Another Mopar Off My Bucket List - Barracuda Fastback

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John, we had winter Sunday and Monday here in Phoenix. It was windy with a little rain. Knocked a patio chair over I had in my backyard and dropped some palm tree fronds. I will attempt to right the chair before it gets too hot - they say maybe near 80 next week!:D

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Growing up I was accustomed to being snowed in for several days at a time. There was plenty of warning for this storm so we prepared to be shut in for a few days if necessary. I may not like living in town but it seems pretty cushy compared to life out in the country. I knew that if we lost power it wouldn't be for more than a few hours. - And I knew they'd get the streets cleared off pretty quickly.

One of the things that was stolen from our farm was our big John Deere snowblower so I've been using a shovel to dig us out. Although we haven't warmed up that much here yet, we had drizzly precipitation since that has shrunk the size of the drifts.

Thieves suck, they stole a antique allies-chambers farm tractor out of the barn a few years back at my wife's farm.
 
He IS one twisted s.o.b. LOL.

Sorry guys, but the nerf ball was in front of me and I had to hit it:twisted: You can return the favor in a few months when I get blisters from touching my steering wheel! Seriously though after looking at those pics, take it easy shoveling that stuff. It can quickly put some stress on our bods without much warning.
 
It's been awhile since I had anything new to post. For the most part it's been the same old drudgery of Winter blues. With the cold weather I avoided the garage, - especially after contracting a very nasty flu bug that held on for weeks. The warmer weather we've been having has melted off most of our snow but we've still got a small drift about a foot tall in front of the garage.

In an effort to stay busy I continued on with the pinball machine & movie theater projects and have pretty much completed them. I guess it'll be good not to have them hanging over my head with Springtime approaching.

I changed the black machine body to orange because it just didn't look festive enough.

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I modified the back glass image by using a GTO instead of the silver Dodge.

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I decided to paint the table legs in a checkerboard pattern.

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Over all, I don't think it turned out too bad. I definitely like the looks of the machine better with the mods than I did when it was in it's beat up original condition.

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We did manage to get the Hemi ordered from Keith Black and are hoping to see it shipped by July. That should give us enough time to get some other work done on the car but my son's still uncommitted on some of the components such as transmission. He'd rebuilt the A833 and was planning on using it with a Gear Vendors overdrive but now isn't sure.

There's a big swap meet coming up this next Sunday in Lincoln, Nebraska. Part of me would like to skip it but the other part of me worries that I'll miss out on crap I never even knew I needed!


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It's been awhile since I had anything new to post. For the most part it's been the same old drudgery of Winter blues. With the cold weather I avoided the garage, - especially after contracting a very nasty flu bug that held on for weeks. The warmer weather we've been having has melted off most of our snow but we've still got a small drift about a foot tall in front of the garage.

In an effort to stay busy I continued on with the pinball machine & movie theater projects and have pretty much completed them. I guess it'll be good not to have them hanging over my head with Springtime approaching.

I changed the black machine body to orange because it just didn't look festive enough.

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I modified the back glass image by using a GTO instead of the silver Dodge.

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I decided to paint the table legs in a checkerboard pattern.

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Over all, I don't think it turned out too bad. I definitely like the looks of the machine better with the mods than I did when it was in it's beat up original condition.

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We did manage to get the Hemi ordered from Keith Black and are hoping to see it shipped by July. That should give us enough time to get some other work done on the car but my son's still uncommitted on some of the components such as transmission. He'd rebuilt the A833 and was planning on using it with a Gear Vendors overdrive but now isn't sure.

There's a big swap meet coming up this next Sunday in Lincoln, Nebraska. Part of me would like to skip it but the other part of me worries that I'll miss out on crap I never even knew I needed!

That's gorgeous!
 
Glad to see you are out of hibernation, now get to work!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Hey! Good to hear from you!

Hey Anders! I really DO wish I had major progress to report on one of the cars but it just ain't been happening. Worse yet is that between the city trying to drive out hotrods from the town & the need to focus on house projects, - this year may be even less productive than last. I'll try keeping my hands in stuff as much as I can.
 
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That's gorgeous!

Thanks bomber. I guess I'm diggin' the car theme but it's too bad I hadn't started with a better pinball machine. It looks sort of flashy now but it isn't near as much fun to play as the machine I bought Teresa.
 
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Now that I have a basement, I'm going to need one of those. It looks amazing John!

I was surprised to find out how many people owned their own pinball machines. I've really been pleased to see company enjoying them when they stop over but right now the biggest attraction seems to be that movie theater. Once I figured out how to get the 3D shows synced with the right type of glasses, it's really blown people away. - WAY, WAY better than what I'd seen at a movie theater years ago. You have a hard time keeping yourself from ducking when stuff seems to be coming right at you.

