firstly, i haven't owned a classic for 22 years, my first car was sold to me by my mom and it was a 1949 plymouth special deluxe. i drove it to houston from northern california with no brakes (metal on metal, ooooh yeah i can double clutch!) and no generator brushes, so i am pretty sure i can handle just about anything. it was with great joy that i finally decided to commit to buying another classic, after years of driving 'throw-away' cars off craigslist. my logic? i want to drive into sunset of the automotive apocalypse in something i will take a great deal of pride in.

after losing a $400 investment in a 65 rambler (best 400 i may have ever lost), and having that mechanic blow the clutch job in my 92 subaru, i decided, no more pipe dreams. let's do this. saw the valiant on craigslist for $1,000, test drove, and fell in love with this sweet car.

1967 plymouth valiant four-door auto trans, this is what i am starting with:

body bondo'ed and repainted light green.

passenger side windshield pretty cracked up.

oregon plates on front, washington plates on back. plus: registered till january.

engine: GOOD! probably needs everything under the sun adjusted, valves, etc. replaced intake manifold gasket & valve cover gasket yesterday. did not stop the stalling, but, at least i won't blow a valve. desperately needs a tune-up.

trans: GOOD!

looks to have a new alternator, however, after doing the gaskets yesterday, went out this morning to a dead battery. oops! never happened before. started up after some lovin' from the sun. took it to auto zone for free battery check, was told 'bad battery,' had him run a check on alternator, was told, 'bad regulator.' wtf, if that is the case, how on god's black asphalt did i go from a dead battery, to start up with a sun charge, to 66% battery in the two miles it took me to get from my house to AZ? if it's the regulator, how is it that my battery was fine yesterday, and dead in the morning (obviously i was not driving it).

tail pipe too long, bangs on the back end. reminds me of our old neighbor who loved these things, raised goats, and had his tail pipe bailing wired up on all his valiants.

immediate needs:

tune up
carb
master cylinder, brakes
motor mounts (afraid to drive! how worried should i be, and when?) -OR- help me out here- do i need motor BRACKETS?
accelerator pump?
check timing chain for stretch & wear, timing
check cam gear (some fine day)
condenser?
crankcase cleaning/replace?
shocks, struts, etc. don't want to throw anything.
wiring
regulator?
gas tank
interior rebuild
music....speakers, have stereo, probably put it in glovebox & have a discreet lock on it. ideas?
horn wiring bonkers...new steering wheel.

PLEASE feel welcome to advise & point me to helpful links, first book i plan to buy is the owner's manual. i am taking this one step at a time, so the big picture looks grim but i don't feel it is. i'm just LOVING this car, and ready to do what is needed to get her under me arse & rollin'.

i understand there are three books i must must have, but seriously, i cannot afford the books, i've got to get this car safe & running well because i have a kid to shuttle to school and back each day. one fine day, i will have the books, but for now i am going to have to settle for finding the owner's manual.

thanks for listening, i realize this is long, but i am very excited & on a huge learning curve.

referred to this forum by:

Wildcat Auto Wrecking: Specializing in Pre 1980 Chrysler Plymouth ...
www.wildcatmopars.com
46827 Southeast Wildcat Mountain Drive
Sandy, OR 97055-8657
(503) 668-7786

thanks guys! super helpful.

_________________
1962 dodge lancer GT

I'd at least get the Factory Shop Manual for your car, either the hard copy or the one on a CD. With it you should be able to do quite a few repairs on your own or with a little help as needed. Forget the Haynes manual - lots of bad info in there.

_________________
65 Dart station wagon slant 6 - now under construction
47 Dodge Custom 4 Door sedan
87 D100 Short Bed slant 6

Retired USAF 1966-1986
Retired US Postal Service 2004-2014

i admit to asking for a small miracle, and it appears i got one. THANK YOU! here's the upshot!

josh showed up with his lovely family around 10:30 and promptly handed me a brand new master cylinder, $40 (who knew, i had one for disc brakes in there! ew!), as well as a book to get me started for now. the 11 year olds settled in for some poker, & while the battery charged josh ran up to napa to get the seals & plugs i had ordered yesterday. napa is having a big sale today, so i got about $6 off for that, at a total of $15.32.

he whipped through the plugs and seals, and the engine smoothed out significantly. turns out i had one bad plug, the rest were ok.

adjusted valves, noticed two broken bolts and a janky valve cover gasket job, so i need to get the bolts out & replace them to resolve exhaust leak. also need to surface the manifold. new (cork) gasket was already going bad, so that's my next chore, which i now feel confident about doing myself.

the oil pressure light and headlights (and now horn) are disconnected, i am HOPING it is because of wiring, and not an engine issue...the wiring is NOT good.

