First Car -- 1968 Barracuda Notchback
Due to life and high school, I didn't get much of a chance to work on my Barracuda for most of Junior year. Not having a garage space for it also made things difficult, but when spring came I started to get her ready for the summer!
Once it was nice outside I started on replacing the master cylinder, and ran into a SNAFU with the driver's side front bleeder screw. It had snapped off somehow and I couldn't get a socket or a wrench on it, so I had to pull the wheel cylinder out and get a new bleeder screw for it. Which, when I took the hub apart, revealed that the bearing grease I used to repack the front bearings wasn't high temp enough, which meant replace the front wheel bearing again. Gotta love, it right? Here it was blown apart in the driveway:
After a couple days of cursing in the sun, I got it back together and it was off to fun times around town! That summer (summer of 2017) I was lucky and blessed enough to get a job at a local, mom-and-pop restoration shop called KJ's Auto Restoration in Anchorage. It was one of the best jobs I've had, aside from the internship I had this past summer. I can share some photos from that job if y'all would like! We did some pretty cool stuff. However, I was so busy working on other people's old cars that I didn't have much time or energy to work on my own. I did what I had to do to the car to keep it running, and that was pretty much it. The parts accumulation, on the other hand, did continue... I decided I wanted to have three pedals (and an overdrive) in my car, so I started looking for A833 overdrives.
I found one for $250 a couple hours south of me, so I hopped in my truck with my buddy and picked it up on a road trip! I took a look inside it and it seemed to be in okay shape. The guy I bought it from rebuilt it in 1992 (he said) and kept it stored inside. The brass synchros were mint, but the rear bearing was making noise. I didn't rebuild it until the following winter, but here's some pictures of when I got it! It's a 1976 unit (I think) from either a Dart or Volare, not sure which but it should fit in my car. I did end up having to buy a smallblock OD bellhousing but it should be good to go!
Due to life and high school, I didn't get much of a chance to work on my Barracuda for most of Junior year. Not having a garage space for it also made things difficult, but when spring came I started to get her ready for the summer!
Once it was nice outside I started on replacing the master cylinder, and ran into a SNAFU with the driver's side front bleeder screw. It had snapped off somehow and I couldn't get a socket or a wrench on it, so I had to pull the wheel cylinder out and get a new bleeder screw for it. Which, when I took the hub apart, revealed that the bearing grease I used to repack the front bearings wasn't high temp enough, which meant replace the front wheel bearing again. Gotta love, it right? Here it was blown apart in the driveway:
After a couple days of cursing in the sun, I got it back together and it was off to fun times around town! That summer (summer of 2017) I was lucky and blessed enough to get a job at a local, mom-and-pop restoration shop called KJ's Auto Restoration in Anchorage. It was one of the best jobs I've had, aside from the internship I had this past summer. I can share some photos from that job if y'all would like! We did some pretty cool stuff. However, I was so busy working on other people's old cars that I didn't have much time or energy to work on my own. I did what I had to do to the car to keep it running, and that was pretty much it. The parts accumulation, on the other hand, did continue... I decided I wanted to have three pedals (and an overdrive) in my car, so I started looking for A833 overdrives.
I found one for $250 a couple hours south of me, so I hopped in my truck with my buddy and picked it up on a road trip! I took a look inside it and it seemed to be in okay shape. The guy I bought it from rebuilt it in 1992 (he said) and kept it stored inside. The brass synchros were mint, but the rear bearing was making noise. I didn't rebuild it until the following winter, but here's some pictures of when I got it! It's a 1976 unit (I think) from either a Dart or Volare, not sure which but it should fit in my car. I did end up having to buy a smallblock OD bellhousing but it should be good to go!
