Back to Mopar After 38 Years!

I've had my new-to-me 67 GTX less than a month and other than a Welcome Wagon post I have just been lurking. I'll be posting more as I get used to the car but I wanted to start with a thread about my previous experience with Chrysler products and see if there is any interest.

Cars have been the main obsession in my life since I was 15. My Dad was a Ford man so my first cars were Fords, then I got tired of them breaking down all the time and switched to Oldsmobile in the late 60s. I thought I was happy with them until around 1971, a guy I worked with took me for a ride in his 67 GTX 4-speed. I had never experienced a car with that much power and it was my first ride over 100 mph - I was hooked! About a year later I found a dark green 67 GTX coupe with Torqueflite on the column, radio, power steering, and nothing else. The paint was faded, it had a filthy white interior, and the engine only ran on 7 cylinders but the body was straight, it burned rubber and only cost about $700!

I pulled the engine, cleaned it up, gave it valve job and new bearings plus a full tuneup. Once it was back together I had my first REAL musclecar! TO BE CONTINUED...

Welcome back!
All cars are great...but Mopar...well, specifically unique!

Lets see some pics!

Mopars rule the streets and strips. Welcome to FBBO. Glad to have you. Sounds like you tapped into a beauty of a project car. Can't wait to see some pics.

Beautiful car Don! I just checked out the pictures in your other thread and the car looks great!

Welcome TxDon! The first GTX I every came in contact with kicked my '68 Super Bee's butt! Loved and hated that car at the same time...welcome to Mopar U. Mocajava

Part 2 - It was 1973 and I was driving my first 67 GTX. I loved the performance but figured out fast I didn't like the manual drum brakes, crapped out white interior, and 3.23 pegleg rear end. When I was doing Fords I started doing parts swap upgrades from donor cars so I started looking for another GTX. It took awhile but I found a really nice one-owner 4 speed car, silver with a perfect black interior - I think I paid $900 for it.

(If you haven't already noticed, the mid 70s to mid 80s were the greatest time to be into muscle cars. There were a lot of them around in all kinds of conditions and they were dirt cheap because nobody wanted them! If anyone would have called them "investments" hysterical laughter was the response.)

So I tore down the silver car and swapped in a complete Kelsey Hayes power front disc brake setup, complete black interior with buddy seat, and the 3.54 Sure Grip Dana 60 rear end. I also took some body and trim parts that were better than mine. Now I didn't just use it as a parts car, I reverse swapped all the parts from the green car onto the silver one, repainted the green parts to match, and resold the silver car for $800 - so I got all the upgrades for $100! Not counting my labor but we never really count that - although I still remember moving that Dana 60 around.

If any of you ever had a green automatic 67 with a Dana rear or a silver 4 speed with an open 8 3/4 and the interior colors didn't match the fender tag, you can blame me!

TO BE CONTINUED...

Welcome TxDon! You're right about the 70's and muscle cars being cheap. I paid $800 for a 69 charger 426 hemi. Motor was hurt but still. No I didn't keep it! Im a DA!

Very cool story, looking forward to part three.

Xp29h said:

Welcome TxDon! You're right about the 70's and muscle cars being cheap. I paid $800 for a 69 charger 426 hemi. Motor was hurt but still. No I didn't keep it! Im a DA!

Very cool story, looking forward to part three.

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If I could have kept all the cars I had in that mid 70s to mid 80s period I could have retired a lot sooner than I did!

The Ford comment "tired of them breaking" hit home with me lol. I too got into Fords in the mid 70's and stooooopid things broke like the pedal rack coming apart....TWICE! This was on a mild 289 4 speed 66 Fastback Mustang. The first time, I was street racing someone and it happen when I went to put the car into neutral at the end of the run. Do you know what that does to the brake pedal?? Nothing is in alignment anymore and puts the brake pedal in a severe bind. Fixed it with genuine Ford parts and carefully checked out all the parts and could not find any reason for that to happen except for the bushings looked a bit worn. The 2nd time it happened during normal driving and it got fixed my way and it never happened again. Ever seen anyone pull the pinion out of the case? Me either up until that point. Thought it just shucked the drive shaft but as I got closer to it, I saw the remnants of the case snout still attached to the pinion gear complete with bearing. I know 4 speeds can be hard on parts but a 289 doesn't exactly have tons of torque either. Matter of fact, they have very little wouldn't think nailing 2nd with a power shift would do that. And never had any problems with brakes (even drums) on a Mopar so long as it had good parts but the Fords were the ones that I experienced crappy brakes.

My last Ford was a 64 full size XL which I built up with bored 390, dual quads, 4 speed and 4.11 posi. I loved the car but I broke springs, motor mounts, blew front and rear seals, had endless leaks, etc. The engine was out of the car so many times I could pull it in less than an hour. In comparison I used that GTX for a daily driver for three years, beat the living **** out of it, and NOTHING mechanical ever broke. Of course the door handles fell off from time to time and I would find mystery Phillips screws on the floor...

Wecome Don..

Who knew what these cars would be worth, we would have kept them all! Like you said nobody wanted these cars in the 70s when they were rationing gas. Looks like you got yourself a really beautiful GTX. Congratulations!

Part Three - Now the 67 ran, hooked and stopped good but it looked pretty bad. The green paint was faded, it had a silver drivers door and trunk lid, and big white vinyl "Plymouth" decals on the quarter panels. The body was actually pretty good for an Illinois car and had no visible rot but some surface rust. I pulled off most of the trim, stripped it down and resprayed it the factory green in lacquer.

Back then I still lived with my parents and did all my car work in their one-car garage. Any painting had to be done outside in the driveway and had to be lacquer so I could sand out the dirt and bugs. This was the first car I ever did a full repaint on, I had to wait for a day with no breeze and I wet down the driveway. It actually came out surprisingly well although I had to buff a lot of paint away since I hadn't discovered clear yet.

