72 duster Build progress

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Sorry that I have not done much updating lately....I was robbed by a family member so things have been hectic for a few days....But I think i am going to put the tranny in the duster tomorrow....I will post pictures when i take them!.
 
I would like to tell everyone I made some progress but it would be a lie .....KIND OF..... I decided I was going to put my tranny in.

I lubed the splines on the input of the trany and I lubed the torque converter shafts, got the converter to click into place no problem.

got the tranny under the car and up on the jack no problem.

Jacked it up into place and it damn near slid right onto the alignment pegs on the back of the block no problem.

Threaded the bell housing bolts in no problem at all.

mounted the cross member in no problem at all.

went soooo smooth (took like 10 minutes).

I got to thinking......man,this was to easy....I bet something stupid is about to happen LOL.

sure enough.

Went to put the torque converter bolts in and .....DON'T FIT!!!!

the torque converter all looks right....I put the starter in so I could see where the bendix lined up relitive to the ring gear on the converter and all that looks right.

What the problem is.......the bolt holes on my flex plate are about a half in away from the bolt holes on my converter.

so it looks like I have the wrong flex plate.

What I do not know is......is there a difference between a 727 flexplate and a 904? and maybe I have a 727 flex plate mounted to my block and it wont work with my 904 trans and converter?

or could something else be the problem?

ahhhhhhh gotta love it when the mopar gods toss a wrench in the cogs lol
 
pettybludart said:
Maybe you just have the flexplate on backwards?Did you remove it from the engine at any time?
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No I am positive the flex plate is on correctly.....its not a matter of the converter being to far away from the plate...it is a matter of the diameter of the plate is larger than the diameter of my converter which in turn puts the holes on my plate out farther than the holes on my converter......let me try to make up a little diagram real quick to better explain this lol
 
they are like 3 (I think ) different flex plates, I have a few spares around here somewhere, if you can't find one that fits pay the shiping and I'll send it to you, ps I did the dame thing, sad to say twice before:angry7:
 
OK here is a quick little diagram I made.......its not an exact depiction LOL but should get the general idea of what i am talking about out there

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mac daddy mopar said:
they are like 3 (I think ) different flex plates, I have a few spares around here somewhere, if you can't find one that fits pay the shiping and I'll send it to you, ps I did the dame thing, sad to say twice before:angry7:
Click to expand...

That would be GREAT...thanks for the offer.

Let me know if you happen to come up with anything.

When I pull my trans tomorrow most likely....I will measure the bolt holes on the converter and see what I come up with.

The thing is .....I could have swore that I set the flex plate on the converter once before so I could make sure all the holes lined up....and I thought I remembered doing so and that everything was good to go....But I obviously did not do that LOL
 
is lookin good!! great detail i was curious why use that radiator not a regular a body one? didnt u say it was from an older amc
 
tyler_s18 said:
is lookin good!! great detail i was curious why use that radiator not a regular a body one? didnt u say it was from an older amc
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Yes its for an older AMC rambler....but brand new.

I used it for one,because it is much larger than factory and is an HD radiator.

but mostly because I used the old style waterpump,timing cover,pully set up from a 67 coronet which placed my water pump port on the opposite side than a factory duster would have and I didnt want to rig it up with hoses strung all over hte place so I did it right and got a radiator that would work for my set up.

and the fit was GREAT.
 
I have a TCI sizzler torque converter a TCI-141338 for a torque flight 904.

I am trying to dig something up on the net that says what the bolt hole measurements are until I get a chance to check my own.
 
I hope you figure this flex plate problem out, it's seems like I went though this back in the day and can't seem to remember what the differance was, it was with my 70 Barracuda 318 car 904 trans and 7 1/4 rear end all factory.
Changed to a 727 and 8 3/4 open rear end and had the same broblem
 
Should be two different bolt circles and two different bolt sizes.
 
this may sound kinda dumb, but call advance auto parts and tell them the motor was a stock this and the trans was that and see if they have a stock flexplate for it. see what they have to say?
 
