What did you do with your ebody/Mopar today?

[Flatdad]

I had an interesting Sunday. My brother and I took my road runner for coffee in the morning and ended up finding the deepest pothole in the county, resulting in two holes in the Hemi's 7qt oil pan! I already had all the parts on hand to fix it so that's what our day turned into. We got the job done, but not without some trouble...

After knocking loose the pitman and steering box ball joints, the old pan came right out no problem. The pickup tube, however, was extremely tight. After it came out we realized a motor mount pad bolt had been putting pressure on the tube like a set screw and needed ground down.
Next, we test fitted the repro 6qt pan and pickup tube and found 3/8" interference. The tube needed shortened and re-threaded. Luckily, a local farmer friend had an antique die kit with the proper 1/2"-14 pipe thread die.
The next debacle was the pan gasket. I had a very old Direct Connection kit with intact pan gaskets, but they had shrunken down too much to use. We chucked them in the bathtub with some hot water and they grew right back to normal size!
It took about 13 hours solving all the issues, but we got it buttoned up that night and I drove it to work Monday morning.

[ec_co]

My painter is still finishing some things, but I'm able to start putting stuff back together finally. rear bumper on, dumb as it sounds a few stickers were installed first (jack instructions, coolant, engine, tire pressure), tried fitting the front bumper and found the brackets have a slight tweak, so we're straightening those out. He's going to help me get a decent chunk of it back together, which will be a huge help since my wife did something to her knee and will be down for a few more weeks. Engine should be heading to the machine shop next week.

[YellowThumper]

Does absolutely nothing today count to allow posting reply here?

[YellowThumper]

Geeked out a bit today while checking out some factory vent housings. One is the 70 only version. The other is the later style.
I am a Plastic Injection Moldmaker. Stating that because I look at all things plastic with a keen eye as to how their molds were made to produce them.
"Geeked" because I can tell both these parts were produced by the same mold.
Inserts were altered to make newer version but cavity blocks remain the same. Texture is identical between them. Texture is created by a specialty acid etching. No two tools will ever be exactly the same. There are also molded in tool damage areas that match.
Second pic was to show different part numbers but it didn't show well

[cuda hunter]

Interesting that "they" use an acid etch to produce the texture. 

[YellowThumper]

At the time there was basically only one company that perfected the process. They had worldwide dominance for many years. Moldtech. They still exist but the "secrets" have gotten out. But most all use a variation of Moldtech's identification numbers.
Same with the woodgrain on the Pistol grip handles and interior panels.

[mtull]

Interesting that "they" use an acid etch to produce the texture

@YellowThumper can you expand on this information a bit more when your schedule permits?  Thank you for educating us on details often overlooked.  I'm interested in the topic in general as I have some parts I'd like to reproduce for fun, not business.  I've researched but not bought any of the necessary tools.

[autoxcuda]

Started on my $50 70-71 lower front valence molding I bought at Spring Fling

Cleaning up with engine degreaser seemed to be fastest.

These get rock impact pits in them. Started a little bit with the Brillo wheel then during wheel

I like to steel wool the underside since it can show dents that protrude outward.
In that side, dents show as shiny high spots over the dirty underside.

Then clean off all dirt. After that remove bright dip coating with easy off oven cleaner

[6PKRTSE]

I drove my red R/T to the local cruise night and parked next to my buddy's purple T/A. It is cool to see all of the differences within the same model year.

[ec_co]

Installed wiring clips and body plugs today. Started stripping my headers to prep for ceramic coating this weekend

[jimynick]

