As the Pacific Northwest mist dripped off of the forlorn Camaro’s bumper, I vowed that I would make that trip. The first few years were hindered by a lack of a driver’s license or a useable car. Then there were the years where I had a car and license, but was poor enough that I was counting pennies to make sure I had dinner for the week. Then there were the military years, where I had the car and the money, but no free time to hit the road. Then school… then work… you know the story.

This year, I bit the bullet. Hot Rod’s Power Tour happened for the 30th round. I’m 41 now. With my ’76 Charger up and running with fresh gears and an Interstate-friendly transmission, there was no reasonable excuse why I couldn’t go. Haley was willing to co-pilot, I had nothing scheduled on the calendar. And for an added bonus, this year’s route was very close to home: Bowling Green, Nashville, Louisville, Columbus and Indy. PERFECT. Even the weather was looking great, with no rain in the forecast and temperatures in the upper-80s.

The icing on the cake was that Matt at American Powertrain hooked us up with sponsor parking passes, which meant that (A) I spent money on multi-day passes that weren’t required, and (B) I had guaranteed parking at the American Powertrain display on the midway so I could show off the TKX swap. We packed a cooler for drinks, some chairs, sunscreen and on Monday morning, parked up.

Monday and Tuesday were awesome. I was pleasantly surprised to see the reaction to the car and had the pleasure of talking with many people. Some had questions regarding the swap, others wanted to share the memories of cars like mine from the past. I was all about it. Every now and then we’d stretch our legs and go see what interesting rides had been brought to the Tour. We’d arrive early and leave before the traffic jam became insurmountable. We planned to return home until Wednesday, then we’d leave early Friday as we had a family event to attend on Saturday.

Things unraveled pretty fast after leaving Nashville Super Speedway. After exiting Interstate 40 to the country highways, it was clear that the Charger was seriously down on power. Hills that shouldn’t have been a blip on my radar were requiring more throttle to surmount. I suspected that the car was getting hot, so we stopped for dinner in Portland, Tennessee to give the 360 a chance to cool. It seemed to help a little, but by the time we were through Franklin, Kentucky it was evident that the issue was back. I hadn’t messed with anything, so what gives?

I got my answer on the last turn before my driveway: at a complete stop the oil pressure gauge dove to nearly zero and the engine was shaking the car like an earthquake. Sure enough, once I pulled in my driveway I checked the oil and got my answer: nearly none. We had topped off the fluids that morning before driving to Nashville. Not continuing on the Tour wasn’t an option, so the Charger was stuffed into the garage and our truck was employed for the remaining distance.

Aside from the one fly in the ointment, however, the Tour was great. We caught up with many friends throughout the week and got to tour some quieter parts of the middle of the country that we normally would just blast past on the Interstate. I will say that next time I drive the tour, I’m linking up with a group of friends to run with, because driving it on your own leaves something to be desired. Finding the local eateries is a must. Making a 1-2 pull in the tunnel leading into Nashville is a must. Hanging out in the bed of a truck sipping something cold while watching UPS jets taking off from from the airport in Louisville is a must.

Fixing my wounded Mopar for the next adventure isn’t a must. It’s a vow.

The post Unhinged: Power Tour 2024, From The Eyes Of A First-Timer appeared first on BangShift.com.

But this time around, we’re performing major surgery. Considering the last update focused on the installation of a complete gauge cluster, that’s saying something. But it’s true: the 727 TorqueFlite is gone and a Tremec TKX took its place, with help from our friends at American Powertrain.

Why Put A TKX Into A Mid-1970s Mopar?

“Warhammer”, the 1987 Dodge Diplomat AHB (2006?)

For those who have been around BangShift for years (or date further back to the CarJunkieTV.com days), and especially those who know my proclivities when it comes to odd Mopars, the dark blue Dodge Diplomat pictured above should look familiar. This is “Warhammer”, a 1987 AHB (police package) car that had been built with a heated 360 and an A833 four-speed. I bought the car from the original builder in 2005, had it painted, bought those chromed trailer wheels, and proceeded to drive that thing like I had been gifted something from a NASCAR garage. I’ve owned about eight or so FMJ-body vehicles in various tunes, but that Diplomat had violence and manners, thanks to the manual transmission. The car is long gone, but the idea of another row-your-own Mopar never left.

I’ve wanted to have another manual transmission-equipped car in the fleet, but that hasn’t worked out well. About the same time I owned the Diplomat, I had a four-speed 1980s shortbed Dodge truck that I had to sell off to a friend. After a seriously long drought, we bought a 2012 Chevrolet Cruze that had a six-speed as an economy car. Once we learned how much of a dumpster fire that thing was, I decided my next project vehicle would be a stick shift…and forgot that entire idea when the Charger popped onto my radar.

Luckily, after coming to my senses, some research showed that swapping the car could be a possibility. The 1971-74 B-body platform and 1970-74 E-body (Challenger/Cuda) body share many common traits, and there was a good chance that the “black metal” of the 1975-up B-body wasn’t much different than before, due to Chrysler’s financial troubles. After some discussions, I committed and started to put this idea into motion.

Before The Swap

The pedals were the first items to be swapped in. They bolted right into place with plenty of clearance.

Before I was going to shell out for a transmission, I wanted to make sure that this swap was going to go my way. I made two purchases: a steering column from a floor-shifted 1979 Chrysler 300, and manual transmission pedals for a 1970-74 E-body. The pedals were sent to American Powertrain to be studied to see how close they were to parts already sold, while I spent time restoring the column. In early December, American Powertrain sent back a pedal assembly that used a Malwood hydraulic clutch pedal for a test-fit. Once the pedals were swapped in and were working, I bit the bullet and paid for a Ford-style TKX with a 2.87 first gear and a 0.68 overdriven fifth gear.

Out comes the faithful, if incontinent, A727 TorqueFlite. A good re-sealing at every possible leak point and this transmission is good to go.

The only thing happier than having the UPS guy showing up just before Christmas is unloading several large boxes from the truck, including one that leaves the driver asking what dead body you ordered due to the weight. In addition to the TKX, American Powertrain sent over just about everything possibly needed to finish off this swap, from the transmission crossmember and pilot bushing to the fluids needed and, naturally, the crowning touch for the finished product:

That’s right. The MF’ing Hurst Pistol Grip shifter.

Where Is My Grinder? Time To Cut A Hole!

With the 727 and related items out of the way, it was time to start planning out the swap properly. I wasn’t worried about making major holes in the floor…the TKX was originally designed to fit into a 1970 Chevelle with little to no modifications needed. After a couple of test fits and a few measurements, I had a pretty solid square of transmission tunnel that needed to go away for the shifter area and with it, a small section of inconsequential floor bracing above the transmission crossmember. I didn’t even have to bash in the seam at the firewall any!

