Sputnik Build Thread

[cal30_sniper]

I’ve had my ‘72 a little over a year now, and things have really started to snowball, so I figured I’d take a swing at a build thread. Follow along if you want to see an engineer over-engineer and over-think every possible thing in his very non-numbers matching bucket list car. I’ve got some catching up to do to get to its current state, but I’ll let the posts do that in their own time.

I wasn’t in the market when I saw this thing pop up on marketplace, but it was in my backyard and one of the top of my list of must-have body styles. The photos left quite a bit to be desired, and more than a few unanswered questions about the quality of restoration under some fresh red paint, but there was a fairly decent amount of good parts listed in the ad, and close enough to run up for an afternoon test drive. 400, Eddy heads, decent cam, 727, and sure-grip 9.25 checked some pretty good boxes for me, so I set up a visit.

Sale ad photos (complete with the worst wheel selection I’ve ever seen):

The car was about 40 miles away, so I hopped in my poor man’s B-body and went for a look:

I was pretty impressed with what I saw. Body was clean and straight, a bunch of good parts had been thrown at it, it ran and drove good, and he was willing to come off the price, so we struck a deal and I went back to pick it up a few days later with the help of a friend.

Part of our deal was he kept the wheels/tires, and I brought the set off my project Volare to get it home.

4.10s made for a bit of a jaunt highway rolling back home, but it was all smiles all the way, and we stopped to grab some burgers before heading home to meet the rest of the family.

 

[Bighouse]

That’s cool- my other favorite body style!

 

[Curiousyellow71]

Looks like a great car...Many fond memories of my 72 satellite...Hoping to get it back on the road soon. I would be glad the wheels didn't come with it..Lol

 

[mpgmike]

That would be a car I'd gladly own again (not yours specifically, but one very similar to it). Subscribed.

 

[cal30_sniper]

A little bit about why this car spoke to me…

When I was about 10 years old, my dad decided the 73 Riviera GS455 was too big, and the 81 NASCAR Trans Am (swapped to a Poncho 455) was too small, and he was going to sell them both to get a midsized family car. What came out of that flurry of deals was a nicely restored 1971 Charger R/T, FE5 Rallye Red, 440 Magnum car. Dad was a dyed in the wool Mopar guy from way back, and recognized the value of the car back then long before 3rd Gen Charger prices started rising. I grew up in that car, and made many of my formative automotive memories in and around it.

Dad still has that car after all these years, and my brother picked up his own 71 Charger 383 SE car nearly 10 years ago that he has put a ton of work into.

When I saw the Satellite for sale, and took it for a drive, all that FE5 and black B-body interior came swarming back into my mind and I knew this is the one I wanted to put some effort into. I’m hoping my own kids will form their memories around this car like I did mine.

Speaking of which, this was my daughter’s first show last year (she won’t let me miss a cars and coffee these days):

It cleaned up pretty dang nice!

First things first was new rubber. I liked the dog dishes, but it was time for the Volare to get its shoes back so I could start shaking down the 318 Magnum/A518 swap I was wrapping up on it. I went with 15x8 Rallye reproductions with 255/60/15 front and 275/60/15 rear. Tires were the same great Firestone Indy 500s I ram on my 76 New Yorker in high school:

Family photo after trim rings were added (just finished redoing the dash pad in the 300):

Now that the cosmetics were done, time to turn attention to some of the mechanical work needed to be a reliable driver in modern traffic.

 

[ckessel]

Great score.

 

[cal30_sniper]

The first thing to go was the gears. I drive about 50 miles back and forth to work, about half of which is interstate cruising at 75-85mph. 4.10s with no overdrive just wasn’t going to cut it for long.

The diff in this car (along with the 400 and 727) came out of a 78 B-body. The suregrip was tight on it, but I treated the rest of the diff to a full rebuild using Yukon 3.55 gears and a master rebuild kit. Yukon uses all Timken stuff, which I’m a fan of.