leaky valves?

need a battery kill switch till i find out what's draining the battery overnight...in the meanwhile, doing it the old fashioned way & just removing a connector. need new battery and cables, but can skate with what i have for now. i am keen on the notion of kill switches, as i am extremely protective of my car and while i don't want anyone stealing it, in the event someone were to try, i'd sure get a kick out of watching them fail.

both the battery and the alternator/regulator passed inspection. *WHEW!*

proper air cleaner on the way, as he has the right one for my model vehicle.

probably need to get that motor mount on the passenger side fixed. also, my alternator could use a belt adjustment, as it rides about 3/4 of an inch away from the frame, and there is a dent where it's hit the frame. GRR! however, it may stop hitting now that the engine isn't in rinse cycle.

he says the condenser is probably ok.

parts total: $75.32 that's a new master cylinder, new carburettor, plugs and seals. and the labor? an act of providence! free.

it is people like josh, who do good things for others simply for the sake of doing them, that help me maintain my faith in humanity. i am no longer sitting in rinse cycle at idle, car is as calm as she's likely to be for the nonce, no more insane rocking! i have yet to check the stalling issue when i give her a run, however, considering the dramatic difference in performance without even driving her anywhere, i am allowing myself to hope it's resolved & not a stretched timing chain.

i need to address the wonky valve, but it's not TOO bad.

josh, please feel free to amend any errors or misunderstandings i may have about what's going on. i'll start looking for some of those parts we discussed.

still on the to-do list:

compression check
timing & chain stretch check
wiring
passenger side motor mount?
new battery/cables
deal with 'fuel fouled' valve (or was that a fuel-fouled plug?)
air cleaner
master cylinder/brakes
distributor drive gear
-has two major chunks out of it, i need to fix this FIRST, as he said it could strand me.

and of course, lots and lots of interior work, new windshield, and for the love of pete, a REAL gas tank, fuggidabout this stupid five gallon fuel cell nonsense.

this is all very humbling, the more i think i know, the more i find out i don't know diddly.

_________________
1962 dodge lancer GT

There were two goals for the car today. Get it to stop stalling and to stop draining the battery. Towards these ends I installed new NGK spark plugs and spark plug tube seals, swapped out the carburetor, adjusted the valves and set the dwell and timing. All the intake valves were loose and all the exhaust valves were tight. The left turn signal indicator is on full-time and the horn honks at inopportune times so I'm thinking there is a minor disaster where there should be a turn signal switch. Also, the electrical connector broke off the dimmer switch body so a new dimmer switch is in order.

Some time ago I ended up with a new Bendix drum/drum master cylinder which I was never going to use so I was happy to pass it along for $20. I asked and received $40 for original carburetor from my own '67 Valiant which I had rebuilt about two years ago.

The valve cover gasket had been recently replaced, but the chap did not straighten the valve cover around the bolt holes and then overtightened the valve cover bolts and damaged the new gasket at most every bolt hole.

The engine still does not run as smoothly as it should. By the way the engine turns over it appears to have uneven compression. I would hazard that there are leaky exhaust valves due to running with too little valve clearance. Not much can be done about that just now.

I would have liked to have stayed a bit longer and explained more in depth what I was doing and why, but I had a schedule to keep and a head cold dragging me down.

_________________
Joshua

Josh is about the best qualified person to help with a new persons problems. I do hope he didn't wear his red shirt with the big yellow S on the front Just kidding Josh, thank you for helping and to you wife & boys (they have to know your kind nature towards others is just your way)

_________________
Part of Tyrde-Browne Racing

Aww, shucks. Thanks Richard.

_________________
Joshua

thank you josh, you summarized much more concisely than i did!

i'm not going to bother getting a rebuild kit for the old carb, i'm just going to sit down and tear it apart to see what's inside. i'll save the bits in the event they can be of use to anyone, but from what you said it didn't sound like it would make a solid rebuild.

i rode my bike up to schucks and got jumper cables, anti-freeze and that hose, which i'll put in tomorrow & fire her up for a saturday morning test run. i probably need gas anyway cause of the stupid fuel cell.

i hope your family felt comfortable and at ease in our home. it was great having you all here, and the help is appreciated hugely. it's been over a month since i've been able to pick devlin up from school, and him being in that school is the absolute most important thing to us. as i told your wife, we moved to portland so he could be in that school, and he's a straight a student with a strong respect for his education because of it. what you did for us today was more helpful than you can possibly know!

thank you.

_________________
1962 dodge lancer GT

My valve grinding machine is up and running, and I have some core heads we may be able to scrounge bits from, or use a complete head if in better shape than 'bolts current one.

