1965 Plymouth Barracuda - 318 MAGNUM V8

[gwmax65]

Hey all! A few weeks ago I bought this beautiful 1965 Plymouth 273 Barracuda from a guy up in Layton. The story from what I gathered about this Mopar is it was supposedly abandoned in the Mojave Desert in California back in 1991. Chuck (previous owner) instantly began restoring her back to life, friends and family helped in most of the restoration, and it turned out beautifully! Although it's not 100% restored, more or less 80-90% there, it's still an eye catcher!

I'm currently awaiting a typed up story from Chuck that will contain everything about the Barracuda from when he first got it to when he sold it.

The 273 in this Barracuda is not original. The original 2bbl 273 was pulled cause it was smoking real bad, and I guess Chuck had another 273 from a '68 Mopar, had it converted to hydraulic lifters, and threw it in. That's a huge plus on my end cause that easily enables me to put a 4bbl intake manifold on it because the intake bolt angle went to the standard LA series bolt angle. '64-'65 the intake bolt angles on 273's were considered 'unique' to their design. Edelbrock made an intake manifold for those very early 273's called the Edelbrock D4B intake manifold. Too bad it's too hard to find a D4B these days, maybe I'm just not looking in the right spot... Anywho, the 273 is running very healthy! Converted the ignition to HEI w/E3 Spark plugs + MSD Street Fire Spark plug wires, and it made a dramatic huge improvement!! A week after I bought it, I took some center lines with the small bolt pattern 5 x 4" and got new tires. Took the 13's off and now running 225/70/14's rear and 195/60/14's on the front.

Recently I've decided to do another Dodge Magnum 318/5.2L build, this time for this '65 Barracuda! When I get around to it, I'll make another thread/log of the 1965 Plymouth Valiant 200 - 318 Magnum V8 that I gave to my brother.

So I'll keep this thread/log updated as much as possible, also have a Facebook Group about this '65 Barracuda, has videos, pics and more!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/935218913219480/

I currently own 2x '65 Barracudas, a '74 Gold Duster, 2001 Dodge Ram 1500 4x4 5.9L Sport, and my daily driver '97 Nissan Sentra... Mopar or No Car!!

 

[gwmax65]

Got my flip top gas cap conversion completed a few days ago! An awesome individual makes an adapter for these types of gas caps so you can adapt them to virtually, any Mopar! Had to drill 3 custom holes to make everything fit + got longer screws.

http://www.fliptopcapadapter.com/

 

[MopaR&D]

Oh man that window tint looks too cool i need to do that to my car... does it block the sun much?

 

[gwmax65]

Oh haha, it doesn't have any aftermarket tint on it. It looks like this cause the picture is enhanced, but it still has a very good factory greenish tint to it without the fancy photo edits. My Barracuda doesn't see the sun much, another reason for the color cause cars like these that sit out side forever baking in the sun can fade away that tint colored layer in the glass. Just lucky I guess!

 

[Abodybomber]

318 /5.2 Magnum swap, makes so much sense here....
, the 5,2 Magnum will lay rubber everywhere stock. Please install it....

 

[gwmax65]

Definitely will get it in soon!! Done one of these before in a '65 Plymouth Valiant 200 that I later gave to my younger brother. Still trying to get him into this stuff and make a thread about his ride! They literally haul @ stock with the edelbrock 7577 airgap intake + 600 cfm edelbrock carb.

 

[gwmax65]

Holy crap it's been nearly a year since I've posted here!? Well... Not much if anything has happened since till the beginning of this month! She's been to a few car shows and it's been real fun! My reverse progressively began to go until one day last month it quit. Still had all gears in drive. I actually was thinking of throwing the magnum in my other '65 blue Barracuda since this 273 was performing so well, guess the trans was saying otherwise. So I pulled the drive train, took the trans to get rebuilt, got it back, now didn't have 1st and still no reverse............... Tried multiple things with the valve body, no go, pulled it out last week in a record 3 hours and this time it didn't fall on my gut and nearly put me in the hospital like the last time when I only removed the transmission from my brother's '65 Valiant's 318 Magnum to replace the front pump seal. So I took it back to my trans guy along with a newer 904 out of a '74 Plymouth Roadrunner, he's gonna throw the new guts from the old crap 904 into the newer 904. Also got a B&M ratchet shifter on its way, done with cables. Hopefully it'll be done by the end of the week, get it back in and start ripping around corners with this Magnum Swap!!

