67/68/69 cuda dilemma

-
A little more axle work. Some sandblast and paint. Tomorrow i will sand blast the caliper mounts, parking brake sprags, and backing plates/dust shields, put a thin epoxy coat on the caliper mounts.

20181010_152216.jpg


20181010_162809.jpg


20181010_212228.jpg
 
Sandblasted and taped off pivot points before primer. Will paint the lever arm parts silver, and use some aeroshell 22 or some graphite dry film lubricant on them. Cable levers were rusted frozen in place. Needed a vise and WD40 to get apart. Everything in the E brake setup was badly rusted. I think the truck it was out of periodically went through high water, as the axle ends were pretty rough as well.

20181011_065236.jpg


20181011_070455.jpg


20181011_181108.jpg
 
Last edited:
Was able to get the caliper brackets sand blasted and a wash coat of fluid resistant epoxy primer on them. I will paint them with some cast blast cast iron color paint probably tomorrow. If i have time i will sandblast and primer the backing plates/dust shields.

20181010_184144.jpg


20181011_160117.jpg


20181011_181035.jpg
 
Last edited:
Some cast iron color high heat paint i had left over from another job, caliper brackets are done. Blasted the backing plates/dust shields. Will hit em with high gloss rustoleum. Its nice assembling clean fresh painted parts.

20181012_174925.jpg


20181012_172555.jpg


20181012_174930.jpg
 
A bit of rustoleum gloss black. When its dry, i will flip them over and paint the side that can be seen. The discs will cover up the overspray.

20181013_151411.jpg
 
You can prob tell i hate rust. I decided to speed tape the axle bearing and seal races, the studs, and sandblast the axles, then prime with epoxy etch primer, and paint them cast iron grey.

20181013_151442.jpg


20181013_164412.jpg


20181013_170208.jpg


20181013_171305.jpg
 
About 1/16" wider than a stock width A body rear. Its a lot of work but the plusses outweigh the minuses by a long shot.

Up to at least 1999 everything on the exterior side is SAE thread
1/2" RH thread lug studs
Mopar big bolt pattern
Disc brakes
91-92 dakota u joint fits ford yoke, and mopar driveshaft
Locking differential most cases
Decent gears most cases
31 spline axles
Rebuild kits are inexpensive, all common bearings
Brake parts are dirt cheap thru rock auto
Found a company who makes e brake cables that fit mopar chassis in the front, ford e brake in the back

The down side is
Shortening one
Cutting off all the unusable brackets

Look for a data tag on the axle that says 3L55 or 3L73 and you got 3.55s or 3.73s with a locking diff. L denotes locker on the tag. If theres a space between the numbers and no L stamped there, its an open diff. The sport trak explorer truck thing almost always has a 4L10 tag on it. I think 4.10s and a locker were standard on that thing.
 
Last edited:
You reuse the explorer U bolts and nuts, but can use mopar 3" shock plates as well. Explorer tube is 3&1/8" dia, so you oval out the holes in the shock plates about 1/16" on either side to fit the wider u bolts and axle tube.
 
Been working hard lately last few days and making progress on cutting down the scamp to get parts to fix the botched rear wheel houses on the 69 cuda.. in prev pix i had new quarter skins, trunk drops outer wheelhouses. I also have a new rear valance pan.

I am keeping the inner wheel houses, and transition pan from the 71 Scamp as well as sections from the trunk pan i pulled from the scamp to unfuck those hideous aluminum tubs from the back of this car. Will be leaving wheel houses and pan together and slipping it inside the car going through the passenger side door.

One more solid day at it and i will be able to seperate the frame rails from the pan. Rails are already sold.

20181018_181304.jpg


20181019_135526.jpg


20181019_192808.jpg


20181019_192817.jpg
 
Took a nice trip to Wichita Falls last week. Visited with Dartos. I bought this 69 barracuda from him a number of years back when i started this thread. He hooked me up with the K frame and lower arms that were from this car originally, and sold to somebody else, couple years later he got em back, and i will put them back in this car. $100 i thought was more than fair for them. He also hooked me up with a good used windshield for this car, and a power steering coupler, and rebuild kit for it.

I have been very busy since i got back but finally have time to post this. Had a great time talking mopars and checking out his cars. Fabo folks are really the best.

On a side note, I think that 5 hour round trip probably put the final coffin nail in my trucks fuel pump. At 150k something or other, i guess i shouldent complain. Yesterday it got to where it was showing a severe lean condition and wouldent rev past 1,500 rpm. I guess its time now to lift the bed off, and do the rest of my 4" rear drop kit while im there changing out the pump. All i did a few years back was 2" shackles, rear sway bar and poly bushings in the leaf springs, poly bushings in A arms, and sway bar, and 2" drop front spindles. Time for leaf spring front hangars and shock upper relocation mounts. Sets the truck at a 2"- 4" drop. Kinda levels it out. I have 1" drop springs for the front, will do those next for the 3" - 4" drop hot rod rake. Then i'm done with its suspension.

