65 Barracuda daily driver

[65barracudaLA]

In my last post I mentioned that the transmission shifts weird and possibly needs a band adjustment, right?

I just came across this photo that I took when I was dealing with that leaky neutral safety switch. You can see that the front band adjustment lock nut is not touching the transmission case, so it's likely completely loose?!

I will tackle that this as soon as possible. So I read that you are supposed to tighten the stud to 72 in lbs (6ft lbs) and then back off 2 or 2 1/2 turns and tighten the lock nut.

'65 manual says 2 turns for 273 V8

 

[66fyssh]

It very well could have come loose. That sounds right by my memory.

 

[65barracudaLA]

So the front band adjuster stud had worked itself out about half way, so there was no adjustment at all. I torqued it to 72 in lbs and turned it back 2 turns and now I've got 2nd gear!!! Had to adjust the kickdown a bit, but now it's shifting great!

Hopefully I'll have some time later today to add some sound deadener to the trunk. It sounds great so far, but it's still a bit boomy.

 

[65barracudaLA]

Finally decided to tackle the leak at the oil filter adapter. Took out the torsion bar and then the passenger side downpipe. Damn, that thing did not want to come out. Eventually it did. Not a lot of oil came out when I took the adapter off. I left the filter on, cleaned everything up and torqued it 40 ft lbs.

No problem getting the torque wrench in there on jack stands. It sure helps having the torsion bar and exhaust out.

Put the exhaust back in, but the new bolt didn't clear. So I took it out again (came out a bit easier this time, but still a pain in the butt). I ended up hammering the exhaust pipe a bit and it cleared nicely (I have no photo of that). Then put the rest back together. That took pretty much all day, but it's done and I'm pretty exhausted (pun intended).

It was too late to test drive and I needed to take a shower. By the way, my gas mileage was pretty bad lately (around 9 mpg) so I ended up putting the stock rods back in the carburetor. It maybe had a little bit more pep, but I've gotten up to 15 mpg before and that's more important to me since I drive the car pretty much every day. It probably helps that the transmission is shifting through all the gears again.

Excited to drive the car tomorrow!

 

[65barracudaLA]

I went to the CPW Club Fall Fling in Van Nuys today. Mine and this '66 next to it were the only early Barracudas at the show and in the swap meet weren't many early A-body parts either.

I bought an orange box ecu that the guy told me worked when he replaced it with MSD or something, but I went and tested it on the car and it doesn't work. It was only ten bucks, though.

I also bought an Edelbrock fuel hard line elbow thing and it doesn't fit. How can it be that you need an adapter to mount an Edelbrock Performer carb on an Edelbrock Performer intake in the first place and then the Edelbrock Performer fuel line doesn't fit between the electric choke and the mechanical choke stove on the intake?! It would probably work with a carb spacer, but I'm currently not interested in removing the carburetor.

Anyways, I changed the springs in the carb to a silver spring, because they didn't move at all when you hit the throttle before. Haven't driven it yet. I'm still trying to improve gas mileage. I picked up 1 mpg by putting more air in the tires. It had been a while since I checked it and they were kinda low.

By the way, the new ebay 90 oil filter adapter was still leaking a bit, but now it's easier to get to it and I tightened it and it seems that leak is fixed.

I really want to start painting the deck lid (and fenders and hood), before I do anything else. Except that I ordered some TTi exhaust tips and once they arrive I will chop off the turn-downs and bolt them on. Anyways, tomorrow I hope to start prepping the deck lid.

 

[junkyardhero]

I went to the CPW Club Fall Fling in Van Nuys today. Mine and this '66 next to it were the only early Barracudas at the show and in the swap meet weren't many early A-body parts either.

ooh! ohh! i saw you!

i was walking the show later in the day and spied your ride, it looks great in person! you were engaged in what looked like deep convo with somebody else so i didn't wanna bug ya.

show looked a little light, the swap was definitely light. i sold a few things, but what a body stuff i did have nobody was buying.

