KnuckleDuster's 71 Duster - Finally got a 4-speed!

[KnuckleDuster]

Drug this home last Saturday!
I haven't had a lot of time to go through it yet, but very excited to find a rust free manual trans car I could afford!
It's gonna need a new front suspension, brake and fuel sytems gone through, and I'm gonna need to educate myself on 4- speed transmissions. I'm sure I will have a lot of questions.

71 Duster. Originally GY9 318 3spd.
No rust!!!! (One floor pan already patched)

Has-
Fresh running .030 360 w/ forged Speed Pro 2386F's
Heads are 4071051 late 70's - early 80's 360 heads, no idea if they put bigger valves in yet or did anything to them, but rockers look new and they are so clean I believe they may have been R&R 'ed.
833 4spd with B-body bench pistol grip.
New seat covers, headliner, and carpet.
KH factory disc brakes
8-3/4 rear, haven't checked for SG or ratio yet.
Very nice tail lights and mint grill.
Both bumpers are nice!
Nice dash with passable pad.

Needs-

Everything else! ;-)

Let's get started!

 

[KnuckleDuster]

More

 

[R4Sedan]

Nice find. Congrats.

 

[KnuckleDuster]

More still

 

[4spdragtop]

Congrats! Looks like a fairly easy project.

 

[halfafish]

Nice find, and it looks to be in good shape. I'd like to find its twin, that's a great setup to work with.

 

[KnuckleDuster]

Finally getting a chance to clean it up a little.
Looks like the trunk pan has been replaced. I'm ok with that. Couldn't tell with all the stuff in it when I bought it. I don't think the previous owner knew, probably never even emptied it. It's been sprayed with 3M rubberized undercoating, not my personal choice, but I guess it is staying.

 

[KnuckleDuster]

Seats are recovered, but sat for years and got a little moldy. Anything out there that's any better at cleaning vinyl than Armor All?
Dash is uncut and in fairly good shape, should clean up nice. Odometer shows 16,034. Betting it's 116,034, but I look at the steering wheel, pedals and seatbelts, and I kinda wonder. Yes, that's a cruise control stalk sticking out of the column, and the unit came with it, along with AC. The heater box is surprisingly nice for a car with 100k, also.
New carpet, obviously new headliner that needs install finished. Need to pull the carpet back out to install body plugs and tempted to put some mat in there if I can find some good stuff that won't break me.

 

[KnuckleDuster]

Odometer and inside of quarters. Don't know why they got sprayed inside. They both look to be in factory paint and do not look to have been replaced.

 

[mygasser]

i've used tfr (traffic film remover) undiluted to clean vinyl trim before with good results. wear rubber gloves though or your skin won't thank you, ask me how i know?
neil.

 

[SLOPAR72]

Try Wesleys Bleach White with a magic eraser in a small and hidden area....

JW

 

[KnuckleDuster]

Bought a bottle of Simple Green at Walmart. Does pretty good on the vinyl, plastic...not so much. Was using blue shop towels, gonna try again tomorrow with rags.

Bought some Starbrite mildew stain remover for boats, but a little weary since it says to rinse thoroughly with water. Anybody got any input on it or what else will for sure work good on the hinge covers and seatbacks?

 

[George Jets]

Like that 71, Nice Project with all the Good Stuff !

For Sure, For Sure . . .

 

[KnuckleDuster]

One friend thought the price was a little high...until I priced out what it would cost to buy a cheap (probably a 73+) /6 car, if you could even find one rust free, or already patched like this, then equip it with a 4spd setup, disk brakes, bucket interior, 8-3/4, scoops, build a 360, etc...
You'd blow through 10k pretty quick! I'm not even halfway there.

 

[George Jets]

Right On !

Yes, just what it takes to swap out a Slant 6 car to a V8 costs thousands and all kinds of parts hunting and buying and then doing all the labor to get it there.

You got a very good buy for everything you have there. Recovered Bucket Seats with A Body Seat tracks, dang decent tracks go for 400 a pair if you can even find them. Core Seats 250, buy the new covers or have them made 400, install covers and rebuild seat frames and seat foam 500.

So yeah considering what you got there, and with an 8 3/4, Good Buy. 318s with the 340 Mopar Cams really wake up that engine, and it will handle a 1406 4 bbl Edelbrock 600 cfm just fine.

Nice to hear a Success Story.

There just is not hardly anything left for complete pre 73 cars to build anymore.

Hats off to you . . .

 

[KnuckleDuster]

It's a fresh 360 with no miles on it. If I don't find any scraps in the oil, and the transmission works right, Ill call it a steal!

 

[George Jets]

A good trick is to cut the oil filter open, dump it out into a paint filter. Then get on the paper filter part of it with a magnet. That should pretty well tell you what is going on inside that engine.

The car needs some TLC, but a good project for a Mopar Guy to get her up on her feet and going again.

Yes, good value there, no K members to change, or torsion bars, looks like the drive shaft is big enough for the V8s and not the small shaft from a 6 cyl car.

Enjoy . . .

 

[KnuckleDuster]

Gave the 71 a bath, careful to dry out anywhere water got in, like inside doors, and trunk.

Well...a little bit of bad news, and some really good news.

Bad news is somebody let their cat use the brand new passenger bucket cover to sharpen it's claws! Looks like I need to find a good upholstery shop to see what they can do, or one white 71 Duster cover in great shape for cheap....yeah...

Good news is the trans is an 833 is out of a 73 A-body, and even though the broadcast sheet says 8-3/4 and 3:23 with no Suregrip, it is still 3.23, but it has Suregrip now!

Finally got time to spend some time under the car, and I'm pretty happy with it. It was a factory undercoated car, (look at the rear housing!)and the two repairs were both done well, it looks pretty good everywhere underneath. Original bell drums. Original KH discs with pad left and the shields aren't all beat up. Front suspension is pretty toasty, but that was expected. No sway bar but working a deal on tabbed LCA's, and I got a bar last month that may work.

I'm going to have to find a few other parts;

- a 64-69 single groove crank pulley to work with the Fluidamper that came on the engine.
- 1 marker light housing and all 4 lenses
- fender mount turn signal indicators
- manual trans throttle cable bracket
- correct shape radiator hoses
I also got some research to do on A833 stuff, supposedly it has a new clutch, not sure if I have the right rods to setup the pistol grip, or if the trans has any issues besides a leak somewhere.
All in all, it was a good day!

 

[George Jets]

That all looks good, right there with you on that project.

Wish there were more of these kinds of projects available yet for others to do. If you got one, you better hang onto it.

Good Luck on getting her going !

Here is one for all of you on the bucket seats with the Cat Scratch Fever.
I always try to repair what ever, where ever . . just kind of a personal challenge.
I have done automotive upholstery and know what a job it is to change that seat cover, then it will probably not match the other seat when done too.

I would be tempteted to trim back any loose edges then carefully fill those Cat gouges with some bondo and a tooth pick. Then before the bondo gets real hard, sand off the minor high spots with some 180 and don't undercut them. Then use a little laquer thinner on a shop wrag to lightly blend the repair spots to the vinyl, this helps to remove the sand scratches too.

Next get some white Vinyl Spray Dye and spot blend that corner of the seat, staying below the thread lines so it still looks factory when done. I have to laugh, but when doing bondo work and you get some on your thumb nail it is just about impossible to get off . . same with those small spec repair spots on the vinyl.

P.S. need to wipe down the repair corner of the seat with Lacquer thinner to start to clean the vinyl so the repair products will stick.

This is an off the wall repair, but might get you by for quite some time as you have lots of other areas that need your more urgent attention.