65 Barracuda daily driver
I worked on quite a few things on the Barracuda. This was one of my favorites - only one of the three bulbs in the gauge cluster was working, which meant you couldn't really read any of the gauges. I took the cluster out, cleaned everything and changed the (LED) bulbs, but that only fixed the right side. Then I swapped out the bulb holder and that fixed it! Now I just need to find a bulb that makes the tach match the rest...
A couple of weeks ago one of the arms of the quarter window regulator on one side broke. Both sides were always poorly adjusted and on the other side one of the bolts broke probably 10+ years ago. I got a set of regulators on ebay and fixed both sides now. One side is near perfect now, but I might need to make another adjustment on the other. It's way better than it's ever been. I took the car to a coin-op car wash and for the first time there was no water coming in through those windows. I was trying to find the rubber spacers for the windows, but couldn't find them other in a whole set that I didn't need, so I realized that 3/8" fuel hose works and is even a touch tighter than the original.
I had been aware that the manifold vacuum was too low, but hadn't figured out why. I finally sprayed some carb cleaner around the base and sure enough there's a leak around the base. Strangely enough when you install an Edelbrock Performer carb on a Edelbrock Performer intake you need a gasket, a square bore adapter plate and another gasket under the carb. I changed the bottom gasket and sprayed it with some high heat copper spray, but the leak remained. Apparently I had gotten the wrong insulated Edelbrock gasket (#9265). The Edelbrock #9266 is made for the Performer and I guess you can eliminate the adapter with that one. They're 30 bucks though, and even though they are supposed to be reusable, I don't think they really are. I'll take the insulated one off and replace it with a simple gasket. Really just to see if that's the issue with the vacuum leak. I also read it could be the throttle body shaft, which I guess would be harder to fix. We'll see.
Another issue is that there's still a ATF leak. I figured out that it's the neutral safety switch. It would have been nice if the guy who rebuilt the transmission had replaced that gasket too... I already ordered one and I still have another switch from the slant 6 transmission. And luckily the new pan has a drain plug, which makes draining the ATF a whole lot easier. Unfortunately the 2-1/2" TTI exhaust pipe makes it near impossible to get to the switch, so I might have to drop the exhaust a bit. I'd like to avoid that because it's pretty well adjusted right to where it doesn't touch anything, but it'll probably need to happen. It'd be worth it if it finally fixed the last leak...
I worked on quite a few things on the Barracuda. This was one of my favorites - only one of the three bulbs in the gauge cluster was working, which meant you couldn't really read any of the gauges. I took the cluster out, cleaned everything and changed the (LED) bulbs, but that only fixed the right side. Then I swapped out the bulb holder and that fixed it! Now I just need to find a bulb that makes the tach match the rest...
A couple of weeks ago one of the arms of the quarter window regulator on one side broke. Both sides were always poorly adjusted and on the other side one of the bolts broke probably 10+ years ago. I got a set of regulators on ebay and fixed both sides now. One side is near perfect now, but I might need to make another adjustment on the other. It's way better than it's ever been. I took the car to a coin-op car wash and for the first time there was no water coming in through those windows. I was trying to find the rubber spacers for the windows, but couldn't find them other in a whole set that I didn't need, so I realized that 3/8" fuel hose works and is even a touch tighter than the original.
I had been aware that the manifold vacuum was too low, but hadn't figured out why. I finally sprayed some carb cleaner around the base and sure enough there's a leak around the base. Strangely enough when you install an Edelbrock Performer carb on a Edelbrock Performer intake you need a gasket, a square bore adapter plate and another gasket under the carb. I changed the bottom gasket and sprayed it with some high heat copper spray, but the leak remained. Apparently I had gotten the wrong insulated Edelbrock gasket (#9265). The Edelbrock #9266 is made for the Performer and I guess you can eliminate the adapter with that one. They're 30 bucks though, and even though they are supposed to be reusable, I don't think they really are. I'll take the insulated one off and replace it with a simple gasket. Really just to see if that's the issue with the vacuum leak. I also read it could be the throttle body shaft, which I guess would be harder to fix. We'll see.
Another issue is that there's still a ATF leak. I figured out that it's the neutral safety switch. It would have been nice if the guy who rebuilt the transmission had replaced that gasket too... I already ordered one and I still have another switch from the slant 6 transmission. And luckily the new pan has a drain plug, which makes draining the ATF a whole lot easier. Unfortunately the 2-1/2" TTI exhaust pipe makes it near impossible to get to the switch, so I might have to drop the exhaust a bit. I'd like to avoid that because it's pretty well adjusted right to where it doesn't touch anything, but it'll probably need to happen. It'd be worth it if it finally fixed the last leak...
