked like they were well made and I was pleased with what I saw when they arrived. Now, I'm willing to accept the possibility that the adhesive had 'aged out' because I'd waited too long to install these decals. I screw up a lot. But there's no doubt that the graphic company is screwy too.

I thought I'd start with the right rear fender stripes tonight.
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I looked at the instruction sheet that came with the decals and saw that I needed to use stripe #3. I tried to align it with the fender but it wasn't anywhere close to matching the shape it needed to be. It should lay close to the fender's lip. This was as close as I could get it. It's just not right.

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So I went back to read the instructions again. Sure enough I was using stripe #3 as the instructions say. But then I noticed something strange. It lists #1 and #4 as being for the passenger front fender. That can't be correct. I guess I'll have to test fit all 4 of them to figure out which goes where.

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Abodybomber said:
God, that Express looks gorgeous, 67. What paint, on the L.R.E.?
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Thanks Abody. I don't remember the brand of paint. My paint guy used a color match computer system to copy the factory Medium Canyon Red. It's a basecoat/clearcoat paint. It looks a lot better when you see it in person. The camera doesn't do it justice.

I had wanted to deviate from the factory color and paint it a deep metallic red instead. The 'Lil Reds don't bring big money so I wasn't overly concerned with a true restoration. - That's one reason why I decided not to paint the bed floor. The only reason I didn't go with the metallic paint was that I didn't want to have to re-paint the inside of the cab.
 
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1967 'cuda said:
Thanks Abody. I don't remember the brand of paint. My paint guy used a color match computer system to copy the factory Medium Canyon Red. It's a basecoat/clearcoat paint. It looks a lot better when you see it in person. The camera doesn't do it justice.

I had wanted to deviate from the factory color and paint it a deep metallic red instead. The 'Lil Reds don't bring big money so I wasn't overly concerned with a true restoration. - That's one reason why I decided not to paint the bed floor. The only reason I didn't go with the metallic paint was that I didn't want to have to re-paint the inside of the cab.
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Very Cool... Rani Dart had a thread , on the very same subject. Most people , like the extra "pop", the newer paint formulas offer. A good decision (considered, time & money), on the paint choice. Doing the interior & jambs, opens up more jobs, in the long run.
 
Abodybomber said:
Very Cool... Rani Dart had a thread , on the very same subject. Most people , like the extra "pop", the newer paint formulas offer. A good decision (considered, time & money), on the paint choice. Doing the interior & jambs, opens up more jobs, in the long run.
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- And more expense. Quite honestly, I struggled for so long just trying to make ends meet that I was unable to afford putting money into these vehicles. - So they sat and deteriorated. With trying to juggle so many projects I have to be wary of how much time I can afford to put in them too. As much as I like doing all of the work myself, I don't have the building or equipment to do it all. And I sure don't have enough money to farm out very much work either. It's sort of a balancing act.

I finally figured out where each of those fender stripes belonged. It took awhile as I test fit each one on each fender. They are supposed to be 'Authorized Restoration' parts by Chrysler but they still seem to fit a bit strange. I did the best I could with the first one. In case you're wondering, my original stripes did not extend all the way to the bottom of the fenders so that's the way I attached this one.

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The instructions had #1 labeled correctly. The other 3 were wrong. After moving them around several times I'm confident that #1 should be on the passenger front,#2 on the passenger rear, #3 on the driver front, and #4 on the driver rear. Any other way I tried to fit them was awful - not even close.


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1967 'cuda said:
- And more expense. Quite honestly, I struggled for so long just trying to make ends meet that I was unable to afford putting money into these vehicles. - So they sat and deteriorated. With trying to juggle so many projects I have to be wary of how much time I can afford to put in them too. As much as I like doing all of the work myself, I don't have the building or equipment to do it all. And I sure don't have enough money to farm out very much work either. It's sort of a balancing act.

I finally figured out where each of those fender stripes belonged. It took awhile as I test fit each one on each fender. They are supposed too be 'Authorized Restoration' parts by Chrysler but they still seem to fit a bit strange. I did the best I could with the first one. In case you're wondering, my original stripes did not extend all the way to the bottom of the fenders so that's the way I attached this one.

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The instructions had #1 labeled correctly. The other 3 were wrong. After moving them around several times I'm confident that #1 should be on the passenger front,#2 on the passenger rear, #3 on the driver front, and #4 on the driver rear. Any other way I tried to fit them was awful - not even close.
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That can be a problem, with pre cut restoration supplies. To match a near 40 year old design, is hard .
 
Well it's almost 5 am and I finally finished putting on the last of the exterior decals. One of the other reasons that I had chosen to buy the decals from Graphic Express was because they used die cut vinyl for their door decals. The original ones were a clear vinyl with gold lettering printed on them. Over time the clear tends to slightly yellow and I didn't like that. As I've been researching decal placement online it seems like most of the trucks I see have the die cut decals on the doors too. Either it's a common practice from the various companies or others have gotten them from Graphic Express too.

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I'm not sure what I'll work on next. The company that I bought the wood kit from is sending out the missing fasteners but they won't be here until next week. I suppose I can start attaching mirrors and tail lights and such.


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1967 'cuda said:
Well it's almost 5 am and I finally finished putting on the last of the exterior decals. One of the other reasons that I had chosen to buy the decals from Graphic Express was because they used die cut vinyl for their door decals. The original ones were a clear vinyl with gold lettering printed on them. Over time the clear tends to slightly yellow and I didn't like that. As I've been researching decal placement online it seems like most of the trucks I see have the die cut decals on the doors too. Either it's a common practice from the various companies or others have gotten them from Graphic Express too.

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I'm not sure what I'll work on next. The company that I bought the wood kit from is sending out the missing fasteners but they won't be here until next week. I suppose I can start attaching mirrors and tail lights and such.
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Just, wow..... When do you sleep? ( Trying, to answer that, myself).....
 
Abodybomber said:
Just, wow..... When do you sleep? ( Trying, to answer that, myself).....
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Dang Abody, I was just wondering the same thing about you. LOL. Believe me, I'll be hitting the sack soon. I just hope it doesn't take me another 2 hours to actually fall asleep.
 
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It's a nightmare trying to find all of the parts that have come off of the truck. The biggest reason is that I'm so disorganized. We've worked on several different projects simultaneously. Each one was a major tear down. On top of that we moved from our farm into town. Many of the parts are still out there. And on top of that we've had those thefts from our farm that leave me wondering if the parts I can't find still exist.

I had purchased some new parts for the truck years ago. As everybody knows, it sometimes takes awhile to accumulate all of the parts you need for a restoration so I hadn't gotten it all. The first few parts I grabbed were a side marker light and side mirror. The side marker housing is rusted out. The mirror has some pitting. I guess I won't be slapping the truck back together quickly.
 
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