 

[gwmax65]

Gosh! I gotta keep on top of these threads! So got the later 904 rebuilt, installed it w/ 2 jacks & a jack stand, fairly easy actually. Filled it up with ATF+4, worked on installing the B&M Star/Ratchet shifter which wasn't too difficult, the way I went about installing that was I actually had to cut the factory shiftier mount tabs out sadly since the shifter just wouldn't fit with them there... So I grabbed the shifter, positioned it where I wanted, grabbed a long skinny flat blade screw driver, scratched on the trans tunnel through the shifter mounting holes, then dotted the 4 little scratches with a sharpie, and drilled away. The first time was a fail because I didn't realize the shifter wasn't all the way in the park position (as per what the instructions say...) so it was way to close to the dash, re-drilled new holes about 3-4" back, also made sure to check seat movement clearance, and it worked out fine. I barely nicked a weld on the trans tunnel to cross member support, caused a few drill bits to literally explode on that hole... Nevertheless, was able to get 3/4 bolts in, should've installed the shifter before the transmission duh. So there's the 2 factory holes on the trans tunnel close to the firewall for the stock shift cables, pulled those grommets out, tried routing the B&M shift cable there, no go, so I routed it through the 1 hole on the passenger side of the trans tunnel, that worked fairly well, cable's so long I just zip tied it up towards the bell housing in a meticulous fashion, keeping the cable away from exhaust as much as possible, and cut some fuel line, wrapped it around the cable as a heat protector. Never got to installing the cover over the shifter yet, nor the safety neutral switch or reverse lights, think I'm gonna screw the neutral safety, will work on the reverse light switch later on.

Still have yet to knock out the heater valve in the passenger exhaust manifold, not too sure how to approach that other than plasma cut or torch it out, then weld up the 2 small holes, another reason that exhaust manifold isn't painted yet. The 1406 Edelbrock Carb's been running like, eh, lately, go part throttle and it wants to studder, nearly die until it get's past that point of the throttle, rebuilt carb as of 6 months ago, think it could be accelerator pump, maybe needs to be jetted for altitude. Getting a SPECTRE 47608 circular air cleaner soon, only to please the pro flow triangular air cleaner haters... And, I kinda like the look of a circular one better . Happy to finally have a job again, gonna be working on my first '65 Barracuda, getting the 360 Magnum swap going soon, want to try the FiTech EFI out on that 3rd Magnum Swap.

Had a alternator issue a while ago, wasn't charging like it should be around 14.7V, found out 1/3 of the terminals that connect to the diode bank had broken off it's spot weld in the original alternator that came with this car, had to use that alternator cause the new/rebuilt one had stripped out on the belt tension adjuster, so, found another alternator with a decent pulley bearing, since the used original one was going south quickly, actually froze up from heat and smoked the belt for a good 2-3 minutes, that smelled good. Frankensteined an alternator together, using the new guts from the rebuilt alternator, and BAM! No more 12V at idle, 14.7V like it should be, and as high as 15V around 2K+RPM. Also using an electric voltage regulator designed to look like factory.

So when I started driving it around, the shifts on the trans were way off, didn't have enough line pressure, adjustment wasn't set quite right on the kick down rod, so addressed that the best I could, and it shifted when it was supposed to, but not hard enough.. Tried taking the middle rod off, cutting 1" off and re welding it back together since that pivot on later 904's sits at a different height compared to pre '67 transmissions, Found out that there's actually 2 different arm throw-out lengths on the main kick down bracket, guess it's gotta be a '67-up thing since there was a '67 or '68 - 273 in it initially. Disabled the '66 Barracuda to work on the drivetrain, robbed the kick down setup from it, that solved the problem, shifts pretty darn firm! The throw out on the '66 kick down arm is much longer, before I was battling having the previous kick down rod hit the firewall and still not having the proper amount of 1:1 kick down. On the 3rd Magnum Swap I'll be going with a Lokar kick down cable.

Finally figured out how to time off this pro street harmonic balancer, just mark the degree you want and line it up with 0 on the timing mark on the timing cover. Got the timing dialed in, bout 10-12 degrees advanced with the HEI dizzy, need to throw more at it, gotta move all the plug wires 1 over to position the dizzy differently since the cap is so huge, 1/4 of the screw posts, casting of the plastic, running into the firewall, in other words it's maxed out for how I need to turn it till I move the plug wires over. Ratchet shifter working great! Thing that sucks is, when you throw it in ratchet mode, you can't go backwards, and I'm not sure if there's something to adjust on the shifter to make it do that or not, just can only bump it up, 1, 2, & 3.

