For a while now I've been wondering if something's happened to him.

_________________
'74 Duster w/ HEI ignition, beat to snot suspension, A904, 8.25" 3.55 SG rear, still being tuned up and gets 17 MPG

Know how they always build a better idiot? That's me

I'm sorry you think I was rude. Life has dealt me some significant blows the last few years, and I'm counting myself lucky to be alive, then alone able to post about my suspension. I don't write anywhere on the internet anymore or communicate with anyone through email except rarely.

I've been in the hospital multiple times with severe infections and blood poisonings, injured in an off road accident, ravaged by tooth infections, subjected to CT scans and remote microscope probings of my innards...many blood tests...it is always the same...if I weren't sick all the time, I'd be the poster boy of perfect health.

I'm actually sick right now and have been since before Thanksgiving. Its finally going away but if I speak to soon it will come back again.

My suspension however, which I drive daily since it was finished (when I'm not too sick), works as well as I could ever have hoped and the car handles and drives wonderfully. Extremely responsive, the car brakes, corners, drifts, and just generally drives awesome. Even without sway bars.

A few steps forward have been taken...I still have my job, I'm still alive, and I managed to find a steal on a CNC lathe.

Many steps backward...besides being sick, a severe wind storm took out three huge trees at my home, one almost hitting my house, inches from crushing the Valiant, but the crunching of my large storage shed gave just enough resistance to save both...the same week, after moving my GTO into the driveway to get it clear of the trees and the wind still trying to blow them over. (3 weeks of continuous 40-60mph winds)A hit and run driver skidded 125' off the end of my street and smashed my GTO with a Dodge Durango. I only know this from the part numbers on the parts of his car left in my driveway when he drove off. I had just taken the insurance off it for the first time in 25 years because I had finished all the body work for a fresh paint job scheduled the following week, and I was going to put Haggerty insurance on it when it was finished...just trying to save a couple bucks to help pay for the paint...a poor decision to say the least. I could go on but I prefer not to think about the last three years.

I tried to upload a couple pictures, but it has been so long, and the hosting company has upgraded multiple times...I can't access my own image storage site to get the URL's for that folder...says wrong permissions. I tried to change them through my server panel...but after a half hour, I give up for now...but basically, it looks like I backed into a telephone pole at 30mph.

***edit*** since I am resurrecting this thread soon, and I have been re-establishing links to the broken ones from my old domain throughout the thread, I will post the pictures I failed to upload back when I wrote this:

Here is some of the damage from the trees coming down...






Also, the light post on my corner at the end of a 1/3 mile straight through a school zone, was pulled down by its wires when my tree came down. This darkened the corner so the idiot who blasted down the straight, couldn't see the corner until it was too late.



He skidded from where I am taking this picture, plowed into my GTO, then backed up and drove through two yards and a fence to get away.



*** End edit ***

Here is a link to a couple videos of my automatic lathes I posted on youtube so my Family could see what I do...maybe some of you will find them amusing. There is even an old vid of my GTO on a chassis dyno with an un-tuned fresh motor cranking out some odd 450hp or so at the rear tires.

http://www.youtube.com/user/455GTOGearhead?feature=mhsn

I don't know... I'll re-read the thread and see if I have anything else to say or if I can access my pictures again I'll try to post a few. But I'll be honest, the last time I posted I had spent a long time writing an essay about cam selection in an attempt to start a discussion and learn from my own thinking things through as well as from others hopefully joining in the discussion. I was personally attacked for my efforts (and defended by some of my friends here) and the whole situation soured me on participating in forums of any kind for the most part. I have little time, my health and luck seem to have run out, and I just want to work on my own projects in my own way...sorry.

Karl
aka Gearhead

_________________
64 GTO...10.80's@122 on street radials
Destroked 455, Qjet, stock ign, 2400 stall

64 Valiant
Old 225, 4spd, 2.92-8.75, 2bbl, headers
dual 2.25"

I am sorry to hear about your problems. I, for one, have always enjoyed your postings and I would like to see more of them from you, when you are feeling better of course.

Likewise.

_________________
Charrlie_S
65 Valiant 100 2dr post 170 turbo
66 Valiant Signet 225 nitrous
64 Valiant Signet
64 Valiant 4dr 170

Karl,

I hope your life begins to stabilize soon, and some bright lights begin shine. I have fond memories of meeting you in NC a couple of times and rapping about engine builds.

Warmest wishes,

Lou

_________________
Home of Slant6-powered fun machines

WOW!

Hope things turn around for you soon.

