What Are You Doing To/With Your Car Today?

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Trip to Wally World.

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Made a little bracket and mounted a tach in my Duster. It came with the car, which had no dash pad and was crudely mounted. I made the bracket from 16ga sheet metal contoured around the dash pad I got from Rat Rod Al and used the old screw holes in the dash where it was mounted before.

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Not the greatest picture, but I got the seats back in and was able to drive it for about half an hour to bed in the brakes. Gave it a bath, and now it is in the garage on the battery charger, so it is ready for the car show tomorrow morning.:)

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Planning the routing of brake lines and related components for Krusty. Lots more room in a b-body or e-body. Sigh.
 
The caliper bolts stuck through the bracket. I checked the clearance on the driver's side and it was fine. The passenger side not so much apparently. New rotor on order.

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Took a road trip in my 73 Scamp from home in North Dakota to Pittsburgh PA. put just under 3,000 miles on it as I took a few side roads along the way.
Went through down town Chicago just for fun.

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Got home from work Friday evening and bled the brakes then took a short test drive. Back in the garage for a complete polish and detail. Had a huge car cruise in Beaver Falls Saturday. The weather was PERFECT and the crowd was unbelievable. There were literally no parking spots at 8 a.m. and the cruise didn't officially start until 11 a.m. I drove back home and returned at 10 a.m. I drove in and found a spot right beside a guy named Denny with a beautiful 68 Dart 340 GTS also black on black. I commented how perfect the spot was since our cars were cousins LOL Had a very nice talk and spent the day with him and his buddy Nick.

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Saturday I took the "Golden Oldie" to some friend's house who were hosting their 4th annual club picnic. At the end of the day Mike & Laura (the home owners) had 1 request, that as each car was leaving, to do a burnout on their driveway.

I usually don't cave in to peer pressure, but...



My friend's young daughter caught my attempt at a burn out.

Another club member had his drone there and provided a few "snap shots" from during the day. Gives a great perspective:

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Made a little bracket and mounted a tach in my Duster. It came with the car, which had no dash pad and was crudely mounted. I made the bracket from 16ga sheet metal contoured around the dash pad I got from Rat Rod Al and used the old screw holes in the dash where it was mounted before.

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Turns out that the tach didn't work like it should, so I had an old Sunpro tach in the bin and with a slight modification to my bracket I wired that up...no go either. I ordered a new one. In the meantime I put on a new fuel pump.
 
Destroyed a garage door last night. Been installing a new Edgy head on the flathead six in my 49 Dodge. Got the head on OK. Spent a while last night trying to hook up the two oil lines to the oil filter housing that bolts to the side of the head. #%$&@* fittings on the two metal lines were a bugger to screw into the fittings on the filter housing. They are hard to reach and won't screw in unless they are lined up perfectly. So I was cussing and hurting from bending over the radiator support and down into the engine compartment when all of a sudden it started cranking. What??? The starter relay on the inner fender has a black plastic button that will crank the motor when pushed. Somehow it got pushed and - worse - was stuck so it kept cranking. I was too dumbfounded to respond quickly enough (by, say, reaching into the car and pulling the gear lever down into neutral), and watched as the car backed into the garage door. That will stop it, I thought. Nope! I saw the door bend, then bend some more, and then the car just kept on backing until the door popped open and then it kept on backing until the door was a wreck and the car was sitting outside. Finally it quit cranking. It was dark and just about to thunderstorm. I rolled up the windows, then checked the car as best I could in the dark. Amazingly, it was almost completely undamaged!? Took some pix this morning and saw only a bent license plate and a couple of very mild scuff marks that I think will buff out. My truck and Charger suffered no damage. Garage door guy is coming over later this morning. Probably won't be able to get a new door until next week, but at least he can remove the old door today or tomorrow and I can put the 49 back in the garage.

