Hawk-Rod: The "Tune-Up"

Mopars & Missiles said:

OK, my real guess is that you got a new Passion performance 5 speed? (855 I think?)

Click to expand...

Yes Sir!

It's been a long wait, and I know he has had continual supplier issues, but Jamie Passon came through for me! And it is just in time to get ready to drive cross country. If it would not have arrived, I was considering a Gear Vendors overdrive since I did not want to chew up my original metal - but I m not thrilled with them because the numerical overdrive ratio is not very good.

Perfect timing with the engine - now to drop the K member and assemble the new engine and transmission!

Hawk

Sounds awesome! and then going across your country with such a car that is my dream!
Enjoy and have plenty of good time!

Sixtynine_Bird said:

Sounds awesome! and then going across your country with such a car that is my dream!
Enjoy and have plenty of good time!

Click to expand...

And you should do the same in France! Dreams will certainly never happen if you don't try for them. Who knows ho this one will turn out for me, but I am going to give it a try and hope to have a great time.

But sorry, I won't stop by to see you!

Hawk

hsorman said:

And you should do the same in France! Dreams will certainly never happen if you don't try for them. Who knows ho this one will turn out for me, but I am going to give it a try and hope to have a great time.

But sorry, I won't stop by to see you!

Hawk

Click to expand...

Ahah you don't want to go across the pond with your Bird lol?
I sure will do the same, once the 69 is done from its full resto that is the plan. My brother and I recently bought a 66 Charger 383 4 speed all original interior and it appears to be a "matching" numbers car but can't be 100% sure as there is no vin stamping on the block or trans. But every date stamped lines up, and from what the owner said still the same drivetrain since 66 in that car so pretty happy with it. I took it past summer for a thousand kilometers trip in France and it was great! loved it. Can't wait to do the same with the 69 RR! Completely different philosophy compared to the Charger but it'll be a fun car to drive for sure!
Been a long time since I've posted on my 69 thread here maybe I'll give it a quick update.

Thomas

It's been a bit since I last posted but I have made some progress.

First, I wanted to ensure that any "cradle" that held my K-member and transmission worked decently. The first time I did this 5 years ago I used jack-stands and threw something together. Ultimately, the tail shaft of the transmission fell off the jack-stand and it broke stuff. Lesson learned.

This time around, we decided to bolt car "skates" (that typically go under each tire so you can move it around) to the K-member. We chose the area where the sway bar bolts up and used some 2x3s to drill holes and bolt stuff up. For the transmission, we cut pieces to make a custom cradle that will hold the transmission cross brace.

Here is the area we decided to use to bolt the "skates" to:


Here is a picture with the "skates" bolted up:


Here is a shot of the cradle meant to hold the transmission cross brace:


The cradle above hugs the contours of the transmission cross brace:

Although I don't have tons of pictures of this, I have been working on disconnecting stuff so we can drop the K-member and transmission. It is just 8 bolts and drop it out!!! Well, true for the major bolts that hold it all in, but there is still a lot of stuff to disconnect. Throttle, battery cables, alternator wires, etc. etc. etc.

Here is a quick list I have been working against. I'm sure there is still more to add too!

In a separate note: below is a picture of my front tire after about 7000 miles. Tread looks great so I'm happy with my alignment. I have to be careful I don't screw that up! I plan to count torsion bar bolt turns to remove and replace, and only disconnect the upper control arms. Hopefully that will preserve the alignment...

Perfect tire profile - good job. You got yourself some handy supports. Like your organized and smart way to work on the car.

Cheers Wolfgang

Work is slow with the cold weather, work and other time pressures, but I did manage to drop the K-member out of the car.

Genius that I am and through all my "expert" list of things to disconnect, I somehow forgot that the steering column needs to be disconnected from the steering box!
Luckily, as we moved the car VERY SLOWLY off the K-member we saw it, so no harm, no foul.

5 years since the restoration, a drive across country and routine driving have made for some cleanup needed! The K-member and parts will be retained, cleaned and reused in the car. The engine is the numbers matching, untouched 383 with 89,000 miles on it. It will be safely stored away along with the numbers matching A-833. The transmission you see in the picture is another A-833 converted to an overdrive. It will find a new home eventually once I have proven the A-855 to work well.



The system I made to hold the engine and transmission worked well. I was able to easily move the whole unit around the garage,

Hey Hawk,
Glad you pointed me in this direction; don't know how I missed this thread. And hopefully we can cruise a bit while you're on the Left Coast.

CoronetDarter said:

Hey Hawk,
Glad you pointed me in this direction; don't know how I missed this thread. And hopefully we can cruise a bit while you're on the Left Coast.

Click to expand...

Absolutely! That will be a required stop for me and Barry!

You'll have to try driving the Road Runner again - should be a very different experience from last time!

Uh, I guess I better get out to the garage and get this pile of pieces back together...

Hawk

Slowly, work has been progressing on the driveline swap.

Removed the engine and set it in a temporary spot so we could strip it. This is the numbers matching engine for the car with 89,000 original miles, so later I will prep is for long term storage by oiling the cylinders, etc.


All the other parts were set aside for some cleaning and prep.


Meanwhile, I started working on getting the distributor to physically fit the new engine. The heads had to be clearanced to allow for the bigger than stock distributor (this one allows for ECU controlled timing). Obviously, getting metal into the open distributor hole is not a good thing, so I employed multiple levels of protection. First a clean rag in the hole itself, then tape over the hole, then tape over the area, and finally towels over all other areas of the block. I had to do this lots of times to finally sneak up on the fit since I didn't want to grind too much off the heads.


