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Grendel lives...resurrection of a 1970 Charger 500

I installed my patched/modded center dash section and steering column cover. The purists likely won't appreciate the mods but I call it a save. I had 2 dash sections, both with unsightly damage and one of them missing the entire upper middle section above the ash tray, and managed to fuse the good parts of each to make a single decent section, and I think the green aluminum cone washers and black counter-sunk screws kind of work with the overall green theme I'm going for.

DashPadMod-Installed1.jpg


DashPadMod-Installed2.jpg
 
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A few more interior parts to convert from the original white to black. I painted the visors with SEM Classic Coat for vinyl/leather. The original white passenger visor had some permanent brown discolorations from a rusty clip-on vanity mirror that wouldn't come off with cleaner or degreaser, so it's good that the black covered it up.

Visors_Before.jpg
Visors_After.jpg
 
Hey Coel, what’s that rust prevention you said you used a few posts back? Think it was on your seat grams and started with the letter C
 
New calipers installed. On the driver's side, Freeze-Off spray and tapping with a hammer helped me remove the fitting and banjo bolt where they attached to the frame, and the brake hose is still in very good condition. The passenger side was much more trouble, the fitting in the old caliper sheared off and the other fitting to the banjo bolt was already rounded off. Fortunately I clamped a Vice-Grips on that bastage and shot it with Freeze-Off, and some firm taps with a hammer, and got the thing to finally unscrew. Finally the calipers could be removed and replaced.

However, even when I pressed in the new caliper pistons as much as possible with a caliper spreader, once the new pads were installed, they're dragging on the rotors. The rotors will spin by hand but it takes a firm pull. That doesn't sound ideal. This is with the brake lines still disconnected.

NewCalipers.jpg
 
Coelacanth said:
New calipers installed. On the driver's side, Freeze-Off spray and tapping with a hammer helped me remove the fitting and banjo bolt where they attached to the frame, and the brake hose is still in very good condition. The passenger side was much more trouble, the fitting in the old caliper sheared off and the other fitting to the banjo bolt was already rounded off. Fortunately I clamped a Vice-Grips on that bastage and shot it with Freeze-Off, and some firm taps with a hammer, and got the thing to finally unscrew. Finally the calipers could be removed and replaced.

However, even when I pressed in the new caliper pistons as much as possible with a caliper spreader, once the new pads were installed, they're dragging on the rotors. The rotors will spin by hand but it takes a firm pull. That doesn't sound ideal. This is with the brake lines still disconnected.

View attachment 2051738
Click to expand...
I’m sure others will chime with solutions on drag but for me an old fashion clamp and block off wood or old pad piece and compress unless your piston is already fully compressed. Then disregard my ramblings
 
Thanks, I already compressed them as far as they'll go. I saw some suggestions online of sanding down the pads, which doesn't sound ideal. :(
 
what size /thickness is the rotor? Could the after marker rotor be heavier then a stock one? If so you could have them turned.
 
davek said:
what size /thickness is the rotor? Could the after marker rotor be heavier then a stock one? If so you could have them turned.
Click to expand...
I'll have to check. I'm pretty sure both rotors and calipers are Dynamic Friction (RockAuto) and new pads were from Napa. I'll update later if my info isn't correct.

It would suck to have to disassemble everything to turn the rotors...
 
Get a DA 60 grit sticky back sand paper pad, stick it on a steel tabletop or other flat surface and run the pad over it in an X pattern. I have to do this all the time. The parts are made overseas, converting std measurements to metric and it always comes out too thick, both pads and rotors. It doesn't hurt a thing and the pads will break in and wear flat very quickly.
 
Thanks, Nxcoupe...I'll try that. Since the rotors turn with some effort, I'm thinking even just a millimeter would be enough for the pads to clear the rotors to spin freely.
 
davek said:
what size /thickness is the rotor? Could the after marker rotor be heavier then a stock one? If so you could have them turned.
Click to expand...
I have an update on this brake pads dragging on rotors issue. Rotors & calipers are Dynamic Friction and I was able to pinpoint the reason why the new pads were dragging.

The new pads were about 15mm thick (plate + pad). With a (measuring) caliper, I painstakingly sanded each pair down to 14.65mm and they still dragged. Again, down to 14.5mm, still dragging. Upon closer inspection, the inner pads (piston side) had some wiggle room, but the outer pads didn't. The outer pads don't move, they're installed to butt up against the outer caliper surface.

I measured my old calipers from fully compressed piston to the outer caliper surface and the openings were at least 2mm bigger than the new calipers.

The new pads came with thin metal backing plates that I believe are intended to prevent brake noise; however, the service manual makes no mention of these plates. I decided to keep the plates on the pads on the inner piston sides, but left them off on the outer pads--because they don't move anyway. I still had to sand the outer pads down to about 14.4mm but the rotors were finally able to spin with almost no contact of the pads.
 
