Turbo 383 in a A-body Barracuda

leathermandan said
well finally pulled out the heater unit to see were the water is coming from and found out the fire wall around the heater vent is rooted out reached my hand up there and pulled leaves and dirt out for about 30 minutes all around the drain will have to be replaced on both sides it will be a lot of fun welding in there also drilled out all the spot welds on what was left of the passenger inner fender and found out the fire wall had several rooted spots under it so will have to replace some of the fire wall in this area also, going to order new axles this weekend so can covert over to 4.5x5 lug pattern got to looking at my jeep and think i might be able to use a set of rear drums off it on the new axles and be able to use the stock cuda inner brakes

Pics??

I would like to see this! I am sure I would have seen this when the dash and windshield was out and replacing the wiper pivots. Now that you mention it, I now remember the foam gasket around the top of the heater box was bad where it met the lower cowl/fresh-air duct, that slipped my mind during the hustle to get it running. I think I would have notice this BAD rot you are talking about when I noticed the bad gasket! Sorry to say, I never pulled the heater box out nor the driverside fresh-air vent. I assumed the prior owner would have seen this as well since he used Por-15 up the firewall after he replaced the front floor pans. Guess not!:oops:

Again, I never got the chance to leak test anything! It was always garaged from the day I got it and I never drove it in bad weather. Another reason I decided to let it go since it would have been left out in the weather. It is a 45 year old Mopar that is notorious for rot!!

All I can say, at least you got another rare "H" code Cuda that you were so serious about getting! If I would have known about these issues I would have told you for sure! At least it didn't ruin all the electronics mounted under the heater box!!! I would have never have mounted them there if I knew there was a leak. Sorry to hear this. Thats a damn shame!