Another Mopar Off My Bucket List - Barracuda Fastback

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360DartGT66 said:
Oh, I'm not trying to make you convert from the Moparitarian belief system. You were talking about making an inline-six with a lot of power so I thought I'd suggest a novel approach. :)
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Had me going for awhile there. I felt like a church preacher hearing someone swearing in the back pew.
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360DartGT66 said:
I used to covet the BMW:s but now I don't really care. They look like any other car to me. My dad has always driven them and the one he has now (2010 525D) is an astonishing automobile to drive. A fantastic machine. But when it comes to daily drivers, they are simply much to expensive to do the job of getting me from point A to point B.
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Now we're on the same page. I'm usually drawn to cars that catch my attention because of appearance. The generic look of most cars fails to excite me even though they may better fit my real needs.
 
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I stopped caring bout cars all together when I actually had to pay for them myself. Still, my own proverb "there are no rational arguments for not buying a Toyota" hasn't kept me from staying true to German cars. We've opted for Audis, though. One notch down price-wise from BMW. We've always bought used cars, too. A new one is such an idiotic investment that it's better to let someone else take the blow of the first three years of depreciation.
 
With the decision made to eliminate the intercooler from the build, we turned our thoughts to the rest of the car. There had been aspects of the blower/intercooler that were going to affect the engine bay.

For starters, when we had the 512 mocked up in the car we didn't have sufficient clearance for our 2-speed wiper motor. The 3-speed wiper would give us a few more inches of room to work with so we decided on making the swap a few years ago.
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As our discussion on mods went on we thought it would be nice to clean up the firewall more. We'd already gutted the air conditioning components from the heater box figuring that air conditioning was a luxury we could do without. Now I began to reconsider my son's original wish to eliminate the heater too. I struggle with letting him make all the choices even though it's his car. It's sometimes hard to know where to draw the line between giving advice and making decisions.

I hadn't thought about the heating system since before the decision to order the Hemi. For some inexplicable reason it seemed less of a necessity now. Maybe it's that the project had reached a new plateau of insanity. At any rate, we decided to get rid of the fan motor that protrudes through the firewall and the heater box inside the car. It would mean not having to plumb the hoses to the firewall too. The dash wiring would be simplified and working beneath it would be less of a chore.

After removing the heater assembly we went ahead and started filling the holes. I think we'll try to retain the dash's vents and defroster ducts. I'll try to use the cable controls to open and close them even if we don't have a fan. It may be enough to stop the windshield from fogging when we need to.

Spencer didn't care about the windshield wipers but I really felt they should be considered a necessity for a street driven vehicle. Our next step is going to be trying to move the wiper motor behind the firewall so we can fill the hole for it. It should work if I measured correctly and it'll really reduce engine bay clutter.
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While I was welding the openings shut I realized that the inner fenderwells were covered with all sorts of holes we were unlikely to use. I started filling them too. We'll probably be putting new holes in here & there as we mount other accessories.
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360DartGT66 said:
I stopped caring bout cars all together when I actually had to pay for them myself. Still, my own proverb "there are no rational arguments for not buying a Toyota" hasn't kept me from staying true to German cars. We've opted for Audis, though. One notch down price-wise from BMW. We've always bought used cars, too. A new one is such an idiotic investment that it's better to let someone else take the blow of the first three years of depreciation.
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The only new car I ever bought was the Chrysler PT Cruiser I had. I ordered one shortly after they were introduced thinking that they'd be a one year offering and would shoot up in value over the years. Although I had to wait for over 7 months for it to arrive, I was one of the first people in the area to have one. It's hard to believe now but back then everybody really gawked at the car. I got more attention in it than I used to driving my black flamed '70 Roadrunner when I was young.

In hindsight, it was a mistake getting it. The gas mileage wasn't great and it cost me around 25 grand. - Took me years to pay it off and they're pretty much worthless now.
 
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They got quite a bit of attention - and sales - over here, too, which is pretty unique for a US car. They do look cool.
 
360DartGT66 said:
No heater sounds a little risky to me. And no wipers sounds like a really bad idea.
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Well the heater removal is a done deal but the wipers should work just as Ma Mopar had intended. - The motor will just be located on the inside of the firewall.

As far as still being a 'daily driver' goes, - it's unlikely it'll get driven in inclement weather.
 
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HOLY CRAP Batman! The plastic Hemi we ordered a few days ago is here already! They must have had it loaded on the truck and heading towards us when we placed the order! It may not look like much without any accessories or valve covers on it but it's one step closer to getting things ready for the KB.

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We got a lot further on moving the wiper motor to the other side of the firewall today.

The basic plan was to use 3 pieces of 1/8" wall pipe that are 3/4" in diameter and 4" long to act as stands to mount the motor straight back from it's original mounting points.

We capped one end of two of the tubes with 1/4" metal that we drilled & tapped so that the motor could be bolted on (as it originally was) to one end and the other end will be welded to the firewall.