Final pattern turned out really nice. This was an older set of Yukon gears made before they stopped lapping in each set:

While the car was in for the diff rebuild, it also got treated to an original Tuff wheel. This will go nicely with the other interior work I have planned for later on:

Shakedown cruise to break in the gears. Everything turned out nice and quiet, and I’m so much happier highway cruising with 3.55s:

Well, at least we know where this is going…

 

[cal30_sniper]

Next up was doing something about the four wheel drums. The previous owner claimed it was built for “mountain driving” with the 4.10s, but it had four wheel drums and no swaybars?

When the 9.25” rear was swapped in, it got the big 11” drums came with it, so that’ll do for now. However, the 10” front drums were not feeling good in city traffic as a daily.

I had a few FMJ spindles and calipers left over from parts scrounging for my Volare, so I ordered up the 12” brackets from Dr Diff and a fresh set of brake hardware from Rock Auto. I picked up a lightly used set of Magnum Force UCAs while it was apart. The lower control arms were already rebuild when the car was upgraded to R/T springs and torsion bars by the previous owner.

This was originally a manual brake car. The previous owner had added a power brake booster of unknown pedigree and painted it red. I had a spare K-car booster and M-body aluminum master, which is a great upgrade, so I made the switch. I’ll be getting the firewall reinforcement plate added later.

Home brew front end alignment:

Cleaned up and back on the road in time for some 4th of July cruising:

One other small thing I got done was a transmission service, deep pan, and trans cooler. The pan and cooler came off a 95 Grand Cherokee with the 46RH/A518. I had to trim the pan rail slightly to clear the passenger side header.

A quick trip out to the big chief and back to bed the brakes:

 

[ckessel]

Improving the brake system is one of the best things to do on the old rides. Many only concern themselves with the go when the whoa factor is more important.

 

[cal30_sniper]

Improving the brake system is one of the best things to do on the old rides. Many only concern themselves with the go when the whoa factor is more important.

It’ll be getting Liberty rear discs while it’s torn apart for the T56 swap, but that’s a post for a later day. I did that swap on my Volare when I upgraded it to power brakes, along with 12” Cordoba discs on the front and the same K-car booster/M-body master combo. I’m a huge fan it so far.

 

[cal30_sniper]

Let’s see, I think that about gets us up to the present day snowball situation. Moving into the later part of last summer, I really just started driving the car. My top priority had shifted to getting the 300 to my brother’s place in TX for some temporary storage. There’s a story there, so I’ll tell it here for posterity’s sake.

Several years ago, during my brother’s last deployment to Bahrain before he left the Navy, he found a 71 Challenger 383 SE car in Phoenix he couldn’t live without. Being only about 7 hours away, I had him wire me the money, and I hitched a trailer onto the back of the old Suburban and went to go get it. I ended up storing the car for him until he got home, driving it enough to keep it limber, then he and a buddy and I road tripped it from Albuquerque back to his home port in San Diego. That was a FUN trip, one I’ll remember fondly for life.

So, he owed me one. I spend about a month of each year away for work, and have a packrat problem, so storage under my carport for extended periods of time without driving isn’t good. I’m also trying to get a 40x60 barn up, which will have me temporarily without the carport, so my brother agreed to take the 300 in for storage at his new place until I can bring it back under cover. The catch: this neglected old boat needed to make the 12hr drive from Albuquerque to San Antonio in the heat of late summer. So, the work began…

I spent the rest of the summer treating the 300 to refinished appliance rims, new tires, TTI exhaust, the slap-shift from my dad’s ‘71 (that we converted to a 4 speed), a rebuilt cooling sand air conditioning system, a fresh Thermoquad, GM HEI conversion, T-top seals, some rust repair in the rockers, a decent sound system, and some other odds and ends. Road ready, we headed out.

What a great road car this thing is…

Made it!

Grabbing some brunch in his ‘70 GTO daily:

Tucked away safely:

So, with that out of the way, I spent the rest of the fall/winter bouncing around between work travel, hunting, and the holidays. Then my Volare got backed into right before Thanksgiving, and I had to put some more stuff on hold to fix that. Lost the blower bearings on my Caprice as
soon as I got home from work, so more time on that repair.