So now it looked good and you would think I was done with it, but like most guys with musclecars in the 70s I just couldn't leave it alone.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Part Four:
Back in the 70s there was no such thing as a "stock" musclecar. The first thing everybody did was modify them in some way, either visual stuff to personalize them or mechanical stuff to make then faster. I was actually pretty lucky, when I bought my 67 GTX it still had almost all of its original parts, except for some bald white letter tires and those white vinyl "PLYMOUTH" decals. After I painted it the first thing I did was add the Ansen Sprint aluminum wheels and wide tires you see in the photo. Of course I didn't know anything about wheel offset so they were too wide and rubbed the inner fenders. I pounded on the fender lips, put extended shackles on the rear springs, and cranked up the torsion bars in the front. Now it looked like a gasser, rode like a truck, and cornered like it was going to tip over. It didn't take long for me to realize that looking cool wasn't worth all that. I put the steel wheels and hubcaps back on and put the suspension back stock - boy did that car ride and handle great! Later on I was able to buy a new set of stock size Magnum 500s and Firestone F70-14 white letter Wide Ovals which stayed on the car. Those date-coded steelies went out with the trash and the perfect OEM wheel covers wound up on some used car I flipped - back then nobody thought to save the stock stuff. I think I also added a stereo FM radio to the car, I can't remember if it had a tape deck but I do remember cutting up the front door panels and the package shelf for speakers. I did that on just about every car I owned through the 70s and 80s - pretty cringeworthy looking at it now. Next step - performance mods!

TO BE CONTINUED

Congrad's... '67 GTX's are cool, especially those tips..........

Cool story. Keep it coming!

Nice GTX!
Welcome to a fellow GTX owner and Texan!

gmcgone*gtx said:

Nice GTX!
Welcome to a fellow GTX owner and Texan!

Click to expand...

I just saw your thread and am subscribed, great looking paint job.

Part Five:

In the late 60s and 70s musclecars were everywhere. The Hemi's and LS-6's were always rare but the rest were common as dirt and the older ones were just as cheap. Everyone wanted to go faster and performance mods were the first thing everyone did. My first 67 GTX was no different, the first thing I did was add a B&M shift kit to the 727 for firmer shifts. Then I replaced the column shifter with a Hurst Dual Gate on the floor. It came with a trim-to-fit plastic console and looked and worked great. Those two mods stayed with the car as long as I had it.

Next came the motor. I pulled the top end apart and put in a purple stripe "Hemi" cam and a 780 Holley dual feed on an Edelbrock Tarantula manifold. It sounded wicked but was no good on the street - low end torque was gone and not enough vacuum for the brake booster. This was my daily driver and I didn't want to change the convertor or the 3.54 gears, so off came the speed stuff and I put it back stock. I did add an electronic ignition conversion out of the Direct Connection catalog which stayed. I found a mail order surplus outlet that sold factory parts dirt cheap so I tried an AVS carb, then a Thermoquad, but went back to the old AFB every time. Then I found a used Six Pack setup for $75 with the air cleaner but without linkage. I went down to Mr. Norm's Grand Spaulding Dodge and bought the linkage parts (I lived near Chicago then). I rebuilt the carbs, bolted it on and went out for a test drive. I floored it and all six barrels opened, what a sound! I took my foot off the gas but it kept right on going, at about 5000 rpm I had to turn off the ignition - turned out I had forgotten the little spring clips on the outboard carb closing rods and they wedged the carbs open! I kept the six pack for awhile but it always ran too rich and idled poorly so eventually it came off too and the AFB was back. I never raced the car but on the street I always felt the factory setup was the best.

Next: Gas Crisis! TO BE CONTINUED...

I'm enjoying the story so far. Wish I had as good a memory as you for starters.
Welcome to FBBO and by all means, do continue!

Part Six - Gas Crisis!

In the fall of 1973 our friends at OPEC decided to stick it to the world and put an embargo on oil which lasted until spring of 1974. Oil and gas availability dropped steeply, the price of gas went from 38 cents a gallon (!) to 55 cents, and gas rationing was put into effect. When it came to musclecars we had all been living in paradise when it came to gasoline. There were full service stations on every corner, sometimes all four corners of a major intersection. Sometimes competing stations had "gas wars" where they cut the prices drastically to get your business. You could stop anytime for a fill-up and 100 octane leaded super premium without ethanol was available at most stations. We knew the cars were gashogs but who cared?

In fall 73 it all changed. Suddenly gas stations actually ran out of gas and premium was harder to find. Many service stations quit selling gas and just did repairs, and many just closed. You had to wait in line, sometimes around the block and rationing meant you were limited to so many gallons rather than a fill-up or you could only fill up on certain days based on your license plate number.

I was actually luckier than a lot of people, I had a pretty short commute so I could go a week on a tankfull if I limited off work driving. I lived in the suburbs and was able to hit stations at off hours when the lines were shorter. I still ran into times when a station ran out or when there was no premium. I had to run regular a couple of times and had to keep my foot out of it to avoid detonation, luckily it was the colder part of the year. The cost was an issue, I don't think I ever worried about mpg until those days. I wound up going to a Sunoco station when I could, they had the octane adjustable pumps and you could pick a number between regular and premium that worked pretty good and didn't ping much and save some money.

The gas crisis had a major effect on our economy and the automobile industry. The full service gas station disappeared. The musclecar was mostly dead by 73 but totally gone by 74-75. Foreign built economy cars came in and took over because they were the only ones that could offer good gas mileage, never mind that they were junk in every other way. There was a second crisis in 1979 and the dark days stayed with us for a long time.

Next: Good-bye GTX - TO BE CONTINUED