The Brick, 1972 Dodge Dart Custom

6/17/10
Transmission woes
Well, forward progress is continuing on the Brick......

The evening in Gene's driveway was amazing. I had honestly forgot how much fun it was to wrench with the OFB.
We did a quick underside inspection of the car. The upper and lower ball joint boots are shot, but I'll swap them out when I get to changing out the front end for disc brakes. We pulled the front shocks to replace them. Under the light scaled rust on the shocks, we discovered that they were from a Kmart Car Care Center.....as car as I know, the Kmart Car Care centers were all converted to Penske Service Centers in late 1999, and have all been either closed or changed to Sears Car Care centers. So that means the Shocks were at least 10 years old. The rear shocks were Monroe Gas O Matics. Swapped them all out for Gabriel Heavy Duty front and rear.

Working on the trans pan, we found that the bolts were just finger tight. got a good 4 turns on each one and then set them to the proper torque. Trans leak issue resolved? Found out later - not so much. Either leaking from the Speedo gear housing or neutral backup switch or maybe even the front pump seal. The front pump seal is most likely NOT the issue as the fluid is pooling at the back drivers side, more than likely, it's the speedo gear housing. It's cool cause it is just an o-ring. Swapping out the o ring on the neutral safety switch too, just to be sure. Found that the metal trans cooler lines were resting right on the crankshaft pully, so did a minor bend job, and then wire tied them to the radiator -k member support. Waiting on the transmission mount to make it here so I can get that installed after the leak issue is resolved. Going poly on that one.....

Wiggle test on the driveshaft showed that there was some pretty significant play in the U-joints. Not surprised because they are probably 38 years old. Grabbed a set of new ones to go in once I get the trans leak issue fixed.

We tried our damnedest to get that fuel tank out, but no dice for us. No air tools really eats when trying to get it all loose and free. Good thing my mother in law's mechanic, Paul, works on classic cars. He was able to get it down and swap it out before working on the AC for me. He is finishing the R134 conversion and getting it all charged up for me.

Should have it back this weekend so I can get it back to Kaiser, the paint guy, for the last 2 coats of black primer and ghost flames.