K member question

-
AJ/FormS said:
Thanks blu. I guess the cats outta the bag now.
I just love the looks of the 71 Demon. Wish I had never let mine go.
Say I just noticed the 68 front sidemarker! What did I miss?
Click to expand...

Yup, I agree, the '71 Demon is a beautiful car. :D

You didn't really miss anything, I welded up the side markers on my '71 Dart fenders before I did the bodywork and paint on the '71 front clip I swapped on to replace the '74 Duster parts. Seems like the '71 lenses are always cracked and I like the '68 side markers better anyway. And of course there's no "correct" side markers for a '74 /6 auto Duster with a '71 Dart front clip a Demon tail panel and a '68 340, so what the heck. ;)
 
Well, I appreciate the edumacation, but it was a little underwelming. The "reinforcement plate" around the torsion bar mount looks like a large washer cut in half and rather crudely welded into place to me?

attachment.php


All of the welds in my plain ol' 318 K member looked that way, that's why we went over them all again and cleaned them up a bit before we installed it. I thought that you all were going to tell me that there were actually added gussets and such welded in. I have to admit I'm a little disappointed.

As far as pronouncing the name of our state Misery, that's pretty common. Sometimes I call my favorite football team the Griefs.
 
Hey Doug whats the drinking water like in Regina these days. Last time I was out there in early 2000s..... Well you might know what it was like back then.

Brian, Youll be more disappointed if the receiver tube cracks out on your 318 K. I dont know if you noticed, but the half-washer gusset is actually a horse-shoe, and the washer is more like a slug with a hole in it. I have only seen a few of those Ks, but the hole was never centered. So if I saw your K with a true washer welded on, then Id call bs, lol

BluNblu; any chance you have a pic of the steering box mount? I thought there was an extra gusset in there, too.Those 68 sidemarkers are the best, seconded by the recessed 69s. Once they became stuck-ons.....,How you say it, meh? Cheap and tacky I thought.
 
BrianT said:
Well, I appreciate the edumacation, but it was a little underwelming. The "reinforcement plate" around the torsion bar mount looks like a large washer cut in half and rather crudely welded into place to me?

attachment.php


All of the welds in my plain ol' 318 K member looked that way, that's why we went over them all again and cleaned them up a bit before we installed it. I thought that you all were going to tell me that there were actually added gussets and such welded in. I have to admit I'm a little disappointed.

As far as pronouncing the name of our state Misery, that's pretty common. Sometimes I call my favorite football team the Griefs.
Click to expand...

There really wasn't much to it.

But, considering the factory method of attaching the LCA pivot tubes, even that "washer" with crappy welds was an improvement over nothing at all. The LCA pivot mounts didn't have a whole lot holding them in to begin with.

It's pretty easy to reinforce the K-frames though, and any reinforcement would pretty much be superior to anything the factory put out. I've done a couple so far, I do a seam weld around the entire edge of the K frame, go over all of the factory welds, and add gussets to the LCA, idler, and steering mounts. I also gusset the torsion bar anchors in the crossmember, as it seems that A-bodies in particular had pretty lousy welds there.
 
I did have an original slant duster bout 10 years ago. many of use love the look of the demon, me included. and I have seen people pay a premium for the fact it is a demon, slant even.
I see nothing wrong with making the car into a demon as long as people are honest when they go to sell. anyone buying a mopar needs to get familiar with how to tell the originals from the otherwise, and pay accordingly!???
 
AJ/FormS said:
Brian, Youll be more disappointed if the receiver tube cracks out on your 318 K. I dont know if you noticed, but the half-washer gusset is actually a horse-shoe, and the washer is more like a slug with a hole in it. I have only seen a few of those Ks, but the hole was never centered. So if I saw your K with a true washer welded on, then Id call bs, lol
Click to expand...

I inspected the K member closely when we did the freshen up on it, and it looks fine. If it cracks, I'll pull it back out and reinforce it or replace it. No worries.

If you called BS on me at a car show, then we'd strike up a conversation. I've had people look at my VIN and say things like "that is a 67 not a 68" or "that was a six cylinder car". I don't care, I usually just ask them where their car is parked. Some times they stop and talk, some times they tuck their tail and move along. Either way, I enjoy talking to other Mopar guys about Mopars.

72bluNblu said:
There really wasn't much to it.

But, considering the factory method of attaching the LCA pivot tubes, even that "washer" with crappy welds was an improvement over nothing at all. The LCA pivot mounts didn't have a whole lot holding them in to begin with.

It's pretty easy to reinforce the K-frames though, and any reinforcement would pretty much be superior to anything the factory put out. I've done a couple so far, I do a seam weld around the entire edge of the K frame, go over all of the factory welds, and add gussets to the LCA, idler, and steering mounts. I also gusset the torsion bar anchors in the crossmember, as it seems that A-bodies in particular had pretty lousy welds there.
Click to expand...

That last half a sentence is the understatement of the week. A drunk monkey could have welded better than the guy who built my K member! I wonder why no company has offered a reinforcement plate for this yet, or have I just missed it. I probably would have welded one in when we went through the K member last year.
 
Im currently collecting parts for a 72 Demon /6 I picked up from this site. I have a V8 K member out of an unknown car I also picked up here. I don't have any pics, but I just did the welded washer and horse shoe supports to the K member. I really don't think it will fool anyone that knows what they are looking at, but I tried to duplicate the crude welds as close as possible. Id guess that the factory K members were welded by a robot in a jig and not a human. Ill be building a 340 clone, super stock clone, or a 440 6 pak, I just haven't made up my mind yet. I started out wanted a super stock clone, now im leaning to a FAST class 340. we'll see.
 
BrianT said:
That last half a sentence is the understatement of the week. A drunk monkey could have welded better than the guy who built my K member! I wonder why no company has offered a reinforcement plate for this yet, or have I just missed it. I probably would have welded one in when we went through the K member last year.
Click to expand...

You can buy a reinforcement kit from Firm Feel. They offer a reinforcing "service" where they will weld up your K and reinforce it, but I know that a few people have just bought the kit with the reinforcing plates. It includes reinforcements for the LCA pivots, the strut rod mounts, and the steering box mount.

You can also just make them yourself. I bought a reinforcement kit on eBay that had come from Firm Feel, but after looking at it I made up my own when I did my 2nd K member, just using the patterns from the kit and some steel plate. You can make the LCA pivot reinforcements by cutting down a plain steel, heavy duty washer. Just don't get the zinc plated kind. You could also use a hole saw to cut one out of some mild steel plate, so you don't have to worry about breathing any of the plating that might be on a standard washer if you can't find the plain heavy duty kind in your area.

Vitamin c said:
Id guess that the factory K members were welded by a robot in a jig and not a human.
Click to expand...

Nope. Not that I can tell anyway. Not nearly enough consistency for a robot. The K's I've looked at were all welded differently. Most had welds where they needed to, but how much weld, and the quality of the weld, varied greatly. That wouldn't be the case if it was automated, even back then.
 
Id argue that. Ive seen the welds and am sticking with some type of automated welder. Im doubting it was an individual with a Stick or wire doing it by free hand. Those welds just don't look right for a human
 

Attachments

  • canada-plant.jpg
    83.5 KB · Views: 122
I have to agree. I don't think they had robots welding these together in 68-72. If they did, they weren't very sophisticated robots. My welds looked pretty bad.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Back
Top