New Member, New Polara

[detmatt]

Careful about air shocks. This early wagon might be ok but the upper shock crossmember was not meant to carry any weight on let’s say most old Mopars. Their are exceptions.

 

[Stev]

Careful about air shocks. This early wagon might be ok but the upper shock crossmember was not meant to carry any weight on let’s say most old Mopars. Their are exceptions.

For sure, but it's really just to correct the ride height from the tired springs. I wasn't intending on making use of the towing package anytime soon.

The only alternative is spending a pile to re-arch the springs, or fiddle with caster plates to correct the pinion angle while still losing all that travel. Obviously lift blocks aren't an option due to the 'flipped' perches.

I haven't seriously investigated cost but i doubt re-arching will cost less than some bargain bin air shocks.

 

[detmatt]

Re-arching I’ve found to be a waste of money anyway. Do it right once as they say. If you’re going to remove them just replace them with new ones.

 

[Ripinator]

Made it.

No photos right now, that junk's in the car and I'm going the hell to bed. But i didn't die and Big Blue is home now.



Cue winscreen music.

Car runs and drives great. Gave it a tune up, and she ate up Vancouver island like it was nothin. Car was unbelievably perfect.

And then the sun went down.

Two problems at once. Firstly, the car had a 7 pound rad cap on it. Manual says 14-16 is proper. I put one on and the heater core quietly burst, so i was huffing atomized glycol for ten hours. Still dizzy, probably not good.

secondly, hey guess what the charging system sucks. Having any lights on (including brake lights!) saps the car's power. Having headlights on gets so bad the engine misfires terribly and almost dies. Even running lights are enough to starve the coil on a big hill.

We found this out after getting off the Powell river ferry in the dark, still with about 100 km to go. I thought it was a bad ground and yanked every fuse but the lights, no dice, still bunk.

Drove 100km on rural, twisting, cliff roads trailing the range rover's tail lights on an unknown amount of gas, hypermiling it all the way while wiping coolant condensate from the windshield, flashing the dash with my phone to see the coolant and battery status (because no interior lights either) and all while dizzy from the glycol.

At a few points me and the rover got seperated during very tight turns and i was navigating the road by seeing the lines illuminated by the parking lights alone.

But hey, other than all that, it's done, and the Island drive was spectacular. Couldn't have asked for better conditions.

Time to get it in the shop and get to work i guess, wish me luck.

You'll be telling the story of this adventure for years. . . Way-ta-go!

 

[Kram Edyorloh]

LOL, I was just about to ask if I see a Shadow 11 and an XJ6/12 in there, then I saw above had been asked already, worked on both models....I live almost next door to Rolls/Bentley in Crewe.

 

[Stev]

LOL, I was just about to ask if I see a Shadow 11 and an XJ6/12 in there, then I saw above had been asked already, worked on both models....I live almost next door to Rolls/Bentley in Crewe.

They're wonderful things. The XJ's remarkably easy to work on, outside of the rear rotors. The Silver Shadow, not so much. The dual/redundant brake system is nuts. Wonderful motor though.

I maintain that the XJ is the best all around car i've ever experienced. Handling, comfort, sport, it does it all. I think it's even comfier than the Rolls while not being a 6000 pound barge at three times the price.

Re-arching I’ve found to be a waste of money anyway. Do it right once as they say. If you’re going to remove them just replace them with new ones.

Well it's air shocks or bust in the meantime

 

[Kram Edyorloh]

I put in the post..."Rolls suspension/brakes...ugh"...then I deleted it thinking "he wont want to hear that" LOL
We put XJ6 front and back subframes under one to get rid of all the hydraulic stuff, key to keeping them in good order is DRIVE the things, never park them up for months at a time.
Good luck with the wagon mate, keep pressing on, then one day, BAM! it all fits in why you bothered.

