70 Polara Custom Rescue

71Polara383

71Polara383

Kid with ballcap
Joined
Dec 10, 2016
Messages
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Location
Rockford,IL
As many know, I recently acquired an FK5 70 Polara Custom 2dr hardtop. 383-2 but what made it unique to me besides being a good color, was the fact it's an original Superlite car.

Photos from the FB ad :

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Screenshot_20240429_184759_Facebook.jpg




I had the car shipped from Spokane to Rockford and started formulating a plan for resurrection of this neat old car with parts I have already, or know about.

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Once it arrived I had several leaky tires and I wanted a solid set of 4 for when I have it running in the not so distant future.

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I held onto the H724 Hankooks from the Servpros old road wheels for a rainy day. I came across a set of 15x6 Magnum 500s I've wanted to try for a while locally on FB from a friend. I couldn't find any markings on the wheels I imagine they are aftermarket repops.

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These will work for the time being, and I like the look! Especially with the white walls out, a first for me, maybe I am growing up some? Probably not. Special thanks to @sixpkrt for providing me with a missing center cap to complete these wheels.

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Once I swapped the wheels out and had a nice roller, i rolled the car inside and checked for signs of life. The only thing I've so far made function inside the car is the ignition.



I turned the engine over by hand a few times to make sure I didn't feel any rough or sticky spots. I popped a battery in, then jumped the relay and cranked it over a few times to start moving oil throughout the engine.



Confident the engine was free, I cleaned up the points and poured some fuel down the carb and the car fired quickly and died. With the bit of good news, I unhooked the line to the fuel pump from the tank, and hooked up to a gas can. I filled the float bowls and the car ran for about 30 seconds, making the normal clatter from sitting, and died. I refilled the bowl and same result. I kept it running with carb cleaner for about a minute. Lifters were still ticking but pumped up and quieted down. The engine runs very well as is. I suspect a new fuel pump and fuel system SHOULD do the trick as well as the normal tune up/fluid changes.



That's where we are currently. I've removed the trailer hitch and that gave me access to remove the old fuel tank that was about 1/2 full of 10+ year old fuel. I ordered a new tank/straps/sender from Vans and got it installed in the car last night. New sender was installed with the original lock-ring after some wire brushing.

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The new fuel pump should be arriving this afternoon and I will have the rest of the fuel system wrapped up.
 
Last edited:
Good start. Looks like a decent car to start with.

What's superlite?
Impatient me looked it up. Pretty cool concept, did it work as well in reality?
 
An auxiliary driving light. It's like an intermediate between highs and lows. You flip the switch and it over rides the high beam circuit and the dimmer controls the on and off of the superlite.

It was an option for 69 and 70 full size Dodge and illegal in a few states. Dropped for 71.
 
Hope you replicated the fuel sender clamp/ground situation with the new tank.

Swapping the other short pieces of exusting fuel line for new should be easy with it on the lift.

There should be a whole section in the owner's manual on the SuperLite and how to make it work best. Including beam diagrams and how it was designed to work.

Neat find!

CBODY67
 
71Polara383 said:
Once I swapped the wheels out and had a nice roller, i rolled the car inside and checked for signs of life. The only things I've so far made function inside the car is the ignition.



I turned the engine over by hand a few times to make sure I didn't feel any rough or sticky spots. I popped a battery in, then jumped the relay and cranked it over a few times to start moving oil throughout the engine.



Confident the engine was free, I cleaned up the points and poured some fuel down the carb and the car fired quickly and died. With the bit of good news, I unhooked the line to the fuel pump from the tank, and hooked up to a gas can. I filled the float bowls and the car ran for about 30 seconds, making the normal clatter from sitting, and died. I refilled the bowl and same result. I kept it running with carb cleaner for about a minute. Lifters were still ticking but pumped up and quieted down. The engine runs very well as is. I suspect a new fuel pump and fuel system SHOULD do the trick as well as the normal tune up/fluid changes.



That's where we are currently. I've removed the trailer hitch and that gave me access to remove the old fuel tank that was about 1/2 full of 10+ year old fuel. I ordered a new tank/straps/sender from Vans and got it installed in the car last night. New sender was installed with the original lock-ring after some wire brushing.

View attachment 668359View attachment 668360View attachment 668361View attachment 668362View attachment 668363

The new fuel pump should be arriving this afternoon and I will have the rest of the fuel system wrapped up.
Click to expand...
Wyatt: check the vent nipples carefully. The tank I bought from Vans had cold solder joints that cracked causing a gas leak when I filled the tank.
 
CBODY67 said:
Hope you replicated the fuel sender clamp/ground situation with the new tank.

Swapping the other short pieces of exusting fuel line for new should be easy with it on the lift.

There should be a whole section in the owner's manual on the SuperLite and how to make it work best. Including beam diagrams and how it was designed to work.

Neat find!

CBODY67
Click to expand...
I cut every rubber hose in half forcing replacement. Standard procedure on my vehicles.

I learned long ago how the rubber lines fall apart and can cause air leaks in addition to fuel leaks.

My 78 NYB would break up and run like crap about 3500-4000 rpm and I struggled to figure it out until I read a thread on one of the forums (this was 2011) about sucking air causing break up. Sure enough, a split hose that wasn't leaking fuel yet, but was leaking air ended up being the problem. After that was changed the car would pull beyond 4k without hesitation. You might be asking yourself "Why take a 78 NYB to 4k and beyond?" Because I was a 19 year old with a 440 learning stuff.
 
71Polara383 said:
Once I swapped the wheels out and had a nice roller, i rolled the car inside and checked for signs of life. The only thing I've so far made function inside the car is the ignition.



I turned the engine over by hand a few times to make sure I didn't feel any rough or sticky spots. I popped a battery in, then jumped the relay and cranked it over a few times to start moving oil throughout the engine.



Confident the engine was free, I cleaned up the points and poured some fuel down the carb and the car fired quickly and died. With the bit of good news, I unhooked the line to the fuel pump from the tank, and hooked up to a gas can. I filled the float bowls and the car ran for about 30 seconds, making the normal clatter from sitting, and died. I refilled the bowl and same result. I kept it running with carb cleaner for about a minute. Lifters were still ticking but pumped up and quieted down. The engine runs very well as is. I suspect a new fuel pump and fuel system SHOULD do the trick as well as the normal tune up/fluid changes.



That's where we are currently. I've removed the trailer hitch and that gave me access to remove the old fuel tank that was about 1/2 full of 10+ year old fuel. I ordered a new tank/straps/sender from Vans and got it installed in the car last night. New sender was installed with the original lock-ring after some wire brushing.

View attachment 668359View attachment 668360View attachment 668361View attachment 668362View attachment 668363

The new fuel pump should be arriving this afternoon and I will have the rest of the fuel system wrapped up.
Click to expand...
What brand of fuel pump? Stock volume?
Great start, Wyatt!
 
Very cool car. I like it. I have always liked those and 70 Sport Fury's.
 
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