Build Thread Dustys has a new friend

General karthief said:

Sure you could stick the 5.0 in there but my feeling is it needs a few more cubes to get that tub moving.
a 351 or better yet a 360 mopar is what it needs. That and a aod with a 373 gear will make it peppy enough.

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The old flathead runs but the PO thinks it needs a timing chain. He is including a 360. The 302 is narrower and fits in without having to modify the firewall for the distributor or serious modification to the steering shaft. I like column shifted cars but the wife isn't entertained by it. I was thinking I'll refresh and bag the original stuff. I could build the 302 and put a dual plane intake, RV cam, and a edelbrock 500. I could buy a AOD with the AODE upgrades.( don't know why I was thinking AODE...nothing in this car will be electronically controlled ). 373 gears would be nice. I've got to find out what gears were in the straight axle Explorers. She doesn't want it fast....just reliable and simple.

Oh yay !!! The joy of redoing battery cables. I found a little corrosion at a cable splice to the main battery cable. It came with a little screw that clamped the cable in....that thing sucked. I found a battery post clamp that I had laying around. If my MAP gas torch wasn't empty and the stores didn't close at 7 this would be done already. Looks like more unplanned work on Dusty. My partial tuck puts most stuff behind the drivers fender. That's a good thing 'cause I've got to pull the wheels to bleed the brakes anyway. I'll stop after work and grab a bottle...and a self lighting torch. I'm getting lazy in my later years ( 42 haha ). Tired of having to find a lighter or a spark box.



That little plastic strap is going to get removed. Most of them are broken on most cars. I was proud of my washer bottle lid strap...oh well...its in the dang way.

This whole working on the car thing always turns into more stuff.

Had some fun with some battery cable ends.

Add some solder



Insert cable



Add heat shrink



Finally did something about the alternator fuse that kind of just floated around between the battery and the coil.



The cap for the 98 prop valve came in today. Got the o ring GB swapped over and the thing installed.



Picked up some caliper paint to paint these Cobra front and rear calipers. I was going to paint them something other than red but the are 04 calipers and came red from the factory. They will probably get changed over the winter for ATS fronts and taurus rears. I think I can live with the red for a little while.

I went to price a self starting torch and they want way too much. Just a cylinder of MAP gas was 14 bucks. They wanted almost 50 bucks just for a self lighting torch head. Guess I'll keep my flash pan...and a co UK please lighters laying around. There's no way I can justify spending that on a click button torch head.

When I did this half wire tuck I was outside in my driveway. I said I was going to straighten it out so today was the day. All of this from trying to wire in the vacuum pump.

Had help....my 13yr old removed the drivers fender and installed the little triangle mirror covers. The guy did an excellent job.



This is the aftermath.



What happened was....I got to the harness and had no idea what I was looking at. I had a mysterious green wire that was unplugged from somewhere. Didn't know what it was for or where it went. Traced it and found it was the tach signal wire to my Autometer. Then remembered that I had just stuck it in the ground connector of the coil and never wired it in. That had to change.

Another quest that started as a gingerly walk down wiring and solder road ended up being an all day thing. Rerouted all the wires. They look a little bunched up because the factory wiring and connectors are still there. I refuse to remove any of it. The four added things are the vacuum pump, cooling fans, fog lights, and the line lock. I had no fuse going to the fog light relay...just straight wired. I know I thou thought it was temporary but I must've been drinking something really good.

Everything is now labeled ( green masking tape made into a tab that has what the circuit is on it ) and the fuse holders are color coded to the harnesses they relate to.

White for vacuum pump....blue for the fans...yellow for the fog lights.



All the added circuits are on one post of my GM truck power distribution block. The harnesses have been organized, taped, labeled, and secured. Got it all done....except the ignition power wire for the vacuum pump relay. Yup...still gotta do it. All my circuits are ground triggered so no obvious wires behind the fender. I'll find one tomorrow or run the wire into the car and tap in there.

Still didn't bleed the brakes....or paint the calipers. I want to tidy up the rear brake line junction at the IRS. At this rate I'll be done with this sometime this year.

No pics today ( I'm pulling a Mike ). I got the vacuum pump wired up. It works great. This little endeavor has again raised my OCD level. The wiring is ridiculous under my dash. Stuff is going everywhere. I attempted to route everything the simplest neatest way....but it looks like pure *$$.

Due to the fact that I need to get the brake calipers and bracket painted and rear line redone ( just 'cause it looks wonky ), I'm not digging in to this now. To do it correctly I'd have to remove the drivers seat and lay in there on my back. All those wires need to be labeled, put in a loom, and ran like a real harness. I also need to wire in a fuse box or two. I popped the mini fuse in my multimeter doing an amp draw test a couple months ago. Can't find them in the store so I gotta order a few. Then I can properly size everything and do it the " right " way.

Still no pics. For people that follow my build you know I put a subaru forester Gentex gntx ghshl4 12 pin rear view camera mirror in Dusty. I wired it in but the two power leads were wired in to ignition 12v. That kept the garage genie from working ( it needs constant 12v ). There is almost no info on the interwebs about this. Since I was already in the wiring I figured I'd fix it. The blue wire is switched 12v...the gray wire is constant 12v. I can't get a mirror tab to stay on the windshield no matter what I try. It doesn't really matter because I need a new one anyways. This one has a few chips in it.

I don't have pics because the inside of the car looks like a bomb went off. Tomorrow I'm going to pick up a fuse box for the switched 12v source. There's way too much going on under there. I'm going to add a couple constant 12v sources in the box as well. With all the gauges, WB, stereo, ECU, and other stuff going on it's getting crazy.

I had an exhaust leak at the drivers side header to crossover pipe connection. Removed the V band and added some high temp sealant. That's the only connection that I didn't put any on when I put it together. I have no idea why....maybe I forgot.

My neighbor across the street just bought in to the Matco truck business. I spent about 2 hrs on there today. Theres a hydraulic brake line flaring tool that almkst has my name on it. Reminded me of when I was working flat rate and spending my check on the tool trucks. I'm glad he's there though...just in case.

The plan was to fire the car up tomorrow, set the timing, and paint the calipers. The wife has other plans. We're going out of state to take her Dad a present for his 60th birthday. That will take all day. I'll be lucky if I get to stop at a parts store.

We'll see how it all plays out. We were also supposed to go pic up the 49 tomorrow. Guess that's pushed back too. She's in no rush because I'm taking up the garage at the moment. The guy that has the car told me today that he's giving me a spare flat head engine....along with the fresh 360 and a good 727 transmission. The car already has a 8 3/4 rear. He says there should be a disc brake kit available for it. He's really trying to keep me from powering it by Ford.

Yippee !!! Got Dusty running today. Had to call Steve and pluck his nerves. I ended up finding that my IAC valve is bad. I had timing issues and the IAC had the car running at 1600+ rpm. After freaking out I unplugged and plugged it back up, that didn't work...so I banged on it. Sure as $hit the idle came down. I never removed it with the work that was just done. Don't know why it happened but it's running again.

I also did this. Not a huge fan of red brakes. These were originally red before I stripped them ( powder coat was terrible and the aluminum was oxidizing under it ).

Here's a before...



Here's the during...



There would be an after today but I had to order a new hardware kit. The pins were pitted with rust. $7.62 later and O'Reilly's should have it in store by 11:30 tomorrow. Gives me time to remove and paint the rear.

That's almost it for today. Went on a TP run with the wife ( toilet paper ). We had some but needed more, apparently. That turned into wine slushies.



I caught her a prince but she wouldn't kiss'em. Told me to do it...but I ain't kissin' a guy. She lost her ability to ever complain about money again.