_________________
Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

prayers said ...hope you start feeling better...miss hearing from you

Very sorry to hear all that, Karl. I'm sure I speak for us all when I say we hope your luck takes a big turnaround. I'd love to copy what you did for your front suspension on my Duster, but the priority for you should (obviously) be getting better. Once you're healthy again, we can talk suspension mods....

_________________
'74 Duster w/ HEI ignition, beat to snot suspension, A904, 8.25" 3.55 SG rear, still being tuned up and gets 17 MPG



Know how they always build a better idiot? That's me

Karl... I've just found this thread dating back 5 years and read it all tonight over a beer or two. I'm trying to redo the front end in my wife's '63 Valiant, but everyday life has taken over for me as well, (Buying house, replacing slant motor with used one because apartments don't allow for engine builds, and rented garage is small and far away, yada-yada). At any rate, I felt the need to tell you that I think the work you've done is simply incredible, and that I'm sorry to hear you've fallen on hard times. Pull through. Okay, I'm gonna go read the carb and cam sections now.

Thanks for taking the time to document all of this, and instill a little more hope and motivation in the rest of us.

Matt Moffitt


'63 V-200 4door, 225
'73 Indestructible Fury II, (on a rust diet, Flintstones floorboards/brakes)... but Free!
'86 W-150, anemic, but determined.

Hello again fellow /6er's:

This is Karl, AKA Gearhead, that originated this thread, it has been over 7 years since I last posted to this board and about 13 since I posted anything significant to this thread. However, the time has come to tear down the car for major modification, and I felt I needed to reconnect with the great people here who helped keep me energized as I worked through building this car all those years ago. It was a difficult time in my life, and I was struggling with quite a few life obstacles and changes in my attitude about the internet, privacy, and constructive use of time.

Rereading this thread, brought back memories of both some really hard times that I am still recovering from, and some great times I had in between the bad ones.

So I have now driven the Valiant another 50-60k miles or so on the suspension as built in this thread. Not one additional change has been made to the car since my last post, I had no money, and just kept driving it, expecting the engine to blow or something to fail at any time. There are some interesting stories I would like to tell of my crazy car and its ability to fix itself from time to time. I've driven from Portland to the Bay area and back four times this fall and winter, all at over 3000 rpm on the poor little engine. Getting 18 mpg and leaking a qt of oil every 200 miles.

However, on the 2nd to last trip, we started feeling some vibration from the trans in the mountains, I changed the oil while in Ca., and found it was quite low. With fresh oil it sounded much better, but on the last trip it was still making noise and vibration when climbing mountains hard in fourth gear.

Still, it just kept on going and it seemed to shift and drive fine around town. Every now and then it wouldn't be in 1st gear even when it felt like it had engaged, but otherwise fine.

Two weeks ago, released the clutch for a normal stop at a signal...Ka-boom...broke the shifter fork.

So my hand has been forced, all of my cars are broken and I'm down to driving my 70 Chev 3/4 ton P/U 4sp with 4.11 gears while gas prices go up! I am going to have to move up my time schedule for building the car to this summer.

So now the good news, since I started this thread at 41 years old, I've made it to 55 and my health is finally stable other than age related aches and pains, and over the last four years or so my immune system seems to have finally recovered, and I don't spend half the year sick anymore.

I have continued to build out my machine shop and now have a complete shop including 2 cnc lathes and a decent sized cnc mill capable of lots of cool slant six parts. (I added some pictures of my current shop back a few pages in the thread)

I met and married my wonderful wife. She's wicked smart(a Masshole, which means from Mass.), and a top notch welder, specializing in precision Tig. We've worked together for five of those years and yet we still like to hang out together. I am also very lucky that she is only just turning 40 this summer and is smokin' hot if I do say so myself. She has lived off the grid in Alaska and been a park ranger for the west end of the Columbia River Gorge, and can run all the machines we own. Her car is a 1974 BMW 2002. We just bought an industrial sewing machine and she will tackle auto upholstery next...

Neither of us belong to any social media of any kind, and use the internet for research for the most part. I maybe check email twice a week, and try to avoid it so I can keep working. She has no online presence, and I only very rarely post anything anywhere unless I am stuck on an electronics project or something. However, last year, our boss wanted me to chronicle some work we we're doing online, so I wrote a build blog of sorts on a Garden railroading live steam site. I enjoyed the experience, and although we are going to start chronicling our work on his website, the desire to finish this suspension thread started to bubble up inside me.

So if anyone is interested, here is a link to what I mostly do now for money, plus some exposition on whats been going on with me for awhile.