Here are a couple of shots mid way through the process. You can see the difference between the distributors.


Speaking of which, and a complaint many have made on the quality of some of these parts. Look at the condition of the internals of the 70's vintage distributor vs. the now 5 year old high dollar "billet aluminum" one. Look at what came out of this thing after 5 years of use! It is unacceptable to use crappy metal parts like this inside a distributor!


Here is the finished job after some touch up paint. You can see the original profile of the head at the bottom - quite a bit had to be removed!

hsorman said:

The heads had to be clearanced to allow for the bigger than stock distributor (this one allows for ECU controlled timing). You can see the original profile of the head at the bottom - quite a bit had to be removed!
View attachment 914009

Click to expand...

Hey, is that a water jacket I see?

CoronetDarter said:

Hey, is that a water jacket I see?

Click to expand...

Nah, that only shows up after it is all installed and you start it!!!

When I first got the Coronet I swapped in the Pertronix distributor and had to clearance the 915 head. The Stealth heads cleared without mods, but it's tight.

So we worked on installing the flywheel, clutch and bellhousing. Bolting this stuff up takes minutes - what takes time is measuring it all up to be sure everything is in spec.

First we drilled and tapped the crank bearing (for the transmission input shaft) in case it ever needs to come out again. It's a small amount of work to save a huge amount of time later if it ever needs to come out again.


Then we bolted on the flywheel and checked the amount of wobble it had. This is important for proper clutch function.
Specification <= .015"
Actual = .002"




Then we needed to check the bellhousing bore runout. The bore of the bellhousing must sit exactly centered on the crank since that bore aligns the transmission. You want the transmission input shaft perfectly in line with the crankshaft.
Specification <= .008"
Actual = .007" So this was close. Any worse and I would have to get offset shims.

Bellhousing flatness. This measures how parallel the face of the bellhousing is to the block. You want the transmission perfectly dtraight back behind the engine so the transmission input shaft is not cocked sideways.
Specification (I lost this, and now need to look this back up)
Actual = .004"


Next to install the fork and throwout bearing and then we are ready to set engine timing and install the transmission.

Hawk

Waiting on itinerary, I-76 goes "right by" Summit Racing in Tallmadge, just sayin' !! Jeff

oldbee said:

Waiting on itinerary, I-76 goes "right by" Summit Racing in Tallmadge, just sayin' !! Jeff

Click to expand...

Hey, you never know: we might need some more speed parts!!!

A rough itinerary will come out in June or July. On our last trip we discovered our paper (yes paper, God forbid!) spiral bound map book had designations for scenic roads. These scenic roads were fantastic, so we stuck to those as much as possible. We certainly did drive on some highways, but very few. We'll meander our way across the country through lots of small towns, and that is what makes it cool. So bottom line is we may certainly make it past your neck of the woods (that'll be fun), but it likely won't happen on I-76!

...Of course, we'll go NOWHERE if I don't get this car back together!!!

Hawk

I need some transmission installation advice!

So progress on my project has been slow due to the corona virus outbreak. Although I have now been working from home, work has gone crazy while we try to deal with the outbreak. Worse, to try and uphold social distancing, my buddies and I agreed to stop meeting for our "car nights" working on the car. So now I need to install a transmission by myself. With a transmission jack and the lift, this is easy, but not so on the floor.

Problem: I can insert the manual transmission until about 1/4" before the bellhousing and transmission flanges meet. I KNOW not to force a transmission to mount using bolts to pull it on. But I felt it was just me alone that impaired me from getting it fully seated before I put the bolts on. Both the engine and transmission can move some on the floor. So I VERY GENTLY turned the four bolts and pulled the transmission the rest of the way to get it to mate. Thoughts? Do I need to take it back out and check/ try again? Below describes what I did and checked.

First I set up the engine so the bellhousing flange was perfectly vertical. Then I set the transmission to the perfect corresponding height and made sure the mounting flange was vertical too. See below:


I then removed the bellhousing and used the actual input shaft of the transmission to ensure the clutch and friction disk were aligned exactly to the transmission. While the transmission was fully inserted, I also measured the distance and made sure this was less than the thickness of the bellhousing (no picture for this measurement). This measurement ensures that the input shaft of the Passon 5 speed is not too long. Everything good here.


I then checked the bellhousing on the transmission. Nice fit here, no play, snug but not tight.


Finally, I reinstalled the bellhousing and slid the transmission in. It got further than this picture shows - to within a 1/4".
As you can see, this is hardly a pro setup! I used shims and wood blocks to get everything aligned, but it could certainly shift around a little bit. Also, as you can see the engine is supported both by the chains holding it up as well as the motor mounts on the K-member. But everything is on wheels and can move a bit, so it was hard while all alone to slide the tranny in all the way. Bottom line is I'm sure alignment was not perfect. At about 1/4" something was binding and not allowing for a smooth final insertion. I checked the throwout bearing both at this point and later, and it is not pushing on the clutch - it had play. So I removed the alignment pins and GENTLY tuned the bolts. It pulled in very easily with no force needed on the wrench as I turned the bolts.


So what are your thoughts? Is this a problem? Should I remove it all and try again? Not sure what else to measure or test.

As always, I appreciate the FBBO brain trust here!!!

Hawk

I dont see a problem ,I would keep turning the bolts till it seated. You said you were not forcing the wrench.