20181029_190343.jpg


20181029_203416.jpg


20181029_203547.jpg
 
I enjoyed the visit. If I can help you out, let me know. If you know someone that needs my left over A-Body parts, tell them to give me a call. I don't mind helping anyone that REALLY needs the parts.
Again, enjoyed the visit. Check out my post "Catching Up".
 
Sometimes ya get thrown a bone, but sometimes ya gotta work for it a bit to get it though. When i get blessed with good fortune like this, i thank my Lord for the gift. I got some 8.75 3" shock plates at my local boneyard today. Probably the last car thats in that boneyard with an 8.75 in it. 1969 fury 3 with a flat head 6 and trans dumped in the trunk. Must be the rare 2 engined turd green fury i have heard so much about. No engine in the front either. With a bit of trepidation since i really wasnt feeling it for dying under a fury in the junkyard, I grabbed my floor jack and some old steel rims off the junkyards rim pile. Jacked it, shored it up w the rims, and got to wrenching. A lot of penetrating oil, and a wire brush, and after about 40 minutes they were mine. Dry environment, the part numbers look like they were stamped in them just yesterday lol. The U bolts didnt give up the fight easily though, a lot of wire brushing, and tightening and loosening, and spraying w penetrant.

20181121_130606.jpg


20181121_130638.jpg


Screenshot_20181121-191456.png
 
Last edited:
Drums are rusted to the shoes. I was running outta time before they were gonna close, no time to fool with it to find out. If you need an axle, its unbolted now lol. Didnt check case numbers. Drums look like 11 x 2s not sure what was under the hood. Coulda been a barn burner. Coulda been a turd. It had finned front drums. If i was a betting man, id say probably a 2.73 open. Would be a good chunk to rebuild, and a good tube for narrowing. If axles arent tapered they could be cut and re splined too.
 
Last edited:
I was patient, and ordered some more goodies on these great black friday, cyber monday sales everybody was running. The floor pan came with some little goodies to finish it out on installation. The AMD bumpers are flawless.

20181129_195926.jpg


20181129_200348.jpg


20181129_200651.jpg


20181129_200645.jpg
 
Sandblasted and epoxy primered. These things were clean and major pitting free. Now i have to oval out the holes a little to use them ford explorer U bolts.

20181203_122916.jpg


20181203_115335.jpg


20181203_143918.jpg
 
My buddy turned down the 'doba rotors. Gonna spray coat em with CorBan 35 and put em in storage for now.

20181205_063619.jpg
 
Sandblasted front spring hangers, and bolts. Sprayed a little leftover epoxy primer on them, and baked it. Will scuff and paint semigloss black. I have a spare pair from my 67 cuda. I have hotchkis rear springs for it, and they came with their own hangers, so i will likely keep and use the better pair of the 2 . Also a couple of the SEMs nuts have cracked washers and are pretty pitted up after sand blasting. Will need to grab at least 4 more of those on my next junkyard run.

20181210_141033.jpg


20181210_124905.jpg
 
moparmat2000 said:
Drums are rusted to the shoes. I was running outta time before they were gonna close, no time to fool with it to find out. If you need an axle, its unbolted now lol. Didnt check case numbers. Drums look like 11 x 2s not sure what was under the hood. Coulda been a barn burner. Coulda been a turd. It had finned front drums. If i was a betting man, id say probably a 2.73 open. Would be a good chunk to rebuild, and a good tube for narrowing. If axles arent tapered they could be cut and re splined too.
Click to expand...

Back in the 90's Moser used to shorten the C-body axles to A-body length; the C-body axles were the only ones long enough. If you called them they would give you the axle length to look for. Sometime in the last 20 years the cost difference between buying a new set of billet axles verses shortening a set of C-body axles became a wash; so not sure if they still do it and it is probably not worth it. Dr Diff will sell you a set of high strength axles including new studs and new bearings installed for $300. Compare that to buying a pair, having them shortened and re-splined, and installing new bearings; I doubt you come out ahead.
 
True on the splined axles, but the housing can still be shortened, the hoghead can be rebuilt with sportier gears and a locker, and the brakes can be reused. I bought axles from cass for mine.
 
If all goes well, then i will have to remove the corroded up threaded in tubes to replace them. Prob with barbed end brass tube fittings. Not looking forward to removal at all.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Back
Top