I'll be commuting to 'Zilla's neck of the woods for a couple more months, and will be here a week, away a week.
Once I get the floor back in the Hooptie, I'll go through my core heads and see what's in decent shape, prep some valves for a "Driver," and see what we come up with.
If Fopar's up for it, I can supply a core head for bits and pieces. He's got a bunch more seat time running the grinder.

CJ

_________________
Part of Tyrde-Browne Racing

You are just saying that because I'm older I do also have the seater tool and stones.

_________________
Part of Tyrde-Browne Racing

neil from wildcat said they have one, and told me about someone who does rebuilds on them up in...washington? not sure. but if i got one already reworked, i'd get my core cost back. trying to figure out what's the quickest & most cost effective way to deal with this. i understand that the timing and such also needs to be reset after the switch (unless you're a mechanical genius, which i am beginning to think josh is!). we know i have timing issues, and that's one job i probably won't be able to afford for some time. two words make my hair stand on end: timing chain, and head gasket. u-joint is a close runner up. tie-rod. pin. .....

in the meanwhile, i am letting her sit again until i get that gear fixed. wondering what all else can go awry should that thing strand me...not wanting to find out the hard way.

i also need a steering....thing. the column under the hood. has a LOT of play in it, like almost an inch of play. wokka wokka.

promise, josh, as soon as i get these sewing jobs knocked out i'll get the book out & refine my terminologies! the sewing is important though, if i am going to be able to afford parts & labor without hitting my meagre income too hard.

_________________
1962 dodge lancer GT

Talk to Josh and see what your looking at. The head can be removed without worrying about the timing set. If the timing set needs to be replaced, it can be done without disturbing the head.

If all that is wrong with your head is a valve, We may be able to come up with the bits your going to need without outside machine work. Surfacing of the head is another matter, but not terribly expensive. I think it cost around 45 bucks having the GT head cut ninety.

Fopar is down in Eugene, so that's a couple miles, but for the cost savings, you will come out way ahead. I'm about thirty miles closer, and it's almost time to start holding BBQ's and wrenching parties for slant cars again.
(First batch of ABT's is in the oven right now!)

This week if it's raining, I'll clean up a likely drool tube head, and get it cleaned up for more serious inspection. If there is something serviceable, we could put it together a couple of weeks from now, or drop it off with Fopar for a bit of work while I'm off goofing around in the mid-west.

CJ

_________________
Part of Tyrde-Browne Racing

We really need to do a leakdown test before we go tearing the head off this car.

I'm leaning toward wrecking yard HEI since the distributor has to come out again anyway. I need to hit a yard for some other things so I'll see about a distributor, coil and module.

_________________
Joshua

here's the thing...and heads up to everyone...wildcat is scrapping about half their stock, almost all 63-74 plymouths, so now is the time to hit that up. neil said he has tons of heads, the distributor thing, etc.

i have $100 for parts, that's IT. i have gone in the hole with my landlord pretty good, so not sure what i'll be able to spend next month, but it's been almost two months of no car & while i would love to get the heads all fixed and such, if it's not crucial to the vehicle NOW, like the dist. gears, i can't deal with it until i get more money. my landlord is also selling his house, and i have to have the money to move at the end of june. i'm not saying poor me, bust out the violins, i'm just outlining the reality of my finances so ya'll don't go out of your way to help and i can't back the expense.

i may actually have a situation worked out where neil borrowed a jacket from a friend & it got damaged, so i am waiting to see if he's willing to cover the distributor gear thing in exchange for me fixing said jacket as a roundabout trade.

he also said wildcat will trade out straight across for the fuel cell, and hook me up with a gas tank. i need to check the values, because it's not going to be much good for me to have a gas tank if it's not installed and if they can put the tank in after removing the fuel cell, i can drive home, otherwise obviously not going to happen. the fuel cell was pricey, and i am hoping the gas tank is much cheaper so part of the trade will include installation.

the other major challenge is the fact that i am not willing to drive her ANYWHERE not knowing what kind of damage the dist. gear failure could cause, and it would not be wise to take her on the road even for parts. hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

i need a battery kill switch, as well. troubleshooting the wiring is another job i have to put on hold, which means cables off or kill switch (easier to deal with).

the other concern is, people get busy, forget to call back, etc., so in my minds eye, everything is floating around about 30 feet up in the air. coordinating things in a timely manner is confusing me right now, especially since i have no control over whether anyone follows through or what. i had a call out to one mechanic last week, let him know it was really important, called like 3 times, STILL no reply. probably not someone i want to work with.

one thing at a time. thank you all for your suggestions.

_________________
1962 dodge lancer GT

Distributor gear failure = engine stops running. That's it.

_________________
一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

well, yes...but does it DAMAGE the engine, that's where i am concerned.

_________________
1962 dodge lancer GT