1973 Challenger - 340 4 Speed Rallye

[71383bee]

for 1973:
340 4-speed with A/C & 3.55s is extremely RARE 

I don't think 340s ever used Saginaw pumps

I think you could be correct. I was considering buying a 73 Challenger at a dealer out in Maryland back in 2012 and actually paid an inspector to check it out. It was a 340 four speed car but no AC. Looking back at the pictures I received it does show a Federal PS pump with a cooler. That one was leaking too. I past on that car because the price and shipping cost not working out. Someone else bought it a few months later and post a video on YouTube. It sounded really nice. However, the OP's car is even better.

I do recall seeing that car.  It looked pretty nice.  I recall reading somewhere that Yellow was considered their "high impact" color for that year!  How surprising considering what was available only 2 years prior. 

[71383bee]

One of my favorite colors!  . Whereabouts in Chicagoland are you? I'm NW burbs.  Winter is hanging around too long this year but spring must arrive soon!  If you aren't already a member check into the Chicagoland Mopar Connection.

I live in Libertyville!

I used to be a member long ago with CMC.  Not anymore though. 

I'll definitely have it at Mopars in the Park in Fox Lake! 

[7212Mopar]

The color is Y2 light yellow. I think it is more like a 60s color. If I need to choose a 73 in yellow, I will take Y1 Top Banana which is a richer color.

[71383bee]

The color is Y2 light yellow. I think it is more like a 60s color. If I need to choose a 73 in yellow, I will take Y1 Top Banana which is a richer color.

Ahh i see that now Y2.  I thought it was top  !

What a thing though that Y1 was your only high impact color for 73.  Even orange was gone for 73! 

[LinceCuda]

Very nice Challenger a great find for sure, and what a nice color combo with a 4-speed to boot 

[71383bee]

UPDATE 04-17-18

The last two weekends ive finally been able to dive into her and start cleaning her up.  I sent the federal power steering pump in to be redone and got under her to do some heavy investigating and cleaning.  The K member near the PS pump was covered in a thick layer of caked on grease and dirt.  I scraped off huge sheets of it.  I suspect the pump has been leaking for some time.  Underneath i was able to find some cool things like factory dabs on the shifter rods and faded blue paint on the tranny.  Unfortunately both mains appear to be leaking.  I changed the oil and it was thick and very black.  The filter said 12/16 on it...

I cleaned her up a little, checked the linkage for play, and snugged the pan bolts.  Then attacked the topside.  I pulled the air cleaner and the inside was completely black from oil being sucked from the breather.  Need to add a new breather and PCV to the list!  A little elbow grease and some carb cleaner did the trick to bring the air cleaner back to par.  the carb had a lot of carbon buildup too. 

With the PS out i had pulled the battery as well and took a good look at the wiring.  The battery cables were pretty poor as well as the stock wiring.  I was proactive on that and had ordered new battery cables and wiring earlier this month.  Just good insurance in my opinion.  I had the distinct joy of rewiring the positive battery cable to the stock starter.  After that the negative was a cinch.  I then tackled changing out the front marker lenses and bulbs with new reproduction lenses and LED lights.  The lenses were filled with water! 

Ill tackle the front end wiring later.  I didn't want to get too far ahead with multiple items.  my plan is to get the PS reinstalled and fire her up.  IF all goes well then ill tackle the front end wiring next. 

One interesting discovery was finding the motor assembly numbers stamped on the front of the block.  From what i can tell they are JM340  05168107 with an upside down A.  The JM 340 makes sense but the others baffle me as they don't seem to line up with the 10k day calendar.  Any help on this would be VERY helpful.  I hope to get the VIN and block casting data this weekend. 

[6bblgt]

there might be another digit before the "051" - if it is part of a "4" it almost makes sense  late August '72

clean it better & you need to get the partial VIN and the casting date off the block

[71383bee]

there might be another digit before the "051" - if it is part of a "4" it almost makes sense  late August '72

clean it better & you need to get the partial VIN and the casting date off the block

Yeah i thought a 4 was missing too.  I was hoping so as the digits just didn't make sense.  I was told it was numbers matching and my heart sank at first when i first looked but the J is pretty clear when you get up close.  IF its true at 4051 that would make it built August 30th 1972.  My SPD is 3/19/73 so it makes sense.  I need to get the VIN to be sure. 

Ill do more digging. 

Any thoughts on the "7" and the upside down A type stamp? 

[71383bee]

Wow!  Its been quite a while since i posted!

A little bit has moved forward since last post. 

I reassembled the pump and installed it. unfortunately i was unsuccessful in finding a new feed hose for it as apparently having an oil cooled ferdaral pump was a very rare thing.  If anyone can help on this i would be much appreciated. 

In other news I verified the VIN on the motor and it does match!   

For the trans I noticed several welding marks on the case and would like opinions on that.  I was not able to locate the ID pad and VIN. 

As for progress i changed the plugs, updated the timing, and tuned the carb.  For timing original was around 5 BTDC with total around 30.  I pumped it up to 34 total which picked up initial to around 10.  Runs much smoother and was able to lean the carb out a bit at idle.  the 340 perked up real nice to the changes!  I feel a real distributor curving is in its future, but options are limited in this department.  All i know is Don at FBO in Oregon.  Anyone else have ideas.  my local shop do it do it anymore and i want someone i can trust. 