Cardboard-Aided Design at its finest! The first measurements were taken underneath the car, and once the square was measured out the template was used to locate the two shifter locations offered.

As you can see in this image, the forward shifter location was a no-go from the start. Punching the dash on the 2-3 shift wasn’t going to cut it.

This was the first section removed from the floor: the square lines up with the Tremec’s shifter plate and the section of crossmember was in the way. There was some additional metal removed, but this is the largest section.

From above, you can see that the initial cut was restrained.

How Easy Is It To Manually-Swap A Cordoba Clone? Surprisingly Easy!

Once the cut was made, the next few steps were pretty typical: install the pilot bushing, bolt on the flywheel, install the clutch using the provided alignment tool. Simple and straightforward. It was during the installation of the Lakewood bellhousing that adapts the TKX to the small-block Chrysler that we found one thing we didn’t count on: the passenger-side exhaust interfered with fitment.

A quick trip to Mark Muffler in Bowling Green, Kentucky took care of our bellhousing/exhaust fitment issue.

Once the car was back from the exhaust shop, we entered the critical phases of installation: measuring bellhousing runout and the air gap for the hydraulic throwout bearing. Besides being critical for your warranty, both of these are critical towards your transmission’s happiness in day-to-day operations and overall lifespan. Here’s what you need to know (mainly because I listened to people who know more things than I do):

With measurements taken, I found that the bellhousing was exactly where it needed to be and that the hydraulic throw-out needed three shims. Perfect. I put everything together and aside from a slight bit of hole enlargement for the trans crossmember to bolt up properly to the underside of the Charger, everything installed together just fine.

In-between transmission work, I prepared the new column to go into the Charger. That included painting the visible parts in Claret Red (the darker red tone of the car’s paint job).

It also required a complete swap of components from the Charger’s original steering column. Everything from the lower steering shaft bearing to the entire wiring situation, all of that was swapped into the new column. And naturally, so was the ignition key tumbler. Works like a freaking charm.

The other final touch? The Tuff Wheel that used to belong in the SuperBeater Mirada. I sold this wheel when that car was stripped back in 2012, and the guy who bought it from me returned it to me at the Chrysler Nats at Carlisle last year! Craft Customs restored the wheel to what you see here. You can also see the adjustable “White Lightning” shifter kit that American Powertrain sent. Using a series of dog bones and Allen-key bolts, you can adjust your shifter to suit just about any application your heart desires. We ended up turning the shifter a little more towards the driver’s seat from this picture.

To mount the hydraulic reservoir for the clutch, the bracket that had been for the cruise control cable was removed, pounded flat on an anvil, and drilled for mounting holes before being mounted mirror-image onto the opposite side of the master cylinder. Cheap, easy, simple.

Once the transmission was bolted into place and I was content with the way everything sat, I took measurements per the instructions American Powertrain sent and placed the order for the new driveshaft, which arrived in short order in the most non-discreet package possible. Lord knows what my neighbors were thinking. All you have to do is follow the directions, know how to read a measuring tape, and understand what kind of U-joint connects to your rear axle. In my case, a 7260 (small Mopar) was ordered and once it was bolted in, it was time to drive.

Change One Thing, Change Two More…

Our first attempt at driving the Charger immediately ended when it became apparent that yours truly broke the bearing input shaft. That forced me to pull the transmission and replace the broken unit with a new retainer. But once we fixed that and finally got the car onto the roadway, it became apparent fast that pairing off a transmission with a 2.87 first gear and a 2.41 rear gear axle was a match made in Hell. Too tall a gear combination paired off with an engine that has just about no low end to speak of resulted in max effort to get the car moving without venturing into “hurting things” territory.

Oh, sure, the Charger would cruise at 70 MPH in fourth gear without breaking a sweat, but even at 75 MPH, the Charger didn’t have the oats to pull fifth gear. Oh, damn…guess that means new gears! And if I’m paying for new gears, I might as well add a limited-slip, right? It was a process (translated: the first set of gears nuked itself after eight miles, warranty repairs, and that the car was in the path of both tornadoes and flooding areas during the recent spat of psychotic weather that Kentucky and Tennessee went through) but the final result is that the car is home, the rear axle is back in the car, and we’re breaking in the gears over the next couple of weeks. A big kudos to Ron’s Machining Service LLC and Seth at Rears and Gears for their assistance with everything, I’ve never received customer service like that from either. Both are now immediate go-to sources for axle parts and work.

I’m sure that catches up the story. Between now and the next update is Hot Rod Power Tour…and the car is slated to go come hell or high water. Right now we have a sticking brake pedal (if not sticking front brakes), valve cover gaskets, a tune-up, a floor patch to complete, the interior to completely install, new air shocks so we don’t eat another set of rear tires prematurely, a tune-up, and an inaccurate fuel gauge to fix. Don’t wish me luck. Wish me someone who has been speaking Mopar since the late 1960s who can handle this list in 45 minutes.

Photo: Ron Turransky

Need to catch up?

The Introduction

Part One: The First Assessment

Part Two: Trunk Paint, Instrument Cluster Work

Part Three: Deeper Instrument Panel Work and the EFI-Ready Fuel Tank

Part Four: The Heater Core Job We Should Have Been Worried About

Part Five: New Wheels, Wiring Fixes, Fuel Pump Troubleshooting, First Dragstrip Pass

Part Six: MSD Distributor, Coil, and Solid-State Relay, RetroBright Headlights, And More

Part Seven: Brake Repair, Winter Projects, Subframe Bushing Replacement, Firm Feel Upper A-Arms

The Charger’s 2023 Trip To The Carlisle Chrysler Nationals

Part Eight: Fixing The Gauges Once And For All With Classic Instruments

The post The Charger, Part 9: Shoving A Tremec TKX Where It Truly Belongs appeared first on BangShift.com.

I hinted about what I was up to in Part 7, but didn’t go deep into details, so here’s what happened: after PRI 2022, I left the show and went to buy a Rallye gauge cluster from a 1978 Dodge Magnum. Ordinarily, this should’ve been enough…I had a full gauge cluster, complete with tach, that should just bolt straight in. But…well, let the photos tell you the rest of the story:

This is the Magnum cluster as I bought it. Other than a missing lens, it was intact. But it looked like hell, had an 85-MPH speedometer, and still had an ammeter.

After some discussions, I sent the Magnum cluster, the 1979 300 face (turned silver) and the Charger’s face to Classic Instruments for a Customized cluster service. The goal? 140-MPH speedometer, voltmeter conversion, stock appearance, and one trick little mod to the face plate.

Once you put your initial request in and ship the cluster to Classic Instruments, they will photograph and disassemble your cluster to see just what they have to work with. This is why you don’t get a quote ahead of time. This is the actual artwork I approved…if you want to make changes before those changes cost you, do it before you give them the go-ahead to build. Note the idiot lights: I had the light that used to say “CATALYST” modified to read “REVERSE”, so there is now a light that will come on when the reverse lights come on. IYKYK.

