Slow, Driving Rustoration 1972 Dart
I ended up going with the rubber style expansion plugs. With the motor in the car and working from my back on a creeper I just couldn't get the brass plugs installed. I filled it up with coolant and let it sit for 24 hours to make sure they weren't leaking. I wasn't really worried about that though. The rubber plugs went in tight even before I tightened them.
Onto buttoning every thing up.
The transmission slid back onto the locating pins super easy and this time I marked the flex plate/torque convertor bolt so there was no mystery about getting it in the right position.
The problem came when I went to reconnect the linkage.
This bolt:
It had come out really hard when I was taking it off so I decided to run the bolt through without the bracket with some PB blaster to clean up the threads. I got it in with a gap about the thickness of the bracket when "SNAP" the welded nut in the frame rail was no longer welded.
This was a problem.
First I tried for almost an hour wedge a screwdriver against the nut inside the frame rail while I tried to loosen the bolt. This was futile. Finally I grabbed a sawzall and proceeded to vibrate the bolt into submission. If you've ever had to saw something that is moving you know how this went. After about 10 minutes it finally gave up and the bolt head was on the floor and I had a nice hole in the frame rail where the nut had been.
Next I had to figure out a new mounting method. I decided a carriage bolt from the outside of the frame rail would work. I carefully calculated where the outside hole needed to be to line up with the inner mounting hole. Just kidding I eyeballed it. I was about a 1/4" off so I called that a success. I'll ***probably*** weld the head of the carriage bolt to the frame rail someday.
One other mess up was that I had set the radiator cap in the spot of the core support where the hood latch latches. I then forgot that and shut the hood. The radiator cap did not enjoy this. It was in there really good too. It was pretty mangled by the time I got it out. I got to O'reilly's 10 minutes before they closed last night.
I gave it a road test, got it up to operating temperature and parked it. I'll have to get a ride to my brother-in-law's house tomorrow to return the Dart home.
I feel pretty good that the Dart was only down for 9 days all things considered,
I ended up going with the rubber style expansion plugs. With the motor in the car and working from my back on a creeper I just couldn't get the brass plugs installed. I filled it up with coolant and let it sit for 24 hours to make sure they weren't leaking. I wasn't really worried about that though. The rubber plugs went in tight even before I tightened them.
Onto buttoning every thing up.
The transmission slid back onto the locating pins super easy and this time I marked the flex plate/torque convertor bolt so there was no mystery about getting it in the right position.
The problem came when I went to reconnect the linkage.
This bolt:
It had come out really hard when I was taking it off so I decided to run the bolt through without the bracket with some PB blaster to clean up the threads. I got it in with a gap about the thickness of the bracket when "SNAP" the welded nut in the frame rail was no longer welded.
This was a problem.
First I tried for almost an hour wedge a screwdriver against the nut inside the frame rail while I tried to loosen the bolt. This was futile. Finally I grabbed a sawzall and proceeded to vibrate the bolt into submission. If you've ever had to saw something that is moving you know how this went. After about 10 minutes it finally gave up and the bolt head was on the floor and I had a nice hole in the frame rail where the nut had been.
Next I had to figure out a new mounting method. I decided a carriage bolt from the outside of the frame rail would work. I carefully calculated where the outside hole needed to be to line up with the inner mounting hole. Just kidding I eyeballed it. I was about a 1/4" off so I called that a success. I'll ***probably*** weld the head of the carriage bolt to the frame rail someday.
One other mess up was that I had set the radiator cap in the spot of the core support where the hood latch latches. I then forgot that and shut the hood. The radiator cap did not enjoy this. It was in there really good too. It was pretty mangled by the time I got it out. I got to O'reilly's 10 minutes before they closed last night.
I gave it a road test, got it up to operating temperature and parked it. I'll have to get a ride to my brother-in-law's house tomorrow to return the Dart home.
I feel pretty good that the Dart was only down for 9 days all things considered,