Radarsonwheels

Don’t forget the swamp cooler! I do like the visor look though. I have an ‘86 ramcharger and I love the way it looks. It’s festooned with every JC whitney accessory available at that time- 4” lift, deezee steps, grab handles, sun visor, tube grille, push bar, spotlights. If you bought a modern truck and stuck all that stuff on there with 3m double sided tape I’d think it was pretty silly but for a vintage period correct ‘day 2’ mild custom look I think the accessorized look can be cool as long as it’s tasteful. I also like the old man from the lowrider scene type car where instead of an 80s malibu on airbags (yuck) or a 64 impala with crazy paint and hydraulics (cool!) you’ll see a 1940s car with perfect show paint and every chrome accessory, all polished like mirrors. I’m a sucker for that! How’s it go- a seat for every butt? Or without bad taste we couldn’t have good taste? Anyway, post up pics of what you end up doing!

More adventures in EFI tuning! Now that cold weather hit and my louvered hood is also letting the engine bay run much cooler I have started having an off idle hesitation during normal or heavier acceleration. I suspected the weather change plus the sticky tires were contributing to the problem- before not only was the motor seeing much less dense air but the motor couldn't really hesitate when the tires were up in smoke at 1/2 throttle. That diagnosis made sense but I was also nervous that maybe there was some kind of problem rearing its head. The cool thing is that I can datalog trips in the truck onto an SD card in the EFI handheld controller/dash and review them in excruciating detail. So Thanksgiving morning I drove to meet a buddy at the outdoor range for our annual celebration of freedom and logged the trip home for viewing while all the ladies talked about lady stuff after dinner. We had my wife, daughter, mom, and mother in law there. At least the dogs are males! I'm not a sports guy but I was happy to do dishes and escape to the laptop to view my log. In front of a nice fire with a full belly! I thankfully didn't find evidence of any problems based on all the live sensors during the drive but I was able to see lean spikes after throttle application off idle. I flashed the current tune to the SD card, brought it inside and boosted up the acceleration enrichment based on TPS Rate Of Change. Basically the computer version of an accelerator pump. It took a few tries to make me happy, tuning on the laptop, flashing the new tune to the ECU, and datalogging a trip around the block terrorizing my neighborhood. Now it has a rich spike on heavy throttle but no bog so I might tighten it up more but I don't think it'll foul plugs or anything. When I put on the drag radials I was pleasantly surprised that they almost dead hooked on the street. Well- it turns out that it wasn't a dead hook it was just the world's shortest lean spike/hesitation with a smooth recovery. Now the truck still hooks really well with the sticky DOT drag radial tires but it is back to laying stripes in 1st gear with any more than a 1/2 throttle stab. She really rips lips now!!! Happy late Thanksgiving fellas I hope you're all enjoying your families and your trucks. It's supposed to snow later tonite so no truck fun for a couple days at least. Maybe I'll get my heater re-cored and adapt a 12v fan into it soon.

The rolled edges were worth the trouble of making bucks. Great job man it looks like it’s supposed to be that way.

Sort of. I made a new plate to hold some autometer stuff. The dash behind it needed some trimming but their biggest white face tach was very close to fitting in our speedo cutout on the right side.

I drilled the spindles on my 3/4 ton on the truck. When I did my kingpins a few years later I had them rippin hot and my 12 ton press still couldn’t budge em. I ended up taking them to a machine shop to have them changed and align honed. They said it was a b itch to press out the old ones and they have a kabillion ton press. Anyway, I bought some 37/64” or whatever the size was to drill and tap my spindles and worked my way up through smaller drill bits first, sitting indian style with a dewalt 18v drill. They came out just fine and the rusty hope conversion was nice. I think I already had 16”s on? Funny I had two or three different offsets of wheel but never knew for years because I never had more than one wheel off at a time! A set of american racing ‘soft 8’ 15” steel wheels looked stockish and fit great. She’s gonna be a nice truck

Bill, I love it! Your truck is so clean and nice with just some subtle custom details. You went exactly opposite from oil soup and my louvers but with similar size and spacing. It looks like you deleted your cowl vent so I guess there is no worry about dumping heat into the “AC” system! I have seen some yarn/wind tests that show more of a circulation out in the front louvers and in the rears than a straight exhausting of hot air. Any worry about water pooling in your air cleaner lid and possible hydro-lock after a torrential downpour? Do you have a link to a build thread or anything? Thanks for showing the pics!