Most any other car, removing the cluster is a simple, straightforward affair. My car? Oh, hell naw, we can’t be simple and straightforward. Everything but the main dash structure comes out of this baroque bitch, including the metal top plate…you know, the one I had to bend a cheap screwdriver just to remove? Yep. This ate a few hours’ worth of work by itself.

When your cluster is dropped off at your door, you’ll find that the team at Classic Instruments doesn’t leave you wanting for anything…except maybe someone to do the hard part for you. This schematic is bulletproof. All you need to do is figure out which wire from your car connects to the cluster’s connectors and you’re golden. This is Electrical 101 stuff here, folks.

If you don’t freak out at the thought of doing some wiring, then take our advice and get some good schematics. I own the full FSM set for the Charger, which proved beyond invaluable. A quality Chilton’s or Haynes manual wouldn’t hurt either. And when in doubt, a multimeter and test light are your friends.

The Charger’s gauge functions are isolated down to two brick-style connectors that sit in a well in the gauge cluster, allowing the circuit panel to make contact with the leads.

On inspection, the concern regarding the ammeter was validated. Note the black/white and red/white wires. Those are the ammeter feed wires, and both are constant 12 volts. See the scorching? I don’t know what caused that.

I said it once before and I’ll say it again: the best way to learn is to just roll your sleeves up and get to it. Luckily, after wiring helicopters for ten years, the first wire cut (here, the fuel level signal wire) didn’t bother me a bit. Snip, snip! One at a time until the connector was disconnected from the main wiring bundle.

The female connectors are already incorporated into the cluster connections that Classic Instruments made for you. Just take the wire you cut, terminate the wires using the provided pins, then slide the pin into the correct position on the male terminal block. That’s it.

Even the new-to-the-car speedometer bounced like I was driving in an earthquake. No longer, as the Classic Instruments cluster uses a speedometer driven by an electronic signal. The SN16 signal generator goes into the transmission where the cable used to be. After that, it is just a matter of a few electrical connections and your speedometer will be as smooth as any vehicle off of the new car lot.

It isn’t so much a computer brain as it is a translation service. This is the signal filter that takes in the speedometer signal and the tachometer readings and sends them to the cluster (note the two gray bundles to the right). This was mounted underneath the cowl, well away from where my feet occupy space and nowhere near any kind of weather.

Since the speedometer cable was deleted, the grommet in the firewall became a useful port for wiring. The speedometer signal bundle and tachometer signal wire were routed through here. I also ran new feed wires for the oil pressure and temperature senders, bypassing the notoriously troublesome Chrysler firewall bulkhead connector. Provided temperature and oil pressure sending units were installed into the engine block.

Each and every car is going to have some kind of quirk to deal with if you are exchanging clusters. In the Charger’s case, we had to perform a full ammeter delete rewiring to make the car charge right and to keep the electrical system happy. I used the MAD Enterprises deletion system. Just be sure you understand what you are doing and make sure your modifications are electrically sound. 

As connections were made and systems came online, I would periodically connect power and test systems out. Knowing how much work it took to rip the dash apart, I didn’t want to have anything wrong before I put it back together again.

On my first engine-on test, everything checked out just as I’d hoped. The voltmeter showed a slight charge (13.9 volts at the battery), the temp gauge came alive quickly, the oil pressure twitches at the slightest rev and the fuel gauge showed over 3/4 full, as expected.

The last thing to do was to go for a drive. If the speedometer or tachometer need to be calibrated, a button that connects to the signal filter can be used to make those changes. Happily, everything was on point and the speedometer readings matched perfectly to the GPS speedometer we own.

One final thing: Originally, I just wanted to have a “Chrysler Green” (the aqua green color) for a gauge color, but at the last minute the call was made to backlight the gauges with an RGB LED system that can be adjusted with a remote control. These are just a few of the color options available. I loved changing gauge colors on the 2005 Mustang I used to own and I love it here, too.

That’s one major project wrapped up. But winter has just started, and we have more things to get done before next year. Stay tuned, the next update will arrive sooner than later…

Need to catch up?

The Introduction

Part One: The First Assessment

Part Two: Trunk Paint, Instrument Cluster Work

Part Three: Deeper Instrument Panel Work and the EFI-Ready Fuel Tank

Part Four: The Heater Core Job We Should Have Been Worried About

Part Five: New Wheels, Wiring Fixes, Fuel Pump Troubleshooting, First Dragstrip Pass

Part Six: MSD Distributor, Coil, and Solid-State Relay, RetroBright Headlights, And More

Part Seven: Brake Repair, Winter Projects, Subframe Bushing Replacement, Firm Feel Upper A-Arms

The Charger’s 2023 Trip To The Carlisle Chrysler Nationals

The post The Charger, Part 8: Fixing Gauges Once And For All With Classic Instruments appeared first on BangShift.com.

Common sense would dictate that I would’ve taken the luxury truck. Anyone in their right mind would have made that call. But my mind hasn’t been right…well, ever. My first major roadtrip was in the 1978 Chrysler LeBaron, in the winter of 2000, driving a car with a known broken front end and about 87 horsepower through the Midwest during ice storms and snow. Roadtrips in sketchy Mopars is a thing for me: that same LeBaron also took me to Fort Hood when I was done in training. A 1984 D100 took me on a Southwestern tour that saw Colorado, Arizona and Texas. The “Warhammer” Diplomat saw me rip across Texas from San Angelo back to base with a major moving violation or five committed. The SuperBeater Mirada was known for doing laps around the Pacific Northwest late at night as some kind of automotive therapy session, and its last major act was to drive from the Seattle area back to Arizona. That was the trip where bikers had to help me into a gas station on Highway 93 because I was probably minutes from heatstroke. Who knew driving a car with no A/C and whorehouse red velour interior was a bad idea in the desert?

This weekend was the Carlisle Chrysler Nationals, and yours truly had an invite as a featured vehicle. That meant thrashing on my ’76 Charger Daytona until literally two hours before I was to hit the road. That meant replacing major suspension components, checking everything with a fine-tooth comb, and saging the car so that I might have a hope in hell of not having to call AAA to come save my ass off of the side of the road. By the time zero hour had arrived, the car had just come from the alignment shop and was stuffed like a thanksgiving turkey so I could hit the road. I was so caught up in leaving on time that I forgot to put the front fender well covers back into the car.

For the first hour, I was pure nerves. I was listening for anything that sounded out of place – every clunk, every tick, another icicle of fear down my spine. Louisville was my abort line. If I wasn’t comfortable by then, I’d turn around, cancel hotels, and head back home. Happily, by the time I blew past Elizabethtown, Kentucky I was beyond comfortable…aside from the heat, anyways. As the sun started to drop below the horizon around Columbus, Ohio, I felt immensely better and kicked the lights on. Mile after mile, the Charger behaved wonderfully.

