She's a keeper! 72 Plymouth

[jprather]

i understand that, if you decide you want to part with any of the side trim, please let me know, i am missing the drivers side quarter stainless trim on mine and would like to put it back.

keep up the great work, your keeping me inspired to get mine done !

 

[Magnes]

i understand that, if you decide you want to part with any of the side trim, please let me know, i am missing the drivers side quarter stainless trim on mine and would like to put it back.

keep up the great work, your keeping me inspired to get mine done !

I have a 72 Satellite Sebring parts car. I will look at it tomorrow for you and see if it still has that particular piece of trim. If that car has a piece, I will send you a PM.

I know a guy in Mississippi who has a whole field full of Mopars. He definitely has full sets of the trim pieces but I see you are in Florida and this guy is an old timer so he's not going to want to mess with shipping parts.

Anyway, I will check my parts car and get back to you. If you can't find one and end up heading through Mississippi for some reason, send me a PM beforehand and I will get you his contact info.

 

[Magnes]

We snatched the hood off and put it inside a couple days ago...

Since FINALLY a slot has opened up at my buddy's shop and it's time to get that 318 and 904 out of there.

The car ran and drove fine but since I haven't got it legal yet (no inspection or registration) I went ahead and had it towed to his shop. I followed along in my 77 Ramcharger and although it was only a couple miles to the shop, I was amazed at how much attention the car got. Every person who was outside or driving around us was checking it out. It's definitely going to be an attention whore.

We already have the 904 out and the 318 is ready to be pulled Monday. Then I have to finish detailing the firewall. The 440 is ready to go in as is the 727. I've got a load of new stuff arriving at his shop Monday. Basically, everything under the hood is going to be new. I'm hoping the headers we have are going to work. I've still got to get a new radiator but we are going to wait til the 440 is in so we can measure for maximum size with optimum clearances. And we still have to figure out what we are going to do about the driveshaft. I'm going to have a local shop do the exhaust for me. Probably do Flowmaster 40's, 2 1/4" pipes, and for sure it'll have the machine gun tips... Because, wtf right? It's got to have some machine gun tips.

I've gone through the whole brake system and suspension but it never hurts to get a second set of eyes on stuff so he's going to double check everything for me since I will be driving this thing and the last thing I need is some BS problem raining on my parade.

I know a vast majority of you guys do absolutely everything on your car yourself and I admire that. I can do a lot, but I recognize my weaknesses as a car builder and so on occasion I will put my ego aside and refer to a friend or professional. Luckily for me, my friend's strengths are my own weaknesses so we can work together to get this car finished and as perfect as I need it to be.

 

[Mr Gorsky]

Gonna keep the brake booster, or are you going to ditch it??

Thinking of losing mine. Simpler, lighter, cleaner look without it.

 

[1969 Dodge Coronet]

Great looking ride! I like the color too! I had a dark green one with the 318 V-8 and the Torqueflite transmission in 1975 that I liked a lot but it was damaged in a car smash up in 1977 and I traded it for something else. I wouldn't mind owning another one but I've got a few projects in the pipeline ahead of it at the moment.

 

[73SwingerDart]

AWESOME- looking great!
Ours are getting done about the same time!
Todd in Tulsa

 

[Jacks_Runner]

Awesome!

 

[Magnes]

Gonna keep the brake booster, or are you going to ditch it??

Thinking of losing mine. Simpler, lighter, cleaner look without it.

I am going to keep the booster. The one I have looks old and is probably original so I'm replacing it with a new one. The master cylinder is a year old but when I installed it, I did so in order to just get the car moveable so I didn't take the time to paint it and it has since rusted. I was in a hurry. Since they are cheap, I'm just going to replace that as well. Basically the brake lines will be the only parts under the hood that will not be replaced. And on down the road I will do rear disc brakes when I am finally able to source a 8 3/4" sure grip.

 

[Propwash]

Damn sharp paint/stripe/wheel's combo. Real pretty.

 

[ct71rr]

Holy crap that's nice!!

 

[Magnes]

Thanks again!

It was another productive day.

We snatched the 318 out of the car and I brought it and the original 904 home and put them in storage. Although both still work just fine, after almost 43 years, their work is done.

Then I went back to my friend's shop and did some more detail work on the engine compartment itself.

A load of good stuff from Summit arrived... MP polished VC's, carb, dist kit, and other assorted parts. He set the lash and we checked out what the new parts look like.

Looks like we will install the oil pump tomorrow, prime, and check oil pressure and a few other things. Then start bolting everything down.

I am very excited to see that engine in the car and hear it run.

