70 Challenger going Plum Crazy

[RUNCHARGER]

Great pictoral. A good crimper is worth it for sure.

[Cudakiller70]

Great info, I've had some soldered terminals break recently and have been rethinking crimp connectors may be just fine since OEM has used them with pretty good success and they seam to last just fine. That is an excellent crimp you made, looks OEM quality! Thank you.

[Dakota]

I've been sweating the engine compartment painting for way too long.  My fear was that I would screw up the rest of the paint job in some new and inventive way.   The engine compartment is now done!   

I used one of the Harbor Freight HVLP guns that came in a 2 gun set for $49.  There are a couple of small spots that will require some touch up, but overall I'm happy with the results.  The red line shows the break between the new paint (left) and old paint (right).

[Dakota]

Also started working on and around the trunk interior.   The seal around the trunk needed to come off, but there was some glue residue left behind.   My wife has had past success using a product called "Goo Gone" for safely dissolving glue (lacquer thinner would work too, but it was too risky that it would drip onto the other paint).  I ended up removing most of the old seal with a gasket scraper.   Goo Gone and a Scotch Brite pad is doing the rest.  I'll be repainting the lip around the truck as well as the interior.

[Cuda Cody]

Looking good!!!      

[Morty426]

Engine compartment looks pretty good along with the color match

[whitewatersky]

Looks great mate!

[Dakota]

Spent some time over the last couple of days getting ready to paint the inside of the trunk.   One item that I wanted to address before painting is to repair/replace a section of undercoating that had broken off behind the jack storage location. It was about 4"x5" originally (sorry, no "before"!pic).  I ended up getting some undercoating from Resto Rick and a spray gun from Harbor Freight.  I'm very happy with there results as the new undercoating texture is well-matched to the old stuff (at least to my eyes).   Cleaning the undercoating gun is no small task as it took the better part of 45 minutes to get it right. 

[usraptor]

I've used the Goo Gone in the past and while it used to work well for me I think they changed the formula to something more "environmentally safe" and the new stuff didn't work at all.  At least for me.  Hope you have better luck.  Since I replaced my rear quarters I also resprayed the insides with undercoating.  However, I just used rattle cans and applied it very heavy to mimic the factory and I think it came out fine.  Yours looks great.  I don't think anybody will be able to tell that it was "Patched."  Good work. 

[Dakota]

This felt really good.  FINALLY starting to hang part on the car instead of taking them off.  Rear axle and springs are in!

[RUNCHARGER]

Nice, it's always great bolting stuff on.

[Dakota]

With the weather staring to turn colder here, I'm trying to clear floor space so my wife can Park in the garage again.

The engine is in.  I followed advice from @Chryco Psycho in another thread about hanging the rear axle and using jack stands near the front of the leaf spring hangars to counterbalance the front end. I used a lifting strap wrapped around the radiator core support (it is reinforced with a US Cartool brace) and strung through the hook on an engine lift to raise the front. The tires were on the rear axle, partly for counter weight but primarily in case the rear end somehow fell off the jack stands.  Once the engine was under the car, the lifting strap was hooked into the rear holes on the K member to lift everything with the engine lift off the moving cart enough that I could get a floor jack under the K member for the final lifting.  I used a small scissors jack under the tranny to gradually raise the tail shaft.  The front bolts on the K member went in first, then the tranny  brace, then the rear bolts on the K member. 

The K member bolts where a little tough to thread in at first.  I ended up cycling between tightening and loosening a couple of times to clear the threads. Based on what I could find via Google, 150 ft-lbs is the correct final torque for the K member bolts.

[Kewl_Wheels]

That's coming along real nice. Pretty interesting way to do the installation also.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[usraptor]

It's a good feeling to finally get the engine and trans installed after all the body/paint work, etc!  I'm just glad I have a lift in my shop.  It was much easier to just drop the car down over the Engine, trans and K member.   Good job!  Keep it up.  It won't be long until you fire that engine up. 

[Chryco Psycho]

150 ft lbs is correct
Glad it went smooth installing the engine