Chasing the right pushrod length, son Jim bought me a Comp Cam adjustable pushrod checker. Of course it's the external nutted type and won't fit through the rocker arm! Biting the bullet, I decided to pull the rocker arm assbly. While lifting it off, I thought I heard a ting. Looking at the head I realized that there was no pushrod in the head for one of the left rear cylinders. Now did I take it out or did it miss the lifter and fall in the valley?! Nothing visible, so I got my magnet and wiggled it around in the valley, nada. WTF? Then I got our See Snake and shoved it in the valley- nothing. Giving up, the next day son Nick was invited to have a look and what should he see? Nice green coolant laying in a dip in the valley!! OMG, what next!? Going to the side where it appeared from, he said he found an intake bolt wasn't tight. Now I had snugged those down and that is a mystery. Then we got on about the proper torque spec for intake bolts into aluminium. I'd pencilled in 25 lb.ft. on a torque spec sheet I have for the engine, but while trying one at that it felt like it was going to be too much. I thought that the heads came helicoiled but couldn't be sure (mush brain). Today I called the boys in Tennessee who'd I'd bought the heads from and the guy on the phone said they didn't sell SBD stuff! I said that was interesting, since I'd bought them from them! I remembered that an engine guy there's name was Charlie and when I asked if I could speak to him, I was informed that he'd retired 5 months ago!Jesus H! Trying to ascertain if the heads had steel helicoils, I then hunted down our 1/4' magnet, in the hopes that if they were there, then the magnet would give that indication- LOL NOPE! Finally, after giving up on the helicoil, I (foolishly in hind sight) went to Home Depot and bought fittings so that I could at least suck that coolant out. Once I got home, I had a moment of lucidity. Here I was going to suck out the leaked coolant, tighten the bolts a bit and hope that the thing not only sealed, but would do it at 14-15psi?! God help me! So I've made the decision to pull the intake (which ought to be fun having used The Right Stuff) and resolve my pushrod issues, both missing? and correct length and hopefully the coolant issue too.Not a fun day.   

[YellowThumper]

Started on my $50 70-71 lower front valence molding I bought at Spring Fling

Cleaning up with engine degreaser seemed to be fastest.

These get rock impact pits in them. Started a little bit with the Brillo wheel then during wheel

I like to steel wool the underside since it can show dents that protrude outward.
In that side, dents show as shiny high spots over the dirty underside.

Then clean off all dirt. After that remove bright dip coating with easy off oven cleaner

Easy off is the best for stripping the "bright" finish from aluminum.
Don't envy the tedious process that restoring involves. I recently restored a full car that had miles of aluminum and stainless trim on it.
Have to tackle mine soon.

[YellowThumper]

Chasing the right pushrod length, son Jim bought me a Comp Cam adjustable pushrod checker. Of course it's the external nutted type and won't fit through the rocker arm! Biting the bullet, I decided to pull the rocker arm assbly. While lifting it off, I thought I heard a ting. Looking at the head I realized that there was no pushrod in the head for one of the left rear cylinders. Now did I take it out or did it miss the lifter and fall in the valley?! Nothing visible, so I got my magnet and wiggled it around in the valley, nada. WTF? Then I got our See Snake and shoved it in the valley- nothing. Giving up, the next day son Nick was invited to have a look and what should he see? Nice green coolant laying in a dip in the valley!! OMG, what next!? Going to the side where it appeared from, he said he found an intake bolt wasn't tight. Now I had snugged those down and that is a mystery. Then we got on about the proper torque spec for intake bolts into aluminium. I'd pencilled in 25 lb.ft. on a torque spec sheet I have for the engine, but while trying one at that it felt like it was going to be too much. I thought that the heads came helicoiled but couldn't be sure (mush brain). Today I called the boys in Tennessee who'd I'd bought the heads from and the guy on the phone said they didn't sell SBD stuff! I said that was interesting, since I'd bought them from them! I remembered that an engine guy there's name was Charlie and when I asked if I could speak to him, I was informed that he'd retired 5 months ago!Jesus H! Trying to ascertain if the heads had steel helicoils, I then hunted down our 1/4' magnet, in the hopes that if they were there, then the magnet would give that indication- LOL NOPE! Finally, after giving up on the helicoil, I (foolishly in hind sight) went to Home Depot and bought fittings so that I could at least suck that coolant out. Once I got home, I had a moment of lucidity. Here I was going to suck out the leaked coolant, tighten the bolts a bit and hope that the thing not only sealed, but would do it at 14-15psi?! God help me! So I've made the decision to pull the intake (which ought to be fun having used The Right Stuff) and resolve my pushrod issues, both missing? and correct length and hopefully the coolant issue too.Not a fun day.   

Have always stated that these builds are never linear as intended.
Backtracking sucks but having knowledge it is correct afterwards is invaluable.

[YellowThumper]

Interesting that "they" use an acid etch to produce the texture

@YellowThumper can you expand on this information a bit more when your schedule permits?  Thank you for educating us on details often overlooked.  I'm interested in the topic in general as I have some parts I'd like to reproduce for fun, not business.  I've researched but not bought any of the necessary tools.

I don't have knowledge of their processes. Only the end result for injection mold tooling as a service for our builds.
Acid etch is removal of steel. This then provides the positive bump features when injection molding parts.
Process can be done to one off parts but it is a slow and costly process.
For reference, locally texturing a component sized 6"x8" would cost roughly $2000.00 us.

[ec_co]

High temp paint complete on the headers, inside and out.