started this car a few years ago, a lot of interruptions in its progress with owning a metal fab shop and just plain life diversions but figured you guys would appreciate the work, started as a stripped out rotted to hell 71 barracuda 318 so my goal was to bring it back simple mostly stock, motor 360 stroked 408 alum heads all roller msd fuel injected dynoed it made a good pull at 448 hp & 515 ft-lbs @ 4600 rpm, brewers rebuilt 4 speed hydraulic clutch , firm feel power quick ratio box, a arms , sway bars , adjustable strut bars , rear is a new strange dana 373 posi 2'' narrower than stock with comp engineering slide a link traction bars , Thanks to Rosevilles i stock pilled pretty much everything else i need to put this puppy together.
replaced all but passenger frame rail and rad support , outside of rockers were still good , and basically inner structure of the shell and hinge posts ,,, everything else was replaced with AMD products
Looking forward to watching that one come together :twothumbsup:
just the beginning
That's quite the pallet of work you have there. I will be glad to follow along with the upcoming pics.
Sounds like it was really rusted worse than what the pictures show. Doesn't appear to be too bad from the first pics.
Cool....nice to see another one saved :twothumbsup:
car was very straight never hit so making jig was pretty easy to secure some critical points for aligning new rails ,, payed off good in the long run.
brackets to
k frame bolts, door hinges, rear bumper mounts, front leaf spring perches, rad support and stand to bottom of frame rails and many other spots as needed
i did notice one thing i over looked and lucky it wasnt a huge problem ( when locating your new tortion bar frame rail make sure it is set at propper angle in relation to lower control arms) when i started putting car back together that angle must have been off a little because the bars were a bit lower than the control arm sockets !!! they did go in but i was a little pissed !!!! something to keep an eye on if you got this deep
Definitely a job for a pro :wrenching:
Will enjoy seeing it as it progresses :banana:
the car did look good from a distance and any pics i have of the rust were just rusty pics lol ,,,,, it was toast !!!
i remember when i got fire wall tied back in it started to be going in the right direction. weldable primer is a must ,and i did alot of scuffing parts in advance , saved some energy when it came time to prep for paint
time to crash 4 AM is coming quick I will add more soon
Youtube thecrazycuda type that in all one word blowing off some steam behind my shop lol
Not much left of it. Looks like it's coming along
:welcome: :bravo: :handshake:
That's a ton of work (almost 1.5 tons actually), interesting build. Thanks for posting it for us.
have a few min to post some other pics,,,, im glad i'm not some crazy bastard that tried to count all the plug welds lol but there is a shit ton. made a jig to hold hinges in place and then to locate them after replacing rear window filler panel
next was rear rails , when car was still a ha ha shell i jigged up the front leaf spring mounts because it all had to come out. there's a few pieces involved in that little area and it made it pretty easy having that plate to bolt the perch to , pretty much fabbed up my own inner rocker its now 1/8 steel from front to back, i'm sure that will help when the clutch gets dropped at 4 grand
rear window filler , speaker shelf were next to keep her tied together then onto the frame rails , built a few circle track cars back in the day so this making a frame jig and having location points was the plan all along. make a solid plan and attack it is about how i go at things
i will say i was very pleased with all the AMD parts, of course you need a hammer and some clamps but i rember in 87 getting rid of a 71 340 4 spd cuda because you just couldnt get panels, saw on another post on here AMD was backing down on the mopar stuff ,,, thats a dam shame if it's true!!!! this will be my last big one so im happy i got what i needed 4 years ago , incase anyone missed it thats when this project started
i shoulda counted coffee cups instead of welds
i will stand corrected this is the last big one i will build i wont get paid for, someone is always nocking on my door with a crazy project
picked up this parts car on new years eve that year , payed for that night and went got it next day, was like 3 degrees out , weather sucked but good score , all the seats dash core and all the glass was mint AC tint. car sat from the 80s was completely rotted way worse than the one i was building so grabbed a bunch of stuff off it and traded it for a solid back half e body for my first big cuda project delay !!!!!!
and another box from AMD that was the 71 fenders and new roof skin
i dont think i was the first to flip that cuda lol srry about the pic nomatter what i did it kept flipping over
its a long story but i kid i hung out with back in the day had a car stored away he bought brand new and took it drag racing , fast forward like 25 years i heard around town the car might be for sale and long behold in my possession is a 1 owner 16 k orig mile numbers match rt/se 440 -6 4 spd and yes that is orig colors of the car . lets just say the cuda went to the back burner for a little while after i forced myself to get the quarters welded on and hung all the panels to make sure everything was put back together correct ,and it actually all lined up prtty good !!!!!
Nice and you moving pretty fast on it
Nice! Good idea on the rockers, I think it's a better way to stiffen it up without being obvious. I used a caliper last weekend when I laid out the holes in the trunkfloor for my son's Charger. Not too freaky and it was quick.
legendary came through today ,,, ordered deluxe seat covers and new foam back in May ( dam Covid) but it's all here now i can add to the stock pile of parts. got a few extra boxes of stuff,, i guess the guy in Montana will be waiting a little longer for his conv GTO parts . shipped them right back out ,,, wouldn't want that shoe on the other foot,
Thanks for sharing. I looked for the videos on YouTube and couldn't find anything. So to get the story straight you also have that Challenger project? Very cool projects.
video should be under thecrazycuda it's my red 67 , built that car back in 2005 , started the 71 in 2013 and 70 challenger in mid of 14 been a long slow road for both cars , basically got all the metal work on 71 done before i picked up the challenger and then because of what that car is i decided to focus on that one, the paint work took a little longer to get done then i had hoped but when i'm not doing the work it's out of my control, ontop of the restoration of my cars i have a 50 hr a week job and own a fab shop i run at night and weekends so the projects have to sit some times, drove the challenger home 2 weeks ago , first time it has seen a street in about 40 years, trying to get an inspection sticker on it this week, cold weather makes hp and the fall is hot rod season for me.
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheCrazycuda
Man, you sound like a really hard worker so I hope you get to take some breaks and enjoy your driving season coming up.
so i guess these next few post get the car up to present day status , got the car off jig table and put it on some roller stands to make more moveable in my shop, did a dry fit with motor and trans to make sure 4 spd shifter hole was in the right spot, brought it up to my friends shop in same condo building to use his spot welder to get the roof on. so much easier than plug welding and having to clean up the welds in window channels and the drip rails. literally took a half hour. Next was set the car down on blocks and stuff the 295/50/15 under it and measure for the axel. think i took 1 1/2 off each end of stock e body length. Had the local rod shop shorten the strange dana 60 373 gears willward discs , they are tight in there but should be ok.
pretty pissed off my phone crashed and i lost alot of pics from last year , basically had the car on rotisserie i made to clean up all the welding ,do the seam sealing and misc. e break brackets, bought a set of torque boxes that fit like crap !!!! I threw away the fronts and made my own and reworked the crap out of the backs, end result is they look good.
sanded pretty much all the AMD E coat off entire bottom of car and engine bay and re sprayed it with PPG dp90lf that shit is bullet proof and can be top coated within 72 hours , so i shot that on a Saturday and Sunday i shot the hole bottom of car with SEM rock-it bed liner . Bottom of that car is mint ,i will post some pics of car on my lift , I plan on driving the hell out of this car rain or shine and building it to take it