derrangedgadgeteer
Well-Known Member
Hi-o I'm the derranged gadgeteer, and I like mopar. To introduce myself I'm going to tell y'all a story.
(If you're not interested, all you need to know, is I have had many cars that break very often, as often my fault as anyone else's. skip ahead to "My Current Car".)
I've owned a couple dodges in the past few years, The first being my first car, a 1972 4-door dart with the slant six. I bought it in 2007, $1000 200,000miles on the clock, and drove it well for three years. Fixed this, fixed that, but it was all around reliable. I eventually got tired of having the slowest car among my friends, (The clincher being a '67 chevelle with a badass 350) And I went and decided I'd go and turbocharge my slant.
I had a te04h turbo out of a k-car, a welder, and some metal, and I went to work. I pulled the intake, exhaust, and hood, I fabricated an ugly-as-sin header out of electrical conduit and sheet metal, mounted the turbo, set it up to draw through a 2bbl rochester carb, and blow in through the stock intake. It ran, sort of. When you got it going it ran like a tractor on meth with rabies, but it refused to run at all unless the turbo was spooled. Mind you, this is five months into the project, and I'm working in the parking lot of the apartment complex I live in, and I needed a car. So I ended up giving up and I sold it to a local a-body guy.
I can post pics of the completed engine if anyone's interested.
Not too long after I came across a 1988 Dodge Daytona shelby z for $1000, Brand new clutch, recent engine and turbo rebuild, recent repaint. Not a bad deal, or so I thought. It needed the clutch cable hooked up, Because the guy who owned it put in the new clutch, and couldn't figure out how to put the self-adjusting pedal back together. (This was quite prophetic, actually, but I overlooked it at the time.) After getting it home and fixing a couple of little things, I drove it happily for a week, before The oil pressure dropped.
So, I parked it for about two weeks before I got time to put new bearings in it. (Fortunately something one can do without pulling the motor.) One of the mains was just inexplicably torn up. Not spun, not anything, just fried. (The main cap bolts on that main and one other were suspiciously easy to remove, though.) Well, I changed the mains and rods, and started running 15W-40 just to be safe. It ran nicely for a while longer, and by a while longer. I mean four days.
The headlights suddenly went dim, and just got dimmer, and dimmer, and dimmer as I was on my way home from work one day. Got a friend to bring me a new battery to get me home, and I got it home. Okay, Got a new battery, got my alternator tested, it came up bad. I got a reman'ed unit, and it still didn't start charging... Crap.
Did some researching, got some wiring diagrams, determined the most likely culprit being a bad VR circuit in the computer. (This being a SMEC car.) I figured then that This would be a great chance to get a performance computer. I got one, aaaaannnd.... it didn't fix it.
Next I asked around the internet, and was recommended to install a standard chrysler voltage regulator. I installed it, and it fixed it for literally two hours, before it went back to being broke. Finally, I cried uncle, Took it to the stealership, and paid them $300 for them to tell me that somehow both my original and the performance computer were defective, and that they couldn't order a replacement for me. In the end, they rewired the VR I had installed to a different 12v source and ground, and now it was finally fixed. YAY!!!
Oh, I didn't mention this took place over just short of three months, and I hate wiring.
Okay, now I've got a car, and it's damn fast. The Calibration bumped the boost up to 15 pounds, It was a blast to drive. Handled like nothing I'd ever driven, and I could peg the speedo without even holding it to the floor. Well, that was a week. Remember that part I said earlier about "Prophetic?"
A week and a half later, I started noticing a noise, initially just a ticking noise, but it eventually became a shriek I can only describe as the noise a dull sawzall makes when cutting through exhaust pipe. And only when I depressed the clutch. This immediately screamed "THROWOUT BEARING!!!! or maybe pressure plate." So, it sat a couple of weeks more, and then I borrowed my friend's garage, Dropped the tranny, and....
I didn't see anything wrong. Pressure plate looked fine, Throwout did too, no flat spots, and it still spun freely. So, I got another throwout bearing from a friend, (one that did NOT make any noise when removed) and put it in, put it back together and the noise went away. For a while. A week later it was shrieking again. Fortunately though, fate would deliver me from this cursed automobile.
My friend, (the one with the chevelle, who also lent me the use of his garage, and his hands throughout these ordeals) Had acquired a daytona as well. He also became sick of fixing his, and found someone who was willing to trade a 75 dart and some cash for his. He got me in touch with the guy selling the dart, and I arranged a ride in it. He wasn't initially interested, (I had told him about the troubles I'd had) but after flooring it in second, breaking it loose at 40-something, and pulling 60 all in the span of a few hundred feet, he was sold. So I traded it for a 75 dodge dart, my current car.
