Father-Son 1974 Duster Project

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Do you have any distributor now?
If not this would be your shopping list...

Stock Mopar electronic distributor $45 Advanced Auto
Yellow round Accell coil $33 Advanced Auto / Summit
Coil bracket MSD stock style $7 Summit
Borg Warner HEI 4-pin module (order for a 78 Chevy truck) $28 Advanced auto
Design 2 Drive HEI bracket $25 (optional but very nice)

I would also go the the junk yard and cut some factory connectors for the distributor so you do not have to cut any wires in your original harness.
 
sireland67 said:
Do you have any distributor now?
If not this would be your shopping list...

Stock Mopar electronic distributor $45 Advanced Auto
Yellow round Accell coil $33 Advanced Auto / Summit
Coil bracket MSD stock style $7 Summit
Borg Warner HEI 4-pin module (order for a 78 Chevy truck) $28 Advanced auto
Design 2 Drive HEI bracket $25 (optional but very nice)

I would also go the the junk yard and cut some factory connectors for the distributor so you do not have to cut any wires in your original harness.
Click to expand...

Nope, here is a pic of what we started with. The last kid who drove the car blew the motor, and sold the car to a local guy who had ideas of building it for his daughter to drive. It sat along time waiting to be built. The daughter lost interest, the dad began to use Misty as a parts car for his drag car, and this is what we wound up getting. She sat outside for years without a hood. There was a distributor core in a box in the trunk which i still have. As I recall, nothing is cut on the engine bay harness....
 

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Stock Dizzy is the best and most reliable way to go, plus it's less expensive and you will have good spark, fuel milage and parts availability if you ever do need to replace the module. anything else and you have to reorder them. Not good when your on a road trip.
 
Yep,
Trade the core in at the parts store for a re-man distributor, tap the bottom of the distributor for 6-32 screws? For the design 2 drive bracket.
Yellow Accell coil, jump the ballast.

Cut the plug off the old distributor and keep it. I will buy it off you. Parts store do not care.
 
I just thought of something, that stock dizzy probably still works.
They hardly ever go bad, ask a question in the electrical section, your dizzy may be good.
 
I think I'll buy the reman anyway. If the connector is there on the core it's yours....

Today I had some urethane seam fill to run in my wheelhouse a and on my home made trunk drop offs. Got that done really quickly. Still had lots of time so we modified the steering column to a floor shift style. Dash frame is out so We did it whilst it was bolted in the car. It came out great!

Film at 11:00......
 
I had to run the seam sealer on the the home made trunk drop offs I fabbed and a few spots in the wheelhouses. I never got to it and today was the day to get it done!
 

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I'm waiting for engine bay stuff so after I finished the seam seal we had some extra time. We have decided to go with a floor shift, so we needed to get parts to modify the steering column, or cut the gear indicator and shift knuckle off and modify what we had.

I checked out several threads in the Mopar interiors tab where columns were cut and modified. I know you can use parts from a Dodge pickups of the era, but I thought we would go this route.

Since our dash frame is still out out of the car, I thought I could do the mods while the column was still installed in the car. I was able to get the steering wheel off pretty easily. I taped up the ignition switch and put a new cutoff wheel in my grinder. I decided I would leave the the shift arm in the column knuckle when I cut it off. It keeps the collar from rotating, and the nub that stayed in the column was tight, so I used some urethane adhesive just to make sure it stayed put. I used the cutoff wheel to get the gear indicator housing off, then switched to a 80 grit flap wheel and blended everything until it good. Then some rage body filler and some sanding. I'm happy with the results and the whole process took less than 2 hours.
 

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Looks good man, have plans to do the same to my column as well.
 
I have always had the good fortune of being lucky if I need to do something backwards.
I never got to painting the trunk gutters or the bolt flanges on the front fenders before the car went to paint so I did it today. It came out great.:D
 

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My son cleaned up the proportioning valve (old fittings in hand tight to keep crap out of the valve) and we set the brake line that goes across the firewall. Might take it out and paint it black.....
 

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Leave the valve like it is, factory left them that way.
Polish it up some more.

If you have a line leak, all the black paint will vanish real fast.
 
I found this pic on my camera, it shows a crappy sketch I made, but shows you which brake line goes where.

Q2pDzD.jpg
 
10-4 on polishing the valve. I was thinking of painting the brake line to keep up with the red or black theme lol
 
I thought you bought pre-bent lines for the car?
 
Making great progress. I was in motor building mode in my last bits of free time. I did a whole bin of small parts that I detailed. Today I need to go over the entire front suspension and get it back on all fours. I kept my car column shift and just finished the whole column. Take the sucker out and replace the firewall gasket if you haven't already. Looking good!
 
If the line is stainless I would leave it, gives the car a more finished look.

I with dartn440 pull the column the rest of the way out, change the gasket.
With the column off you can also cut the column shift bracket off and paint it nice.
The coupler on the steering box most likely needs rebuilt ($30) a pain in the butt job to do with the motor in.
 
Use a punch to knock the pin out.
I am pretty sure it is 1/4"
 
Just stick a pry bar between the front of the couple and the steering box, it slides right off.
Old grease / grime is holding it on.

Also check the lower column bearing on the steering column, most likely it is also bad.
Don't buy the reproduction bearing it is like $80 instead do this mod for $7

http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/showthread.php?t=228103
 
sireland67 said:
Just stick a pry bar between the front of the couple and the steering box, it slides right off.
Old grease / grime is holding it on.
Click to expand...

This... But if it puts up a fight, first get the column out of it. There is a very small pin near the top of the coupler in one side. Drive it all the way through. That' what keeps the guts from popping out of the coupler. Other than that pry, tap etc. its just a big spline. I think it indexes at any of 4 points 90 deg apart, not dificult to realign, but wouldnt hurt to mark it
 
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