408 Build Thread

[BrianT]

Progress was made yesterday! Tom installed the bolt in sprag

He also put in the four pinion front and rear planetary gears, a deeper four disc clutch drum along with new red discs and steels, all new seals and a new bushing for the drive shaft.

I wanted to put a deep aluminum pan on it, but Tom said that was overkill for what I intend on doing, plus $150 wasn't in my budget, so we bought a brand new steel pan off a later model truck that should add at least a two or three quarts of fluid.

It's just sitting on there for now, we were running out of time yesterday. One night this week Tom is going to finish putting the valve body back together using a couple of tricks that he's learned over the years. I'll get some pics of that process when I go over there.

 

[BrokenTool]

Some good info here, thanks for sharing

 

[FredS]

On the 727, you didn't upgrade the band strut and anchor? you put a 4.2 lever in it?

 

[BrianT]

We used a 3.8 lever and the stock band strut. Tom said that is what they used in the Hemi cars so it will be good enough for me. We were trying to do this on a budget and used mostly parts that he had laying around in boxes or that he could get quickly around town.

The valve body went back together last night. It already had the Transgo 2 shift kit in it, so we just cleaned everything and then double checked the last guy's work. Buttoned everything up and torqued all the bolts to spec. The trans will go back under the work bench waiting for the engine to be completed.

The next step will be swapping out the slant six K member for the V8 one. I will change to the later idler arm and the 47 year old steering box will have to be addressed. Time to start saving my aluminum cans again...

 

[BrianT]

Brought the transmission home today and put it under the work bench. Thanks to member VOETOM, total cost of the rebuild was $300.

Friday night Adam, my buddy from work, is going to come over and help me pull the K member so that we can get ready to put the V8 K member in. I pulled the wheels and cleaned up some of the mess that winter left behind so that we will be ready.

I have a couple of other buddies coming over to drink beer and lend moral support. Should be a pretty good time!

 

[Inspector71]

I was going gang busters on my 68 Barracuda, got a 360 and tranny donated, but then my X came after me again for child support. It does not seem to matter to the state of MO that the decree says it ends when my kids turned 18 (one is 21 and the other turning 23) she came after me anyway. Even without a hearing, Family Services in Jeff City (Nazi thugs if anyone ever has the misfortune to deal with them) agreed and have been docking me $1250.00 a month plus seized my federal refund. I have been to several hearings, court, and owe a ton of money to my attorney. Got a hearing tomorrow and another court date in June. Wish me luck. You can guess what that kind of garnishment does to one's finances. I have a bottle of champagne I bought for New years and never opened. I am saving it for good news. The way it is going, I may leave it in my will to one of my kids. I love reading about your car. It keeps me hanging on.

 

[txstang84]

Whoooooooa!

 

[Abodybomber]

Nice progress for B.T.& VOE TOM,best wishes to Inspector 71.. Damn.

 

[BrianT]

As promised, friends came over tonight and helped me pull the K member and install the new one. Everything went as smoothly as can be expected and took less than a couple of hours. Here is a shot of the new K member in place.

I have the new Moog K7042 idler ready to be installed, but I want to clean up the drag link first. I also need to address what I'm going to do about the 47 year old steering box and pitman arm. I contacted Firm Feel last week about sending them my box to rebuild and adding a 20:1 worm gear, and I also feel the pitman is worn out and needs to be replaced. Here is what I'm starting with.

I have a couple of other small projects I can complete in the near future. Financing future upgrades is the next problem to solve.

 

[autoxcuda]

Brought the transmission home today and put it under the work bench. Thanks to member VOETOM, total cost of the rebuild was $300.
...

Lucky to know Tom and have him work on that trans. You are in great hands (no pun intended).

I went down to a few Mopar show in Kansas City and was lucky enough to meet Tom a few times. It was in the mid/late 90's when I went to school at Iowa State. He is one sharp and gracious guy!

Him and his family are legendary around KC. I remember other locals telling me how great a transmission guy he was.

