My 71 Duster Project

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Well, here is the final progress from the work on the Duster. I made fuel lines this week to finish plumbing the fuel system and they turned out pretty nicely. Unfortunately, I still do not have good news about the engine. The bureau of automotive repair currently has the case and is doing a full blown investigation. It is a waiting game now. I really hope this works out. The engine shop has not been there all week. The car is finished so I am just waiting for an engine. It will really suck it that company hightailed it! I will keep you posted. Here are some pics of the fuel lines. Here is the link of the thread I started about the engine issue I am dealing with right now to bring those who don't know what happened up to speed:
http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/showthread.php?t=239982
 

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OK, for those who have not been following the engine issue, I got everything back. The only problem is everything is still torn down from when I originally took it to them. Since I do not have the money to buy internals AGAIN, I am going to be re-plotting the 340 build and change some of the setup while I am hopefully awaiting a refund from the shop. I will post my ideas here or maybe even start a new 340 build thread to see what you all think. So far everything is coming out to the same price as the last build was estimated at with a lot of extra goodies. Here are some pics of what we forced the shop to give back to me.
 

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Today I had some guys come over from our local car club and we bled the brakes on the car. Holy moly were there a lot of leaks! LOL! We got them all sorted out and the car now has stopping power! After we were done with that, we pulled it out of the garage and she got her first bath since being painted. Man she looks good! I also got the motor offloaded out of my Dads truck and onto the engine stand. I sprayed some WD-40 on the crank and internals in order to preserve them until I can get some $ for the build. It looks like it is going to sit for awhile for now until we see what happens. More to follow there. One of the guys from the club needed help changing out a third member in his Comet so we did that while the Duster was out of the garage. Here are some pics of his car and motor. That thing is pretty nice! It sure gives me motivation to get mine pushing! Enjoy!
 

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Great news on getting your numbers matching block and parts back. Now get after them on that $3K, or whatever is left after they hot tanked the block and put in new freeze plugs.
 
The engine is now at the new machinist getting work done. Here are some pics of my helper helping me torque down the main caps. The machinist is supposed to call me this week to let me know where everything is at and talk pricing. He is going to measure everything on the block, tear down the heads to check the valves and spring pressures, and then hot tank everything and do a mag inspection to check everything for cracks. Fresno Performance has squared up with me for the most part by giving me all sorts of parts to offset what he owed me. All of the Mopar stuff I got has sold on this site, so that was awesome. I have a lot of non-Mopar stuff now that does not seem to be going as quickly so time will tell. I never got my flywheel back so I ordered a brand new one for $150 from 440 source. In the mean time I was out in the garage tinkering on the x-pipe. I have decided to re-enforce it a little as it looked a little weak. Here are some gussets that I am making. I will get out there today and cut them out and then weld them up. I will post finished product pics later. That is the latest! At least now the wheels are turning again!
 

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Glad to hear things moving along....... Great helper, Gets rite in there with the helping !!!!
 
Here are some pics of the x-pipe all gusseted up. Forgive my welds...they are ugly this weekend! I am out of practice! I will clean em up later. I also received my Kevko oil pan and pickup today. This is a very nice piece! It had a lot of slag in it like you all mentioned, but overall I am happy with the product. We will see how it fits when I get the block back.
 

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Well, it has been awhile since the last update so here is the latest. I finally heard back from the new machinist and we are back in business. The new build is going to come out to $4377.35. This includes machining, balancing, assembly, parts, taxes and labor. The heads need a lot of work as well. He told me that the seats in the heads were not hardened and will need to be done. The valves are worn out. He is converting the valves from the 4 groove valve stems to the single groove lock style valve which is more durable and more commonly used today. The headwork includes new valves, stem seals, springs, locks, etc. He said that the heads were already ported. Here are some pics of the pistons, cam specs, head bolts, hardened oil pump drive shaft, roller rocker hold downs, flywheel bolts and roller lifters. I did order the Hughes 1.5 ratio roller rockers/shaft kit and received a message that they are back ordered three weeks so I will send pics of them when I get them. Thanks for all the feedback on a separate thread about those rockers. Compression ratio is going to be 9.1, but the machinist said he needed to cut the dome off the top of the piston to bring that comp ratio down as it would be sitting around 9.7 with the dome risking detonation/borderline pump gas. The cam will be fully degree'd in and pushrods will be ordered later once he assembles the heads to check lengths. He told me the build would be about 3 months due to a few motors ahead of mine and having to send the crank out to get ground and balanced. More to follow...
 

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Great Thread!! Car looks amazing and I love what you did with the black paint on the car. Keep up the work!!
 
Thank you, its nice to get this thing going again. I have had lots of support and help from everyone including my Dad! I can tell he is excited about seeing this car getting close to the finish. He wants to show it off with the SoCal Mopar club! Thank you all!

racerhog said:
Glad to hear your back on track... :)
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The roller rocker arm kit from Hughes engines showed up today! I cant wait to see the final product! Here are some pictures of the old ones and new ones.
 

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Very cool to see you working with your son:thumblef:
Im happy you got your motor back..lots of nice parts she is gonna be a screamer..keep up the good work.
 
OK its been awhile and I have been super swamped lately with the family hence the silence. I have not been working much on the car, but finally got out on her the last two weekends to install the door handles, locks and this weekend has been spent installing some weatherstripping. Here are some pics for you all. I am catching up on the site so hope to talk/hear from you all again.

Ken
 

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Thanks! Funds are tight right now so it will come little by little. As far as coatings, I stripped and re-sprayed the whole underside of the car with the 3M Shutz undercoating. The trunk is done with the black/gray spatter trunk coating kit from Eastwood.

Captainkirk said:
Nice to see you back in the saddle, Ken. What type of undercoating are you using?
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smartken22 said:
Thanks! Funds are tight right now so it will come little by little. As far as coatings, I stripped and re-sprayed the whole underside of the car with the 3M Shutz undercoating. The trunk is done with the black/gray spatter trunk coating kit from Eastwood.
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3M Shutz.....is this a commercially-available product in an aerosol bomb? If so, what's it going for per can (I need to do trunk and complete underside)?
 
Here are the links from where I ordered it. TCP Global is where I got all my body work supplies, paint, primer, etc... The undercoating is around $25 a qt and the gun is around $100. I did my under-body with three cans and if you are doing the trunk too I would say four cans total. Let me know if you need more info.

http://www.tcpglobal.com/itemdetail.aspx?itemno=MMM+8864

http://www.tcpglobal.com/itemdetail.aspx?itemno=MMM+8997


Captainkirk said:
3M Shutz.....is this a commercially-available product in an aerosol bomb? If so, what's it going for per can (I need to do trunk and complete underside)?
Click to expand...
 
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