 

[JDMopar]

Glad you got it going again! When you tested the orange ignition box, did you bolt it to the car? I tested a bunch I had in a box that I'd gathered over the years by just plugging them in on my 84 D350 and none of them worked, so I tossed them. Later learned they are supposed to be grounded to the body before they will work! Maybe try that if you haven't tossed it yet. I keep a spare under the seat of everything I own that uses one....lol.

 

[65barracudaLA]

ooh! ohh! i saw you!

i was walking the show later in the day and spied your ride, it looks great in person! you were engaged in what looked like deep convo with somebody else so i didn't wanna bug ya.

show looked a little light, the swap was definitely light. i sold a few things, but what a body stuff i did have nobody was buying.

Thanks! Let's chat at Spring Fling '25 haha!

 

[65barracudaLA]

Glad you got it going again! When you tested the orange ignition box, did you bolt it to the car? I tested a bunch I had in a box that I'd gathered over the years by just plugging them in on my 84 D350 and none of them worked, so I tossed them. Later learned they are supposed to be grounded to the body before they will work! Maybe try that if you haven't tossed it yet. I keep a spare under the seat of everything I own that uses one....lol.

Yeah, I bolted it in and it didn't work. I even scraped the paint of to give it the best chance to ground, but nothing. I swapped the old one back in again and it worked.

 

[65barracudaLA]

I only took that one photo, but someone took a video:



You can also see me in the very first frame of the video haha.

 

[junkyardhero]

Thanks! Let's chat at Spring Fling '25 haha!

count on it!

 

[65barracudaLA]

I had noticed that the fish badge had come loose and no matter how much I tried to tighten these self-cutting nuts, I wouldn't stay in place and the trunk lid would scrape the badge everytime you open the trunk. In the Early Valiant and Barracuda Club Facebook group someone posted about cutting actual threads into the studs and I thought that was a good idea. 10-24 seemed the best option and from my latest tapping adventure on the cylinder head I learned that thread cutting oil is always a good idea. And going back and forth as you cut.

While it was off I also decided to paint it (again).

Also, the crazy expensive TTI exhaust tips finally arrived. I went and got an tailpipe cutting tool from O'Reilly's (Loan-A-Tool), but when I got home and took it out of the box it fell apart... So I got out the saw and did it by hand. Not fun doing this upside down...

Well, they stuck out way too far...

I did not like that at all, but I had to go and do something else. Drove it a bit and it got a bit quieter, especially less drony, which is great. Sounds better overall!

So yesterday I cut them as far as I could - the exhaust hangers prevent them from going further.

It's much better now, but I still would like to move them in more. Happy with it for now though. And the badge is back on there! I also worked on trunk lid that it going to replace the one that's on there and at least it's now in self-etching primer. It's pretty straight, but will need some filler in some spots. Can't wait to get that in color!

 

[mygasser]

i wouldn't go any shorter than that, they look to be further in than the bumper now. any shorter and you may get exhaust fumes in the car and 'sooty' marks on the back or the car.
neil.

 

[65barracudaLA]

I finally pulled the distributor to use that FBO plate to recurve the mechanical advance. At first I noticed that pickup was not parallel to the reluctor. The reluctor was also a bit chewed up.

Chances are the pickup wasn't parallel to the reluctor because the plate wasa bent. I have now put in a new reluctor and bent the plate back and now it's pretty good.

To my surprise I realized that the FBO plate wasn't gonna work. I wasn't sure what I was looking at, so I searched this site and this appears to be a Mopar Performance distributor, where you can adjust the advance with a torque driver. I also posted in the ignition forum on this site and got some great info. There are some tuning keys, each for a certain amount of advance. I found some online and ordered them. Someone had pointed out that distributor degrees x2 equals crank degrees, so with the help of a protractor I and putting a small drill in the slot I was able to dial it in at 14 degrees advance (7 degrees rotor movement). The bigger spring does nothing in that range, but I left both in there as is.