 

[Stev]

I put in the post..."Rolls suspension/brakes...ugh"...then I deleted it thinking "he wont want to hear that" LOL
We put XJ6 front and back subframes under one to get rid of all the hydraulic stuff, key to keeping them in good order is DRIVE the things, never park them up for months at a time.
Good luck with the wagon mate, keep pressing on, then one day, BAM! it all fits in why you bothered.

Yeah the hydrolic system on that thing is such a needless headache. And all just to self level the rear within an inch of travel. Haven't had to drop suspension on it yet, heaven forbid.

The thing i can't get over is that they used the hydro system as a hydrovac booster for the brakes, which is reasonable. But they knew that it was french and therefore hopeless, so fitted an entirely seperate traditional brake system as well, resulting in two calipers on every corner. Which begs the question as to why they'd install the hydrovac system to begin with.

Bizzare.

They're going to have to pry my XJ from my cold dead hands though. That thing is absolute perfection.

 

[Kram Edyorloh]

I'm laughing here mate, I know, its just nuts,. You have to rebuild the track rod ends from kits, and the ball joints, about $800 in parts and that was back in around '05. I had the trans out of it too, exhaust system fitting, aftermarket S/S....ugh
My friend has just bought a Bentley Continental GT, speed 12, '05, Silver/black leather, 550hp, £15K, what a car, lovely.
Glad Dad/you like this stuff, most people are scared to death of it, same over here though, most garages wont fix US cars over here, even 60/70's stuff, which is as easy to fix, as falling out of a tree
Cheers mate..

 

[Stev]

I'm laughing here mate, I know, its just nuts,. You have to rebuild the track rod ends from kits, and the ball joints, about $800 in parts and that was back in around '05. I had the trans out of it too, exhaust system fitting, aftermarket S/S....ugh
My friend has just bought a Bentley Continental GT, speed 12, '05, Silver/black leather, 550hp, £15K, what a car, lovely.
Glad Dad/you like this stuff, most people are scared to death of it, same over here though, most garages wont fix US cars over here, even 60/70's stuff, which is as easy to fix, as falling out of a tree
Cheers mate..

If you want to keep the Rolls insanity train rolling, I'm sure you've heard the annecdote about when they licensed the Turbo 400 from GMC and had to go crawling back to GM and ask why their production prototypes didn't work

 

[Kram Edyorloh]

Ha ha, No?, I did hear the tale about "why do you use a US trans in a UK car", "oh, its not any old 400, we blast the internals in the valve body with Walnut dust, to smooth out the gear changes"..no kidding LOL,
They are very cheap over here now unless you want like a 35Kmiles, one owner, in a desirable colour, they still bring £12K+for a late model
I always liked the Bentley T2, they are not cheap though, still very desirable especially like a '77-'80, hard to find.

 

[Stev]

Ha ha, No?, I did hear the tale about "why do you use a US trans in a UK car", "oh, its not any old 400, we blast the internals in the valve body with Walnut dust, to smooth out the gear changes"..no kidding LOL,
They are very cheap over here now unless you want like a 35Kmiles, one owner, in a desirable colour, they still bring £12K+for a late model
I always liked the Bentley T2, they are not cheap though, still very desirable especially like a '77-'80, hard to find.

The story goes that rolls liscenced production of the Turbo 4 for the silver shadow 1, and set up the usual pilot production line to get it sorted out, with the usual rolls pedantic obsession with fit and finish. Well none of the pilot transmissions worked as advertised, and Rolls simply couldn't figure out why.

So the great and mighty Rolls had to go crawling back to the king of misers, GM, and ask why their repurposed pickup truck transmission wasn't working so good.

As it turned out, they wanted such a finish on their parts, that they polished the blades in the torque converter, resulting in much reduced fluid friction, and absurd power loss.

Rolls Royce in a nutshell.

 

[Kram Edyorloh]

I think most of it came from the War effort, there was a "British eng" thing still going on, That is just crazy if true, im sure it would still bloody work, who knows LOL, lies have been told forever..

