Hey guys just thought I'd update, after 4 months of work overhauling the engine, rebuilding front suspension, all new brakes, etc. the beast is finally 100% road-ready! The car has come a long way since when I got it; it ran but definitely wasn't safe to drive. I first pulled the front suspension and brakes apart and replaced all the bushings, tie rod ends, idler and pitman arms. Also put in new wheel bearings and basically all new brake parts (master cylinder, power booster, front soft lines, all 4 wheel cylinders, front shoes). As I got the front end back together I pulled the engine for a "refresh", luckily it was in decent shape inside so all I did was clean it up, put in a new double-roller timing set, new gaskets (incl. head), and repainted the intake and valve covers. My thread for the engine teardown is here:
http://www.forcbodiesonly.com/mopar-forum/showthread.php?8445-My-383-teardown-w-pics.
The engine was the only real part without any surprises, the brakes turned out to be a PITA as there was more wrong with them than I thought. I first bought a reman'd power booster off RockAuto but it turned out to be the wrong one; it's actually for sale here as I didn't find out until after the return period was over
http://www.forcbodiesonly.com/mopar-forum/showthread.php?8610-Reman-Power-Brake-Booster-(Midland-Ross). I got the original unit rebuilt by a local shop (Power Brake of Metro Denver highly recommend them...) but once I got it back on and tried to bleed the brakes the old master cylinder had terrible air bypass and was pretty much FUBAR. Got a new M/C off the Rock and put that in, MUCH better! The brakes work extremely well for having front drums, you can easily lock up the wheels if you hit the pedal hard whereas before the pedal would just "hit a wall" when you stepped on it.
The tire/wheel situation was pretty screwy as the car had 3 different size tires on it when I got it (!!). One was an old General bias-ply from God knows when mounted on a 14" wheel; the rest were 15s lol. After some searching I finally found a proper 15x6.5" wheel to match the other three, put on a coat of flat black rattle-can and mounted a new Cooper Cobra GT on it... Now the car has 235/60-15's in front and 255's in the back. I also added some '70s cop-car hubcaps to give it that extra "intimidation" look lol.
The last issue I fixed was with the fuel system; my first attempt to take the car to the alignment shop had me broken down in the middle of a busy intersection with 3 other guys trying to push this beast (with improper toe for extra rolling resistance of course)... FUN! lol The carb wasn't getting gas after driving a couple minutes, my first impulse was to replace the fuel pump but as we all know impulsive repairs often don't work. After that it was obvious there was something up with the lines/gas tank so I pulled the fuel sender and lo and behold, the filter sock was missing completely! Not only that but the hard line going through the front passenger frame rail was rusty and had a pinhole leak. Blew out the lines, bought a filter sock (and waited a week to arrive), and cut/bent a new hard line. No more fuel problems now!
Here are some pics I just took today...
As you can see the body is straight but the paint is fading... I can definitely see spots where the paint could be buffed and brought back but what about the spots where it's worn to the primer? Would you guys recommend trying to buff it up or would that just make it look worse? I am putting the car up for sale soon and want to get the best return possible...
