1972 Scamp in New Zealand

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Small update.

Have rebuilt the front Callipers, new pistons and seals. And all painted up!

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Also pulled the PS pump apart ready to take to work to clean up then I’ll re-assemble and modify the pump to reduce the amount of assistance to make it nicer to drive at higher speeds.

Again it feels good to be putting parts back together

also spoke to a local sand blaster and they reckon a couple of hours should get the underbody all finished up so I’m going to make a couple of frames so I can lower the car onto a trailer and take it to be blasted soon.
 
Small update.

Have rebuilt the front Callipers, new pistons and seals. And all painted up!

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Also pulled the PS pump apart ready to take to work to clean up then I’ll re-assemble and modify the pump to reduce the amount of assistance to make it nicer to drive at higher speeds.

Again it feels good to be putting parts back together

also spoke to a local sand blaster and they reckon a couple of hours should get the underbody all finished up so I’m going to make a couple of frames so I can lower the car onto a trailer and take it to be blasted soon.
Looks fantastic!
 
Since my last update I have re-kitted the P/S pump I’ve also shimmed the relief valve to lower the assistance given as the steering was too light at higher road speeds,

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I’ve replaced all the inner and out tie rod ends and the drag link,

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I dropped the block, crank and heads off to my machinist, block had been acid tanked, honed and had the cam bearings replaced. The heads have been checked over, machined, machined to take the valve springs, couple of worn valve guides replaced.

The valve springs turned into a bit of a headache, the double springs supplied with my cam kit ended up having 140lbs of seat pressure which is was too high for a hydraulic flat tappet cam, We ended up ditching the inner spring and shimming the outer to end up with 100lbs seat pressure. A bit annoying but at least it didn’t turn into a major.

Dont have any photos yet as it’s all plastic wrapped as it will be a couple of weeks before I start assembling

slowly coming together, made another couple of orders from rock auto

got a cam thrust plate with a tensioner

got some rubber lower arm inner bushes as apparently the complete polyurethane bush kit I got for the car doesn’t come with them (and no one lists a poly bush for it)

ordered new rad hoses, bypass hose, rear spring shackles (as mine were too rusty) also ordered a starter motor from a 1992 dodge Dakota (factory mini starter)

For now I need to let the bank account recover so ill be working on tidying up the rear suspension mounts and springs.
 
Nice work your doing there as for your bushings use this guys good prices and kitted my dart out with these. Plymouth Scamp 1972 | Energy Suspension Parts

Haha typical, would’ve ordered from them but I had some rubber ones turn up from Rockauto that have been pressed into the arms already, I’m sure the rubber ones will do the job haha
 
Rockauto delivers again. This time I ordered parts Monday. Received them Friday.

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Cant believe how much smaller the later model dodge starter is vs the factory one. Fairly sizeable difference

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still plodding away on cleaning and painting suspension parts and replacing the bushes. No pictures as I’ve not actually finished any this completely yet. And now I’ve run out of etch primer

Got the bill from the machinist for the engine work which ended up being a reasonable amount more that planned (there was extra work done to justify it) which has completely drained the bank account. Also my headers are in the country now so just waiting for them to clear customs etc, all in all still chipping away at it.
 
Not only smaller but it has 2.5 hp compared to 1.6 hp on that 25 lb dog you took out. Works so much better with headers too. You will hear the difference as it motors the engine over with authority, and doesnt sound like a coffee can full of gravel like the old one did when turning it over
 
Been a while since and update,

headers turned up, pretty happy with them considering how cheap they were to buy and ship to NZ,

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started and finished de-burring the valley (what a crap job to do)

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next up was to clean it all down to get rid of and filings from the de-burr and to get rid of any solvents/etc from the machine shop, picked up a bottle brush for getting into all the little holes etc and grabbed a tube of engine assembly lube,

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Found a perfect use for the shower in the garage

then started to assemble the bottom end,

fitted new Clevite crank bearings

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fitted the new rear main seal and crank,

put new Sealed power big end bearings in the old ones had seen better days,

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then fitted new Mahle piston rings and dropped the pistons back in,

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All in all a productive night

after training on Wednesday I should get the cam in and timed up. Then I can slap the rest of it together,


also I still have under seal to scrape, but I’m being a slacker and have left it for a while
 
Ended up not going to training tonight so decided to get the cam installed and degree’d

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found TDC, then set the Dti gauge up on the lifter (Ended up welding two old lifters together to make it easier to get the Dti gauge set up) found max lift and set Dti to zero, wound engine back .100” and then forward to .050” before max lift, noted the number the pointer was at on the degree wheel, the wound engine over until the lifter was at .050” after max lift again noted the number the pointer was on again,

added the two numbers together and then divided by two, this gave me 112.5° intake centreline. Cam spec card is for 102° so was a bit out. pulled it all apart and advanced the cam 4° and started again, ended up with an intake centreline of 101°,

so that where it will stay. Tomorrow night I’ll get the heads on an confirm there is no clearance issues.
 
Not a huge update, but progress is getting made.

Heads are all on and everything is good there, just need to paint the motor now.

front suspension is all Re-bushed and repainted, and has new ball joints. Had a mission with the upper arms.


the arms that came out of the car I managed to get the ball joints out of, but the bushes were seized into the arms. So I dug through all my parts and found the Aussie upper arms that came with all my front brake parts. Confirmed they are the same at the factory stuff. Bushes all came out easy. But the ball joints would not budge (shitty home made roll didn’t help) so I ended up welding an old axle nut to the top of the ball joint and using that to get them out. Got there in the end.

