Duster runs.

Awesomeness!

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Yay!

I started on the refurbishing of the long block for the Dart.

Does anybody know where to get the 2 pin flat connectors for '68 turn signals? The standard trailer stuff from NAPA isn't quit right. The same for the single pin connector on the '68 side markers. I am about to punt and use Weather PAC stuff.

It seems that Dupli-Color has changed the formulation on DE 1631 (Chrysler Blue). The color is lighter and it is peeling off the oil pan. What a pain.

If you put this request in the electrical section you might get some good ideas from reputable folks for this.

Greg

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I was cleaning up the cam for the Dart and noticed something odd. So I took out some calibers and measured the lopes. Yep, worn lobes, some quite badly. It makes me wonder if Erson sold me a bad cam, or my oil pan tray works too good and there is not enough windage in the crankcase.

I also honed the bores, there is no cross hatch, it looks like a million mile motor. The pistons are scuffed. This may have been caused by bad clearances. There are some vertical lines in 2 of the cylinders, right about were the wrist pins rides. To deep to hone out. I was going to "uncle tony" it and ignore them, you know, below the compression rings at TDC.

Oh well, another .010 over to .040 overbore will save the block, and a new cam and lifters. I believe that slantzilla says that real cams start at .500 lift. Anyway the long block won't be sitting between the fenders by the end of this weekend.

How do you know the lobes are worn and not just broken in?

Lou

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Visual inspection and measurement. Pick a lobe, use the caliber to measure from the bottom to the top, compare to others. They should be the same. If not, there is a problem. In my case there was a 1/8" difference. Not as bad as a SBC which can flatten lobes.

As you know, the cam is splashed oiled. It dribbles past the lifters, and the rods squirt oil at it, rods #5 and #6 actually dip into oil in the pan and splash it around through windage. I built a tray which elimates oil pan splash from the crank. This also contains baffles to control the fore and aft flow.

So let's recap. Everything that is splashed oiled has excess wear. Can lobes, cylinder bores and pistons. All forced oiled surfaces look normal, except for the thrust bearing surfaces, which is showing bronze. But then I am running a 4 speed with a Spec Stage 2 clutch. Engine failure was caused by oil pump failure. The gear flat spotted, like something was sucked into the pump. I have not taken it apart, but it turns freely.

I suspect that my splash tray worked to good. Short trips around town and blasts down the track were OK. Long extended trips starved the engine of oil and started wearing stuff out. For example, the oil pump failed 45 minutes into a 3 hour drive at 65mph, or just under 3000rpms.

I think my next iteration will use wire mesh like Joe Mondelo suggested back in the '70s. My tray is similar to his windage trays.

OK, thanks for explaining in detail. Definitely not normal for the cam wear!

Lou

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The Dart went on the back burner until spring. By then I should have the money to machine the block and get new pistons.

So let's make the Duster drivable.

In this pursuit, I started on the front suspension. The wheels are pointing in odd directions, they are not straight up and down and they are not centered. The ride height is not even. So on the jack stands it went.

First let's center the steering wheel and by default the wheels will point forward. Hmm the passenger side runs out of threads on the tie rods. Hmm, this is a C-Body upgrade. How does that work? Off to the interweb to read some articles. So they are a drop in replacement. Then why am I running out of threads? Time to take it apart and find out why.

Now, this is not a slam, but Reed is a big guy. He probably can bench press the engine block. And he put some Armstrong on the tie rod nuts. So I broke the nut loose and reversed the nut on the threads. This allows you to use a BFH to release the tie rod from the lower ball joint arm. The process is smack the arm, smack the nut. A couple of blows and the 2 should separate. This sucker is not coming apart. Since I don't want to ruin the rubber boot, a pickle fork is out of the question. So what to do? I measured the sleeves to see if both sides match, they did. I unscrewed the offending sleeve to see if I could stagger the tie rod ends when inserting them into the sleeve. After a couple of attempts I gave this up. So I then measured the other side from the grease fitting to the nut on the lower ball joint arm and then duplicated this on the other side. Not perfectly straight, but good enough for now.

Next was to get the spindles centered. This requires you to loosen the adjusting bolts on the upper control arm. I usually set the rear one all the way back and the front one all the way out. The bolts were not tight so they were easy to loosen. Unfortunately they were not easy to move. One of the problems when a car sits as long as this one has is that stuff "freezes". So out with the oilcan and a good douse of tranny fluid was applied. The tranny fluid will penetrate the adjusters and not ruin the rubber bushings. This takes a while. So this will sit until the weekend.

I then preceded to try and sit the ride height. So run a finger along the adjusting bolt. One side goes to the second crease on my fore finger. Real scientific stuff here. The other side is past that point. So I adjusted both sides to match. Once again, good enough for now.

Oh, this not a treatise on how to align your frontend. This is just " good enough" to get by until an expert can do it properly.

Oh again, my son was showing me what he knows about front suspensions. You know, now that he owns a late 90s dodge ram 4x4. So he grabed the wheels and turned them. Surprise, surprise, the wheels point forward. Go figure...

If memory serves, the steering linkage on that Duster came largely from the 68 Dart I parted out a few years ago where the former owner had done a bunch of steering and front suspension upgrades. I never touched the tie rod sleeves, nor did I ever get it aligned. I apologize that the sleeves were so hard to get off. It was just something my brother never got to before he decided to sell the car.

I believe your build thread confirms that.

Its not a problem, just difference in how we do things. In my opinion there are only 4 bolt groups that need to be torqued. The adjusting bolts in the upper control arm, the lower bushing bolt on the lower control arm, the nut for the strut rods on the lower control arm and the bolts that hold the lower ball joint arm to the spindle. Everything else is tapered ends with castle nuts. Which you just snug up and tighten until you can slide the cotter pin thru.

So I pressure washed the engine compartment and outer body last night. I went out tonight to check my handy work. The state color, green slime is gone and I need to use some degreaser on the engine compartment. Oh well better luck next time.

For the hell of it, I tried the head lights. No worky, how about running lights. One lone side marker bulb. Turn signals, nada. Dash lights, ha, good try. Which means I have really bad wiring, fuses or every bulb is burnt out. I am going with the bulbs.

On the other hand, a couple pumps of the gas pedal and it starts. I just need to adjust the linkage so i can stop overriding the neutral safety switch. And top off the transmission and go for a ride. Who needs stop lights, the are for...

I was joking in another forum about building a "20 second bracket car" and that got me to wondering, just what would be needed to do that.

Hmm, it takes 80hp to push a 3200 pound car thru the 1/4 in 20 seconds, at 71mph...

I have raced a high 19-low 20 second car any times, sometimes very successfully.

The worst part is keeping up with the weather. Things that will affect a fast car .02 might slow you down .2-.3.

But it is huge fun, especially if you get into No-Box gambler's races against really fast cars. They will not be amused by you.

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