Anyone who was at the fairgrounds this year can tell you, it was one hot mother. We’re talking the kind of hot and humid that is properly dangerous. At no point did the car threaten to overheat. At no point did the car not want to start. Throughout the weekend, I talked with many show-goers who were curious about the Daytona script, who dug the Halibrand wheels, who had “I had one just like it” stories. Even as I was pushing my limits of heat tolerance, I drove the car in the Malaise Era Parade on Saturday and it was great to see the audience response.

The best part of the show was meeting people who I’ve known online for years, decades even, but have never met in person. And one of them had a gift for me. Michael Westfall had bought a part off of me back in 2012 and he felt like I deserved to have it back:

That’s the Tuff wheel that came from my old Mirada, one of two relics from that car I know exist. It needs to have the outer wrap re-done, but still…this is the steering wheel that was attached to the car that helped me get my head straight and, honestly, put me on the track to being where I am at today. It will get restored, then it will be put into the car that is the culmination of how far I’ve come since.

This weekend, I drove the Charger 1,522 miles, bought over 90 gallons of gas, and wound up getting about 15.9 miles per gallon. I drove the car rain or shine. I ripped across Ohio’s midlands doing 85 mph in as much comfort as you can have without modern amenities. No shit, I’d love air conditioning, but the sound of the 360 barking away with the windows down would be lost.

But the most memorable point came when I was driving back home through West Virginia. A Dodge Mirada, painted Graphic Red with a flat-black hood, wearing chromed mag wheels, ripped by me, sounding as pissed-off as ever before continuing on into the ether. Kind of “full-circle”, in my eyes.

I’m looking forward to the next cross-country excursion.

The post Unhinged: The Charger’s First Major Roadtrip And The Chryslers At Carlisle Experience appeared first on BangShift.com.

Once the fall weather switched from “lovely” to “gray, cold crap”, the Charger went up on the jack stands for some attention to the brakes. Nothing was really worrisome up front, just some fresh pads for now. The rears, however, needed some assistance.

On one wheel, I located Mr. Frog, who unfortunately must’ve lucked out and got stuck in the wheel during a rainstorm and…well, never made it back out. Sorry, buddy.

[facepalm] well, that’s one explanation for my 70-mph vibration.

And there’s the noise I had kept hearing. Nothing dramatic, just some worn parts. New hardware, new drums and shoes, done and done.

Once winter weather moved on, I got back to work. Unfortunately, the work I did on the heater core last time didn’t take. In addition, I wanted to get to work on the gauge cluster again, so I went in deep and pulled the entire dash structure, frame and all, out of the car.

With the heater core sent off for repair…again…I got to work on a bigger project. I bought a Rally dash cluster that was raided from the remains of a Dodge Magnum. I shipped it and the gauge fascia off for some tweaking, which will be shown when I get the cluster back. In the meantime, thinking that I was just waiting on that to be finished, I relaxed a bit. I threw the dash back in (a bit half-assed, I’ll admit) so I could drive it more.

Then I got the news:

So here’s what happened: long-term readers might remember the car that preceded the Charger, the Imperial. Well, the guy who bought that car, Kyle Karp, runs a deal at Chryslers at Carlisle that celebrates Mopars that fall directly into the “unloved” category. Guess who fits in just fine? Yep. The Charger has an invitation to be a display car outside of Building Y this year. Part of me is over the moon that the car is good enough for that. Part of me thinks that they’ll reconsider once they see the car in person. But a rare, third voice popped up just in the nick of time, and it asked if the Charger could make the trip at all.

Over the last month, I’ve been thrashing on the car, a-holes and elbows, to get it ready to make the drive. The dash structure is installed properly, with the heater core hooked up and all. Since my dash face went with the cluster for [reasons], I used a junkyard-find 1979 300’s face that was modified to work. The audio system is the best that Bluetooth offers and I ran out of time before I could start on the air conditioning. I even bought door glass weatherstripping thinking that I would get to those before the trip. But they are glued in and that means scraping, sanding, gluing, setting and most important on a car with non-functional air conditioning, no open windows, so that’ll happen after I get back. But the ultimate in fear came when I looked at the front suspension. The K-member bushings, which have been suspect from the start, have been chunking themselves out of the car at an alarming rate, and the upper control arm bushings were virtually non-existent. If I’m going to drive this pile 1,300 miles to Carlisle and back…and I AM going to drive this car…then they had to be replaced. All of it.

K-member mount bushings look simple enough: with the car in the air and a jack under the K-member, loosen the mount bolts, then one by one replace, then tighten and torque. Easy enough. With a set of polyurethane bushings at the ready and an impact gun on standby, I expected this to be a two-afternoon job. Oh, how wrong I was. You see, I figured that with the bolts loose, the K-member would droop and that at the worst, minor leverage would be needed. I couldn’t be more wrong if I tried. Five days later, I’ve got Haley’s father and uncle helping, every single one of my crowbars, a proper door-breaker crowbar, and a freaking tanker bar on hand. All of the old bushings got Sawzall’d out of the way, and each new bushing went in with my big ass standing on the bar while the other two guys helped to get the new equipment into place. I am sincerely amazed that my neighbors didn’t file a complaint during this “fun”.

Compared, the upper control arms were a breeze. I’ve had my eye on Firm Feel’s catalog for many years but never pulled the trigger on buying anything. Between the absolutely rotted bushings and the potential for additional damage, I called an audible and sprung for a set of their 1973-1979 tubular upper control arms for Mopar B-body vehicles. Not only would I get trick parts, but I wouldn’t have to do anything involving the ball joints, since they were pre-installed. With two weeks to go, the box of goodies arrived on my doorstep and with weather on the way, the Charger moved into the garage for the teardown. After busting the upper ball joints loose with extreme prejudice, it’s four bolts and the whole upper control arm assembly comes out of the car. A bit of bench work is involved to separate the upper control arm shaft from the rest of the assembly, but at least the bushings gave me no issue…what little remained was easily pushed out with a small flathead screwdriver.

You ever get the feeling that things are going just a little too well? Yep, that got me. The passenger side system went in without a hitch. Not one. Buoyed by that success, I went to start assembling the driver’s side and ran into a major freaking hangup. In the above picture, you can see that the upper control rod does not go through the bushing eyelet. The bushings did not go into the eyelet, either, not even with grease. On these cars, that rod slides through both eyelets, then has a bushing with a sleeve that is capped on the outer ends by a large washer and nut. If the rod can’t go through, and the bushing doesn’t fit, then I’m far up a certain creek and my paddle has vanished into the ether. This was on a Thursday. I called Firm Feel that instant, got their voicemail, explained what the problem was and that I was in serious trouble. Kudos to them, they called me Friday morning, and after a few minutes of discussion proceeded to send me another driver’s side A-arm and a return slip so I could send back the bad one. This is with a week to go, mind you. I’ve never checked UPS Tracking more in my life than for this one box. At one point, the timeline looked so tight that I would’ve had the car aligned, then would have had to immediately hit the road, no questions asked, to make it to Carlisle. How people deal with “SEMA crunch” kind of builds without heart failure is beyond me. Happily, for once, UPS beat their deadline and delivered the new part on Thursday evening. By Friday evening the Charger was down on the ground and was taking its first few steps with the new parts.