Wow I went camping this week and just got home and found all this good stuff to read. Lots of good back and forth about values, and some great nuggets of model year info, accessories, and desirability. I know from messing with cars and bikes for 20 years that driveline work is fun and can be cheap or expensive depending on what you are trying to do, but body work, chrome, and paint can be crazy money and you’ll never see it come back in the sale value unless it’s a rare car or something. So here’s the skinny- I have a 2010 harley road king that I bought to ride after a nasty accident in 2012- months in bed bla bla bla. Super easy bike to ride while healing up. I was always a shovelhead guy. I like building motors, playing mr. Potato head with the old 4-spd frames and making choppers, baggers, bobbers, hotrods. The roadking is perfect but I don’t put miles on it much any more and have another older bike that’s more fun around town and more interesting as a mechanic (not all computerized everything) The guy with the plymouth is interested in a trade. I really want a panhead but people think they’re gold now. The roadking value (spent 12k used at the dealer, now worth more like $6500 if I want to sell it) is in the toilet and I want to leverage it into a toy that is fun to maintain, will hold a value over 5k and doesn’t start out as a project. I am going to go look at this car. The big plusses for me are the straight body, decent paint, chrome and interior, and suicide doors. If the title is good and proper and everything works, and there are no rust bubbles or rot around the wheel wells- y’know like a really nice survivor- then I will strongly consider doing a trade. He’s gotta see the bike too but a late model harley is kind of a known quantity and mine is garage kept and clean. The cool thing is that even though I really dig mopar engineering history, old cars, and driving 3 on the tree, it is not a rare or valuable car. I don’t care so much about what it’s worth and I will get the enjoyment of being transported to another time in a classy ride. I’ve had uglier old cars too- an UGLY 49 packard with a gorgeous straight 8 that I sold, and my current hotrod 54 dodge pickup which is a great looking design but in sorry shape. I actually really like the looks of this car and the average dummy doesn’t know the difference between a caddy and a packard from the 40s. The car has nice lines, a driveline I’m familiar with, and plenty of room. BUT I can’t lose my a$$ on this. I realize my harley has depreciated and that’s ok. I rode the hell out of it and it doesn’t owe me anything. If this car is really clean and pretty I can teach my wife how to drive it and my commute is short so I can drive it around a lot if I want not just sundays. Anyway any more info is totally welcome- sounds like it looks like a later example so I’ll want to check out the title and vin plate for sure In the meantime here’s a couple more pictures

All great info here! So probably 218 L6 w 3 on the tree, dashboard pushbutton start, single pot master of course, IFS with super soft control arm mounted shocks, 90hp but closer to 200 tq? My 230 was actually pretty great on power, smooth, and super reliable. The suicide doors are definitely a selling point for me- if it’s gotta be a 4 door thats the classiest option. The price guides say 7k ish for a good example. So if it’s a clean original driver it’s in the ballpark. If it’s got original paint with no or very little issues and no rot I might grab it. I need another car like a hole in my head but whatever!

Howdy! I’ve been posting on the truck side here for a bit but I always loved old cars. I am going to look at a 1942 4 door plymouth deluxe next weekend and I don’t know a lot about them. I had a ‘54 C-series 3/4 ton with a 230 & 3 on the tree and I’m a decent mechanic but I never messed with one of these cars. I can swap in driveline parts if need be and even do a front clip or whatever but I would really like to just maintain the car and drive it. The body and interior look really straight and nice with (original?!) black or dark blue paint and the stock gut, nice chrome. A really nice car. Are there any dealbreakers with these? Parts that go bad and are unobtainable? I don’t even know it they are IFS or straight axle. Any gotchas to look for? He’s got it valued at 7k which seems cheap for a car with great paint and body but it is a 4 door so I dunno... I am hungry for ANY info- good, bad, whatever you all know or have to warn me about or brag about. Thanks! radar