OK progress.....got my new flex plate ( the right one this time LOL) yesterday. So last night I went ahead and took the trans back out of the car,pulled the old flex plate,installed the new one and torqued it,put the tranny back in place,bolted the TQ up,installed my new dipstick tube I picked up,put cross member bolts in and bell bolts....so that parts done and out of the way now.

today I decided I would start dinking around with getting the drivers side header in.....HA......doing it by myself and not having much luck because I cant see what going on at the top and bottom of the car at the same time.

I dropped all the steering components out from under the duster,undid the drivers side motor mount,raised the engine up a good 4 or 5 inchs on the drivers side....still no luck. I will get it though....just gotta wait until I get an extra set of hands.

sorry for not updating this thread as much as I was....funds have ran out for the duster project so now i can only buy things a peice at a time and mostly do labor work....plus I had some things stolen from me which kept my attention else where for a bit,plus we have been having 80 and 90 degree days and wearing a carhart suite in that kind of heat sucks so I have been trying to do most of the work at night when it is cooler.

thank you everyone who has stayed tuned to my thread,I appreciate all the nice comments and I hope I have sparked some ideas for others and maybe gave inspiration to others who are in the middle of there own project.

I wish I had more money or the parts I need to finish the duster ....if I did ....it would fly back togeather! its not that I don't have the time or ambition or desire to get it done....its the other things that slow the project down.

Thanks again, I will try to get some pictures soon! stay tuned!:cheers:
 
Sorry there hasnt been much updates...I have had a cold and we had some pretty bad weather here with 48 tornado sightings too close for comfort (and this is michigan!).

Anyhow, picking up my new starter today, B&M pro ratchet shifter on the way thanks to superdart340 for helping me out on getting it and thanks to mopar_head for the deal.

and I just today decided it was about time I buckled down and restored the wire harness.....hours later I had stripped all the old tape off,cleaned up the wires,cut out all crumbly,limed up,cut,melted wires and replaced them with new wire and soldered them in and heat shrunk them and I then re-wraped the entire harness ...ITS READY TO INSTALL!!! then all I have to do is put some nice new black loom on it to keep the engine bay looking clean.

Ive done a few odds and ends to the duster but not much worth taking pictures or mentioning.

little by little it gets a step closer to being done.

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Small update..

Just took some pictures of some of the work I have done recently, my B&M pro ratchet shifter showed up today so I decided I was going to remove my column and start converting to manual column,a few odds and ends.

Here are some pictures to tide everyone over!

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P.S. all the engine bay wires are just sitting there....not buttoned up yet, I still have to run loom and tie them all down into position
 
Moving right along Glad to hear you got your flex plate completed did you get the headers buttoned up? It sure is nice to have an extra set of eye's and hands around when you need them. Looking good Dude!!!
 
memike said:
Moving right along Glad to hear you got your flex plate completed did you get the headers buttoned up? It sure is nice to have an extra set of eye's and hands around when you need them. Looking good Dude!!!
Click to expand...

Yup I got the headers all buttoned up.....it was a little tricky but still not as bad as i was expecting.
 
Today I decided to to do some work to the column and get cracking on making it a "manual" column.

In the picture below you will see where Marked where I planned to cut,I cut the gear selector section out of the column with a cut off wheel as well as the area where the shifter use to be.

I then spent a couple hours with some very abrasive discs on a drill knocking down all the high spots to get it looking "rounded" like a manual column looks.

I then stuck a bolt through the cage into a hole in the exterior shaft and weld the bolt to that shaft and to the cage....reason why I did this was to stop the shifter portion of the column from moving because I will need to put body filler in that seem.

I also took the 2 spring loaded steel chunks out of the column (one locks the sttering wheel when the key is out of the ignition and the other locks the shifter when the key is out of the ignition) and I cut the back portion of the steel off so the only part of those steel blocks that is of any use any more is the steering wheel lock portion of it....( sorry guys..I forgot to take pictures of that part).

tomorrow I will do some more final smoothing out most likely and then I can move on to using some filler to clean up any imperfections and then primer and paint!

I will keep everyone posted on the progress. (sure beats the price of buying a new column LOL)

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Cool Stuff this great I always wondered if this could be done. Great job keep ,up the great work and I love the pics.
 
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