As of writing, all that the Charger needs is a bath, an alignment (scheduled for Monday morning) and to be packed up. I can’t think of a better way to break in the new parts like thousands of miles on the road, can you? Given that the old stuff felt okay around town, the Char-doba should feel pretty sporty now. But without getting ahead of myself, this trip will be a milestone: the car’s last road trip of measure was when I drove it down to Vice Grip Garage’s shop, which is something like 300 miles round-trip, and that was a bit of a sketchy drive. If all goes well, the Charger will meet one major goal: being Interstate-worthy.

Need to catch up? 

• The Introduction
• Part One: The First Assessment
• Part Two: Trunk Paint, Instrument Cluster Work
• Part Three: Deeper Instrument Panel Work and the EFI-Ready Fuel Tank
• Part Four: The Heater Core Job We Should Have Been Worried About
• Part Five: Fuel Pump Troubleshooting, Wiring Fixes, Halibrand Mags And Tires, First Dragstrip Pass
• Part Six: Lock And Load The Parts Cannon For Maximum Effect!

The post The Charger, Part 7: The Carlisle Crunch And Death By A Thousand Bushings appeared first on BangShift.com.

Well…one of our first modifications was putting us in a bind. That electric in-tank fuel pump we put in? It works, but we kept running into the same issue: some kind of power feed issue that kept the Charger restricted to the Bowling Green area…and even then, some days that wasn’t enough and every now and then the car would wind up on the side of the road, hood up, cooling off, and the owner somewhere nearby boiling over. Yes, we managed to drive to the Somernites Cruise and back without much of an incident in May, but the very next week we found ourselves on the side of Highway 68/80 once more.

Well…let’s say that I went overboard with the parts cannon this time. Not only was I going to move the fuel pump’s power wire into an MSD 75643-HC Solid State Relay Block, but I was going to replace the spark plugs, wires, coil and distributor while I was under the hood. Follow along to see the progress:

Step one: Battery disconnected or removed. Common sense, folks. There might not be enough to go around anymore, but you don’t want to ride the lightning.

The MSD Solid-State Relay Block is available in a standard and high-current form. Where my thumb is located is where a 4-gauge wire directly from Battery Positive will go. The four channels are your outgoing power points. The two layers of small wire pins on the right are trigger points…the top four are 12V triggered, the bottom four are ground triggered. The fifth ground pin on the right is the ground point for the relay.

After ditching the Charger’s data tag (and cleaning up some rust), the Solid-State relay was mounted to the fender lip, rearward of the battery and next to the windshield washer reservoir. This location keeps the relay out of the way of road spray or incoming minced insects. In this picture, you can see the basic wiring for the fuel pump: Red is 12V to pump, green is 12V key-on power, small black is relay block ground and the big boy is the wire straight to the battery.

Moving on, it was time for the stock distributor to hit the bench. So, before I turned a 30-minute project into a day-long debacle, the cap was removed, the rotor button was checked, and a strip of aluminum tape was placed to mark the cylinder. This was also the time where I used an inordinate amount of engine cleaner to remove the grime and tiny leaves surrounding the distributor mount.

Behold, the MSD Ready-to-Run distributor for 318 and 360 Chrysler (p/n 8388). There’s basically three things you need to know about this distributor: how fast want your advance set up (which uses the springs, as shown), what size advance stop bushing you want, and how to wire it up. The directions can’t be any clearer. We left the distributor stock, with two heavy silver springs and a blue stop bushing for a slow curve. After that, there’s four wires to contend with: Red (coil positive); Orange (coil negative); Black (ground); and Gray (tach signal). Easy, right? Not quite. Ma Mopar’s famous wiring quality comes into play. Instead of hoping and praying that we’d get a good 12 volts from the ballast resistor system, we instead ran 12 volt hot to coil positive from the solid-state relay with a key-on 12 volt trigger. Solves that problem!

Next up, spark plug wires. Once again, back to the MSD catalog for a set of 8.5mm Super Conductor wires (p/n 32749 for a set for LA Chrysler). Not much else to say here…they’re beefy and are designed to keep electromagnetic interference inside the wire and not all over the engine bay. The wires were easy enough to rig up. Having to take a 3-foot-long breaker bar to every last freaking plug while praying the threads didn’t come with them was not. Now I fully understand Ford 5.4 fans and their troubles. The stock plugs looked ancient but fine, so a fresh set of the same Champions went right back in. Don’t mess with what works, right?

I did run into one issue: the heat stove on the driver’s side exhaust manifold and the wire for Cylinder #1 were in constant contact. Two half-inch nuts later, and the stove is gone and the wire safe.

The coil is another item that went away. On our Charger, the coil was mounted in a bracket on the intake manifold that also pinned down an engine ground strap, the coil condenser and the choke’s ballast resistor (that white thing with wires about mid-picture). The new coil is an MSD Blaster High Vibration unit (p/n 8222) that is designed to lay on its side and shake around. Most parts store coils hate that. I also cleaned up a LOT of ground points about this time, including those two mounting points on the intake.

With everything installed, the plug wires nestled in their retaining clips (barely) and the vacuum advance hose replaced after it snapped in half like a twig, we fired it up and set our timing for 36-degrees of advanced.

Those two stickers are more than just something in the accessory pack. Since the Charger is well within range of any smog police anywhere, those are the “get out of jail free” cards for the coil and distributor. 50-state legal, baby, complete with the CARB EO number.

After one last sweep of things, I decided that the pretty much shot ground wire for the battery was due for the trash can as well. If you think this view is bad, you should’ve seen the end that bolts to the cylinder head.

Finally, in my quest to get the Charger to Interstate road trip worthy, the halogen headlights were retired for a set of Holley RetroBright 5700K headlights (LFRB155). Yes, they cost a mint, I get it. But I cannot begin to explain just how much nicer it is to actually see things after the sun has gone down without resorting to high-beams everywhere I go. (Photo: Hunter Madison)

That’s where the Charger sits now. Minus the windshield wiper bushings (a job that I’m dreading), I’ll hop in this sucker and drive it pretty much anywhere at this point. The air conditioning is still dead, the heater core is still bypassed because it’s a colander, the brakes need to be looked over soon and the suspension has all the stiffness of a fresh marshmallow at both ends. But in order to get this car to stall out, I had to force a vapor-lock situation that involved 45 minutes of stop-and-go rush hour traffic followed up by sitting nose-down on a hill through three left-turn lights on a 97-degree day before the Charger had enough. I’m seeing about 20 MPG on the open road and I can see at night.