Are you sticking with pedals that do a rainbow arc down into the floor or swapping to swinging pedals? I had trouble getting enough throw on my brakes after swapping to a dual pot master. I either had good feel with a smaller bore MC but not enough travel unless the pedal was really high at rest, or a rock hard pedal that wouldn’t apply enough psi even standing on it. I ended up extending the bottom half of the stock linkage pivot which increased the throw but then the MC had to be angled up because the pushrod was now lower. In retrospect I should have made an adapter to lower the MC but after all that messing around without satisfaction I threw an aftermarket swinging pedal on the firewall with a small diameter dual diaphram power booster. I don’t know how much vacuum a diesel makes but maybe you want manual brakes for simplicity? Doing discs? There is a lot of math you can do mixed with trying to match OEM wheel and MC volumes but I always end up having to try a couple different masters until I’m happy. My current squared off firewall with increased downward travel allowed by relieving the toe board ended up perfect for resting pedal height, pedal effort, and travel. I’m sure you will get it right! What is that square wood box and metal frame you’re making in that last post? Probably obvious once you say but I don’t know what it is?

Got a nice scare this morning- after my first blast downtown and back on 95 in the '54 the other day I pulled the valve covers to check the rocker shafts. The cork VC gaskets are glued to the covers but I managed to fold over the rear corner of the driver's side re-installing and hadn't driven it more than moving it up in the driveway since. It’s easy to screw up because the rear of the valve cover is deep in the firewall. Well today I got down the hill and around the corner before oil started flowing and the exhaust got nice and toasty- smoke started pouring out pretty good. Jumped out, killed the battery, looked for fire, and saw oil dripping on the pipe- like a lot. Let it cool off, limped home, leaked a pint in the driveway on shutdown, went to buy a jug of fresh step. Luckily I didn't torque it hard enough to rip or badly fold the gasket so I put it back on properly located, and drove to work an hour late. It wasn’t really such a big deal but thankful it didn't catch fire and I was close to home! Hotrodding is always an adventure.

Man that thing is straight out of a cheech and chong movie I love it. Not drugged out but kinda that 70s custom van era. I like those movies for the comedy but they are also usually set in seedier neighborhoods where people were still driving 50s cars not as antiques or restoration projects for the well heeled but as what they could afford. These were only 20 year old hoopties back in the 70s. I can see somebody getting their hands on your panel truck and having big dreams of airbrushed wizards and porthole windows but only getting as far as junkyard taillights and a big chrome nerf bar. Anyway if it was mine that stuff would have to go but I appreciate the wacky story this thing would tell if it could say where it’s been. It looks like a great start to a project- thanks for sharing and I would love to hear what you have planned. radar

That would make sense. If somebody hung something like keys off it the wear pattern would be below the elbow not above. Maybe one of those bus driver fans?

Yup firewall fabrication is fun and time consuming. I used posterboard and blue tape to make it then tried to bend and fold the least amount of single chunks as possible. The patterns ended up being made of lots of blue tape and facets but the same technique works for traditional radiused tunnels. Also the toe boards definitely help with airflow out of the engine bay but give you less brake and clutch pedal travel. I think my 90° drivers footwell vs the stockish angled passenger toe board contributed to my (now past tense after louvering the hood) heat soak problems. The quick and dirty black paintjob definitely cooked off the driver’s rear hood much more than the passenger side. It’s looking good man don’t lose momentum! Radar

* residual pressure valves keep the drums from retracting the prop valve keeps the rears from locking up 1st

Is that the classic screamin jimmy from the 70s big rigs of my youth? Or I guess it’s before the 71 series deals?

Wow that truck has open headers or a hellified exhaust leak. 5 speed 4x4 v8 sounds like a LOT of fun. I really like how our trucks look sat up on a 4x4 chassis too- the exact opposite of the lowered deal I built out of mine. You goin for mild monster truck?

