67/68/69 cuda dilemma

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Back after it again. We are knocking off what's left of the paint, and will remove the excess surface rust with white vinegar and plastic sheeting. Will neutralize this with TSP and water rinse. Then flip over and start cutting on the inside.

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Starting fab on the inner trunk lip section. Theres more perforation on the outer skin lip once we opened it up. I think I am going to naval jelly this area and see how bad it is. May be worthy of just tack welding the holes up and applying a generous amount of epoxy primer over the clean pitted metal and leaving it alone.

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I think we nailed it. Now I have to remove and or neutralize the corrosion on what's left before stitching this in, and making panels up for the outside.

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Neil Young sang about rust never sleeping. This trunklid appears to have been sanded, and some rattle can ruddy brown primer put on it. Well that doesnt seal well at all. The process I am using to pull the surface rust out of the metal is simply 6% white cleaning vinegar and plastic to keep it wet. The rinse solution is trisodium phosphate powder mixed with tap water, a fine wire brush on the rusted parts and a green scotchbrite pad to scrub off the flash rust. The TSP and water act as a neutralizer to prevent flash rust.

The results of my first treatment from yesterday evening turned out great. In my last 3 pix I have applied the plastic and vinegar solution to draw more out. If you look closely you can see lots of spots of clean pitted steel. This works great on thin gage body steel that you dont want to hit with a sandblaster. This is a slow process, however the vinegar stops or severely slows down when it hits clean steel. When done we will spray coat it with an epoxy primer to prevent this from happening again.

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So I ditched work and took a vacation day and went to a swap meet outside Texas Rangers stadium ball park. Not bad. Lots of brand X and a sprinkling of mopar junque. I got this industrial lamp shade for $10, that I will strip and restore. Going to make a mount and put it outside my shop building.

I know the bellhousing is a toploader truck V8 bellhousing, however one of the things I wanted to make was an engine run stand. This is perfect for that. I lacked a starter mount, and this corrects that issue. Now I just need a flywheel.

Does anybody know for sure what size diameter and tooth count this bellhousing needs? Casting is PN 3893728. Rock auto has cast 143T flywheels for 78 small block V8 truck fairly cheap. Could it be the larger 143T flywheel? Both my 360 and the 318 are neutral balance so I will be getting one for a 318.

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Bought a solder it together yourself clock kit online. I wanted to see if I could do it. It was about 3 hours of fun for about $7 it displays the date, year, air temp in Celsius, and runs through these one time every minute. Also has an alarm lol.

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Not feeling it for the sheetmetal workmen the trunklid lately, so I decided to assemble the 318 w my 12 year old son. We spent the afternoon gun brushing all the oil galleries, installing the gallery plugs, and doing the camshaft install. I am going to use a double roller chain on it. Anybody use a dakota 3.9L timing tensioner/thrust plate setup. I'd kinda like to use one of these. I heard they dont work too well with a double roller chain. Anybody with real world results with that setup?

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Great pics Matt! Great to see young'uns join in the fun!
moparmat2000 said:
Not feeling it for the sheetmetal workmen the trunklid lately, so I decided to assemble the 318 w my 12 year old son. We spent the afternoon gun brushing all the oil galleries, installing the gallery plugs, and doing the camshaft install. I am going to use a double roller chain on it. Anybody use a dakota 3.9L timing tensioner/thrust plate setup. I'd kinda like to use one of these. I heard they dont work too well with a double roller chain. Anybody with real world results with that setup?

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Ready to do the crankshaft, and I'm out of plastigage. We went to Vatozone , and no plastigage, but the old guy who helped us said he knew what it was, and what it was used for. He didnt ask what car or engine type. He mentioned O Rileys, and they had 2 kits, so I bought both LOL. We are gonna get the crank installed today. I may install the stroker crank in the 360 tomorrow. Maybe.

As a side note my homemade pine 2x4 crank saddles work great for gun brushing the oil galleries out while it's up on the workbench.

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My plastigage crank clearances are .002" - .0025" that's right on the money. Crankshaft is in for good. I have a used double roller chain and sprockets. It's got a small amount of play, but I am thinking of going with a billet rollmaster timing kit.

Everytime I use these Chrysler FSMs I thank my grandpas best friend for buying these factory manuals for his 1975 dart back around 1975. Years later in the 1990s these were given to me when he passed away. I will pass them on to my son.

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moparmat2000 said:
Anybody use a dakota 3.9L timing tensioner/thrust plate setup. I'd kinda like to use one of these. I heard they dont work too well with a double roller chain. Anybody with real world results with that setup?
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What do the links on your chain look like? I wouldn't run a tensioner if they links aren't flat on the sides.
 
I’m running a tensioner on a double roller timing chain. Been in there for several years, but I haven’t had the motor apart to look at it either.

I did have a problem with the timing chain skipping off the fuel pump arm since the roller cam floats a little. I pulled the fuel pump and hammered on the arm a little and fixed it.

I think the links clearance the nylon on the tensioner until the rollers hit. Don’t think it hurts anything.
 
Also looking for a decent street car balancer. The rotating assembly has been balanced. So that's good. I have been checking out different balancers on rockauto. Any ideas. I have a fluid damper for my stroker, but want something a bit cheaper for this.
 
I've heard good things about powerbond balancers. I just bought a non-sfi small block unit. Check out Advanced Auto. They had a killer close-out sale on them a few weeks ago.
 
Just out of curiosity, why do you think you need a chain tensioner? I've been using double roller timing sets in small blocks for decades and hundreds of thousands of miles without one...
 
str12-340 said:
Just out of curiosity, why do you think you need a chain tensioner? I've been using double roller timing sets in small blocks for decades and hundreds of thousands of miles without one...
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I can't speak for moparmat, but for me I believe it made my ignition much more steady.
 
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