I picked up another keeper...

71ChargerRT

71ChargerRT

Well-known member
Found it on Craigslist while looking to sell a trailer.

Couple pics...




This is the worst of the body damage on the entire car, at least the part that I can't unbolt and replace...



The only rust on the entire car is a quarter sized spot on the trunk rail and the passenger front floor is mostly gone, the torsion bar mount is rock solid though.

I went to a semi-local JY on Monday and scored a manual steering box, later A body upper control arms and center link and a decent deck lid for $125. I'll be heading back to grab a set of manual trans pedals, rear bumper, manual steering column, a 360 out of a motorhome and hopefully a fender, filler panel between the grille and bumper and front bumper over the next few weeks.

Plans call for a Ferd Exploder 8.8 complete with 31 spline axles, 3.73's and a LSD, yes a Ferd rear, it is the same width as a '66-67 B body and complete disc to disc is about $175 out the door. I saw a 2.76 dog-leg 8-1/4 for $200, and A body 8-3/4's are going for 2-3 times what I paid for the whole car! Speaking of which, I sold a non operational riding mower and an arc welder, also of unknown operational status, both of which I got for helping a friend, for $500, which I in turn gave to his neighbor for the car.
 
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8.8" Ford? :bwuhaha: Rice Krispies make all the same noises for about $4/box. The best part? They offer the same improvement in braking performance!
 
For the price these nutjobs are asking for used 8-3/4 I can toss a few more bucks in and have a custom Dana 60 put together.

You must remember this is the land of mostly rust-free cars so our parts cars make it up y'alls way to be used for parts or re-body projects. I could hit CTC Auto Ranch (check them out online) and if they have what I need, and you can get past their attitudes, I could literally buy a brand new Dana for it.

The 8.8 will hold up long enough, and if not I'll buy another and still be way ahead of the game. Besides, it's a temporary fix to get something on the road.
 
Better buy a master bearing and clutch kit for that 8.8 if it has more then 50,000 miles on it.
 
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Should I start a go fund me account so I can get y'all to fund my 8-3/4 build? I would much rather keep it all Mopar, my personal wallet is not in tune with that at present.
 
Diplomat_Wagon said:
Better buy a master bearing and clutch kit for that 8.8 if it has more then 50,000 miles on it.
Click to expand...
Don't forget the new axle shafts! Ask the man for Dorman numbers 630-229 (left) and 630-231 (right).

If Dorman makes a replacement, you know the factory part is garbage! :D
 
Anyhow, the laundry list of options on this baby are as follows, I'll get a fender tag pic later, but it is a leaning tower of power, backed up by a sissymatic, power steering, 4 wheel, manual drums, AC and dual outside mirrors. It was a pretty shade of B7 blue with a B7 interior.

The door panels are really nice, but the seat covers and headliner are shot, the rubber floor mat, unfortunately, is torn where the floor rotted through. I hope I can duct tape it on the under side when I replace the floor pan.


From the info I received from the previous owner, he owned it for about 3 years or so, he bought it from a buddy that owns a tow truck service. That gentleman got it from a self-storage place. The story he got was a young lady received it from her grandmother when she passed, the girl, early 20's, wanted nothing to do with the old car and put it in storage, paid a couple months and just left it.
 
That all depends on IF the axles chipped apart and IF the side gears are OK. Being an LSD diff that makes the chances higher. For some reason the open diffs last longer. We don't bother fixing them at work we just replace them with a locally sourced rebuilt unit as 9 times out of 10 the used ones from the wreckers went there for that same reason.

GoFundMe? That's for lazy people. :D
 
hell find a "small" 8 3/4 b body housing(i think i have 2 or 3) and axles..everything else you SHOULD have or can get easy right?....or if you want something else that will fit that isnt newfangled garbage..look to the 57-59? ford fullsize CARS they are if i recall correctly the narrowest units ford made and are a direct drop into mudstains..and as i recall measureing should be a direct drop into an abody
 
If I were in your shoes, I would make that Valiant run, drive, and stop as cheaply as possible. Assess the bare minimum needed to make it go down the road without killing anyone, add on the parts needed for a tune-up, then get all the parts from the RockAuto discount/clearance items list. Then I'd put it on Craigslist, Facebook sales/Mopar groups for $2,000 OBO and jump on the first guy with $1,200 or more in cash in his pocket. If it's going to cost you more than $200 to repair and tune it, I'd put it on CL/FB as it sits now, asking $1,250 and would take the first offer of $800 or more. No deposits, no holds--bring cash and a trailer, and you'd better be faster than the next guy. Profit from it now, while it's still easy. Give at least half the profit directly to your wife to put toward household expenses. Put the remainder of the profit, plus the original amount you spent on the car, towards the wagon.

I strongly suggest you take this rare opportunity to let your hobby give back to your wife and family. I may be wrong, but if I were a betting man I'd say odds are you need to do this a lot more than you realize... and soon.
 
I appreciate the advice Doc, I know where it comes from. However, we're in a pretty good place financially, meaning we're not ready to retire to Bermuda or anything, but we're on solid footing. The parts for the van from my little incident on Saturday are already on their way here, and I'm trying to find someone to paint it now, without going through the insurance. Hell, this is the first year since I've had kids that the tax return isn't going to pay anything at all, a little to savings, a little to vacation funds and we're buying a pool.