I wish there was someone like him around here. I wonder how expensive it would be to ship a trans from LA to KC.

 

[BrianT]

You're right, Tom is a good friend to have. He hand built me custom mufflers from scratch and he had only known me a week! I have known his father in law and his shop for 40 years, and you're right, his family is legendary in the area. Here is a video of his dad's 11 second Pontiac station wagon lifting the front wheel at the old KCIR drag strip.

[ame]http://youtu.be/8GHYxPqePv8[/ame]

 

[Abodybomber]

You're right, Tom is a good friend to have. He hand built me custom mufflers from scratch and he had only known me a week! I have known his father in law and his shop for 40 years, and you're right, his family is legendary in the area. Here is a video of his dad's 11 second Pontiac station wagon lifting the front wheel at the old KCIR drag strip.

http://youtu.be/8GHYxPqePv8

That bad boy Pontiac made Car Craft,one of my favorite cars. Low 11's with stock parts? Oh yes......

 

[BrianT]

I bought a rebuilt steering box off of eBay yesterday. A guy had built it for a project but somehow didn't use it?!? The ad had lots of good pictures and the seller had a receipt from Firm Feel for their rebuild kit and 20:1 ratio worm gear set which was $400. I asked him a few questions and he said that he rebuilds transmissions and narrows rear ends for a living. His feedback was 100% with over 500 transactions so I bought it.

I was going to do it myself using the same parts, but I got the whole gear box for $418.50 So the way I figure it, I just paid a guy $18.50 to rebuild my old one!

 

[BrianT]

BIG news yesterday!! After being unemployed for 53 weeks my wife landed a good job!! This is what we've been waiting for. We've scrimped and saved and cut back every expense that we could for the last year trying to make a house payment, a college tuition payment plus all the other bills that keep coming in. I've sold off a lot of my spare parts and some small toys that I really won't miss much to get to this point. It'll be another month before we actually start to see any income, but I feel like a tremendous weight has been taken off of my shoulders. My 408 build can resume!

 

[1Fast340]

Congrats thats a good step forward!

 

[BrianT]

My rebuilt steering gear box showed up today! It looks pretty nice.

Of course, I had to put my Flaming River adapter on it and check it out. 4 1/2 turns, lock to lock. Then I checked my old box, 5 3/4 turns lock to lock. I had him send me the receipt from Firm Feel, just for my records.

 

[BrianT]

Not major progress, but still getting some stuff done. Rebuilt steering box is installed along with the new pitman and idler arms. I cleaned and painted the drag link while everything was torn apart.

The real news is that since my wife's new sales job comes with a company car, I can sell the car I bought for her back in February. I had managed to save up enough money to finish the engine, but when Congress failed to renew the emergency long term unemployment benefits, I was forced to use that money to buy a car for my wife so that she could get a minimum wage job.

I bought her a real clean one owner Honda Accord and it served us well. Now that her company car is on the way, I sold the Honda to the first people that came to look at it! Plus I made $1300 on it. Not bad for a six month investment. I now have the money in the bank to complete the engine, buy a good converter, and run my custom 3" exhaust.

I've already contacted the machine shop and told Doc to put me back in line with the paying customers! I need to get to work on the engine bay getting it cleaned and painted. I have a new engine and forward light harness coming from Year One. Thanks for reading and following along. Like I said earlier, I'm trying to update this thread to keep up my enthusiasm and interest in the project.

 

[BrianT]

I got a couple of hours worth of work done to the car today. I pulled all the engine and light harnesses out and unbolted most of the stuff from the inner fenders. I think everything else I can either mask off or wrap in aluminum foil before painting.

 

[DusterDilly]

love this thread feed us more

 

[wade]

this is a great thread

 

[BrianT]

Thanks guys. Not much to report. The Dart is back down on it's tires and off of the jack stands. I talked to my buddy Shawn who does my paint work and he said to bring it over this week and we can get started next weekend. We are going to do the engine compartment and install the hood scoop. He has room at his place, so my car will probably be out there for a while. I am waiting to hear back from a friend with a tow truck, he'll drag the Dart out there (about 30 miles) but I have to wait til he is off the clock.