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Destroyed a garage door last night. Been installing a new Edgy head on the flathead six in my 49 Dodge. Got the head on OK. Spent a while last night trying to hook up the two oil lines to the oil filter housing that bolts to the side of the head. #%$&@* fittings on the two metal lines were a bugger to screw into the fittings on the filter housing. They are hard to reach and won't screw in unless they are lined up perfectly. So I was cussing and hurting from bending over the radiator support and down into the engine compartment when all of a sudden it started cranking. What??? The starter relay on the inner fender has a black plastic button that will crank the motor when pushed. Somehow it got pushed and - worse - was stuck so it kept cranking. I was too dumbfounded to respond quickly enough (by, say, reaching into the car and pulling the gear lever down into neutral), and watched as the car backed into the garage door. That will stop it, I thought. Nope! I saw the door bend, then bend some more, and then the car just kept on backing until the door popped open and then it kept on backing until the door was a wreck and the car was sitting outside. Finally it quit cranking. It was dark and just about to thunderstorm. I rolled up the windows, then checked the car as best I could in the dark. Amazingly, it was almost completely undamaged!? Took some pix this morning and saw only a bent license plate and a couple of very mild scuff marks that I think will buff out. My truck and Charger suffered no damage. Garage door guy is coming over later this morning. Probably won't be able to get a new door until next week, but at least he can remove the old door today or tomorrow and I can put the 49 back in the garage.

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Sorry to see that but glad no one got hurt.
 
Destroyed a garage door last night. Been installing a new Edgy head on the flathead six in my 49 Dodge. Got the head on OK. Spent a while last night trying to hook up the two oil lines to the oil filter housing that bolts to the side of the head. #%$&@* fittings on the two metal lines were a bugger to screw into the fittings on the filter housing. They are hard to reach and won't screw in unless they are lined up perfectly. So I was cussing and hurting from bending over the radiator support and down into the engine compartment when all of a sudden it started cranking. What??? The starter relay on the inner fender has a black plastic button that will crank the motor when pushed. Somehow it got pushed and - worse - was stuck so it kept cranking. I was too dumbfounded to respond quickly enough (by, say, reaching into the car and pulling the gear lever down into neutral), and watched as the car backed into the garage door. That will stop it, I thought. Nope! I saw the door bend, then bend some more, and then the car just kept on backing until the door popped open and then it kept on backing until the door was a wreck and the car was sitting outside. Finally it quit cranking. It was dark and just about to thunderstorm. I rolled up the windows, then checked the car as best I could in the dark. Amazingly, it was almost completely undamaged!? Took some pix this morning and saw only a bent license plate and a couple of very mild scuff marks that I think will buff out. My truck and Charger suffered no damage. Garage door guy is coming over later this morning. Probably won't be able to get a new door until next week, but at least he can remove the old door today or tomorrow and I can put the 49 back in the garage.

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Sorry to hear that, but you were really lucky considering what could have happened if the car had not been in reverse, or if the front wheels were turned slightly right, or if the car hadn't stopped on its own when it got outside, or........
 
Sorry to hear that, but you were really lucky considering what could have happened if the car had not been in reverse, or if the front wheels were turned slightly right, or if the car hadn't stopped on its own when it got outside, or........
Yep, yep, yep etc. I think I'm gonna replace that stupid starter relay. Never seen one with a remote starter switch button on it before.
 
I had trouble finding a new rotor to replace the damaged one. When I checked it was not even close to the original. The gouge in the original rotor was not nearly as bad as I thought, maybe 10 thou max. I ended up knocking down the sharp edges with emery cloth and gave it a new cross hatch. I shortened the offending caliper bolts by a couple of threads, and everything clears now. Good to go to the Mopar show in St. Thomas on Saturday.

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I replaced my dinky hard to read ineffectual gauges with some new easy to read 2 5/8 gauges from Speedway Motors. I got a nice copper capillary tube upgrade kit for the oil gauge while I was at it as the the cheap old plastic one was crimped along its way to the gauge and leaking at the sensor so I didn't want the same thing to happen again with the new gauge. I did have a voltmeter with the old setup but the previous owner never hooked it up and the stock ammeter works surprising well compared to usual so I'm sticking with that
After 2 attempts at a working tach which started by reading a thread on how to mount one, I made a bracket and tried 2 that were in the bins only to find out they didn't work, so I
just sprung for a new one. Now I know for sure what's going with the easy to read gauges and working tach. I'm not finished for the day as I'm going to tidy up some wiring around my alternator.

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Put about 125 miles on it today driving to a Mopar show in St Thomas. Car ran great. New brakes got a real workout a couple of times and performed flawlessly

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Been here all day, after taking My wife to work. Got her Durango's interior all blown apart, putting in a new evaporator. Bought a heater core too "just because I'm in there" but the original looks beautiful, no corrosion, bent fins, anything. But being 22 yo and having 312k on it, it's getting replaced. I just hope the Chinesium replacement (which thoroughly pisses me off) lasts the rest of this Durango's life, however long that might be. There are times I've had better luck taking a chance on good used original parts. I know this HC isn't electrical but those are the parts I have the most issues with from "over there". That and water pumps.
 
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