New rotors, calipers and pads finally installed and rotors...rotating properly. One upcoming task is to pop the upper ball joints, remove the UCA's and replace the bushings with Moog offset bushings.

Brakes_AllNew.jpg


A more immediate task is to address this ganky right side brake line fitting. I basically had to round off the bastage trying to remove it from the brake hose banjo bolt. The fitting was actually seized to the brake line and wouldn't spin without potentially twisting and damaging the line, so I secured it with a very tight Vise-grips, sprayed it with Freeze-Off and unscrewed the banjo bolt instead. With it unscrewed from the banjo bolt, it still refused to spin on the brake line and I didn't want to force it off the brake line, which is still good. I also didn't want to "simply" replace the brake line because with these fittings all seemingly seized, that would mean dealing with more seized fittings at the junction block and taking even more steps backward.

BrakeLineFitting.jpg


I gave this a lot of thought and figured the best plan to save the brake line is to cut off the bottom 3 or 4 mm of the fitting with a Dremel cut-off disk, which would remove the flared end and let me remove the seized fitting from the brake line.

BrakeLineCut.jpg


Now I should be able to straighten the line, install a new fitting, re-flare the end of the line and reconnect the fitting to the brake hose banjo bolt.

Question: I believe the line is 3/16"; what would be the correct fitting I need to buy to replace the ganky one I removed?
 
I hope I was able to save the passenger side brake line. The flaring tool didn't have enough room to work so I straightened the line first. My first attempt to flare the line end didn't work and scored the line as the tool didn't clamp it securely enough, so I had to cut off another half-inch. This wouldn't give me enough line to re-form the bend, so I had to rework the squared off section below the frame rail, as there was plenty of slack there. With the line pulled forward and re-bending the bottom so there'd be more line going up vertically, I did a double flare that looked okay and re-bent the curve downward until the new fitting would mate properly with the banjo bolt. It's all bolted back in and fingers crossed that it doesn't leak. If it's good, it's a great save of the brake line!

BrakeLineFix1.jpg
BrakeLineFix2.jpg
BrakeLineFix3.jpg
 
The brake system is all buttoned up, I just need to bleed the lines and check for leaks. However, I'm at the same roadblock that I was at before I replaced the rotors; I simply cannot separate the upper ball joints! When I had the calipers and rotors off and had more room, I couldn't get the upper BJ's to pop. So I went ahead with the full brake job and figured the extra weight might help them free, but nope. Firm whacks on both sides of the UCA's with first a normal hammer, then a bigger mallet, and nothing! It's frustrating the hell out of me because I need to replace the UCA bushings with offset ones, clean up the UCA's, and the upper BJ's are good, so I don't want to risk damaging the rubber boots by jamming a pickle fork in there.

Castle nuts are loosened with a few full turns on the threads remaining, so the lower half of the assembly won't drop too much.

Anybody have tips on how to pop these $*(&($& upper BJ's off? :BangHead:
 
RemCharger said:
You have to smack the sides of the spindle where the taper is.
Click to expand...
Can you get at that with the rotors and brakes assembled? Crank the wheels to one side? I was having no luck smacking the sides of the UCA's, which I've seen make them pop off easy-peasy...in YouTube vids, of course, where nothing ever goes as shown, in reality. :rolleyes:
 
RemCharger said:
Yes. It's not fun, but doable. Don't hit the fender
Click to expand...
You are the man! I wasn't convinced considering how much effort I was putting into trying to remove these UCA's, but I used your keywords of hitting the spindle in a YT search and this was the first video I watched that was totally different from dozens of others; I probably wasted an hour or two watching all kinds of videos but this 18-second video was all I needed:



This was practically the opposite of what I was doing; and he actually mentions doing this to avoid damaging your rubber upper ball joint boots by using a pickle fork, one of the major reasons I was trying to be so careful as my UBJ's are good (and because from what I've heard, removing & replacing them is an even bigger pain in the ***). Here's what I did, following your suggestion, this video and sharing for others who may find themselves with the same difficulties:

-Crank the wheel to one side, for example, to the far left.
-On the right side of the car, give the UCA a couple upward whacks from underneath, from behind the rotor & caliper as it's more exposed with the wheel cranked to the left.
-Give the rear, more exposed side of the spindle some firm whacks with a mallet.
-Pop! I couldn't believe how easy they separated!

Now I can finally clean up the area behind the UCA's, clean up the UCA's themselves, finally install some new UCA bump stops that've been sitting around since last summer, and all the hardware is going to soak in Evapo-Rust for a few days. Progress!

UCAs_Removed.jpg
 
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