Finally, I got some inspiration over Black Friday to get back to the Satellite. More on that in the next post.

Oh, and my new plate came in when I got home:

 

[WileERobby]

A little bit about why this car spoke to me…

When I was about 10 years old, my dad decided the 73 Riviera GS455 was too big, and the 81 NASCAR Trans Am (swapped to a Poncho 455) was too small, and he was going to sell them both to get a midsized family car. What came out of that flurry of deals was a nicely restored 1971 Charger R/T, FE5 Rallye Red, 440 Magnum car. Dad was a dyed in the wool Mopar guy from way back, and recognized the value of the car back then long before 3rd Gen Charger prices started rising. I grew up in that car, and made many of my formative automotive memories in and around it.
View attachment 1503407
View attachment 1503408
Dad still has that car after all these years, and my brother picked up his own 71 Charger 383 SE car nearly 10 years ago that he has put a ton of work into.
View attachment 1503410

When I saw the Satellite for sale, and took it for a drive, all that FE5 and black B-body interior came swarming back into my mind and I knew this is the one I wanted to put some effort into. I’m hoping my own kids will form their memories around this car like I did mine.

Speaking of which, this was my daughter’s first show last year (she won’t let me miss a cars and coffee these days):
View attachment 1503409

It cleaned up pretty dang nice!
View attachment 1503411

First things first was new rubber. I liked the dog dishes, but it was time for the Volare to get its shoes back so I could start shaking down the 318 Magnum/A518 swap I was wrapping up on it. I went with 15x8 Rallye reproductions with 255/60/15 front and 275/60/15 rear. Tires were the same great Firestone Indy 500s I ram on my 76 New Yorker in high school:
View attachment 1503412
View attachment 1503414

Family photo after trim rings were added (just finished redoing the dash pad in the 300):
View attachment 1503413

Now that the cosmetics were done, time to turn attention to some of the mechanical work needed to be a reliable driver in modern traffic.

 

[WileERobby]

You commented: "What a great road car this thing is…" referring to your 300. Could not agree more, I've had Cordobas and a 79 300 in the past. And now, I love driving my current Cordoba on the highway.

 

[cal30_sniper]

It all started with an almost electrical fire…

Driving back from brunch with the family and got that no good acrid burning smell, then gray smoke from the footwell (this is why I carry fire extinguishers, though luckily didn’t need it this time.

Limped it home and tore into the wiring under the dash. Turned out a previous owner’s shoddy repair had started to let go. The last owner installed a cheap amplifier in the trunk and neglected to bypass any of the factory charge wiring for it. I should have caught that sooner, I just figured he was smarter than that.

Luckily I had a spare 71 bulkhead connector that I’d snagged with an old Rallye gauge harness. I repinned the burned connector with the new/old one, then replaced the wires with melted jackets. I bypassed the ammeter entirely, and upgraded the charge wires to new 8 gauge wire with new connectors. Then I ran a 6 gauge wire directly from the alternator charging stud to the positive battery terminal junction on the starter relay. That should solve that problem for the time being.

 

[cal30_sniper]

Okay, so this list will cover the Phase 1
Plan and parts gathering, right up until tear down, which gets us into the present.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a performance car with a manual trans, and I’ve always wanted a pistol grip Mopar, so I leapt off the deep end and ordered a T56 Magnum swap from SST over Black Friday last year. While the car is torn down, it’s going to get a bunch of other stuff done. Here’s the plan, in no particular order:

T56 swap
Holley Terminator X
Dakota digital gauges
AAW Wiring Harness
USCT Level II Chassis Stiffening
Air conditioning (factory air car, but gutted by P.O.)
Swaybars
Liberty rear discs
Borgeson steering
Interior upgrades (factory buckets and console, floor shift column, and Sebring plus door panels)
TTI Exhaust

Now that’s a lot. I started the tear down in June, and am still deeply engaged with metal and paint work, but the next few posts should get me caught up fairly quickly. Here’s an unboxing rundown of the new parts:

Lots of T56 stuff loaded in the old Suburban:

Factory buckets that came out of dad’s 71:

