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| November 2012 . Jake writes: So, at the end of July my Cragar 15x8s showed up. I put a set of 2245/60s on them and ended up putting the wheels on front since they didn’t fit in back. I drove it like that all the way until the end of the year, and again 2011. What you see there is pretty much the way it stayed in that time period. At the beginning of the year 2012, I decided that I wanted to rebuild the 360, which at this point was starting to get really gutless. |
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I also wanted to put some sound deadener down to make it a little quieter. I believe I bought about 50 sq feet. |
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| After putting that down, I drove it one last time before yanking the engine. A week later I started by pulling everything off until the engine was down to the bare block, then went to hardware store, picked up an engine hoist, pulled the engine, and took it back in 2 hours. Then we took it to C&S the next day (25 April) and was told that it was the worst still-running engine that had been brought to them in a long time. | |
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| At this point I decided that I should start updating the brakes since we wouldn’t have the engine for at least a month. I’d known that the tiny drums would not be a good idea to have stopping 300 raging Chrysler horses when I got the engine back and put in the car. I ended up buying a set of front discs from a guy who took them off his 72 Scamp. My dad did the passenger side so I knew what to do, then I did the other side. | |
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| Well, one thing led to another and I decided the small 7.25 rear end that came with the car would also not be adequate for the power without blowing something, so I found a bigger 8.75 down in Manteno Ill for $125. After some vigorous cleaning, I found out that it had the vaunted 489 3rd member -- good for at least 500 horses stock. Woot. | |
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At this point I was perfectly content to go with the bigger drums in back like the 440/hemi cars, which would have been perfectly fine for stopping the car. But after finding a guy who set up mopar rear ends and had some parts I needed, my dad went a little crazy and ordered a set of rear discs from the guy as well. So, now I had 4 disc brakes instead of the 2 in front like I planned. Not bad and just a little more expensive than a full set of drums. |
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On the 9th (all the previous has happened in roughly 3 weeks.) the second best thing to happen ended up on my doorstep. My 17x8s that I ordered to replace the old wheels with the small bolt pattern arrived. Upgrading to the 4.5x5 bolt pattern has allowed me a way larger wheel choice than I had previously. The next day I took them to get new tires put on then immediately stuffed them under the car to see what it looked like. |
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| A couple weeks later, at the end of the month after sitting around wait for my rear end that I bought to be cut down (it was from a bigger car and about 2 inches too wide to fit correctly -- which I knew and had planned for with the wheel choice) and my engine to be finished, I expressed concern about the cooling capacity of the stock radiator. My dad just so happened to have a radiator from a previous project sitting around in the garage and told me to bring it out. A little cutting later and it fit in the space previously occupied by the old radiator perfectly, with a custom made bracket made of scrap metal that managed to look good as well. As the new radiator didn’t have any trans fluid cooler ability, I bought a little auxilary one, stuck it infront of the A/C condenser. I haven’t had any issues with the trans overheating at all despite concerns from the transmission guy we took it to once. | |
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| A few days later we had everything for the engine back, and it was all ready to be put back together. We had the whole thing done in about 4 days. And then put in the car 5 days later, all ready to run. | |
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| A couple weeks later, about 2 days after the most recent picture, we had everything all sorted out. But the transmission was sitting out and got rained on from those two huge storms we had in May and got a quart of water in the fluid, which locked up it up. At least I didn’t have to pay for the repair. So I got it fixed, drove it a little bit, then washed it about 3 times in as many weeks and drove up to Iola. Yeah, I’ve had great times with it. | |
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Here’s a link to all of the pictures if you want a few more! |
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Comments? lou@designcoalition.org