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JamieZ's 68 Charger

Warmed up and dried out so.....

Well it mostly dried out......


Anyhow it's back in the garage


It needs a wash and now I can swap in that reverse harness I had sitting around all winter. The fun begins again!
 
SPRING IS great Jamie!!! Im lovin it and it is not to warm yet but,,,,,, i have my robins singing now, no turning back! ENJOY buddy!!! Looking really good sitting in there and i bet your chompin at the bit!!!
 
Took down the bulk of the shelter today. I left the augers in and didn't move all the plywood but I think I got it down soon enough for the lawn to recover.


When I was moving the car it started to stall a bit....so I gave it more throttle. What else?

I'll have to clean that off when it's not so dreary out.
 
Warmed up enough to give it a quick wash to get the mud off. Still a bit too cold to give it a real wash and do the tires.

 
Finally got the compressor painted. It's been sitting around waiting for a break in the weather and today was warm enough.


Now I just need to reassemble everything.
 
JamieZ said:
Been working on getting the car legal (fun at the BMV) and collecting parts before starting any of the larger projects. But I did find time to pull off the shifter knob and give it a bit of a touch up.

Before:

After:


Needs a little clean up and maybe another coat, but for now I'm happy with how it looks.
Click to expand...

Looks nice, I did the same to my shifter knob. Then put a coat of satin poly over it to keep it from wearing. So far soo good.
 
Finally got the reverse lights working:

Before the weather turned I managed to diagnose the problem as the harness which ran from the trans to the firewall. So when spring rolled around I decided to swap the harness.
I expected removing the original and installing the new one would be the difficult part, but it turned out to be painless.
The problem was when everything was done the lights still didn't work.
I did some trouble shooting and found out that some how during the installation one of the female connectors on the firewall got pushed back through the plastic block. Unfortunately, no amount of fishing with various tools could snag it and pull it back through. The giant heater/ac box makes the connector completely inaccessible from within the car unless you pull the dash.

Since the dash had to come out I figured it was time to replace the non-functional speedo as well. So now the car sits with the dash out, but the speedo replaced. At least the reverse lights work for the first time since I've owned the car. I just need to put the dash back in (for the 4th time).
 
Wow, your Charger is looking great! I know what you mean with the weather, it's been a pretty wet start to Spring here in Ohio.
 
Put the dash back in. This is like the 4th time I've done it so it wasn't half bad this time (I also labelled everything a while back which really helps with some of the lights).
I took the car out and there is good news and bad news.
The good is the speedo works, as does the tach and all the other gauges so maybe the dash can stay in for a while?
The bad, the steering is scary. First the box leaks, a lot, if I jack the car up, I have to fill the pump again. Not top it off, pretty much dump half a bottle of power steering fluid in it. When it's level it's not bad. At low speed the car isn't terrible. It goes straight, wheel feels fine. But there is a ton of slop in the steering I noticed this when I was doing the front end work but didn't have time to address it. At low speeds I can feel when the wheels are turning due to the resistance. At higher speeds (35-40) the steering is boosted to the point where I can no longer tell so driving looks something like one of those old movies where the guys are just constantly turning the wheel while driving.

So now a firm feel stage 3 box has become a priority, probably not until July, but it's definitely this year.

Also the car doesn't stay running when cold. I didn't have a lot of time to play with the carb when I first put it on. When I initially installed it, it idled great.....of course I later found out the throttle cable wasn't adjusted right and it was holding the car at about 2.5k when warm so no kidding it didn't stall. It's a Holley just like I have on my challenger so I don't think getting it dialed in will be that difficult.

And speaking of the challenger I need to get that ready to go to Mopars at Junction in early June. I haven't had the car out at all this year, I did fire it up (after replacing the coil). So I'll be working on that for the next few weeks.
 
Did you check all of your ball joints, tie rod ends, idler and pitman arms, strut rod bushings etc? Those boxes aren't to bad to tighten up at all, just loosen the lock nut and remove the slop by turning the screw. Also you should try starting the car with the front tires jacked up and see if they want to turn by themselves, if so you need to center the valve block on the box by loosening the 2 bolts and fudging it left or right until you find the neutral position. The boxes will leak out from under that lock nut as well if the gasket or seal is damaged or if it's loose which might explain both of your problems. Just throwing some ideas out there, I'm running the factory box on mine with a $30.00 gates rebuild kit in it with no problems.
 
Thanks for the suggestions.

All of the front suspension parts are new, I put them in last summer. I'll double check them but they should have 0 wear as the car has driven less than 10 miles.

Right now with the car in the garage on the ground not running, I would say the wheel has 1/8 of a turn slop in it. You can put one finger on it an move it easily with no effect on the wheels. I'll see about taking a video of it.

It seems to leak out of the back of the box, as the leak is exaggerated when the front of the car is jacked up (not even running). The area around the adjuster looks clean and dry while the underside of the box is covered in PS fluid.

I could potentially rebuild the box myself, but if I have to pull it off, I'd much rather upgrade it a firm feel box. I'll try the adjustment, but access doesn't look fun with the stock manifold in there.
 
That's pretty bad, just loosen that nut on the top and turn the screw until the slop is gone. Can't blame you on the firm feel, I've debated it but at the same time I kinda like the zero effort (makes it feel like a classic haha).
 
I went to adjust some of the slop out of the steering, the lock nut proved particularly stubborn. I tried PB blaster, etc to no avail. I ended up removing the battery and the battery tray, along with the boot off the number 1 plug. Then I was able to slip a socket over it, put a breaker bar on it, and get it loose. I would tighten the screw, check the wheel, tighten, check, etc. I found about 1 1/4 turns were needed to get it where I expected it to be. There is still some slop but nowhere near what you see in the video.

Next day I looked at the choke and reset it to the middle adjustment. It idled much better, but seemed to come off a little early. I'll have to adjust it some more, but that will have to wait for it to cool. Since it was warmed up, I took it out for a brief spin. The steering was much much better. At no point did I feel like it was out of control guessing. Even at 50+. It still feels a bit over boosted and I might adjust the shims but for now it is at least drivable without a feeling of sheer terror.
 
That did look a might loose but it sounds like you have it under control now, Sometimes the steering in these old cars are like that, my 69 is a little loose but really thought it would be worse, with me its a problem for the future though. Good luck Jamie it certainly looks like your gaining!! :)
 
That looks like a BIG difference there, Thats pretty cool and i know its hard to tell looking at it compared to being there but it seems that tightened it up pretty good.. I hope i will be as fortunate! Thanks Jamie, ive thought about this particular part of my situation a lot and looking at this, im impressed comparing the two!!!
 
Pulled it out of the garage so I could do some maintenance on the Jeep.

Unfortunately I didn't get it parked beck in quite the right spot so I'll have to take it out again.
Darn.
:)
 
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