When does money outweigh sentimental value? 1968 notchback build thread

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Then It got a soap and water bath, then degreaser, a rinse and wipe down with acetone. Then it got a bunch of coats of 2K gloss clear to try and fill in as many imperfections as it possible. Lol

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And that is how I made my own prepreg carbon fiber air box. And I know carbon is not really a muscle car thing nor is it really my thing. But I'm happy with the results and the air box is big enough that it's a decent focal piece underneath the hood.

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I also ordered a latching button that's rated it 20 amps. Figured I'd put in an inline fuel pump shut off. So that's how this went.

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They don't make these cars any more ! and if you love them , like many do. you fix.... what its worth will only matter when you sell it. Or rather, when your kids have an estate sale. lol
 
Just joined the site and spent awhile going through your build. What a work of love! The car is better than new!
Very impressed and impressive!
 
There are a couple things on my build list that I didn't do and now I'm going to do. First one was a cold case radiator. The other was a new center section with 3:91s.
So I placed an order with cold case through fabo, pretty significant discount by being a member here.
And I also placed an order with Cass, of Dr. Diff Fame, for a 489 nodular center section with 3:91 clutch sure grip. Ordered another bottle of Ford friction modifier and three quarts of torco 85/140.

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Post shakedown items:
Rear pinion seal leaking.
Rear center section, Gasket, Torco 85-140 and
Friction modifier

Trans output seal leaking and Shifter adjustment

Oil change
Driven LS30 5w30
Wix 51085

Coolant flush, cold case radiator, refab fans &
overflow, shrink clamps, new thermostat, Justin Bros Super cooler & protector, G05 coolant and 1/8npt to 3/8 tube SS fittings.

Figure out Steering column weirdness.
PS fluid top off

Front grille pinstripes
Headlight alignment

So I've done a couple of these things. I'll break it down in new posts below.
 
So I guess I should start with last Thursday. Drove the car twice, ran great.
Couple of leaks; my best guess is a converter seal. It was leaking out of the bellhousing. Trans output shaft seal, is actually leaking between the seal housing flange and case? Seal to yoke is fine, whatever. And rear pinion seal is leaking.

Steering column is noisy and has weird harmonics to it. When you're driving down the road the noise resonates up through the column makes the horn hub audible and sounds like buzzing. If you put your finger on the horn hub, it stops. And when you're not driving, if you turn the wheel back and forth, it clicks. Also seems to be an extra throw in the ratchet shifter in second gear.
 
So I came out Friday morning to take it for a birthday drive and lo and behold I had a crank, no start situation. Now the confusing thing is when I drove it on Thursday. All I did was pull it into the garage and shut it off. I didn't open the hood, I didn't mess around with anything, I just got out and went inside.

So Friday began my troubleshooting. I spent an hour or two messing around. As always I started with the basics. Good battery voltage at 13.6. I had fuel pressure, both on my gauge and signal from my pressure sensor. Checked spark at number one cylinder and nothing. Checked spark at the coil and nothing. Checked 12 volts at coil while cranking and nothing. Checked 12 volts at bulk head while KOEO and cranking, had voltage there. Moved on down the line, checked KOEO and cranking voltage at ECU and hyperspark, had it there. Checked mag purple and mag green from the Hall Effect and had crank signal to ecu. Also verified tack output and rpm signal on display while cranking.

So this told me the computer was getting a crank signal but, for whatever reason, the computer was either not outputting a signal or the hyperspark box was bad. I then deloomed some harness and double checked pinouts and terminations. All seemed well. I then went KOEO and grounded the hyperspark input trigger and got spark at the coil. This told me that the hyperspark box was functioning.

I then turned my attention to the ECU. Grabbed a LED test light, hooked it up to battery positive and the ECU ground pulse trigger and nothing. I then set my DVOM to continuity min/max, one end to battery negative and the other to the trigger and no pulse.

So at this point, I've determined the ECU is not functioning properly and probably needs to go into Holley. I tried calling the Holley tech line but Friday was a holiday. So I packed it up for the day. So I tried calling Saturday morning and they are closed Saturday and Sunday. Sunday rolled around and I started digging around on Holley's website. Started going through their documentation on software updates and, thank God, one of the newest firmware updates fixes the ground pulse trigger. So I uploaded the new firmware version and the car fired right up. So I took my kids for a ride. LOL.
 
Actually, before I took my kids for a ride, Sunday I jacked the car up and found rear pinion seal leaking quite a bit more than I thought. So I pulled the pinion nut and yoke and had a bunch of garbage in the seal lip and the back side of the front pinion bearing. Whatever it was, wasn't magnetic. Just kind of dirt and grimy. So I cleaned it, got it all out of the seal lip and reassembled. Of course, when tightening the pinion nut, I missed my mark and over torqued it a bit. Just enough that there's now a little hum in the rear end. That's what actually prompted my new center section purchase but figured the rearend is 40-50+ years old and never been refreshed.

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I think this last Tuesday? evening I went ahead and ripped the column out of it. Figured I'd do a full disassembly see if I could figure out what was going on or if I messed up assembly the first time. Upon disassembly I found I only had one and a half steering column tube clips. I'm guessing that's where my clicking was coming from. These clips keep the shaft tube centered inside the column without them it seems the steering tube was walking around inside the column and interfering with the steering shaft when turning. I did find a guy on FBBO that is reproducing the steering column clips from delrin. They should be here this Tuesday.

I reattached the steering coller and hub to the column and use a different assembly technique. I placed the column vertical and attempted to hold light pressure on the collar and hub while tightening the retaining nuts simultaneously to 30 inch pounds. Hopefully that'll shore things up.

Column is currently all back together just waiting on the clips. While I was at it, I knocked out the roll pins that hold the steering joint to the shaft, ran a tap through them and attached with button head screws for more secure fit.

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And this post will bring me current to today Sunday the 12th. So after my drives, I went ahead and checked fluids. Coolant was nasty. Upon removing the radiator cap and seeing the brown floaty garbage in there, I knew where I'd messed up. When I was putting fluids in the car initially I had a bunch of dexcool and that's what I used in the barracuda. However, what I didn't think about is dexcool doesn't mix with air very well. It works fine in closed loop systems but not so great with air included systems. So I've been spending the entire freaking day drain and filling my coolant system. Trying to get all the brown nasty out of the block before I install the new cold case radiator, GO5, etc.
 
And while I've been waiting for coolant to drain and then refill and then drain and refill. I went ahead and stripped my front grills. I'd used a black pinstripe tape originally. So far I've done the tape thing twice and it will not hold the shape of the corners and contours and ends up peeling up in those areas. So I grabbed some fine line and masked everything out and actually dragged a pinstripe brush with some 1shot stripping paint.

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Whenever you use tape pinstripe, always put a dab of clear nail polish at the ends. It holds the tape down, and it's almost invisible.
 
70Swinger440 said:
Whenever you use tape pinstripe, always put a dab of clear nail polish at the ends. It holds the tape down, and it's almost invisible.
Click to expand...

It wasn't the ends that were peeling up. It was such a stretch making the curves that it just wouldn't hold after about 2 weeks and start to peel. Here's an example of what I'm talking about.

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