The third pipe we capped both ends (which we drilled & tapped) so that it can be bolted on like the other two tubes but can also be unscrewed from the stud we welded to the firewall.

The reason for not making all 3 pipes the same was so that we could drop the wiper motor straight down by removing the bottom tube if it ever needed service.

We still want to fabricate a clamp bracket that will encircle the motor and add further stability. Our concern is that having the motor 4" away from the firewall on stands would lead to a torsional weakness.

So far it's looking as though our wiper arms are lining up perfectly.
 
Sounds like a solid installation. I'd love a pic when you're done.

Hey John, re-reading what I wrote in Ulf's thread, you could get the impression that I dissed your comment, I didn't mean to. Sorry.
 
The heater delete is a bad idea. Been there done that! Never again. Even with the limited miles, you ALWAYS end up in a circumstance that requires defrost.
That will NEVER happen to me again!!! I would strongly suggest putting the heater in.
 
SNKEBIT said:
The heater delete is a bad idea. Been there done that! Never again. Even with the limited miles, you ALWAYS end up in a circumstance that requires defrost.
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SNKEBIT said:
That will NEVER happen to me again!!! I would strongly suggest putting the heater in.
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For the past few years I'd tried talking my son out of deleting the heating system but I began to see the advantage of having a really clean firewall behind the Hemi. After mentioning your comment to him he said he'd consider an aftermarket system from someone like Vintage Air.
 
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I can hear the neighbors already. They're probably joking that it looks like the circus is in town. I'd picked up this pop-up canopy earlier in the year at a swap meet for around $20. Today's forecast was rain that never showed up but the sun was awfully hot. We used it for shade.
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Hundreds of my old CARtoons magazines had been stolen from the farm a few years ago. (I had almost every issue of CARtoons, DRAGtoons and HOT ROD Cartoons ever made from the 50's through the 90's) What griped me the most was that they'd taken several issues that Pete Millar had autographed for me and a nice letter that I had from him. I'd been loaning him a bunch that I had when he decided to make a compilation of his old work. Although he was one of the original cartoonists and founders of the mags, he'd never kept copies.

A few days ago I did find one of the issues that he'd sent me for free before he died. Luckily, it is one that he'd autographed.

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He really seemed like a nice guy with a great sense of humor.
 
360DartGT66 said:
The bastards.
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Most people would think that losing those magazines was a minor blip. I think the Sheriff's deputy that took the report actually rolled his eyes when I listed them as having been stolen. But my brother and I had been collecting them ever since we were little. I've seen single issues sell for anywhere between $5 to $50 each. I know there were several hundred magazines.
 
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We made further progress on the wiper motor project yesterday.

I started by cutting off the 3 studs that originally held the motor to the firewall. After welding up the top two, I drilled & tapped the bottom location. Then I installed a 5/16" stud in the bottom threaded hole that protruded inside of the car (as opposed to sticking out as it originally was). Once the stud was in place I welded it in place and ground the 3 spots down.

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I took three pieces of 3/4" diameter (1/8" wall) pipe and welded 1/4" tap plates to the ends. Two of them only needed to have a tap plate on one end because the other end would be welded to the firewall. The third one has tap plates on both ends. It will be threaded onto the one stud that protrudes through the firewall. The reasoning we had was that we'd want the bottom pipe to be removable. That way the wiper motor can be dropped out when necessary in the cramped space beneath the dash.

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The original reinforcing plate that was behind the wiper motor still helps stiffen the assembly and provided a good base to weld to.
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The driven end of the wiper arm lines up pretty well with the motor. I had to put a slight bend on the end of it to get it to lay flat.

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At this point we went ahead and welded up the large opening that the motor had stuck through.

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One concern we had was that torsional stress would cause the stands we made to eventually shift or bend. To eliminate that possibility we're adding an additional support that will wrap around the motor.

We bought some more tubing that had the inside diameter matching the outside diameter of our motor. (It was about 3&1/8" across) We split a few 1&1/2" wide sections of it in half. Then we welded tabs to the half circles. Nutserts installed on the one half will simplify the process of attaching the outer clamp beneath the dash.

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To attach the one side of our homemade clamp to the firewall I formed one 1&1/2" wide strap into an L shape. After cutting it off to the desired length I'll weld the the tab end to the firewall and the other to one of our clamp halves.

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The workmanship may seem crude by some standards but the fab work was all done with simple hand tools. We had put POR-15 on the firewall years ago and glued insulation down as well. We've only partially cleaned it off the area we were working on. Before we're done I'll use my small hand held bead blaster to make it nice. - Then I'll re-apply more POR-15.

I'm fairly confident our mod will work but we still need to tweak the wiper arm that extends to the left wiper. Right now it touches the second arm that ties right & left together.

A very light skim of filler should be all we'll need to smooth over the firewall.
 
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