bremereric

Man who would have ever thought this odd ball little F body would have ever had over 8000 views on this site.... Thanks everyone

bremereric

This is pretty much the done look minus the brake lines and the top of the master cylinder...I am glad that I stayed with the orange wires...with the orange 318 four barrel pie pan it sets them off.....I did the pos battery test and got all the lights tested..I had to adjust the brake light switch it was keeping them on..I finished the tach and sub-woofer wiring inside but did not close everything up...I may have to remove that large clutch spring if the pedal stays on the floor...I installed the front latch support and finished with the air breather hose..I routed it around the heater hoses and wiring harness to keep it from kinking....

67 GTX

when did mopar start to offer the four barrell on the 318?

bremereric

When ever they started putting them in Police cars is my best reply...everyone that had a 318 had a 4 barrell

bremereric

About the only two good things last night was the tailshaft seal is in and the speedometer cable is in...that z-bar kicked my butt....something had to have changed with the geometry of something..I had to go back to the old pivot ball joint at the frame rail...the new one was too long...after that I got the clutch rod in and ended up with it about an 1 1/2" away from the conection to the z-bar...the clutch rod is marked top at the end that attaches to the clutch pedal...and it has full travel range...any other way and it does not work..I went back through all my pictures and could not really see anything..I have a way to correct it but it will wreck the paint even more than I allready have..I do remember the rod popping off there when I removed it...like it was under alot of tension...

bremereric

If you look closer the z-bar is at an angle...if corrected it would bring the attachment point in closer to the clutch rod..



I am not sure of the cause except this is a 69 block instead of the 76 block...castings did fluctuate...Now the cure was to bend the tab at the frame rail in and straighten it or bend the z-bar part that attaches to the clutch rod..I chose the second of the two because I was afraid the distance between pivot ball joint to pivot ball joint would not be enough...a simple heating up with torch and slight bend fixed it..I put it back in and pushed the clutch in and out 10 times with no binds or problems...my little inner helper spring is working so far and I hope I won't have to remove that monster underdash spring. I have seen many z-bars at slight angles and it does not bother me one bit...that's what the pivot ball joints are for...

Now tonight I got the rear brake line done...the castle nuts on all the front steering components are locked down and set with cotter pins...and I removed the u-joints from the drive shaft...still deciding to re-furb the old or get a new one made...a couple of pics on how my vise and sockets worked removing them.....the last pic is the center cap retainer for the old wheels...it works real good to drive the output shaft seal into place..I used it last night..

bremereric

My wife came up to me this norning and hugged me and said happy Anniversary to me...wtf...I forgot...176 bucks later all was well...we had a great meal at a high end steak house called Perry's...it is local and my steak was 40 bucks...before that I made her push the brake pedal for me...I used Dot 5 brake fluid and got brakes....I installed my freshly painted z-bar and clutch rod and got clutch...then I took off a right angle connection on the starter and got the starter wiring hooked up...I am a happy camper tonight..

bremereric

I got my shifter back in...I know I can get reverse...first and second...not sure about 3rd and forth...my book shows the 3rd and 4th rod flipped opposite of the way my dummy pictures show...if I knew what position to flip the levers into nuetral I can use a piece of 1/4" all thread to make an alignment tool..I stuck the slip yoke in and have not found neutral yet...have grass to mow and other chores for right now..the one marked left in the first pic is shown to be flipped 180 in my book?

bremereric

This is a diagram of how my book shows it...but I thought on an overdrive the 3rd and 4th rod is flipped upside down



This is the picture from Mopar Muscle showing an overdrive unit...that's how I got mine....

bremereric

got the shifter back out and got the tranny in nuetral...before I took it out I was getting all gears except fourth...I checked out the spring and a detent inside the shifter but it wouldn't stay in place...it fell out of the shifter when I took it out months before...

Here's a pic of the spring and the detent way down in there...sorry about the bad pic.....

bremereric

bremereric

This was one of those nights...my driveshaft is ready and I will pick it up at lunch tomorrow...$218.00 bucks out the door....tonight I got my last two wiring holes closed up...one hole punched and one razor blade slit each and they are done...I went to my storage tonight and picked up my exhaust...my buddy Paul offered up his Dodge truck and another buddy offered up his trailer with winch...plans have it that I pick up the rig on Thursday night and load it onto the trailer...Friday morning it will go to Tomball muffler...I want to stab the driveshaft and fill the tranny with fuild before then.......opcorn:

78D200

Its really coming together nicely. That is going to be one sharp Aspen.

bremereric

I know the engine compartment will shine....

bremereric

Crappy nite time pic again but the new driveshaft is in there with fresh gloss black paint....7.4 pints of fluid at lunch and then back on the ground...have to zero in the tie rods and get the tires straight...this all before short trailer ride to the muffler shop on Friday....

bremereric

Last night was a late night and nothing much to post...I picked up my friends 3500 Diesel 6 speed on the floor truck and his car hauler...35 miles to his house and then back only to pump about 4 quarts of fuild into the tranny and getting the car down off the jack stands..to set the ride height....early up this morning...8:00 AM is early for me..took me an hour to load the car in my driveway...had the oldest daughter use the winch as I steered and applied the brake as needed then strapped it down....at least it's Dodge hauling a Dodge this time...