Had fun wiring my electric choke up... Bought another cheap 12v switch from autozone, tied that in with the choke, 5 amp fused, connected the battery and kept blowing the fuse.. Checked and checked, everything was right. So I bypassed the fuse, as I connected the battery, the light went on, on the switch, choke started getting hot, choke pulled off which was good, so I flipped the switch off and that's when all hell broke lose. Heard a loud POP, smoke at the switch, smoke at the battery terminal, hurried and disconnected it, cut the switch out and threw it on the ground. Apparently the switch was made so badly, it managed to create a dead short as I turned it off, it had done welded itself inside together, terminals nearly melted out of the plastic, so what did I do next... House light switch . I also rewired it through a 5 amp fuse, working with no problems at all, lesson here, don't buy cheap A switches, and DON'T run anything that ain't fused.

Painted the radiator with VHT Gloss Black, looks sooooo good. Been driving it for a bit now, not right now due to snow on the ground, and salty roads here in Utah... I can say now, it isn't the same car as before haha. Running a 2-3ft glass pack for exhaust right now, plan on making my own dual 2 - 1/2" H pipe or maybe X pipe exhaust soon. Rear drivers tire's still rubbing bad against the trim because who ever did the body work did a very poor job on the wheel well flare just on that side, it's conformed way too far in, so gonna remove that trim and shave some metal off + bend it up, should take care of the rubbing issue, so much worse with 4 people sitting in it.

Had to drive with my brother in his '65 Valiant with the first Magnum Swap, side by side, in this '65 Barracuda, they both haul A, and are just about the same in power, so fun! Finally installed the Formula S badges, had to drill new vertical holes since they're '67-up S badges, previous had the pins horizontal. Running the same fuel holley low psi fuel pump from summit racing as the same one on the '65 Valiant, workin' great! Running a 5 amp fuse through that no problem as well. Every now and again if I drive long periods of time and then come, let's say the drive thru, it'll clickitty clack real loud for 20-30 seconds, then go fairly quiet, don't have any padding separating it from the frame to dampen the noise, gonna address that eventually.

So yeah! That's what's going on so far with the Barracuda. I post a lot of stuff on FB and Instagram, you'll see my content on 'A Body Mopar' and 'All 64-66 Cuda' FB. my Instagram's gwcuda65. I also spent a good amount of time typing up a DIY Magnum Swap Article on here a few months ago, check it out!

DIY - MAGNUM SWAP!!

 

[gwmax65]

Few vids of the Barracuda VS Valiant.

 

[318willrun]

Looks like yer hav'n fun!!

 

[gwmax65]

Well, tragedy struck my '65 Barracuda last month... Came home from work around 1AM, not even 10 minutes being back my baby was struck by some dumbass on meth + more. Hit & Run. Caught it on my surveillance camera, here's a link to that vid on my youtube channel + the aftermath.





Called cops, went on a wild goose chase, as well as my father, he caught her eventually, seeing her car abandoned on the side of the road not too far from my place, as she was hiding behind a chain link fence in someone's backyard, dressed in white in plain sight, dispatch arrested her, thankfully has insurance, and also have full coverage on mine. Got 2 cases opened with mine and her insurance, mine got back with me and said here's $5600 as it is totaled, I said hell no, sent a ton of documentation on the car, receipts, pics of what it looked like before, comparables, nada classic values & hagerty values, get an email back 5 days later saying they don't feel like justifying their price, so gotta talk to my agent to see what he can do, still awaiting the other insurance's final estimate, but I'm not taking any less than $15K, $12K deep in this one, plus they've come up significantly in value in the past 3 years. Anyway, that's just a rare update on this thread... Glad I still have my backup blue '65 barracuda, won't let them take my wrecked one cause I want to swap most of everything over. fml...

 

[Tooljunkie]

What a shame.
Insurance needs to cover this.
By no fault of your own, an impaired driver nonetheless, caught red-handed and insured.
I can see this going to court.
Best of luck.
My ‘65 will never be the car you built, that was a nice car.

 

[MonkeyMadness]

Amazed by the rear glass. Thought for sure after seeing the hit it took in the vid that was gone... Sad to see such a nice car totaled like this.
Sorry for your situation... I had kinda the same issue with statefarm. wanted to give me 1200 for my D200 no fault of mine. I had to fight them
took 6 month but in the end I got what it was worth... Good luck and don't let up.. Call them everyday, they're hope you'll give up...