What are you working on today??

I don't know if I ever saw a stock one!

This one belonged to an acquaintance of mine. Early 392 hemi powered. Held some A/G records in the 60's. Last time I saw it, it belonged to someone else and was sitting in a cornfield.

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That's sick, i love it. Never seen one chopped.

A friend of mine owns an outwardly stock one that he actually converted entirely to Miata suspension and running gear.

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Lots of very impressive fab work on it but I'd have a stock one. And I do.

Also worth noting how much they were trying to be modern. Part of that is the styling, which is very clearly just a '41 Chevy smooshed down to fit into an English shire.

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Not a GM guy but the immediate pre and post war chevy/pontiac torpedoback sedans are one of the most beautiful cars ever built.
 
Continuing to wrench on the truck. I pulled A/C compressor, condenser, receiver/dryer and the evaporator orifice. It was plugged with compressor chards and installed backwards!

My dream is to stop discovering previous owners cobbling…

I also pulled the passenger side valve cover and replaced the glow plugs. Driver’s side forthcoming.
The top of the cylinder head looks incredibly clean.

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Replaced the injector seals on the passenger side of the truck. I will start on the drivers side tomorrow.

Cylinder head looks fantastic.
I am also going to pull the screen in the High Pressure Oil Pump (HPOP).

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I guess this is not what I'm doing today, but what I'm not doing today.

273 engine in my '65 Barracuda. Another block is over at the machine shop and I need to remove the right head. The right head was replaced by the PO (long story) and I have its original mate sitting on the shelf. Once I have that off, the reunited pair will go over for valve job etc.

Probably going to wait to pull the engine until spring. The left exhaust manifold will have to come off to clear the master cylinder/booster. You can see that the factory designed these early A bodies for the slant six. They are narrow! Once that's done, and it's warm enough, the engine bay will get painted and the fresh engine installed.

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It's become winter here.... Still snowing .... With the temperature in the mid 20's today, it's kinda cold for the old bones in my garage.... and I had a tooth pulled yesterday (#2 for you dental fans) after it cracked last week. That wasn't much fun, but at least he didn't have to put his knee on my chest for leverage this time.... So, I'm installing a rear end into my recliner for a day of watching TV and staying warm. It's supposed to get in the 40's later this week and I'll get the head off then.

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I guess this is not what I'm doing today, but what I'm not doing today.

273 engine in my '65 Barracuda. Another block is over at the machine shop and I need to remove the right head. The right head was replaced by the PO (long story) and I have its original mate sitting on the shelf. Once I have that off, the reunited pair will go over for valve job etc.

Probably going to wait to pull the engine until spring. The left exhaust manifold will have to come off to clear the master cylinder/booster. You can see that the factory designed these early A bodies for the slant six. They are narrow! Once that's done, and it's warm enough, the engine bay will get painted and the fresh engine installed.

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It's become winter here.... Still snowing .... With the temperature in the mid 20's today, it's kinda cold for the old bones in my garage.... and I had a tooth pulled yesterday (#2 for you dental fans) after it cracked last week. That wasn't much fun, but at least he didn't have to put his knee on my chest for leverage this time.... So, I'm installing a rear end into my recliner for a day of watching TV and staying warm. It's supposed to get in the 40's later this week and I'll get the head off then.

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You are probably receiving what went through here over the weekend.

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At least you don’t have to cut the exhaust manifold bolts off and destroy the manifold to get it out.

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I’m continuing the slow destruction/disassembly of my truck. Yesterday, I discovered that one of the lower condenser mounting brackets was rusted away. Pulled the bumper this morning and ordered a replacement set of brackets and rubber isolators. I’m going to repair a couple of those rubber shields with some of what I replaced in Elwood….

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All I did was get up and go to work again!, i did get the motor for my headlight doors boxed up and ready to ship to Topher for a rebuild. We did hit 28 the other morning here in east Tx but no white stuff yet, just patchy frost, I dont miss the up north winters!
 
Back onto the 273 project... In our last episode, I had said I wanted to pull the right head. The heads on the engine weren't a matched pair, although the casting numbers were the same. Note the valve spring difference. I do have the other head on the shelf.

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I wanted it to warm up a little, but that isn't happening, so I ventured out to finish pulling the head. I had a dumb-*** brain fart and never unbolted the freaking exhaust pipe while it was on the lift... Sigh.... A little time on the creeper on the cold cement wasn't gonna kill me and I went to work. One exhaust bolt backed right off. The other, harder to get bolt was another story. That fought me every step of the way. Five minutes for the first bolt and an hour and a half for the second bolt. No doubt the early A bodies were built for slant sixes and jamming a V-8 in there was an afterthought. Even after soaking and then heating the nut cherry red, it still fought me. In the end, I won and the head is off. They'll go to the machine shop on Monday.

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Note the popup pistons that was only on the HP 273. The cylinder walls look like crap though. Even some really bad honing done somewhere along the line with no crosshatch.

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Did we ever see the rest of the car? my bet is on a 4 speed for all the expense or perhaps your first car.
 
Did we ever see the rest of the car? my bet is on a 4 speed for all the expense or perhaps your first car.
Yes, I've owned the car 8 years now. '65 Formula S with Automatic trans. I wanted an early Barracuda since I first saw one in 1964. Never found a decent one when I had the cash and then a friend had this one for sale.

The engine was getting tired, so it was time....

It's a really fun car to drive!

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I have transferred the plastic trim from the existing front bumper on the truck (2002 F350 4x4 crew cab) to another one that I had that was better (the old one had two holes in it and was seriously rusted all over the inside).
I have taken the best of the brackets and hardware.
I had to straighten out a few dents and I painted the insides of the bumper with Eastwood rust encapsulator and satin black paint.

This bumper didn’t have the holes in it for the air dam, so that’s not getting installed.


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Pulled the engine/trans out of my ‘68 over the last couple days. Trans is getting rebuilt with hardened intput/output shafts, a new ATI converter, and a Griner trans brake. Gotta beef it up for the 540 going in. Found a ton of little issues on disassembly like a leaky p/s box and the insulation cracked on the alternator b+ lead.



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I got the bumper brackets installed. I cleaned all of the clips and bolts, painted them with satin black and baked them in an old toaster oven. Slathered all the threads with anti seize compound.

It looks a lot better than what I took off, and good enough for a 23 year old truck. It’s got a few dents and scratches but that’s ‘character’.

I also had to make a new mounting base for the fog lights and I took out the stock fog light mounting brackets.

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Not "C", but getting these two B-bodies ready to start on a long term effort. It will be a lengthy, background effort because I still have plenty to do on the other ten, plus other stuff. Both cars have been in storage and have a lot of rust. The Road Runner sat in a field for 20+ years. The Charger was purchased for my mother in 1979 and used for years, but has been sitting since the late 90s. Both have temporary crappy primer covering them. They look better in the pictures than in person.

1969 Road Runner:
383, 4-speed, 3.23:1 Sure Grip, Air Grabber, originally F8 green with F8 green interior.

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1970 Charger 500:
383 Magnum with automatic and 3.23:1 Sure Grip. Originally Plum Crazy with black interior with houndstooth inserts in the seats.

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Wife and I got back from a 4 day cruise to cozymel out of Galveston yesterday, now back to working fixing broke stuff at circlek stores.
 
Just completed the reconstruction of the pig barn at a local high school. Existing CMU partial height walls and slab, rebuilt the upper walls and the roof, divided the pens into two, added the central corridor, all new fencing and gates, power, lighting, and plumbing.

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