We are getting so close to finishing the engine installation that we can hardly stand it. Aaron and I have been working on his project for two years. You can probably tell by the increased volume of questions that we are getting down to the nitty-gritty. The devil is in the details.

With the engine and transmission now back in the Dart, along with all the wiring, vacuum lines, fuel lines, transmission lines, brake lines, belts, and hoses, is it possible to get it running without the instrument cluster hooked up? The reason I ask is because I have it dismantled to work on a few things. I don't really want to slow our progress by having to drop back and work on the cluster.

I know the alternator feeds through the ammeter in the cluster, but can all that be by-passed temporarily to just get the engine running? There are other things I'm not sure of, as well, like the seat belt interlock.

Any ideas welcome,
Jerry

(I guess I could see if anyone has a nasty old cluster (cheap) to fill in for a while.)

_________________
There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity.
Ignorance is not knowing any better.
Stupidity is knowing, yet doing it anyway.

Make sure you have all the fluids filled, including the tranny. Conseqently you'll need the driveshaft hooked up so tranny fluid doesn't go spilling out the tailshaft. You don't need the rear end part hooked up if your going to leave tranny in park, but I would anyway if the rear is installed. Which reminds me, make sure you adjust the shift linkage or at least lift the rear tires off the ground.

You don't need an alternator hooked up at all, just make sure your battery is up to it. Batterys are cheap these days anyway.

Just short the two ammeter leads together and go. Of course insulate it so you don't see a shower of sparks. Nothing mission critical goes through the cluster. Make sure you have the neutral safety switch hooked up on the tranny too.

I'm guessing I would also need some sort of oil pressure gauge, to make sure it's getting oil where it should be. Where would one be installed, in place of the idiot light sending unit on the pump?

We could hook up the drive shaft, since the rear end has been gone through and is installed. This '74 Dart has that device on the inner fender with the red button, used for by-passing the seat belt. How, exactly, does that thing work?

Would it be a good idea to unplug the coil for a few turns of the starter, just so the oil can get distributed? When we installed the oil pump, our machinist gave us a tube of oil pump grease to help it get primed quickly. Do these slant sixes make a big mess, if you leave off the valve cover to adjust lash?

Anything else to consider?
Jerry

Uh oh, I guess we better put some kind of exhaust pipe on.

_________________
There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity.
Ignorance is not knowing any better.
Stupidity is knowing, yet doing it anyway.

Dunno how that seatbelt bypass works. If you have any issues with it just take a wire straight from +12v to the side of ballast oposite the coil. You can take it directly to coil+ but don't leave it there for too long or else you may fry the coil (unles you have a coil that doesn't require a ballast in which case you can leave it on).

Yes, deffinately unplug the coil and crank for what, 20+ seconds to fill up the oil filter. You may want to do it in increments of 5 seconds so you don't burn up the starter

You can tee the oil pressure sender in with the idiot light using brass hardware store fittings.

As long as you keep rpms down, an open valve cover won't be too messy. Keep towels or cat litter on the ground and put some sort of cloth or old bed sheets on the inner fender. People on here do valve lash adjustments while the engine is running w/o valve cover on.

you can buy a cheap gauge from Idiot Auto Zone or Kragens.

i got one for $15
i mounted mine under the dash on the left side, easy to hook up, get some brass fittings, i had to use a reducer though

teflon the fittings also..

oooo if you plan on leaving the gauge permantpermantly use the cheap plastic tube, get the copper tubing, i think kragens has it, napa has it also..

good luck!!!!

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70 Plymouth Valiant 4dr

This may be overkill but I like to leave the sparkplugs out and crank a fresh motor over a few times. This helps prime the oil pump and hopefully pump some oil up to the valvetrain. Also it will take a lot of the load off of the starter and battery.
Good Luck
Todd