Thanks. I need to brush up on my basic principles of hydraulics. I knew this stuff when I took physics back in high school, but that was a long time ago.

there are times when progress comes from the most un-expected places.

MUCH progress to report today. My brother came down again and we got the following done on the Duster:

(1) Finished the rear axle install. Filled it with gear lube and the correct friction modifier for the sure grip, verified all bolts torqued properly, switched the shock plates around so they were mounted properly (D'OH!).

(2) Checked the transmisison fluid level and checked for leaks. Last year this transmisison decided to puke all over the floor in my garage. I thought it was the selector shaft seal, but when I got under the car to inspect it today the selector was bone dry. We wiped the trans clean, topped it off, ran the engine, and are going to let it sit overnight and see if we can find the leaks. In the meantime, the rebuilt transmission is doing great!

(3) replaced the leaked power steering pump. The engine and K-frame are just covered in about an inch of crud from a leaky power steering pump. I was going to put on a used power steering pump I got from Zorg, but I discovered that the power steering pump on the Duster is an older style, not the mid-70s style I got from Zorg. I ended up installing a power steering pump off of a 64 Dart that Midi gave me years ago. Leak fixed!

(4) Brakes bled all the way around and work good now.

So that means the Duster has new brakes on all corners (discs up front, 11 inch drums out back), a rebuilt front suspension (HD rubber, not poly), a rebuilt transmission (wide gear ratio with V-8 guts otherwise and a shift kit), a 3.21 gear ratio 8 1/4 sure grip rear axle, factory HD six leaf rear leaf springs, and new HD rubber bushings in the rear suspension. Mechanically, it is just about done. Time to start getting serious about finishing up the bodywork. Time to strip it down, sand it, and paint it. Cleaning the engine and engine bay is going to be a real chore. The K frame is so dirty I am tempted to just buy another one.

My brother was so excited about the progress of the Duster that he had to take it for a test drive. This is the first time he has ever driven his Duster, even though we bought it back in 2009. Time flies! The downside is that the seats in the DUster aren't bolted down yet and he accidentally leaned back in his seat and broke the replacement windshield I was storing in the car (to keep it safe from being broken ). So now I am looking for a replacement tinted windshield again.

Here is video of my brother's first time driving his Duster:

Driving away

Returning

The scraping noise you hear in the second video is the front right turn signal bulb dragging on the ground. No noise from the rear axle, transmission works great, no problem getting up my steep driveway, and the brakes work good except my brother says you can tell they are manual brakes.

Pretty good days work. It is nice to have this project moving forward. I also ordered a full set of new KYB shocks for the Duster.

This might truly be the year this car gets done and back on the road!

More progress to report!

I ordered new KYB Gas A Just shocks for the Duster and we installed them today. We also installed one of those new fancy 904 transmission pan gaskets that Dan recommends. I have to say they are NICE and worth the money and effort to install.

Next up is fabricating brackets to mount the Sebring seats in the Duster, then welding in the Demon tail light brackets, and THEN it is FINALLY time to strip it to a shell and start prepping it for painting. Hooray!

Yeah if you don't get pulled over by the cops for missing........ everything

Look good though. I wish I had a shop to do body work.

_________________
~Nic

I don't have a shop, but I am lucky enough to have a two car garage. It is stuffed to the rafters with parts, tools, and the Duster. Organization is key.

Yow do know that you don't have to strip to bare metal to get a good paint job. Sanding for a smooth finish and using a primer sealer will work just as good.

Right. Sanding the original paint then priming and painting is the plan. When I say "strip it to a shell" I mean pulling the engine, glass, weatherstrip, dashboard, interior bits, wiring, AC stuff, etc… No way are we stripping the paint down to bare metal.

Just a quick snapshot I took today:


We had to push the Duster out of the garage to get my brother's 03 PT Cruiser into the garage. It has been parked for many months because my brother said it "was making a scary noise" from the front end. Last Thursday I went over to his house, jump started the poor thing, and we replaced both front axles. The axles fixed most of the noise, but once the axle noise was fixed we discovered a grinding noise from the front driver's side wheel. So today he drove the PT down to my place and we ended up replacing the front driver's wheel bearing. It appears to be a success- no more noise. Hopefully the PT will be back on the road now.

Quick update:

Spent a few hours today fabricating brackets and mounting the Sebring driver's set in the Duster. Got it mounted pretty good and even tested out the power seat motors by hooking the seat to a battery charger. The power seat motors still work! A small accomplishment, but an important one.

Sebring seats- Reed, do you have any way to compare the butt height of your Sebring seats to the butt height of the OEM Mopar bucket seats? We have had trouble finding retrofit seats that are not too high, causing our heads to brush the headliners in the Scamp & Swinger that we "re-seated". (What year Sebring?) So far, '94 Camaro seats fit best for us.

_________________
"Louise", a 1976 Dart Custom project, (now sadly reverted to being just an "organ donor" to our other project Darts.)

I bought these seats about five years ago from a junkyard. I believe they are 96 or 97 Sebring convertible seats. I believe they do sit a bit higher, but that is likely because of how we chose to mount them in the car. The factory Sebring seat mounts are completely different than the A body mounts. You have to be comfortable at least cutting and drilling to get the seats mounted.

The driver's seat we got is power, so between creative fabrication and the six way adjustable seat my brother was able to set it up where he is happy. We could have mounted it lower, but that would have involved more complicated fabrication and removal of the factory Sebring mounting points.

The passenger seat is not mounted, but I believe it will sit a bit lower since it is a manual seat.

The nice thing about the Sebring seats is that the seatbelt is integrated into the seat itself. This means you must also grab the power seat control module and wire it up correctly to get the seatbelt to work, but that isn't that hard. I think I paid about $85 for these seats and the module.

Hopefully this weekend we will get the passenger seat mounted, but our time might be spent dealing with a broken sway bar mounting bracket bolt in my brother's PT Cruiser.

A good website about installing Sebring convertible seats into a Corvair, but it also covers mounting and wiring.

http://www.corvairkid.com/sebring.htm

UPDATE!

I know it has been a while since I updated this thread. Life, money, priorities, work, family, etc... you know the drill.

This last weekend my brother and I finally got around to pulling the engine and transmission which is a huge step towards finishing this Duster. We can now swap the torsion bars and K frame out for the upgraded ones, and clean and paint the engine compartment! That's right, PAINT!

Replacing the original 225 will be a rebuilt 225 will less than 1,000 miles on irt. The rebuilt shortblock will be topped by a rebuilt head that has stock valves (budget issues) but has been milled .100 for a prior project. I will need to take some measurements and calculate combustion chamber volume for purposes of achieving the target dynamic compression ratio of 8.1:1 (I want to still be able to run regular 87 octane pump gas). The camshaft will be an old Mopar Performance "purple shaft" hydraulic cam- the one that was one step up from the stock cam. I am hoping the increased compression and the hotter hydraulic cam will make for a peppy street car, especially with the 3.2 sure-grip rear axle. But the engine install is a ways away still.

The transmission is a 1983 A904T with the wide ratio gearset and a shift kit that I rebuilt. It works great but I need to track down a leak. It is either the dipstick tube or the input shaft seal.

Anyway, since I know everyone loves them, here are pictures!















ONWARDS AND UPWARDS!

Yeah, updates every six months or so sounds about right.

We finally got back to doing a very small bit of work on the Duster. My brother and I got the torsion bars pulled in preparation of dropping the K frame tomorrow. If all goes well the new K Frame will be installed with "340" bars by the end of the day tomorrow.