Vrenlos
Active Member
For those who haven't been following along, I went on a nice long drive last week and picked up a '66 Charger! The car has an interesting bit in its history - at one point in time it was stolen by the mailman in the small town it called home, and said mailman threw on a quick coat of black spray paint in an attempt to disguise it. The plan obviously didn't work, and so the previous owner(s) went about removing his still-fresh spray job - a bit over-zealously in a few places such as along the drivers' side pillar. She's got a little patina, but otherwise the body is in next to perfect shape. The only significant rust I've found is the very bottom of the trunk pan. Everything around the windows and even the rear frame members are completely solid.
Anyhow, I thought I'd make a thread to document my progress. I haven't had a whole lot of time this week, but some parts are on order and I've already ironed out a few niggling items. The PO complained that the carb was rebuilt, but had never run right - but the vacuum choke advance looks completely pitted and rotten, and was definitely sticking. In either case, this seems to be the original carb on the poly 318, and I've got a Holley 500cfm 2bbl laying around unused from another project. Even the adapter plate looks like it'll match up. I disassembled the Holley and the insides were actually not bad at all. Still, I somewhat recently bought myself a heated sonic cleaner, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to put it to good use. I dialed the water up to 60C and added some of the aluminum-safe formulation of simple green (actually purple...) and immediately watched the water go from clear to black and watched the little bubbles of cavitation doing their work. The parts came out *perfect* after 30 minutes, with only a few bits of stuck-on paper gasket to remove with a fingernail.
The carb is ready and waiting to go on, hopefully at some point today.
In the meantime, my battery had died from my fiddling with the headlight rotation switch and leaving it in the on position overnight, so hooking up the battery tender was in order. I'll have to debug the relays/motors, but for now I'm just leaving them locked in the outward/usable position. I placed a new fuse in the tail light circuit (previous was blown, and looked ancient) and the tails as well as interior cabin lights on the console sprung to life. Five of six bulbs on the tails are good, while the sixth one's bright/activated coil is toast. Blinkers also seem functional save for the 6th bulb as mentioned.
Between the new carb and HEI distributor on the way, I'm quite excited to get the car running tip-top. I'm thinking I may check valve clearances while I'm at it and going to set the timing anyhow, and there's a shiny new set of plug wires in the trunk ready to be cut and put in already. The only other real item to dig into is the gauge cluster, which the PO had fully refurbished but doesn't light up. I believe I read somewhere that the tach needs to be working for the EL to be functional, and it's currently not moving with the engine's RPMs.
Have a good Sunday, everyone!
Anyhow, I thought I'd make a thread to document my progress. I haven't had a whole lot of time this week, but some parts are on order and I've already ironed out a few niggling items. The PO complained that the carb was rebuilt, but had never run right - but the vacuum choke advance looks completely pitted and rotten, and was definitely sticking. In either case, this seems to be the original carb on the poly 318, and I've got a Holley 500cfm 2bbl laying around unused from another project. Even the adapter plate looks like it'll match up. I disassembled the Holley and the insides were actually not bad at all. Still, I somewhat recently bought myself a heated sonic cleaner, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to put it to good use. I dialed the water up to 60C and added some of the aluminum-safe formulation of simple green (actually purple...) and immediately watched the water go from clear to black and watched the little bubbles of cavitation doing their work. The parts came out *perfect* after 30 minutes, with only a few bits of stuck-on paper gasket to remove with a fingernail.
The carb is ready and waiting to go on, hopefully at some point today.
In the meantime, my battery had died from my fiddling with the headlight rotation switch and leaving it in the on position overnight, so hooking up the battery tender was in order. I'll have to debug the relays/motors, but for now I'm just leaving them locked in the outward/usable position. I placed a new fuse in the tail light circuit (previous was blown, and looked ancient) and the tails as well as interior cabin lights on the console sprung to life. Five of six bulbs on the tails are good, while the sixth one's bright/activated coil is toast. Blinkers also seem functional save for the 6th bulb as mentioned.
Between the new carb and HEI distributor on the way, I'm quite excited to get the car running tip-top. I'm thinking I may check valve clearances while I'm at it and going to set the timing anyhow, and there's a shiny new set of plug wires in the trunk ready to be cut and put in already. The only other real item to dig into is the gauge cluster, which the PO had fully refurbished but doesn't light up. I believe I read somewhere that the tach needs to be working for the EL to be functional, and it's currently not moving with the engine's RPMs.
Have a good Sunday, everyone!