A few other items I'd put down the basement were a soda vending machine and a popcorn machine. Then I added a small chest freezer for ice.

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The vending machine was pretty dingy when I bought it. After cleaning it up I managed to fix the coin changer and printed some new labels to match the pop we wanted to dispense. I hoped the little Rat Fink images would tie it in with the whole car theme I was shooting for.

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It's a bit crude but I made a light up sign for the theater and hung curtains to divide it from the rest of the basement.

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I still need to move the Christmas tree and a bunch more race banners down here and out of the garage. The miniature drag strip isn't finished yet either. Today I'm going to try to clean up some of the junk that's been accumulating. I'd hate to see the basement looking as cluttered as the shop.

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The 2 pinball machines are hardly enough to make the basement an arcade but they're still good entertainment. What I really want to do is set up a driving simulator.

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One word: bitchin! Or is that two words? You got some real designer flair John.

I think that's usually one word unless it's coming from Teresa (in that case, it's usually a whole bunch of words:banghead:) I still think some of it is a bit crude but for what I've invested I'm OK with that.


 
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Put some heat in the garage and get back to "real" work!!!!! You slacker!!!:D

I'd probably have to start pushing myself a lot harder to reach the level of being a slacker. Heat costs $$ and I'm old and tired.

I think my next project will be a printing press where I can start making counterfeit money. That way I can pay someone else to bang their heads in the shop while I search for my inner couch potato.
 
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You know it's in there.

I've been completely off the radar myself. Down in the dumps plus the garage is freezing. And I have no parts.

I could always start sanding the body but how much fun is that?
 
You know it's in there.

I've been completely off the radar myself. Down in the dumps plus the garage is freezing. And I have no parts.

I could always start sanding the body but how much fun is that?


I've often stressed to others the importance of committing oneself to spending a little time each day on their projects. My belief was that if you held yourself to that one rule, - you'd eventually see you'd made steady progress. For a few years I tried to maintain that level of commitment and I really did get a lot accomplished. I guess I need to get back in the game and try to start clearing things off of my car 'to do' lists.
 
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I was surprised to find out how many people owned their own pinball machines. I've really been pleased to see company enjoying them when they stop over but right now the biggest attraction seems to be that movie theater. Once I figured out how to get the 3D shows synced with the right type of glasses, it's really blown people away. - WAY, WAY better than what I'd seen at a movie theater years ago. You have a hard time keeping yourself from ducking when stuff seems to be coming right at you.

A few other items I'd put down the basement were a soda vending machine and a popcorn machine. Then I added a small chest freezer for ice.

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The vending machine was pretty dingy when I bought it. After cleaning it up I managed to fix the coin changer and printed some new labels to match the pop we wanted to dispense. I hoped the little Rat Fink images would tie it in with the whole car theme I was shooting for.

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It's a bit crude but I made a light up sign for the theater and hung curtains to divide it from the rest of the basement.

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I still need to move the Christmas tree and a bunch more race banners down here and out of the garage. The miniature drag strip isn't finished yet either. Today I'm going to try to clean up some of the junk that's been accumulating. I'd hate to see the basement looking as cluttered as the shop.

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The 2 pinball machines are hardly enough to make the basement an arcade but they're still good entertainment. What I really want to do is set up a driving simulator.

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Nice work on the family cave,John.
 
! Seriously though after looking at those pics, take it easy shoveling that stuff. It can quickly put some stress on our bods without much warning.[/QUOTE]


Amen to that! Around here if you dont get it cleaned up asap,it melts and becomes near impossible to shovel. Seems to weigh as much as lead..and just plugs the snow blower immediately.
 
Hey John, are you still working with your injection?

Funny you should ask Joe. It's the first thing on my list of things I need to get back to work on. It seems as if we keep taking a long hiatus away from it every time we have an unsuccessful attempt at working out the bugs.

After the failure at the tuner shop my son has decided that we should try removing the MSD equipment (control box & distributor) and switch back to the Chrysler electronic controller with the FAST distributor. I'd left all of the wiring in place but disconnected from it when we installed the MSD setup so it shouldn't be too difficult to make the change. The worst part will probably be having to notch the head to clear that FAST distributor.

If this swap doesn't cure our headaches the next step will probably be to re-install the MSD parts and disable FAST's timing capability. The technicians at FAST swore their system was fully compatible with the MSD equipment we've got but we've been unable to the timing stable when we've tried the two together. I don't know if the multi-spark is throwing their ECU fits.

 
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