 

[Stev]

I'm trying to find the places the rear frame bolts in on. There's three circles i'm presuming to be fasteners depicted in the shop manual. However i can't see them on the actual car.

The only thing i saw in the acess holes on the frame is a rubber plug on one of the front left holes.

Am i missing something here? As it very much looks welded in. And i can't find any picture or reference to a rear frame being removed. Plenty of the front, none of the rear.

The front subframe is also toast. Where the tortion bars sit and everything in the engine bay is actually pretty healthy thanks to the oil built up, but the box sections on the outside are done.

It's a wonder the car actually feels so good on the road. No creaks, knocks or bumps. No slop or anything. Borderline divine intervention going on here.

 

[HWYCRZR]

I think there was confusion in the earlier post. The front stub frame is bolt on. The rest is a Unibody so yes the rear rails are welded in.

 

[Stev]

Alright, that's what i had assumed from the outset.

Fortunately for me, the arches/kickup and other complicated shapes seem entirely unhindered, and the problem areas appear to be welds on the gussets and straight open flange or box tube areas where the drain holes were clogged. So it would appear that i can simply weld in fresh stock without any substantial fabrication work beyond my facility.

What's the best way to repair all this, then. Is it worth seeking a donor or is it better to just saw out the problem areas and weld in replacement metal?

I suspect i've just discovered where my winter is going.

 

[detmatt]

Since you need a front stub and patchwork on the rear I’d look for a solid doner car first.

 

[Stev]

Since you need a front stub and patchwork on the rear I’d look for a solid doner car first.

Yeah i'm thinking that too.

We'll see if i can patch it up. If not, I do not have the money for a restoration of Blue and hot rodding my truck at the same time, so old Blue's probably going to be sitting on the lift for a while.

 

[Bill Watson]

For your body data tag - 1966 was the first year for that style of tag and it appears Chrysler Canada had some unique sales codes. As well as some different codes for the tag information.

S O NUMBER - Shipping Order Number
A06 600305 -
A06 = October 6, 1965 - Date car scheduled to be built
600305 = Assigned to be 305th car built at Windsor plant on A06

BDY = DH46
D - Dodge
H - Polara 880
46 - 4dr door, 3 seat, wagon

TRIM = Inside trim = H1B
H = High series - Polara 880 - Cloth & Vinyl
1 = Colour Shade - Light
B = Colour - Blue

PAINT = Exterior and Interior Colours
A - Roof Colour - Silver Metallic
A - Body Colour - Silver Metallic
1 - Colour Style - Monotone
E - Interior Colour - Dark Blue

Codes for second line from top -
AB = 64 = 383 V8
C = 5 = Transmission - 395 - Torqueflite
E = 3 = Unknown
H = 1 = Power Equipment - 451 - Power Brakes
M = 1 = Unknown
R = 1 = Radio - 421 - AM Music Master

Codes for top line -
c = 4 = Unknown
d = 3 = Rear Axle - 403 - 3.31:1
e = 2 = Unknown (In USA Police Equipment)
m = 3 = Moulding - 543 - Upper door frames and rear quarter windows
p = 6 = Mirror - 536 - Outside left hand remote control mirror

Any equipment on the car that is not on the tag?

Bill

 

[Stev]

For your body data tag - 1966 was the first year for that style of tag and it appears Chrysler Canada had some unique sales codes. As well as some different codes for the tag information.

Apart from the repaint, nope.

3.31's are much higher than i was expecting. I was expecting a 2.90 or an equivalent. Rumor in the family is that the car has a towing package, is there any way to tell? That might be one of our mystery numbers. Also is there any significance to the '395' torqueflite?

And finally is there anyway to tell if the AFB and manifold is original spec or not? The engine was rebuilt either in 2003 or 1992 (the car went for work on those two years and it's unclear which was the motor), and it could've been put on then.