Every part replaced has a purpose, every part improves the car in some way, shape or form.

Past Charger Articles

• The Introduction
• Part One: The First Assessment
• Part Two: Trunk Paint, Instrument Cluster Work
• Part Three: Deeper Instrument Panel Work and the EFI-Ready Fuel Tank
• Part Four: The Heater Core Job We Should Have Been Worried About
• Part Five: Fuel Pump Troubleshooting, Wiring Fixes, Halibrand Mags And Tires, First Dragstrip Pass

The post The Charger: Lock And Load The Parts Cannon For Maximum Effect appeared first on BangShift.com.

I refuse to make any other joke with that as a baseline.

Anyways, here’s a catch-up for what has been going on:

The Charger was roused out of hibernation just as the temperatures started to warm back up into the 50-degree mark and sunny days didn’t mean single-digit temperatures. I felt like this was a perfect time to address an issue that I had been fighting ever since the conversion to an electric fuel pump: the intermittent, unpredictable stalling. To date, I still haven’t driven the car further than two towns away because I don’t want a repeat of the car’s disastrous trip to Ratty Muscle Cars last October (short story: drove to Nashville fine, then stalled out so badly we trailered it back home.) Unfortunately, some problems sprang up. And one simply sprang: the heater core that I had finished putting back together sometime prior to mid-March is not fixed. It started leaking almost immediately after I hooked the lines back up to it, though it did heat the car properly. For now, I bypassed the core. Frankly, it’s going to be until the fall before I can be bothered to look at that again. And I’d rather go aftermarket at this point, because I don’t think there’s a chance in hell what I have is going to function well. As for the other issues…

I started with some electrical tracing to try to figure out the stalling issue, since it seemed like an electrical issue more than a fuel issue. You can see the first problem: a serious overcharging issue. The voltage regulator and the alternator had gone the way of the dodo and were replaced, along with the battery. A solid fix, as the following reading was a steady 14.1 at idle.

While tracing the fuel pump wiring in the trunk, I happened to notice something I had missed: a botched wiring job on the driver’s side tail light. They were twist-tied and wrapped in electrical tape…you know, “fixed”. Some proper connectors and heat shrink later, and what do you know, both taillights work once more!

Now, this is where I’ll end the electrical chasing, because one glaring fix needs to be made before any more electrical troubleshooting can be made: the ammeter gauge needs to be bypassed. I’ll do a full write-up on that when I start tearing into that project. Until the ammeter is bypassed, any potential electrical issues have the ability to be traced back to the gauge that handles the full power of the electrical system of the vehicle. No wonder Chad is so Mopar-averse.

But the car is drivable around town, and has been driven often. But this brings me back to a gripe I’ve had ever since I laid eyes on the car: the rolling stock. Do not get me wrong…I like the Rallye wheels and acorn caps. I do. I just think that 15×6 on a 225-series tire leaves this car looking dainty. It’s like seeing a 300 pound ballerina dancing to Swan Lake. It ain’t right. I priced a set of Rallye wheels in larger sizes. My bank account threatened me with a divorce. So…

I did the wise thing, put some benefits to use, and copped a set of Halibrand Sprints in what they call the “Anthracite” finish. Those are 15×8 up front, and 15×10 out back. Those Coopers measure 235/60-15 front, 275/60-15 rear. And if you want to talk about fitment, trust me, they fit:

It’s amazing what a set of wheels will do to a car. The Charger made the leap from “nice survivor” to that late 1970s Day Two look that, frankly, has stopped people in their tracks. While doing a photo shoot for Holley, one kid rolled up in a beater New Edge Mustang. He stopped dead in the middle of two lanes of a one-way thoroughfare, stared at the car for a minute, then yelled out, “Man, I like that bitch! I like it a LOT!” before dumping his clutch and striping the roadway. That kind of reaction is absolutely priceless.

The Charger’s most recent adventure took it down to Jake’s Dragstrip. Austin Griggs, the dude behind Ratty Muscle Cars, had extended an invite to me to bring the car down to be part of a scene for a movie that was being shot there. Unfortunately, you won’t see the car on the silver screen, because I wasn’t going to stick around long enough for the film crew to get their shit together. We had towed the car down on a trailer (there’s that trust thing again…) and we would be facing a four-hour trip back to Bowling Green. I did, however, get to run the car down the eight-mile, so effectively I have a baseline for the car. Any idea on how fast it is? Any guesses?

That’s depression right there. Look, I had no delusions about this car being fast. It’s a smogger 360 that’s backed up to a 2.41 rear axle. But that’s…that’s sorry. The daily-driver Chevy Volt could bury this thing in the quarter. I watched an equally-stock mid-1980s Camaro hand me my ass on a silver platter with garnish on the side just to rub it in. This will not stand. Bet on it.

Special thanks to Hunter Madison for making the Charger look killer in photos. You can follow Hunter’s work on Instagram, @wulf.creative.

Past Charger Articles

• The Introduction
• Part One: The First Assessment
• Part Two: Trunk Paint, Instrument Cluster Work
• Part Three: Deeper Instrument Panel Work and the EFI-Ready Fuel Tank
• Part Four: The Heater Core Job We Should Have Been Worried About

The post The Charger: New Shoes, New Attitude, And The First Trip Onto The Strip appeared first on BangShift.com.

The highlight for me was going to be bringing the Charger out to Holley’s big shows at the beginning of September, especially MoParty, where I would actually have a car to show off. Not only would I be at these events working, but Haley planned to ride in with me for at least one day of each show. So on that first morning of LS Fest, with just a hint of early autumn chill in the air, I fired the car off and after letting it warm up a bit, we started making the trip from BangShift Mid-West towards Beech Bend. You couldn’t have asked for lovelier weather: morning temps in the mid-50s, a thin layer of low fog amongst the recently-harvested corn fields, and a mellow V8 soundtrack on country roads. And that lasted all the way up until we got to where we turn towards Bowling Green…and that’s when the steam started to pour out of the vents, fogging up the windshield and leaving everything smelling like hot ethylene glycol. Son of a…

Yep, my luck finally kicked in, and on the first day of LS Fest, the heater core in the Charger popped. Combine that with an air conditioning system that hasn’t worked from the start, and it became pretty clear what I would be doing for a winter project. I bypassed the heater core and continued to drive the Charger around for a few weeks, but just after Halloween, the Charger got it’s fluids topped off and rolled into the shop for its winter hibernation and for the last couple of weeks I’ve been fairly busy wrenching. Follow along with the pictures to see what all has happened:

Before we even begin discussing the HVAC issue, however, I’d like to take a moment and thank whoever painted the Charger last for their work. The day before MoParty, a deluge swept through Bowling Green and I had driven the car into town. I noticed this blister on the hood as I drove home. At first, I thought heat or maybe an electrical short on the hood was cooking the paint…wrong. There was enough of a break in the clearcoat that water got underneath, and when I touched it water squirted out. Since this photo, all of the affected clear in the picture has flaked away, leaving an open bare spot. And there’s plenty of lifting clear elsewhere on the body. Early estimates for a repaint? You don’t want to know. I sure didn’t.