I know now I could flip the car easily, just don't want to.

69, those rears are not readily available, even the old Fords, I went through the Mopar options and the 9" options first, to no avail. I have a C body rear that I can narrow and the axles are those that can be shortened and resplined, so I will be going that route. I am also holding off the spring relocation for now.

To get the car on the road and safe I have everything I need, other than the rear, getting the driveshaft shortened and balanced and shocks.

Besides, I need prove to me that I can actually put a car back together and get it on the road. It may seem petty, but it's necessary.
 
D44 is in! Set it up last night, going to need to look into some new rims, with an 1 - 1-1/2" more backspacing. As they are, even trimming the wheel well lip won't prevent rubbing. I do have a couple pics though!


 
thats a pretty nice fit...pull that from an exploder i guess..since the ranger units flip the perches....alot of those were LSD
 
I yanked the motor and trans, just because I was bored and needed something to do. I dropped it out from the bottom, much easier than I expected. When I lifted it off the K and removed the strut rods both LCA's fell off the pins. I still need to degrease and pressure wash everything, so I'll be getting to that this week. I'm just going to order new adjustable strut rods, new torsion bars and lower control arm bushings, rubber on these correct? I have a manual gear box I'm going to swap in and Jegs sells a quick ratio idler and pitman arm set.
 
once you do one out the bottom as the factory installed them..you start to question why you ever did it any other way

yes rubber on the lca's!!!!!...tho...with the adjustable strut rods you could go polly...the adjustables are a REQUIREMENT only when you want to go polly in the lca's
 
I guess I'm confused as to the reasoning behind, or value of, adjustable strut rods. Is there some need to pull or push the end of the lower control arm forward or back so that its mounting stud is no longer concentric in the bushing's bore? The only change I see happening from such a change is accelerated bushing wear, with a possible compromise in range of motion at the lower ball joint. More stupid "gee whiz" parts from the inane "Pro Touring" crowd? It's money poorly spent, but I bet magazines love it... "It's gooder, you see, because it's adjustable!" Never you mind that there's though there's no spec for actual adjustment since the factory ones are the exact length specified by the guys that actually engineered the suspension. There's absolutely no reason to change the strut rods short of damage or (maybe) dedicated autocrossing, the latter also requiring R-compound tires that will give you less than 1,000 miles of street use with the ridiculous front end setup required. There's simply no reason to change them unless they're damaged somehow. If they are, find a set of good used ones. If you must have the silly "Pro Touring" look, clean them up, paint them red and apply a Hellwig, Procomp, or Alter-K-tion decal to each one. Much cheaper, just as effective, and one less failure point during setup. The factory strut rods are exactly right as-is. None of these aftermarket suspension companies know better than the guys that designed it in the first place. Physics haven't changed since the late '50s, nor has the science of Ackerman geometry. There's much more handling precision and performance to be found by blueprinting the design and parts already in place than wasting money on unnecessary Band-Aids. Ehrenberg has written multiple articles on this exact subject. The Mopar Tech Specials 1-7 collection is now available on CD-ROM, and I highly suggest securing yourself a copy of it if you don't have all the paper originals. There are loads of great information in those Tech Specials, in all areas of Mopar mechanicals.

Put that strut-rod money towards a better rearend, or preferably the Challenger. The Dana 44HD from the '90s Jeeps has almost zero interchangeability with the real Dana 44 of lore and legend, and is notoriously weak. In the Jeep community, the weak-sister Chrysler 8.25" is actually considered an upgrade from it. :doh:

Nobody makes fast-ratio pitman/idler arms for the manual steering box. This example helps illustrate my point about afermarket guys knowing little or nothing. Call Hotchkis or Proforged and ask them which of their fast-ratio Mopar pitman arms fits a 1" sector shaft. I've already had those painful conversations; painful because those guys are like Donald Sutherland at the end of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" pointing at their (flawed) application guide. I even tried explaining to them that the parts won't fit manual cars; same results. They balked--actually got assey--when I asked about whether they'd pay a labor claim when the front-end tech took everything apart, had to put it back together with the old parts when theirs wouldn't fit, then realign my car, but the wrong information still appears. The listed pitman arms only fit power steering boxes, neither variety of which use the manual's 1" diameter sector shaft. Power-steering sectors are either 1.125" or 1.25" in diameter. If you want faster-ratio manual steering, open your wallet wide for the Firm Feel parts or buy the heavy, expensive cast-iron Flaming River box. There's no other recourse.

Why doesn't anyone make them? If I had to hazard a guess, it's probably something to do with liability involving increased loads on the mounting points and/or lower sector housing of the aluminum housing--a consequence that doesn't exist with a faster-ratio internal worm & ball-nut arrangement. I think it's pretty safe to assume that were it both safe and feasible, Firm Feel would make such parts. They don't.
 
doc i was under the impression that "if" you wanted to use poly in the LCA's an adjustable strut rod was required....doesnt that still hold true?..or is it actualy possible to run a poly lca with the stock?...god knows i tryed years ago and deemed it impossible..but that could easily have been wrong lca poly....yes im aware that poly in the lca isnt the best tho unlesss its a track car
 
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