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!