Sorry for the sideways shot, but what you are looking at is the RV-2 two-cylinder air conditioning compressor that loved to scream once the revs got to a decent range. When these are fully operational, these will freeze a medium-sized meat locker with ease.

This is the EGR timer that I had to remove to get to one of the HVAC mounting nuts. It was plugged in, it was functional. What’s so important about this?

If you are familiar with Chrysler electronics from this time period, the backside has all of the circuits covered in a semi-solid material to protect them. Except that over time, that substance melts into a honey-like consistency, then oozes all over the firewall down to the ground. Which was the story here. I am not responsible for the electrical tape fix.

Nor am I responsible for whoever put one of the Schrader valve ports for the A/C compressor directly INTO the radiator hose! The Charger was supposedly converted to R134a coolant sometime in the past. And I’d like to believe that, except that this is the worst possible placement for the valve.

There was also exactly NOTHING in the system when it was discharged. Nothing. Not one PSI. No wonder the compressor was howling. This is the manifold, between the lines and the evaporator core. Pretty sure those are both supposed to be clear.

Also pretty sure that when you retrofit 134a to an R12 system, the O-rings need to be changed to HBNR (green) material. That’s just a guess on my behalf, though.

And I’m positive that Gorilla tape, no matter how good the stuff is (and it is good) is designed to keep coolant inside of a screwed-up coolant pressure line.

Pulling the HVAC box out of the Charger was actually pretty easy. I disconnected the vacuum tube connector at the HVAC panel, then removed the glovebox and lid, ashtray and back panel, and the lower dash trim (the one with the “ball chiller” vent on the passenger side). Four nuts on the firewall, one nut on a bracket underneath the dash, and a little bit of muscle and the box will come loose. Remove the passenger seat and the box will come out. In my case, you can see the coolant that was pissing out of every possible location as I made the one swift motion to the back of my garage.

And there it is, looking at it from the firewall side. It’s uglier than a slapped ass, but the vacuum tubes are in one piece and I know all of the diaphragms are in working order. That’s a plus. Splitting the box involves a couple of 5/16ths screws and removing a handful of clips around the perimeter of the case. And, in my case, the massive amount of “dum-dum” (Chrysler’s tar-like tape-on substance) that someone had sealed the box with.

There’s at least two separate points where the heater core failed. Chances are good that there are really more, but I wasn’t going to hook water into a feed port and find out. Fun fact: 1975-1979 B-body heater cores have been out of stock since 2017. As of this article, the heater core is at a shop for a possible re-coring using the brass tanks and new core material. Here’s hoping.

Next up was the removal of the A/C evaporator core, which meant more 5/16 screws. To get to two of them, you have to open up an access panel. Finding leaves, pecan shells and fur told me that this was not going to be a fun time.

The resistor seconded that motion.

The A/C core looks salvageable. I will have it pressure-tested for leaks and if passes, this will be re-used once clean.

Thanks, Mickey. HVAC jobs aren’t great, but better to find this now and clean it out than to be inhaling petrified rodent detritus for years to come. Notice the green ethylene glycol slime towards the back, where the heater core sits. There’s tons of that all over the case.

And that’s where I leave you for now. Both halves of the case are going to be thoroughly scrubbed down to remove the smell of antifreeze and mouse piss before anything goes back together. If the heater core is completely unsalvageable, I have a couple of options, including modifying a 1971-74 B-body unit to work.

Big thanks to Mike Musto for that beautiful shot of the car from the 2021 Holley MoParty in the lead image.

Have you missed an update on the Charger? Catch up with the following links:

• The Introduction
• Part One: The First Assessment
• Part Two: Trunk Paint, Instrument Cluster Work
• Part Three: Deeper Instrument Panel Work and the EFI-Ready Fuel Tank

The post The Charger: The Heater Core Job We Should Have Been Worried About appeared first on BangShift.com.

Knowing that my gauges were funky to begin with, and knowing that the RTE voltage limiter I installed last time didn’t really do anything, I had to bite the bullet and pull the whole cluster out to see what was what. I wanted to bench-test the entire printed panel to eliminate breaks. I wanted to do power-on tests to make sure that only five volts were going to the electrically-driven gauges. I wanted to make sure that any ground for the cluster was solid, clean and heavy enough to do the job. And…well, I wanted to convert the cluster to LED lights. After seeing the improvement that a simple bulb change did in the Great Pumpkin Mustang, I’m a believer. And since gauge lights did work prior to this mess, I knew that they were inadequate…like a green chem-light that was a day old, still glowing, if only just.

Pulling the cluster out was actually pretty easy. Removing the dash pad to do it, however, was a bitch and a half. I recently had someone tell me, “Working on a Chrysler product is easy, except for that last f*cking bolt.” They were not wrong. The four top screws that go in where the defroster ducts are at? Yeah, thanks, Satan. I had to heat up and bend the shit out of a cheap screwdriver so I could extract those.

It must be said…I am still very shocked at the condition of every last electrical connector on this car. There isn’t so much as a broken lock tab in this harness, not anywhere. And no, I didn’t break the first one. After yanking the seat out so I didn’t have to do any more automotive yoga than necessary, I got the whole cluster unit out with very little drama. Ringing out the cluster with a multimeter ruled out any breaks in the pattern…the printed circuit panel is good. Sweet, that’s one load off of my mind. The next step was to check continuity between the gauge power blocks (the 6-point and 12-point connectors that plug into the circuit panel) and the bulkhead connector at the firewall. Again, good. I traced the path to the sensors, with no fault. I studied the factory electrical service manual up and down, I drew my own schematics to double-check my work. I can tell you the names of connectors, like CI-7 (the connector for the seat belt buzzer) off of the top of my head. Everything checked out.

So, a ground issue is the culprit. I redoubled my efforts at the voltage limiter. Previously, I proved on a bench test that all of the gauges function properly when external power is applied. So the gauges work, the electrical connections are good…that leaves the gauge cluster ground, but upon the last fully assembled power-on test in the car, the fuel gauge came back to life (yay!), the temperature gauge shot straight to “hot” with the engine off and cold (that’s not good…), the alternator gauge didn’t do squat and at this point, the battery was too tired to try to start the 360. And that’s where we stop for now…because the cluster is back out for a power-on check on the bench and the car is being started and ran to get the battery back up to good. Between you and me, reader, paying Dakota Digital to cure this mess is looking lovelier and lovelier by the second. It might not be the proper BangShift way, but at least their stuff works, looks OE, and has a warranty.