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I’ve also started cleaning up everything that bolts onto the engine, inlet manifold is all done

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Still need to finish cleaning the sump then I’ll have everything sorted to paint the engine, still undecided with what to do with the rocker covers though

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in that photo you can see it’s got a cool set of finned rocker covers I’m tempted to paint them the same colour as the inlet manifold and paint the fins black however I’m yet to decide, when I first got the car I had thought about doing them wrinkle black and then knocking the fins back to alloy so am a bit undecided there.
 
Regarding the valve covers either would look good. I did my old M/T valve covers in black wrinkle and silver fins. Used a VHT wrinkle paint and it is holding up really well.

Cley
 
I just did the same things to my Dart this past Fall. It was way harder than I thought it would be. So many seized parts. Doing all of it in my driveway didn't help but the Dart was on jackstands for 6 weeks while I soaked things in penetrant, ordered new parts, and banged things around. Happy to report everything looks and feels great up front now though. A whole new front end end basically.

Looking great!
 
I just did the same things to my Dart this past Fall. It was way harder than I thought it would be. So many seized parts. Doing all of it in my driveway didn't help but the Dart was on jackstands for 6 weeks while I soaked things in penetrant, ordered new parts, and banged things around. Happy to report everything looks and feels great up front now though. A whole new front end end basically.

Looking great!

I actually had to cut the driver front upper arm, rear upper camber bolt to get the arm out it was so seized in the bush. Was a mission.
 
I actually had to cut the driver front upper arm, rear upper camber bolt to get the arm out it was so seized in the bush. Was a mission.
Yeah, my left upper bolt was seized in the bushing as well on the passenger side. I tried heat, penetrant, brute force and then finally got a saw to fit in there. I spent more time on that one bolt than I would care to admit.
 
Well it’s been a while since I updated this. Life etc etc,

anyway, the inside of the trunk has concerned me as the car has previously been involved in a rear end collision. I pulled the bumper and it looked alright, you can see where the RR has taken a hit and been repaired. However inside the trunk has had copious amounts of seal sealer used inside it. I stripped it off on the RR only to find that instead of welding the rear panel brace back to the floor it had just had seal sealer smeared all over it.

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Coupled with this the RR rear spring mount was out of shape and the LR was rusty, I made a cardboard template, and dropped it to a local shop that laser cuts and folds sheet metal.

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The car is booked in on the 20th June to go to a buddy’s metal/restoration shop to have the rear end, spring mounts and a couple of small rust spots repaired,

I have also got my fuel tank all cleaned up, but I’m slowly running out out things to sort.

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tank has come out a bit patchy (which looks worse because of the underbody Shultz) and I’m not sold on the black.

may hit it with some silver and do the straps black

I still need to paint my engine, I have all new frost plugs now.
So once it’s painted then I can start assembling ancillaries, and come up with a plan to run the Gilmour drive belt and P/S
 
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Well it’s been a while since I updated this. Life etc etc,

anyway, the inside of the trunk has concerned me as the car has previously been involved in a rear end collision. I pulled the bumper and it looked alright, you can see where the RR has taken a hit and been repaired. However inside the trunk has had copious amounts of seal sealer used inside it. I stripped it off on the RR only to find that instead of welding the rear panel brace back to the floor it had just had seal sealer smeared all over it.

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Coupled with this the RR rear spring mount was out of shape and the LR was rusty, I made a cardboard template, and dropped it to a local shop that laser cuts and folds sheet metal.

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The car is booked in on the 20th June to go to a buddy’s metal/restoration shop to have the rear end, spring mounts and a couple of small rust spots repaired,

I have also got my fuel tank all cleaned up, but I’m slowly running out out things to sort. I still need to paint my engine, I have all new frost plugs now.
So once it’s painted then I can start assembling ancillaries, and come up with a plan to run the Gilmour drive belt and P/S


https://flic.kr/p/2iuiy7K
Good to here from you again. Keep us updated on your progress. Steve
 
Decided I was unhappy with the black fuel tank so I threw a coat of silver on, it’s a bit better but I’m still not sold (and now it may not even end up being used, more on that below)

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got my replacement spring mounts back from being made

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built a frame to put the car on so it can be moved around

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loaded the car up onto my mates car trailer and took it to Greg at R3 Fabrications (check them out on Facebook to see the quality of work they do)

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Was a pretty nerve racking drive that’s for sure. Not that it moved at all but the height of the car on the trailer just felt wrong haha

Upon Greg looking at it he identified that the rear chassis rails have a slight downward kink, and the front is twisted to the right, so it’s going onto the chassis machine this week to be straightened and have the new spring mounts fitted, have the boot floor cut out (it’s basically uneconomical to repair due to the amount of creases in it, so we will replace it with a flat boot floor (which means the spare wheel well that the fuel tank mounts to is gone, hence the comment about not using the tank) I may end up running a drop tank or fuel cell. TBC at this point. Then I will pick it up and start saving to have the next stage of work done, (rust in the outer 1/4s Which Greg believes will be best to stitch a couple of whole 1/4s on)



One step closer.....
 
What size Tires are you going to run on this car? The ones you posted look pretty wide.
 
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