My Current Car is a copper-metallic '75 swinger slant six with fresh bearings, body work, and paint. When I bought it it wasn't running very well at all. Fixing an unhooked vacuum hose, advancing the timing, and replacing the spark plugs helped, but it still wasn't firing on #1. I drove it for a couple of weeks like this anyway, and it still got 20mpg. Playing with it, I could turn the motor over by grasping the pulley/balancer by hand, WITH THE PLUGS IN IT. So, it needed some new rings.
I pulled the motor, pulled the head, and realized something, it had the earlier 68-74 cylinder head, not the later head it was supposed to have. Running the casting numbers proved it. So, putting the '75 peanut plugs in it could not be helping my performance any either. I took it down, dingleberry honed it, put new rings in it, put it back together, gave it a fresh coat of black engine paint, and began putting it back in.
My latest mistake occurred at this point. I didn't seat the torque converter properly before I began tightening the motor to the trans. So, as I snugged down the bolts I heard a *pop* from the tranny. I pulled the motor back out, and realized I couldn't turn the torque converter very easily. Crap. So, I pulled the tranny, pulled the torque converter (With great difficulty) checked everything, and decided I needed a new TC.
However, Today I found a jewel on Craigslist, in the form of a '72 scamp slant & Trans running and Complete for a very reasonable sum. I'll be getting that as soon as payday rolls around, and I'll get to have extra insurance, having both an engine and trans that I know work. I'll be putting the Trans behind my rebuilt slant, and if it turns out I'm not ready to be building motors, I'll have a backup motor too.
If my rebuilt motor runs well, I'll feel pretty accomplished, given it was put together in a parking lot by a 21-year-old with no automotive training beyond being a hobbyist.
Eventually, I hope to put either a 5.2 or 5.9 magnum motor, trans, and rear end out of a dakota, jeep, or durango underneath it. Build it with a mind for ~410hp (on premium gas for the 5.2, regular for the 5.9) And most importantly, do something I've never done before, and actually put good money into it to get good components. I'll be putting up a thread asking the questions about the build and swap shortly.
Thanks all!
(If you're not interested, all you need to know, is I have had many cars that break very often, as often my fault as anyone else's. skip ahead to "My Current Car".)
I've owned a couple dodges in the past few years, The first being my first car, a 1972 4-door dart with the slant six. I bought it in 2007, $1000 200,000miles on the clock, and drove it well for three years. Fixed this, fixed that, but it was all around reliable. I eventually got tired of having the slowest car among my friends, (The clincher being a '67 chevelle with a badass 350) And I went and decided I'd go and turbocharge my slant.
I had a te04h turbo out of a k-car, a welder, and some metal, and I went to work. I pulled the intake, exhaust, and hood, I fabricated an ugly-as-sin header out of electrical conduit and sheet metal, mounted the turbo, set it up to draw through a 2bbl rochester carb, and blow in through the stock intake. It ran, sort of. When you got it going it ran like a tractor on meth with rabies, but it refused to run at all unless the turbo was spooled. Mind you, this is five months into the project, and I'm working in the parking lot of the apartment complex I live in, and I needed a car. So I ended up giving up and I sold it to a local a-body guy.
I can post pics of the completed engine if anyone's interested.
Not too long after I came across a 1988 Dodge Daytona shelby z for $1000, Brand new clutch, recent engine and turbo rebuild, recent repaint. Not a bad deal, or so I thought. It needed the clutch cable hooked up, Because the guy who owned it put in the new clutch, and couldn't figure out how to put the self-adjusting pedal back together. (This was quite prophetic, actually, but I overlooked it at the time.) After getting it home and fixing a couple of little things, I drove it happily for a week, before The oil pressure dropped.
So, I parked it for about two weeks before I got time to put new bearings in it. (Fortunately something one can do without pulling the motor.) One of the mains was just inexplicably torn up. Not spun, not anything, just fried. (The main cap bolts on that main and one other were suspiciously easy to remove, though.) Well, I changed the mains and rods, and started running 15W-40 just to be safe. It ran nicely for a while longer, and by a while longer. I mean four days.