Karl and Jenn build a live steam railroad

Youtube of G scale live steam on the railroad we build

I have now finally put my financial troubles behind me...I did not strike it rich, but I worked my ass off, refinanced to a to a much lower interest rate on my home, paid off every penny of debt, and have at least a few bucks in savings. For the first stage of the project, I have set aside $5000, but although I am always looking for ways to do it cheaper, or build parts myself, I'm not to concerned about cost at this point. I want to build this car to be my daily driver for the rest of my life, so I am ready to spend what it takes to make it right. It will still be cheaper than buying a new car and insuring it.

This project is not really that much about the suspension anymore, although there will be many upgrades to come. I am extremely happy with the suspension I built, and am looking forward to making some changes and finishing some other things like adding a sway bar...finally. I have been planning and collecting parts for this build for going on 20 years and I am ready for almost all of it this summer...hopefully.

In this thread, I will tear down the suspension for inspection, and see if we find any trouble spots. I will machine Delrin(acetal) bearings for the upper control arms, the urethane bushings squeak like crazy, new shocks, possibly new front brakes, rear disk swap, I have my own thoughts on sway bars, and am thinking of building a torque tube style with adjustable arms. Also, a new fast ratio steering box and some misc. things I'd like to improve.

In other threads I will start:

I have a 242.5", 7" K1 rod, custom JE pistons .125 over bore, flat top zero deck short block machined by Somers Racing Engines in Vanc, WA...Archie did the machine work on my destroked 455 in my GTO. I am going to be building a head for this motor and will build and assemble it in a thread when the time is right. I may have to build my own flow bench to to what I want. For this engine I have a dual 1 barrel manifold with two throttle bodies off of Chev Berretta's I rebuilt. A single four barrel to play with, and a side draft manifold with matching 40mm Dellorto's

Initially, I am building a basic, new stock 225" with a OCG 262/234/.470 cam and mildly ported head. I don't want to redo this much of the car, and then try to break in and tune a street/strip motor as well. So I will go mild at first and dial in the new trans, gears, and everything else...when it is dialed and running, I'll pull this motor as a spare, and install the hot rod motor.

A tremec 3650 5spd has been acquired to replace my old 833, and I will start a thread detailing the process of making it fit.

We plan on installing sub frame connectors and roll bar although the bar might wait till we're on the road or close.

I have built and tested my own digital ignition timing controller, and have been working on a digital dash with data acquisition for some time, using modern gauge stepper motors for analog tach and speedo. Also the wiring will be redone to support future fuel injection, higher voltage, relay box to control all switched devices, etc.

My wife and I have a lot of work cut out for us...

I can't promise to get it all done this summer, because unfortunately, life can be a pain. We have many irons in many fires that we can't escape, and any of them could upset our plans. We lost three more large trees to another wind storm this year, and we are only just getting the yard and house back into shape. We are using two 20' containers with a 16' pad between them and a roof to create a welding shop for Jenn...we are just ready to grade the area now, and of course...we don't hire this kind of work out, it's all on us...

Writing this from the Sacramento Delta where my dad lives, he's 87 and sick with cancer. He's still at home and walking around with a cane, but the prognosis is bad, and my family is doing all we can to keep him happy and comfortable in what is likely his last couple weeks or months. But then we have a home that needs fixing up and selling and...I will be spending much time driving to and from here the next year.

It will also be a few weeks before I can start on any of this, at least tearing down the car. I have four carbs and a tri power to build when I get home, but then...no more carb work or any other side work not already in the pipeline. The cnc mill isn't running yet because I am building a sound deadening room behind the garage. This is for my compressors and the 20hp rotory 3 phase converter needed to feed power to this industrial machine, and to quiet the garage and make more space. It is extremely crowded having a complete manufacturing center in your home.

Also need to make room to do the work, my driveways are over run with shipping container, wrecked GTO, my Moms old 72 Mustang, my truck, my buddies 68 Lemans, our 72 FB Formula road race project, my wifes BMW, my truck...geez...

Luckily, one of my carb customers restores cars for sale at the big auctions on TV. He has agreed to help me out and fix the damage to the GTO for $2500. Not paint the whole car, I have much other work to do to it, but at least it won't be wrecked anymore and I will be able to finally start getting it back on the road and track. It goes to the shop in two weeks. We have a buyer for the 68 Lemans, but it needs some brake work, so once the GTO is gone, we'll fix the Lemans and send it to a new home. By then, hopefully, we will have graded the welding shop area and moved the containers, and the Valiant will be put up on stands or maybe a rotisserie and disassembled.