 

[Ron 73]

I would be excited myself and good for you keeping the original engine and all ya got with your ride! Someone, maybe even you down the line will be grateful....

 

[moper]

Looks Great! I really like the look of the 71-2 Plymouths.

 

[Magnes]

I spent the week helping out at my buddy's shop. He is swamped with work and the regular joes who need to get to and from work, come first. We work on my car as "fill in" work and that keeps the costs minimal. That's fine. I was able to use the lift to get at the underside of the car and I cleaned everything up and shot some fresh undercoat on it, as well as spray bombing the firewall. It's clean so, to me, that'll be fine.

Anyway, we got the engine and transmission in there and mocked up.

The headers we had would not work so we stopped there this morning and I ordered some others. If they don't fit, I'll send 'em back and my buddy said he'd sell me some HP manifolds.

We will see how it goes next week.

 

[Ron 73]

Keeping costs down and still getting the work done is great, I do hope the headers will work!

 

[Magnes]

Well we have gotten a lot finished but there's still a bit to do... New engine is in as well as: new torque converter, new 727, shortened balanced and rebuilt driveshaft with new u-joints, new ceramic coated headers, new starter, new ignition system, new carb is on and we are almost finished with the throttle and kickdown linkage, plus I took the time to completely rebuild the rear brakes since the rear wheel cylinders leaked out while I was doing the paint and body, then I serviced the rear end, and I undercoated the whole car, plus a bunch of other necessary odds and ends.

Those T bolts on the valve covers will be coming off once we run the engine and if necessary adjust the lash if it turns out that we need to after the engine has warmed up. I don't like the looks of those.

We made some aluminum brackets and carefully routed the Taylor plug wires away from the headers.

We still have to figure out which pulleys we are going to use and mount the new alternator and new power steering pump.

My new cooling system started showing up today but we haven't gotten to it yet. I kinda went all out on that. It's a 4 core 26" aluminum radiator from Champion. I also got the aluminum fan shroud for it with 2 12" electric cooling fans plus the relay kit and a SS overflow. That should keep it nice and cool in the Texas heat this summer.

I still have to find an air cleaner for it that won't interfere with the closing of the hood. Plus we got a new power brake booster and master cylinder for it, because the old ones just look bad, so we still need to install that and bleed the brakes down. And I need to clean up the wiring a bit and route it better.

I will say that I am quite surprised and happy with the headers I got from Jeg's. I got some ceramic coated headers from them and the things were a breeze to install. I had tried another set but they had hit on all kinds of stuff but the ones from Jegs really just slipped right in and once in, only required a nudge with the prybar by the power steering box to give them a little room to move. I will say though that I hope the starter never goes out while I have the car because if it does, it will be a bit of a pain in the *** to swap out. Definitely not something you'd want to try and do anywhere but at home or up on a lift preferably.

I'm hoping we should just about have everything finished out next week. We will see.

 

[roadrunnerman]

That motor looks great sitting in there. can't wait to hear a video of it breathing life. Is it me, or does that brake booster look really, really close to the valve covers? Or do you not have the motor sitting all the way down yet?

 

[Magnes]

Is it me, or does that brake booster look really, really close to the valve covers? Or do you not have the motor sitting all the way down yet?

It's bolted in there and down where it has to be but yeah the booster is close. In the pic it looks like they are almost touching but there's a pretty good gap.

That motor looks great sitting in there. can't wait to hear a video of it breathing life.

Thanks RRMan. I've still got quite a bit of detail work to do once all the main things are finished and she's running. I will definitely shoot a vid and post it up for yall.

I'm ready for Monday to come back around so I can get back to work, haha!

 

[Ron 73]

Wow, You sure have done a lot, and got a lot, that looks sweet, makes me think of a future time and wish i was closer, It looks like you could eat off that power plant! Very nice and i just may do some checking on the Jegs headers myself, Thanks....

 

[Magnes]

Well, it fired right up today. We were just checking to make sure everything was hooked up right and only let it run for a few seconds.

We will actually break it in it tomorrow once we have the cooling system hooked up the rest of the way.

As far as cooling, I got the 4 core aluminum Champion 26" radiator with aluminum shroud and twin 12" fans... And I got the switch/relay system for the fans so they'll kick on/off automatically. Also got a stainless overflow. I think we are also going to wire in an override switch for the fans so I can kick them on manually if I ever have to.

I'll see if I can get a vid of it tomorrow.

Other than finishing the cooling system, I still have to install the new master cyl and brake booster + bleed the system. Once it's broken in, it'll head off to the muffler shop for some new pipes.

So it's getting close. I'm getting anxious!