The headlights suddenly went dim, and just got dimmer, and dimmer, and dimmer as I was on my way home from work one day. Got a friend to bring me a new battery to get me home, and I got it home. Okay, Got a new battery, got my alternator tested, it came up bad. I got a reman'ed unit, and it still didn't start charging... Crap.
Did some researching, got some wiring diagrams, determined the most likely culprit being a bad VR circuit in the computer. (This being a SMEC car.) I figured then that This would be a great chance to get a performance computer. I got one, aaaaannnd.... it didn't fix it.
Next I asked around the internet, and was recommended to install a standard chrysler voltage regulator. I installed it, and it fixed it for literally two hours, before it went back to being broke. Finally, I cried uncle, Took it to the stealership, and paid them $300 for them to tell me that somehow both my original and the performance computer were defective, and that they couldn't order a replacement for me. In the end, they rewired the VR I had installed to a different 12v source and ground, and now it was finally fixed. YAY!!!
Oh, I didn't mention this took place over just short of three months, and I hate wiring.
Okay, now I've got a car, and it's damn fast. The Calibration bumped the boost up to 15 pounds, It was a blast to drive. Handled like nothing I'd ever driven, and I could peg the speedo without even holding it to the floor. Well, that was a week. Remember that part I said earlier about "Prophetic?"
A week and a half later, I started noticing a noise, initially just a ticking noise, but it eventually became a shriek I can only describe as the noise a dull sawzall makes when cutting through exhaust pipe. And only when I depressed the clutch. This immediately screamed "THROWOUT BEARING!!!! or maybe pressure plate." So, it sat a couple of weeks more, and then I borrowed my friend's garage, Dropped the tranny, and....
I didn't see anything wrong. Pressure plate looked fine, Throwout did too, no flat spots, and it still spun freely. So, I got another throwout bearing from a friend, (one that did NOT make any noise when removed) and put it in, put it back together and the noise went away. For a while. A week later it was shrieking again. Fortunately though, fate would deliver me from this cursed automobile.
My friend, (the one with the chevelle, who also lent me the use of his garage, and his hands throughout these ordeals) Had acquired a daytona as well. He also became sick of fixing his, and found someone who was willing to trade a 75 dart and some cash for his. He got me in touch with the guy selling the dart, and I arranged a ride in it. He wasn't initially interested, (I had told him about the troubles I'd had) but after flooring it in second, breaking it loose at 40-something, and pulling 60 all in the span of a few hundred feet, he was sold. So I traded it for a 75 dodge dart, my current car.
My Current Car is a copper-metallic '75 swinger slant six with fresh bearings, body work, and paint. When I bought it it wasn't running very well at all. Fixing an unhooked vacuum hose, advancing the timing, and replacing the spark plugs helped, but it still wasn't firing on #1. I drove it for a couple of weeks like this anyway, and it still got 20mpg. Playing with it, I could turn the motor over by grasping the pulley/balancer by hand, WITH THE PLUGS IN IT. So, it needed some new rings.
I pulled the motor, pulled the head, and realized something, it had the earlier 68-74 cylinder head, not the later head it was supposed to have. Running the casting numbers proved it. So, putting the '75 peanut plugs in it could not be helping my performance any either. I took it down, dingleberry honed it, put new rings in it, put it back together, gave it a fresh coat of black engine paint, and began putting it back in.
My latest mistake occurred at this point. I didn't seat the torque converter properly before I began tightening the motor to the trans. So, as I snugged down the bolts I heard a *pop* from the tranny. I pulled the motor back out, and realized I couldn't turn the torque converter very easily. Crap. So, I pulled the tranny, pulled the torque converter (With great difficulty) checked everything, and decided I needed a new TC.
However, Today I found a jewel on Craigslist, in the form of a '72 scamp slant & Trans running and Complete for a very reasonable sum. I'll be getting that as soon as payday rolls around, and I'll get to have extra insurance, having both an engine and trans that I know work. I'll be putting the Trans behind my rebuilt slant, and if it turns out I'm not ready to be building motors, I'll have a backup motor too.
If my rebuilt motor runs well, I'll feel pretty accomplished, given it was put together in a parking lot by a 21-year-old with no automotive training beyond being a hobbyist.
Eventually, I hope to put either a 5.2 or 5.9 magnum motor, trans, and rear end out of a dakota, jeep, or durango underneath it. Build it with a mind for ~410hp (on premium gas for the 5.2, regular for the 5.9) And most importantly, do something I've never done before, and actually put good money into it to get good components. I'll be putting up a thread asking the questions about the build and swap shortly.
Thanks all!