So I may not be able to post everyday or to all the threads very often, but I do promise to document my work and follow through till the end of each project.

I think that's enough typing for now.

The photos in this thread have had broken links for many years because I used to host them on my own server at my website for Pontiac racing that I used to have called ponchopower.com. I bought that domain back in the early 90's when it was pretty expensive month to month to own a domain. I let it run out so I could repurchase it from the newer low cost services we have now. Some bot purchased it and they want $1500 for it now...screw them. So I have been spending quite a few hours moving pictures off my old server and onto one of my other domains, and re-establishing the links to this and some of my other more informative threads. I'm not done yet some some threads are still missing pictures, however, this thread is fixed.

I hope I am able to provide you with some interesting stories and pictures over the next year or two as I try build my dream /6 car.

Thanks

Gearhead

_________________
64 GTO...10.80's@122 on street radials
Destroked 455, Qjet, stock ign, 2400 stall

64 Valiant
Old 225, 4spd, 2.92-8.75, 2bbl, headers
dual 2.25"

Welcome back! I'm happy to hear of all the progress you've made and the track you're on.

On the suspension you'll need to forgo the Delrin upper control arm bushings as the cam bolts are not necessarily on the same axis and will bind Delrin bearings. You could change to GM style upper control arms and use shims for caster and camber adjustments or use adjustable control arms.

Good luck to you and your family.

_________________
Joshua

Welcome back. Looking forward to reading about your projects.

Thanks for the sentiments Kesteb and Joshua:

My Dad has improved this week, however my wife now has an ear infection developed from a cold she couldn't shake over the last six weeks. So were heading home to Portland today, and I will start ordering parts for the project.

You are absolutely right Joshua about the upper bushings. I believe the tension created on the bushings when you set the alignment adjustments is why the urethane squeak so horribly.

I've been running urethane bushings in my GTO's for 30 years without issues, and the urethane bushings in the Valiants rear don't squeak. Trying every lubrication and penetrant I could find over the years, everything worked to quiet the squeaks...for two or three days.

So the more I thought about it, the more I believe it is built in tension in the bonded bushings, and I need a better solution. So I was looking at the Acetal bearings that are in our road race Firebird, which are a very simple design from Global West products, and I realized that, just as you said Joshua, as you adjust the UCA, there will be only one location where the bushings are on the same axis in a Mopar UCA.

So what could be done to handle this situation? Well, not having any suspension parts or parts car anymore, I can't measure and do up a Solidworks simulation of my idea to make sure it will work until I tear down the Valiant...but I can't think yet of any reason why it wouldn't.

My thought is simply use the existing steel shells with the rubber or urethane burned out or removed. Then create a five piece bearing assembly consisting of two outer shells(one machined shell, split in half two create two matching half sleeves) whose outside diameter would ride against the original, honed bushing shells. These outer shells would be machined concave on the inside diameter. A third piece, the central bearing as it were, would be a sleeve machined with a matching convex outer diameter and a thru hole for the mounting bolt. It would also have concave ends to match the last two pieces, the convex on one side thrust washers.

Again, these are just preliminary pictures and thoughts in my head and I haven't spent any time yet trying to prove out the concept, or whether it will work within the constraints of the available space. But its an idea...I have a few minutes, I will see if I can make a quick drawing of the concept this morning.

Thanks again

Karl

_________________
64 GTO...10.80's@122 on street radials
Destroked 455, Qjet, stock ign, 2400 stall

64 Valiant
Old 225, 4spd, 2.92-8.75, 2bbl, headers
dual 2.25"

This was just a quick drawing I did just using dimensions off the top of my head to make a picture to describe the concept.



The thrust washers would be larger diameter, but essentially, as you adjust the UCA to dial in the alignment, all of the mating surfaces would adjust along with it, and retain a free moving bearing assembly within the original bushing shell.

I'm sure I will have to think this through more thoroughly, and then draw it up later with proper dimensions, and see how the assembly functions in simulation. Or someone here will find a flaw in my reasoning, and I'll have to think of something else.

Time to prepare for 11 hours of driving (675 miles door to door).

Karl

_________________
64 GTO...10.80's@122 on street radials
Destroked 455, Qjet, stock ign, 2400 stall

64 Valiant
Old 225, 4spd, 2.92-8.75, 2bbl, headers
dual 2.25"

Welcome back Karl! l always enjoyed your thoughts and projects!

Rick

_________________
2 Mopars come with Spark plug tubes. One is a world class, racing machine. The other is a 426 CI. boat anchor!

12.70 @ 104.6