Wyatt convinced me to destroy my 71...

[sixpkrt]

I took delivery today of the first of 2 bumpers that were purchased from Ken, a.k.a. @SGT FURY . The rear bumper looks great compared to the one that came off the car. I'll begin to take apart the remaining items from the old one off this week, clean them up and paint the bumper surrounds/tail light housings as soon as the paint arrives later this week.
Having the chance to speak with Ken over the past few weeks, I got to know him pretty good, and can attest he is a good seller of parts on this website. no disappointments whatsoever.
I'd also like to mention a big Thanks to Will @bluefury361 for posting his thread, "NOS C Body bumpers for sale" not too long ago.

 

[65sporty]

View attachment 337470

I wondered where I knew that from.

 

[sixpkrt]

Over the next week or two I'll be cleaning up the bumpers to have them ready to go once the engine/trans go back in.
The front bumper surrounds were somewhat pitted, with some surface rust showing. So I decided to start with front bumper, since I'm thinking the new rear bumper will be the easier one of the two. I'm not sure if the small clips that hold in the chrome trim onto the surround, and wraps around it are available aftermarket items, so I took my time not to break any of them.
The wire wheel cleaned up this first one nice. After this first application of primer, and a little sanding, it'll get another coat of primer, then the argent will be applied.

 

[John Kelly]

I want to repeat this after the rebuild is done.

 

[71Polara383]

I want to repeat this after the rebuild is done.

Nope. Tim ain't gonna let ya. Time to get your own!

 

[sixpkrt]

Last Friday I didn't have a whole lot going on with anything work related, so I asked Wyatt to come the shop so we can take my block to the machine shop to have hot tanked along with the intake manifold, and to have them replace the cam bearings and distributor drive shaft bushing.
He agreed to help out and came over with his truck (I wish now I never sold mine), and we dropped everything off.
The machine shop called this morning to let me know everything was done and ready for pick up.
When with Wyatt last Friday we got to talking about the pact we made on getting our cars ready for Carlisle, and getting them road worthy for the trip.
Knowing the shop Wyatt has is not currently heated and with the cold temps we have around here, I suggested we go get his 440, and bring it over to my shop and we'll get them both done at the same time.
Once we got it here and disassembled and sorted out, we will both be staying on track, keeping our builds going.
Where we are today, with Wyatt's 440.....Even my little shop dog was looking on as we went to work Friday night.

Our good friend Xenon will be guiding us two rookies, giving direction during the builds on our 440's, including making some modifications we will be doing, to increase performance and reliability. Having friendships like this are invaluable.
Last time Xenon and I discussed the rebuild and cleaning of parts, he suggested having some of the parts cleaned through an ultrasonic cleaning process.
We got online and looked up a reasonably low cost ultrasonic cleaner, and found them to be lower in cost than I had previously thought they would be.
I went with the 30 litre cleaner. Wyatt and I will be giving this new toy a work out over the next several weeks, cleaning our parts.

Seems pretty straight forward. Depending on how the parts turn out once cleaned, I'll go out on a ledge here to say, I'm optimistic this was a good investment.

 

[sixpkrt]

Welp, I can say getting the ultra sonic cleaner was worth it.
Before:

After:

After 15 minutes at 80 degrees this is what I got..
Probably will give it one more bath to clean up the rest.
Turn up the heat and do a little more time.....

 

[MarPar]

Welp, I can say getting the ultra sonic cleaner was worth it.
Before:
View attachment 345273
After:
View attachment 345274
After 15 minutes at 80 degrees this is what I got..
Probably will give it one more bath to clean up the rest.
Turn up the heat and do a little more time.....

How much ca-ca did you have in the bottom of the pan?

 

[65sporty]

What does it use for fluid? A friend of mine made a low buck version he found on YouTube using two 5 gal buckets
and a vibrating sander. He uses simple green for a solvent.

 

[MarPar]

What does it use for fluid? A friend of mine made a low buck version he found on YouTube using two 5 gal buckets
and a vibrating sander. He uses simple green for a solvent.

Simple Green works well for a variety of things.