I got there about 9:30 and had to wait my turn in line...first come first served...about 3:00 I packed it back on the trailer and headed home..

some pics at the shop...that guy can weld left or right handed...100 bucks out the door..









Back at home and in the garage...this was the fun part....

bremereric

Got 3 and a half gallons of distilled water in there....no gravity leaks yet...got the front spoiler down out of the attic and mounted it...going to clean the water spots off of the grill and get it mounted later on tonight....

78doubleR

Love this car! I will be following this thread as it convinced me to join Great job on the car man, read the entire thread unfortunately it took me 4 hours lol

bremereric

Matt I am pretty sure I see one in your garage...get after it man.....opcorn:

bremereric

Well I got the distributor back out....made my little wire tool to extract the distributor gear almost all the way out..then used a magnet to pull it out of the hole....



I put everything back together....after primming the oiling system....poured a little gas down the carb....and the only success was the starter turning the car over...got out my book and did some testing...found that whenever the ECU was plugged up it knocked the pos voltage at the coil to 5.6 volts...unplug it and I got battery voltage at 12.45 volts....checked out the wiring further and found a dead short to ground on the heavy blue coming from the ignition switch...time to cut the grass and get in the pool..I imagine that there is a pinched wire on the steering column..I will do somemore checking tonight...

67 GTX

Is the water in Texas filled with a lot of minerals (cause you had to use distilled water)?

bremereric

Where I am at there is tons of calcium in the ground water..

bremereric

bremereric

I found out that the coil on the electric choke was 10.2 ohms to ground....so that is one issue when tied to the ignition voltage...had everything disconnected from the engine side...I traced it back to the inside after the fuse box..there is a thin blue wire with a white tracer that is a 5.2 ohm short to ground..it is coming off the fuse the is in position 8...which is the 5 amp for the Fuel and temp guage...the brake warning and the low oil lights...seat belt lamp and buzzer....FYI I had the kick panel off and and probably shorted a wire behind it...and the sill plate with wires going to the seat belts...

78doubleR

I don't just have that one.....
My dad has the following:
80 Aspen 2 door Clone (orig. volare)
80 Aspen 2 door
76 Aspen R/T with sunroof
78 super coupe with 93k
77 roadrunner super pak t-top car (his fun car and one that runs haha)
78 volare wagon

So yeah between my 78 roadrunner and his cars there are 7 total, i cut up a plain jain 77 volare a couple months ago since it was just a shell and a basket case.

bremereric

In September I will be looking for another car....see if he want's to sell me one in a couple of months.....oke:

bremereric

Okay who is a wiring guru....I have just about exhausted all posibilities...I checked out the underneath the seat and body wiring and none was shorted to ground...I was running out of time tonight so I hooked the bulkhead connector back up and have no short to ground out in the engine comparment...I hooked the battery back up and had the same symptoms....5.60 volts at the coil and the ballast resistor started to heat up...I unplugged the new ECU and I plugged up the old ECU and it jumped up to 12.01 volts...as soon as I grounded the case I saw sparks and the voltage dropped back down to 5.60 volts...here's some findings...on the ECU cable head pins 1 and 2 are shorted...that would mean 12 vdc is shorted to the negative of the coil...pin 5 of the ecu is grounded and pin 3 is not even there...as seen in the following picture...if someone could verify their findings on pins 1 and 2 of their cable head that would be helpful...crazy as it sounds I in no way changed or messed with the wiring harness on that side..

78doubleR

we have the 80 aspen and the 78 wagon we wanna get rid of... just come to oregon!

bremereric

I put on of these boxes in my buddies Charger and it worked like a champ...can't beat the price either...$134.95...I will do this if I can't figure out the problem I got now by Sunday evening..I would cut into the wiring harness and dummy out the stock ignition items and leave them in place....would put the box in the glovebox

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/SUM-850610/?rtype=10

bremereric

Later on this afternoon...I remembered my buddy Paul's car running alot better after I put the Summit box on it...he set the rev limiter up a 6500 rpm and I will be much lower than that...that is one nice thing about their box...no modules and anything to mess with...tonight I took most of the wiring harness apart...lots and lots of tape...already cut power to the ecu and ballast resister...hope to have it up and running again Sunday afternoon..