For the car its just been mainly cleaning and a little cruising.  Tried out the ac which worked pretty good! 

The big news is i decided to enter it into the nats for original just to get a baseline of what i needed.  I changed out to the stock rims and swaped the original seatbelts back in.  Personally i love the Road wheels back on it but miss the 11" tires!  We drove it out there and had a great time.  Car ran great.  Handled the deluge of rain on Friday & saturday with some minor leaks. got lots of compliments and tips on what to focus on.  My main beef is the engine bay its average at best.  All of the hoses and battery need to come out of it and i need to get the stock style overflow back into it,  Does anyone have good reference photos of their 73 overflow?  I could use the help.  I bought new seat hinge covers, fender mount lights, and some other odds and ends.

On my immediate list i have:

> Install new fender mount lights
> Install new roof rail seals
> Pull dash gauges and replace busted voltage limiter (tips on pulling dash?  I'm a bit apprehensive on doing this)
> Replace Engine forward wiring harnesses
> Run 10 gauge bypass line

Hopefully i can get these done in the next few months.  Around winter shut down time i want to drain the coolant and tackle the hoses and possibly touch up the motor if its still warm enough to paint. 

I do have one more issue that crept up while driving.  I'm occasionally having trouble shifting into 1st gear.  This appears typically when the car is very warm and run for a while.  it seems to have trouble when i try to shift to 1st when at a stoplight or in heavy traffic if in 3rd or 4th gear.  A couple of times i've accidentally shifted it into reverse and then when getting back it goes to 3rd.  I suspect this is a shifter issue but not sure as this is my first 4 speed car.  Any ideas to look into would be great. 

[7212Mopar]

My 72 and 73 did not have a coolant overflow tank. I added an aftermarket one. May be they started at 74.

[318Stroker]

My 72 and 73 did not have a coolant overflow tank. I added an aftermarket one. May be they started at 74.

My 73 318 Challenger didn't come with an overflow tank either. It has the rubber hose coming from the filler neck, and puking directly to the ground.

[71383bee]

It has been some time since i posted on this!  I guess this would be like a yearly update. 

So for 2020 I tinkered on a few smaller detail items. 

For drivability I replaced the engine forward harnesses and battery cables.  VERY glad I did this as I found several fried wires.  I don't know how this thing ran to be honest.  I mostly used M&H through year one but the AC and trans lines were from Evans. No real issues other than the trans harness had the reverse light switched to the wrong terminal.  I also ran a 10 ga bypass wire.   

Other more major improvement was the swap to the Rev-N-Ator ECU and coil and WOW what a difference that made.  I retimed and tuned the carb and it turned what i thought was a decent running 340 into a great one.  Very impressed with this unit.  I kept the stock distributor in it but changed to OEM style wires.  Side note they don't make  date coded wires for 73 so i got a 4th quarter 72 set thinking it would be close and to my surprise the passenger side did not line up with my wire looms.  So 73's are different in length. 

Other items were changing out of the fender mounted lights, updating most of the bulbs to LED (huge improvement at the dash lighting btw), and changing a few emblems.  I also changed out a few engine bay items including a period correct appearing battery. 

My wife and I are slowly acquiring interior items to correct the 2 tone interior.  Someone put black door panels and painted the headliner black.  Definitely going to remedy that!  I want to handle all of this at once though which includes replacing the cracked dash pad and restoring the gauges.  Due to this I haven't updated much on the inside.  I did put in new repro window cranks and changed the seatbelts back to stock.

For the outside this year the most noticeable improvements were done to the taillights and the wheels.  I decided to re-paint the taillights to the 72 rallye style which are black organisol tail panel with light argent inlays around the bezels.  I also pulled the road wheels and masked them and repainted the centers.  I'm not great at painting but I wanted to give it a crack myself.  Learned a few lessons on the way but overall I'm very pleased with the results.

For the upcoming year I'm likely not going to do too much to her.  My focus is distracted as we purchased a 70 convert in November!  I purchased an original TQ for her and am gathering the items to switch over to the correct carb.  I have to pull the gauges to fix the voltage limiter as I got stranded twice now as I ran it out of gas!  I'm just afraid of the road I will want to go down once I pull the gauges out!  My focus will likely be on acquiring interior resto parts and cruising.  Hopefully I can update a little more frequently as time passes. 

[7212Mopar]

I thought 73 rear the lens area is black and the rest is argent. That is what I have on my 73. But what you have looks good too.

[MOPAR MITCH]

Very nice!   I used to have a daily driver Challenger, full Rally-pac, '73 340-4-spd, 3.23, ps, pdb, A/C... red, white top, white interior, factory class-2-tow hitch... bought car from a local original owner .. great car!!!... sold it to a Mopar friend for his son's 16th bday many years ago... he still has it (now 440-6).

[71383bee]

You are correct on the 73 taillights. Original is light argent across the full back with black inlays. Their was no difference for the rallye cars.

To me it's a minor deviation from stock that "should" have been carried to the 73/74 rallye's.

My whole tail panel was already blacked out so I thought it would be easier to just argent the inlays. Joke was on me as upon working on them I ended up redoing the black as it was poorly handled the first time.

Thanks for the compliments! 


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