Thursday, December 3, 2009

Radiator Hoses Installed and Mounted




The radiator I am using in this car is an aftermarket one. I did some research and found that a late 70's early 80's Dodge truck radiator had similar dimensions to the original radiator. It also fit the original crade really well. I had to trim off the side just a bit to fit. It is also great because it has the outlets in the right place for my SBC engine.



I had to play around with finding the right hoses, but it didn't take long. Plus it helps when you have an autozone at the end of your block.


Transmission Cooler Lines

One interesting project I had to tackle recently was the mounting of the transmission cooler lines. This wasn't incredibly difficult, except that I wanted to make it clean and easy to get around if I had to remove the starter.

I also wanted to flex my fab skill by making up a fancy bracket for the lines to run on. To accomplish this I made a paper template and then transferred it to steel. I incorporated the threaded mount tab for the flywheel dust cover (because I do not plan on running one) which worked out perfectly.

I have to say though..taking your time when you are bending tubing and checking-rechecking to make sure the measurements are correct before hand makes a world of difference. The transcooler line is 5/16ths diameter and the rubber line is used to reduce engine flex which could weaken the fitting, causing a leak.

I like to think that this accomplishes everything I hoped it would and now simply have to mount the cooler itself.



Now onto the radiator hoses and fuel line.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Chassis Update

The weather this weekend was great. I got to spend a bunch of time on sunday messing around with the brakes, fuel and transmission lines. All this little stuff takes so much time, especially when there isn't anything to reference.

I got the brakes all run..until I get the body back on the frame can I plumb it to the master cylinder.


I am running a stock TH350 automatic trans and the next hurdle is to run the cooler lines. So I fabbed them out of wire I had. Cheap and ease to do. Now I just have to get the pieces, bend them up.



Also, the next issue I am having is how to run the electric fuel pump. It is a red holley high flow pump and the directions state to mount it lower than the gas tank and use gravity to feed it, as it is designed to push, not pull. WELL...my car isn't designed to allow for that, unless I mount it three feet ahead of the tank.


Any ideas are welcome.

Also here is the current picture as it sits
.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Front Suspension - Done

Well, as with most things so far in this project..I have taken too long to do the little things.

So this past weekend, the weather was great and I got the front shock mounts relocated, squared up and welded in. Not an extremely huge ordeal, but still a good exercise in measuring, planning and execution.

Though not "pretty" they will be plenty functional. The kicker is that the shocks are are the stock pieces just moved.