Terminator X:

Still have to decide which manifold I want to run. I traded a guy for a factory Air Grabber bulge, but I’m not sure I want to muddy up the clean satellite vibes with it. If I run the grabber, I’ll use the Holley intake. If not, probably the M1. Definitely going M1 if I throw in a stroker:

Dakota Digital Gauges (restoring the bezel and a new dash pad will be part of the project):

One other distraction this winter, but worth mentioning is the other 72 I picked up this winter. It’s a Charger SE, 400 2bbl, with 24k original miles. I have $1000 for the car without the engine, then went back and picked up the numbers matching 400 when the guy changed his plans. I’m scrounging the front end parts over time so I’ll be able to get it all back together. It will make a good future project.

A final cars and coffee before the teardown begins!

 

[ckessel]

If you have not started on the wiring yet, I highly recommend you get the two crimp tools from AAW. They are specifically for the Packard style connectors that our cars and some other use. They will actually crimp the terminal properly, not crush it like some of my other units.

 

[cal30_sniper]

If you have not started on the wiring yet, I highly recommend you get the two crimp tools from AAW. They are specifically for the Packard style connectors that our cars and some other use. They will actually crimp the terminal properly, not crush it like some of my other units.

That’s solid advice. My brother did an AAW harness in his T/A. He’s going to loan me the crimpers to set up this harness. I’ve done a lot of weatherpack and metripack stuff, but I’ve always struggled to do the Packards with my universal crimpers.

 

[ckessel]

For sure get both. The larger one does the bigger terminals and the ones where you have two wires coming in. I looked at getting the Packard specific unit from Tyco, tool and electrical component mfg for industry, but it was more than $1k. Don't do enough crimps to warrant that expenditure. The set I have from Pertronix, has multiple dies, is better than the universal but still crushes even after you pre curl the terminal tabs so they don't jamb in the die. Are you going to solder any of them?

 

[cal30_sniper]

I always struggle to keep build threads up to date, but I’ll keep chipping away here…

Got the interior all pulled and ready to start tunnel mods. Pretty clean pans to start with. There’s a few spots here and there that will need to be rectified, but overall really solid for a 50 year old car that’s likely led a hard life:

After looking at where all the tunnel needed cutting, and everything else that needed work, I decided to go ahead and pull the dash completely out of the way. Nice to have a helper:

First up was the mods for the crossmember. The T56 requires removing the crossmember arch to make room:

Step 1 complete:

Before getting into the tunnel mods, there was one rusty spot under the gas pedal that I wanted to fix. It was gooped up with seam sealer, but rusted through underneath. Ended up being an easy spot to patch properly:

Then mocking up the 4-speed hump to start marking all the cuts:

The instructions tell you to weld in the hump, and then slice it lengthwise across the top and spread it out on the passenger side for the T56 body clearance. They supply you with a strip of metal to weld back in where the wider tunnel creates a gap. I decided to do things a little differently. By marking the cuts for both the tunnel hump and the widening at the same time, I was able to keep some of the factory metal that otherwise would have gotten cut out under the hump, and widen it without using extra metal:

In the meantime, I’ve been toying in Solidworks with an alternator bracket that will let me mount a Magnum-style Nippon-Denso alternator. My small block mopars have all been updated to late 80s M-body brackets that use these alternators with v-belt pulleys, and I’d like to do the same with the big block. It tucks in beside the water pump and eats up the space normally used by the mechanical fuel pump. Since I’m going in-tank pump for the EFI, that shouldn’t be an issue.

Here’s my working model:

 

[cal30_sniper]

This post will address tunnel fab. In real time, this took a week of evenings, but here we’ll cover it in minutes!

An initial fit test to assess my theory of whether this could all be done with factory metal.

Transmission up for an initial fit check on the passenger side widening. I plan to reuse a factory console with this, so keeping the tunnel tight is important for future carpet and console fitment.

Happy with the initial fit, and copious amounts of zinc primer applied to the overlaps, let the burning begin!

Tacking in and finish welding the forward piece that makes room for the larger bellhousing:

Pretty happy with the end result.