The old style motors can go 100,000 or 150,000 and still give decent service if they got regular oil changes and the carb wasn’t rich washing down the cylinders & rings. If the plugs run clean it’s cheaper to use a little oil (like a quart every 500 or 1k) than it is to rebuild. Or they can die a sludgy hot death at 50k. Depends on the quality of the build and the tune and maintenance. To figure out what you wanna do pull the sparkplugs. If the are the labrea tarpits you will need valve seals, or rings & pistons or both. The next check is compression- if one cyl is way down or they are all way down you will want to pull the motor and rebuild. A compression tester is cheap and easy to use. A fancier test is a leakdown but you need more tools. A mainfold vacuum check on a running motor can also tell you a lot- it could be down in general or exibit specific symptoms like a flutter. You can look that up online or in a haynes manual. In general though these are pretty simple and tough motors. I rebuilt the 318 in my 86 ramcharger in the chassis a couple years ago. New reman heads were like $300 from rockauto and I also did a mild cam & lifters, high volume oil pump, 4 barrel aluminum intake with edelbrock 650 carb, and ceramic coated headers for around $1000. The intake and headers were picked up for cheap off craigslist. I dropped the oil pan and checked a couple bottom bearing shells- they looked perfect so I torqued them back on for another 200K of service. It was kind of a home brewed tow package and gave a slight but noticeable bump in performance for the little v8 in a heavy old battle wagon. In general the 360s were great motors- plenty of torque and potential for pretty good HP with some bolt ons. A stock rebuild is pretty cheap but you can also just grab old ones from the junkyard and beat em till they blow. good luck radar

Unless you were just poking fun at my bling bling 16” front 17” rear rims? In which case I’m totally in on the joke I would rather have 15” wheels all the way around but for $550 and a hour drive I couldn’t say no to somebody’s clean E-body mopar hotrod takeoffs. He even threw in a set of chrome lugnuts with the 5 funky keyed locking ones! And I re-used the rear tires on my mildly rodded 318 ‘73 swinger which should be way less traction challenged. Excuses, excuses. But yeah I have 17s on the rear they look fine but I’d rather have stock hubcaps on sneaky wide steelies. I won’t apologize for the DOT drag radials though they are amazing I can’t believe the traction on the street

Well you can put a 36” tire on a 15” rim or a 20” tire on there I guess so unless you are running the steel rim on railroad tracks or something I don’t understand the question. The chart tells you what gear to use so the transmission can spin the square drive cable from the tailshaft to the dashboard the proper speed so the odometer and speedometer will read properly. Here’s as much of the one I used as I can fit in a square pic. If you want more info just google “727 speedometer gear chart”

I consulted the mopar 727 transmission chart- tire diameter vs rear gear ratio, and looked up my buying history from around this time last year. Looks like I had a 32 tooth speedometer drive gear installed which checked out just about perfect for the nitto 255/50-17 tires and made the autometer analog speedo read the same as the GPS speedo on my phone. Welp now that I have 28” tall tires that’s out the window. Apparently the new setup calls for a 31 tooth gear. Hopefully it won’t be too cold out when it comes in- I just ordered one off ebay tonite.

If you have an iphone just download the diptic app. Crop the photos into their single square or multi-image layouts right from your iphone photo gallery, then save them with the smallest option from the app. Then when you are posting here just select the new saved version from your photos and this site will throw them up here for us all to see.

You could always go to a cable throttle and do away with all the rods and bell cranks?

I had a repop weber 32/36 on my 230. It looked good and ran GREAT. The whole multiple carb thing is awesome for a period correct souped up deal. I dunno if anybody was hopping up their work truck though? Especially the dodges back then you would just buy the next bigger model if you needed more power. Whichever way makes you happiest is the way to go for sure. I know I do stuff the hard way sometimes because it’s more fun or there is pride or ego involved in doing or having something nobody else does. Post some pics of whatever you do- I’d love to see!