Now, about that fuel tank. Follow along and I’ll explain what’s going on here:

Getting the tank down on the Charger is simple: two nuts hold the straps, undo the vent line and the fuel line, pop off the sending unit and the stupid little grounding clip that doesn’t do anything, separate the fill tube from the main tank, and remove. Oh, and be sure to drain the tank fully first. I thought I had run the tank to 1/4 full. Oh, how wrong I was. This barge had 17 GALLONS still left in the tank after a week of romping on it. And I wore about half of one gallon when it spilled all over the shop floor.

This is the original fill tube grommet, the rubber piece that keeps the tube and fuel in the tank. This is what was inside the tank. Doesn’t look bad at all, right?

Here’s the other side. That’s not just forty-something years of elements…inside there was traces of red bearing grease. Somebody has messed with this before and used the wrong lube on the o-ring. Don’t use grease! Use a proper lubricant. And stop snickering, you pervs.

Yes, that’s a return port.

Yes, that’s two more wires than there should be. And look, Ma, a real ground stud for a real ground! Maybe now I’ll actually know what’s in the tank besides hopes and dreams (and half my paycheck).

The short story: that’s Holley’s new 350LPH fuel pump, like you are able to get on a Muscle Car EFI Pump Module, fitted to a replacement fuel sending unit, with a Hydramat pick-up and a return line. What’s next? Be patient.

Missed an update on this car?

Part 1: Introduction

Part 2: Assessment

Part 3: Trunk Paint Repair and Instrument Cluster Voltage Limiter

The post The Charger – Electrical Chasing And Fuel Tank Modifications appeared first on BangShift.com.

Part 1: Introduction

Part 2: The Problem Areas

The nice, pleasantly warm and relatively dry early summer of Kentucky has given way to the hot, humid, and hellish season that I’ve come to know and…love? Is that the right word? I don’t know, but whatever. It’s hot enough that during the day I’m glad I work indoors where there is ample air conditioning, yet once the sun starts to dip down to the horizon and sinks below the tree line, that’s when I’m all about roaming in something older. The Charger hasn’t done much dusk cruising yet, not for any major reasons, but because work has been ongoing. The car has been driven to and from the office a few times, and was supposed to be present at the Hot Rod Reunion that went down in Bowling Green, but lo and behold, the trans pan gasket wasn’t the culprit, but the trans pan itself. So while I sit here, waiting on the new unit with the drain plug to show up – no more ATF baths for me, thank you! – let’s bring you up to speed on the work that has been going on with the late-B body.

In the last update, I showed you the spot on the trunk where a mild adhesive remover went through the paint faster than muriatic acid. Ultimately, I felt that the only way to make sure any repair to the trunk was going to work out was to strip all the paint off and start again. Sounds like overkill, and maybe it was.

But, all things considered, I’m very happy with how the trunk turned out. I did not layer the two different colors together like I had initially planned. After going through some of the photos I took during the strip-down, I noticed that what Chrysler did was to simply scuff and re-prime the areas that got painted Claret Red (the brighter of the two colors). So I primed, made sure I was happy with the result, and shot two coats of Claret Red, followed by two coats of clear. Get up-close, and you can still see sanding marks and some uneven points from the spot-filler. But the whole car is a 20-footer and the paint quality is top-tier…I really like this stuff. Not bad for shooting from a spray-can!

Moving away from the paint, we unfortunately have had to say our farewells to the Charger’s original speedometer, which kicked the bucket at 57,234.9 miles. The autopsy confirmed that the clock spring was completely shot and that the plastic bushing was in two pieces.

You want to know what phrase will drain a wallet as fast as “I want a divorce”? Easy: “NOS Mopar (fill in the blank)”.

Okay, I might be playing up the damage to my wallet a little bit, but I did buy a brand-new NOS speedometer for the Charger that had 3/10ths showing on the clock. To be clear: this is a stop-gap measure for plans I have later on down the road. But it is nice to know how fast I’m going…and to know that I was really underrating this car’s speed. It’s quite happy around 70 MPH.

With one gauge functioning, it was time to get to work on figuring out why the other gauges are still refusing to comply. The first thing I tried was to deal with the two “odd” wires, the red one that came off of the column to the radio mounting bolt, and the black wire that runs from the other radio mounting bolt. Other than the seat belt buzzer taking a break, no noticeable difference was noted. I was able to get to the main connector blocks and get them pushed out of the cluster so that I could clean up the contacts. This brought the high-beam indicator light back to life.

My next move was to replace what Chrysler calls the “voltage limiter”. This regulator is supposed to step voltage down from 12 volts to 5 volts for the gauges. The 5v then goes to the gauge, which has a bi-metallic strip that is wrapped with nichrome wire. When the current hits the wire, the wire gets hot, will heat up the bi-metallic strip and the gauges function. Unless the voltage limiter fails, then the gauges get all of the current before frying and dying. Instead of the old mechanical limiter (far), I picked up a solid-state limiter from Real Time Engineering (rt-eng.com). It duplicates the action of the mechanical limiter, but doesn’t have the risk of it getting hot or de-grounded and sending a full 12v to the gauges.

With the new limiter in place (you can see it just above and behind the temp/fuel gauge), we hooked the battery up and hit the key. Our buzzer came back to life, and the fuel gauge moves a tiny bit, but otherwise everything else is dead. The fuel gauge is only useful in the fact that it moves to 1/8th tank when fully topped off and drains back to Empty at an alarmingly fast rate, even though the Charger’s MPG is exactly where I expected it to be (roughly 14 MPG for mostly 60 MPH highway driving and rural backroads, best as I can come up with.)

Unfortunately, that was not enough to get anything to work. The oil pressure, temperature and alternator gauges are irreparably damaged, probably from a 12v spike. Just to be sure, I did a test using a AA battery with one wire going into the temperature gauge’s sensor and the other wire grounded to the car’s battery. Nothing, not so much as a twitch. This begs the question: now what? I could locate a complete cluster, but on late-B bodies, swapping clusters requires the entire dash assembly – dashboard and all – to come out. Not too appealing unless I have a reason for pulling it, such as locating a rare Rallye gauge cluster with tachometer. And I am not keen on putting the three-pack of gauges in a completely unmolested interior, though I might rig up an oil pressure gauge underhood for the time being so I can monitor that when I’m doing inspections. The fuel gauge will be more fun…luckily, there is life to the gauge, so there is hope. But it does mean that I need to inspect its ground, and possibly the sending unit, given the car’s low overall mileage. That will happen once I run the currently full tank of fuel out. 

The post The Charger: Paint Repair And More Instrument Cluster Investigation appeared first on BangShift.com.