Northerndave

Hello all, I'm new here and I just acquired a 69 roadrunner last week.

My car is a 383/4 speed car with 3.23 suregrip rear. It's supposed to be T7 bronze with a cream colored vinyl top and tan interior. It's got the fresh air hood option and she's a really good runner, strong.

Someone painted it back in the mid 70's. Crazy paint job, we know it was painted in 76 because there are murals on the car and the artist dated his work 1976. It's white now with this wild orange pulsing panelwork that borders a cartoon mural scene on each side of the car and there is a big damn cartoon bird on the hood as well. Pretty wild stuff lol!!



I'll have plenty of questions for the mopar guys here, like my gauge/headlight issue that seems to be related, strange stuff...

Anyways, wanted to say hello, I look forward to learning from the pros here as I bring my crazy bird back to original paint colors & work some of the electrical gremlins out of it.

Here are some pictures of my crazy bird.

1966sportfury

welcome it looks strait and clean nice find! looks very 70,s (paint)
im interested in seeing the hood,
welcome again

Northerndave

not the best picture but you can see the hood bird a little here.

78D200

Welcome!

Northerndave

Thanks.

My roadrunner is a lynch road manufactured car, does anybody know where they might have stuffed the build sheet?

and what does it look like? just a folded up letter sized piece of paper or?

1966sportfury

build sheet isnt usually folded, they stuck them everywhere, could be inder the seat in the springs. i found a few behind the back seat spings, seen a couple behind the glove box,

fivepoint

Mine was stuffed in the rear seat springs. Be very carefull, the paper will rip easy.

fivepoint

On a related note, when did they stop using build sheets? I'm sure its done with bar code now.

1966sportfury

my 05 dakota had a build sheet, i got bored at a hotel i was staying at (out of town work.), so i pulled the build sheet out and read it. put it on the night stand. went to work the next morning wen i got back to the hotel i noticed it was gone the house keep threw it away, i was a little pi$$ed off,

Northerndave

I checked in the back seat springs last night, wasn't there. I guess I'll continue the search, I think I heard someone say they found one wrapped around the radio antana wire under the dash.

mopardrt

amazing looks like a time capsule now time to rip that interior out put a black one in paint it and put the yellow fog lamps in it

Northerndave

My mom had one of these when I was a kid, and I've wated one ever since I was a little kid in the 70's

Hers was a red & black car with black interior & an auto trans, 383 car.

Dad had a superbee....

Yeah I was going to end up with one someday, it was just bound to happen


Hey, what was the comp ratio on these 383's in 69? What kind of fuel should I be looking for?

1966sportfury

the 4bbl was 10.0:1 the 2bbl was 9.2:1 ,, winter you will be ok with regular, doupt u will be driving it in the winter,, i would use premium to keep it from detonating

MReeves

Welcome ot the forum and that is one sweet RR........

Zach8200

just throw some **** carpet in it with the fuzzy steering wheel cover and your good to go lol. looks like its going to be a fun project

mopardrt

if its a low mile motor regual would be fine if its high then I would run premium

Northerndave

Hey thanks for the nice welcome guys.

I tinkered a bit tonight, checked timing, found the cam data from prev owner, balance out the idle mixture.

Actually things were pretty close to where I would have had everything. Cam is a Clevite 229-2032

Dur @ .050" Int 214, exh 224. Lift .443 & .465

She's a little lumpy at idle, initial timing is at about 10 BTC. Sounds good, works really nice with the 4 speed.

I fixed a blinker that wasn't working, simple ground issue.

I'm still chasing that fuel gauge ghost though. seems to work with the headlights on high beam, strange.

Buffalojoe426

Welcome to the forum! Nice looking car!

67 GTX

welcome to the forum

Northerndave

Thanks guys, I drove el pollo loco to work again today. It's about a 50 mile round trip.

boy this fuel gauge thing is getting to me, I'm looking at my instrument voltage regulator up under the dash and I see this prong sticking out off the back with nothing plugged into it.



the prong coming off the back side, does anybody know if there is supposed to be a wire attached to it?

Also I can see a condensor next to the voltage regulator and it has 1 wire coming out of it like a normal condensor would have, but the wire is not attached to anything. But it's a male spade type connector so I don't think it goes to the back side of this regulator...

I'm stumped, sure would like to see this fuel gauge working.

1966sportfury

lol, "the crazy chicken"

if you look at the tab you should be able to tell if there was a wire connected to it

Northerndave

I think it's a new regulator in my car, sure looked new. I wouldn't doubt the previous owner put it in there, He has been chasing the fuel gauge ghost for years. now it's my turn I guess lol!!

After much research on the issue I am going to try putting in a grounding strap at the fuel sending unit between the fuel nipple on the unit and the hard fuel line that goes to the engine. I've seen pictures of this and I was just under my car yesterday checking the connection of the signal wire from sending unit and I didn't see a grounding strap while I was under there.

The thing I was calling a condenser... I've seen picture diagrams now where they called it a suppressor for radio interference. So I guess I was way off on what that was. I don't think it would hurt to ground the tab on the back side of the voltage regulator as I have now learned that the case mounted leg on the regulator housing is the ground leg. Grounding the back side of the regulator could help ground the whole instrument cluster I would think.

But I will be replacing the original style regulator with a modification I found today while researching the issue.

I found a really good tech article on a voltage regulator upgrade. I posted it here in B-bodies. but here's the link again.

http://www.allpar.com/history/mopar/electrical2.html

Northerndave

Well I grounded the signal wite at the sending unit and the gauge pegged out full on the dash. I put a grounding strap on from the sending unit fuel fitting to the hard fuel line but my fuel gauge problems are no better. I don't think I have a bad instrument voltage regulator because the temp gauge seems to work fine.

I'm really narrowing it down to a sending unit the way it looks. I'll try to ground the sending unit hard fuel fitting to the chassis once I guess before I order a sending unit.