When I was attempting to set the timing I noticed that the engine didn't come up to operating temperature. First I thought the thermostat was stuck open, but I took it out and it was closed, so that wasn't the issue. I threw it in a pot of boiling water and it opened, so it was definitely good. I had already bought a new 180 degree thermostat and installed that one instead of the 195 degree one I took out. No change. Turns out it was the temp sensor, so I replaced it with a new one and installed the 195 thermostat again (shouldn't have). Now it was going up to operating temperature and a little beyond. So I guess it was never reading right, despite it looking like it. So one more swap and now the 180 degree thermostat is in and it's reading correctly.

A FABO member sold me a FBO ignition box for 85 bucks including shipping. I had heard good things about them and I was already running a 1.5 ohm Flamethrower coil that FBO wants you to use, so I couldn't resist for that price. I was a bit hesitant to spend 300 bucks on one. I'm currently using their jumper wire, but eventually I want to rewire it with soldered connections with no ballast resistor. If it fails I'll have a problem, but I had already started to built an HEI box out of an old mopar ECU, so I'll use that as a spare. It would be the wrong coil for that, but it would at least get me home?! So timing is now set at 20 initial and it runs great like that. I didn't care for the sticker that FBO puts on the box, but it came off pretty easily and looks way better this way. Oh yeah, somehow the rpms don't drop as much as before when putting the car in gear (automatic).

 

[halifaxhops]

Good distributor. The larger spring dampens the curve at higher RPB. JFYI

 

[65barracudaLA]

Good distributor. The larger spring dampens the curve at higher RPB. JFYI

With the advance at 14 the larger spring does not engage at all because of that long loop. If I open it up again I might throw in a different spring. The tuning keys came with a set of springs. It's running great at the moment, so I'm just gonna leave it alone for now. However, I'm not sure I got the right kind of tuning keys for this distributor. I set it up by using the bottom of a 7/64 drill bit in that slot and verified 7 degree movement. The tuning key for 14 degrees is about one and a half times the size as measured with a digital caliper.

 

[65barracudaLA]

Spent yesterday afternoon taking the dash apart to get to the vents, because they were making a horrible vibration noise that I could not stand anymore. While I had the dash cluster out I put some sound deadener in there. I drove it that night and it was nice and quiet.
However, I had noticed a subtle lifter tick the last few times I drove it, but it went away when the engine was warmed up. Only on the driver side though. Last night it didn't go away and seemed to get worse. So today I pulled out all the lifters - with the 675 heads I was able to pull them through the heads after I removed the rocker shaft. I mainly wanted to check out the bottom surfaces. They seemed all fine. So I thought while I have them out I'll take them apart and clean them. They were clacking a bit when I started the car, but eventually that went away and I took the car for a drive on the freeway. Ran great and the last few changes with the re-curved distributor and the FBO ignition box made the car pretty good. I took a spark plug out just to have a look and I think it looks fine. It's not gonna tell you much, because it's been therethrough different timing and carb adjustments.

 

[65barracudaLA]

I guess most of us probably hate getting gas on our paint. I've tried the reducer thing that you can put in the filler tube, but that didn't make much of a difference.

What I found out works is using a rag and wrapping it around the spout. Just loosely and just once around. I've tried paper towels, but they don't work that well. Shop towels can be ok, but with the rag you won't have a drop on your paint. And you can re-use it.

Also, I can report that my gas mileage seems to have improved. A few weeks ago I was driving essentially highway only and got 16.5 miles a gallon. Since the timing change and recurving the distributor and installing the FBO ignition box I got 11.3 mpg. There was some highway driving, but I also stomped on it quite a bit to test the timing and obviously because it's so fun. I'll keep an eye on it.

 

[65barracudaLA]

I've been driving this car for 15 years and the passenger side washer nozzle never worked. I finally bought some used nozzles from a member here and now I can wash my entire windshield! Also ordered some wiper blades so "winter" can come! Well, I should finally fix the leak at the windshield and back glass.