My daily driver 67 Coronet wagon

No zippy pictures but today I tackled my thrust angle issue. Tossed the car in the air with the diff hanging down, loosened the u-bolts on both sides. Then one side at a time, pulled the u-bolts off, dropped the plate down, put my screw jack under the housing tube to get it separated from the spring, took my die grinder with a carbide cutter to the holes in the perches, slotted the lh one to the front and the rh one to the rear. 1/4" each, so that would give me my 1/2" needed to correct the lh side being forward. I figured it was either this or make a 1/2" spacer to put between the lh front spring hanger and the unibody mount. Will get the alignment re-checked and adjusted as needed before Woodley on the 16th.

I am going to do the same thing with my bb and hemi projects. Align hone, square deck block, then bore and torqueplate hone. I tell them ptw clearance that I want and like you, I do all my assembly in my engine room. I bet you are chomping at the bit to get yours together!

I AM! But...have some bills due to pay before its fun time on the car. Have to pay for Van Nuys, 16th to 18th, hotel/event/travel/grub/swap meet. Then I have the Power Tour West in December. Travel/hotels/grub/event. Have already "paid" for them on the card, but I need to square up with the house. After that, as I'm making dough working from the garage, buy more goodies to complete the engine. The engine/trans will get pulled as a combo. While the trans is out, want to get it freshened before it goes behind the new engine. Works fine as is, other than small leaks, but thats a good time to take care of biz. Will rebuild the steering coupler at that point too. I'm thinking of putting the combo on my dolly and remove from the bottom as opposed to up top. I'll need to get my Indy unit and trans off of it to do so. Good excuse to get that engine on my stand so I can clean it then spray it with my matte clear for protection[ all aluminum engine]. Another plus if I drop it out from below, I'm going to try and buy the new TTI headers and exhaust next month, set that up as a will call since I'll be close by the dealer that sells them, in December while on the tour. That way I can pre-clearance the new units to the 440 and the Lares steering box I put in a couple of weeks ago, if needed. Get it started on the Hedmans for break in, then remove those and put the TTI's in.

Kern Dog said:

I had a thread on this:

Alignment at home and aftermarket UCAS too.
The gauge itself:
https://www.amazon.com/Longacre-52-...hy=134287&hvtargid=pla-4584413735745524&psc=1

I made turning plates for pennies.
For under $200 you can get set up to do this yourself and from there, you won't need a professional anymore.

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I can vouch that this DIY setup works. Back in 2017 after I rebuilt the Dart's front suspension, I had the front end aligned at a shop that did classic cars and supposedly was familiar with Mopars. They did a good job, for 6+ years I rolled around without adjusting anything. The car handled fine and there was no uneven tire wear.
After rebuilding the 5.9L in Greg's shop earlier this year, I upgraded to 1.03 torsion bars. Greg performed the alignment with his DIY kit. He was able to dial in additional positive caster and now the car handles better than before while requiring less effort to steer at low speeds (its manual steering).

Sometime in the future I'll be investing in the needed equipment for DIY alignment. There are so many parameters I want to check on the 65 when it's ready that it would be better if I did it. I'm tossing around a way to be able to check the thrust angle measurements as this needs to be part of the system for geometry settings. Then there is the bump steer. I have graphs in my old Mopar Circle Track/Kitcar manuals to guide me on what needs to be addressed for that.

Got into Sherman Oaks today in preparation for the Fall Fling. Malibu cruise tomorrow. Smooth sailing.

ckessel said:

Got into Sherman Oaks today in preparation for the Fall Fling. Malibu cruise tomorrow. Smooth sailing.

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I absolutely love that car. I would fly out and ride down with you if I vould just win that lottery.

Let me know if you do.

ckessel said:

Let me know if you do.

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If I do there will be signs.

Cool.
Malibu cruise today.

Boy I sure slept on this one! Don't know how I've missed this thread Carl, looks like it's coming along nicely. Great build!
Great pics from LA too! I woulda/coulda/shoulda but the fall one's pretty much always been a no-go for me, between work and grapes (which equal work lol)...

The wagon gets the freshly machined by Mike unit. Need to continue to earn more car dough. Thanks for the hookup with Mike.

Today some items showed up that I ordered from E-Booger. Semi metallic shoes, pins, wheel cylinders and a yoke holding tool. On my Fall Fling drive, when on the way home, I felt the rear shoes[ think on the rr] hanging up again. Plus I have noticed and Steve Wall too when he got to check out the Lares box, the brakes feel spongy and a little close to the floor. When I was having issues with the self adjusters hanging up[ at least I thought they were] the rr primary shoe for worn down close to half on the lining from the shoes hanging up. I also noticed that the pin and cylinder cup/piston seemed to be always part way out when I pulled the drum off. I'm thinking there is a machining issue on that cylinder. On E-Bergs site, he has cylinders listed that deal with the spongy pedal feeling after a disc conversion has been done. The car has been that way since I bought it and is still that way after my updates. So when my lift is open, I'll put those items in. Also the pinion seal is leaking, so thats why I got the tool. Bought a new seal plus a thinner wall 1/2" drive 1 5/16" socket for the nut. One thing I don't know about, since it has a 489 housing and the PO did the gear change and carrier unit, is if he used a crush sleeve or the solid spacer. Going to buy the solid spacer and either use it, if it has the crush sleeve, or save it for another time. Another thing to deal with is the actual power lok carrier. I would get some pooping and creaking when backing into the garage. I always figured it was suspension issues. It got way worse when I changed the cross shaft to use the tapered roller axle bearings. Even after putting in a second bottle of modifier and many sharp 90's and 360's, it makes a bunch of noise when backing up into the garage. Very noticeable. So I think I'll change the power lok unit out for one of the Doc's Sure-Trac II units uses helical gears like the Gleason Torsen unit. My dually has that from the factory.