 

[sixpkrt]

I did 2 to 4 pistons at a time, 30 minutes each, then turning them over 180 degrees and did another 30 minutes.
First run was at 27 celsius, and then bumped up the temp to 48 celsius (120 fahrenheit range) using Simple Green Pro HD Heavy Duty Cleaner. The water/solution combination was pretty cruddy after these steps were completed, and a new mix will be made up in the morning.
They turned out nice, but tomorrow I plan on doing another cycle using a citrus cleaner with grease cutting additives, with the hope the carbon deposits on the pistons clean up a little better. The products being used are safe, so disposal of old stuff won't be a problem.

 

[70bigblockdodge]

Hell I would have used the piston in the before picture.

 

[LocuMob]

Hell I would have used the piston in the before picture.

I would have too, but I'm a cheap ***. Of course, I didn't have a nice clean block to rebuild.

 

[sixpkrt]

I actually took the first pic just about after it was submerged for about 2/3 minutes so I could see what effect the ultrasonic cleaner was having on the pistons.
They looked a little worse than the first pic, but not much more. They look better, now, and I'll feel better putting the 440 back together with clean pistons, since I ain't poppin for new ones just yet.

 

[LocuMob]

since I ain't poppin for new ones just yet.

"Spared no expense..."

Nothing wrong with good, used parts.

 

[70bigblockdodge]

I have been playing with weights on piston and rod combos since I made the decision to change the pistons in my Barracuda engine. I'll make a thread on it sometime. But measuring a smattering of parts I have laying around those are some of the lightest stock and replacement 440 pistons of them all.

 

[sixpkrt]

Spent some time cleaning up some small parts over the weekend to prepare them for paint, and pounded out the dent hat was in the 187 oil pan.
After picking up the lower control arms from my friend who has a press over the weekend, I dropped them off at the powered coater to have the done, with some other parts to be sand blasted.
Are the lower control arms supposed to gold or some other color on a C Body? I seen variations, even sometimes finished in clear/bare metal look.

 

[cbarge]

From factory the lower arms were bare metal.
What caused them to go gold or yellow was the cosmoline rust inhibitor they used at the time.
So,you can
A)either blast and clear them,
B) Or after blasting paint them sloppy with a cadium like paint to emulate the cosmoline application.
C) Or go with the cosmoline product directly.

 

[cbarge]

Spent some time cleaning up some small parts over the weekend to prepare them for paint, and pounded out the dent hat was in the 187 oil pan.
After picking up the lower control arms from my friend who has a press over the weekend, I dropped them off at the powered coater to have the done, with some other parts to be sand blasted.
Are the lower control arms supposed to gold or some other color on a C Body? I seen variations, even sometimes finished in clear/bare metal look.
View attachment 348334 View attachment 348335

The BoaB for reference..

 

[68PK21 440.6bbl]

My experience with Mopar lower control arms back in the 70's was little with my first 2 PK21's other than tearing them up in accident/off road adventures and being only 2 to 6 years old they were still pretty clean so I didn't pay to much attention to them. It wasn't until my 68 Fury III or Fastop (can't remember which) that I had one off to do bushing/balljoints/tierods etc that one hit the Safety Kleen tank and I came upon trying to remove the cosmoline from the lower control arm. All of the engine drippings and accumulated road grime came off easily and that area looked like new but the area with the cosmoline while it looked black from wandering chassis grease (that came off easy), when I got down to where I could see the brown color of the cosmoline I did a WTF is this. Scrub scrub, scrub I did with the standard Safety Kleen brush, it was real hard and would of taken a overnight soak to soften it up for removal. I gave up as I wanted this job done in a day, the other arm I did was a quicky and avoided trying to scrub it off to bear metal.
Baked on from age or something heavy duty?

The factory must of used some kind of Military grade cosmoline as by that time in life I had found industrial grade rattle can cosmoline that I used on my motorcycle for winter storage and that would wash off easily with spray on Gunk, nothing like what I encountered with the lower control.

Maybe that's why Mr. Wormhead paints his lower control arms as sourcing the factory cosmoline may be a problem.