 

[jbc426]

Thanks guys. Not much to report. The Dart is back down on it's tires and off of the jack stands. I talked to my buddy Shawn who does my paint work and he said to bring it over this week and we can get started next weekend. We are going to do the engine compartment and install the hood scoop. He has room at his place, so my car will probably be out there for a while. I am waiting to hear back from a friend with a tow truck, he'll drag the Dart out there (about 30 miles) but I have to wait til he is off the clock.

Take lots of before pictures of problem areas and make sure to write down ALL your expectations of how and where the body metalis to be fixed prior to plastic filler being used, including catalyzed primers. (THEY ALL SHRINK). so letting it sit for a month or two after all the body work is done and the catalysied primer is on would not be a bad thing.

Include instructions that you want the whole car hand blocked sanded in its entirety with a guide coat prior to the final wet sanding and paint.Hopefully you are using a solid color basecoat clear coat with no metallic or iridescent, so the color match and touch up can be done easily.

Let him know you plan to have he entire car color sanded from top to bottom to get the orange peel and imperfections out, so to leave additional material on the car to allow for that prior to final staged sanding and the multiple polishing phases. They will charge a lot for this service, but it makes all the difference in the world and all it takes is one mistake to burn through an edge. It will be money well spent.

Buy soft, thick blankets and quality tape to protect the car as you assemble it, in some places add cardboard on top of the blankets for extra protection. Take you time. Pay him for his. Five years from now you will be glad you spent the extra money on these important steps.

Your job will be to learn how to clean the car without swirling it up or scratching it.

Good luck!

 

[BrianT]

We're just doing the engine compartment and putting a hood scoop on. The hood will be painted matt black but we will block sand the crap out of it first. The rest of the body and paint is gonna have to wait.

 

[BrianT]

I drove the 100 mile round trip to the machine shop yesterday and came home disappointed. They haven't done anything to my engine since the last time I talked to them. They have had several engines come in after I told them to put mine on hold, plus they are doing their normal day to day machine shop jobs that help keep the doors open. The good news is that since they're done with my block and were getting ready to start the balancing process, it is going to be easier for them to finish my work than to start another project. Plus, I pointed out that one of the other projects was an engine that I referred to them, so my engine should be in front of his! They agreed.

I dropped off my Air Gap manifold so that they could port match it while they are cleaning up the Edelbrock heads. I talked to him about running a timing chain tensioner and he agreed that it would be a good idea for what they cost, so I ordered it today along with a couple of smaller pieces (bronze distributor gear and oil slinger for the camshaft). When these parts show up, I'll run them out there to him. I'm going to keep showing up every couple of weeks til they get the idea that I'm ready to finish this project!

 

[Abodybomber]

I drove the 100 mile round trip to the machine shop yesterday and came home disappointed. They haven't done anything to my engine since the last time I talked to them. They have had several engines come in after I told them to put mine on hold, plus they are doing their normal day to day machine shop jobs that help keep the doors open. The good news is that since they're done with my block and were getting ready to start the balancing process, it is going to be easier for them to finish my work than to start another project. Plus, I pointed out that one of the other projects was an engine that I referred to them, so my engine should be in front of his! They agreed.

I dropped off my Air Gap manifold so that they could port match it while they are cleaning up the Edelbrock heads. I talked to him about running a timing chain tensioner and he agreed that it would be a good idea for what they cost, so I ordered it today along with a couple of smaller pieces (bronze distributor gear and oil slinger for the camshaft). When these parts show up, I'll run them out there to him. I'm going to keep showing up every couple of weeks til they get the idea that I'm ready to finish this project!

Relax,B.T.. Good machine shop work,has no schedule. Be patient, guy.