71 'cuda finally getting some love after 28 years

[RUNCHARGER]

Excellebt: It's good to get as many pieces done as you can before starting on the dreary bodywork portion.

[RacerX]

Some progress....

It is up on the operating table or the filet station?     

Either way cutting is about to start...     

[nsmall]

Some progress....

It is up on the operating table or the filet station?     

Thats a good one.  You have more cutting to do?

[RacerX]

Some progress....

It is up on the operating table or the filet station?     

Thats a good one.  You have more cutting to do?

Preparing to replace the rear frame rails and trunk floor

[RacerX]

Ok so with the car on the rack/operating table/filet station we can better assess the condition of the shell.

With the car supported on the four guide holes above the 6 inch datum, one corner showed the gap in
the picture.   About 3/16 or so.    It pulled in fairly easily with a ratchet strap and now all four corners are
level.

The rear rails at the measuring point given in the frame diagrams is 17 inches on the driver side,
and 17 3/16 on the passenger side.   Nowhere near any of the measurements given on the three diagrams
we have available--   15 7/16 on the 70 cuda diagram, 18 1/4 on 70 challenger, or 17 11/16 on 73 Challenger.
The general consensus by myself and others is the 15 7/16 number is erroneous, and should be disregarded.
The other numbers put the frame 1 1/4 inches or 3/4 inches too low, and there is just no way that is the
case.   

Conclusion?   Those diagrams are useless.    In the absence of verified accurate data, will probably just
split the difference between what the two frame rails are currently measuring, dial the rack pins into that
number, and see how things lay when I start mocking up the tail panel, quarters, and deck filler against
the new rear frame.   

The front rails are "close" to what is on the diagrams.   +/- 3/16 or so.    The height of the frame rails
varies 3/16 from side to side.   

The rack and guide pins are all leveled and dialed in via laser so they are as accurate as possible.

This car was built very sloppy at the factory... not sure if it was a Friday or what but it is sloppy even
by usual 1970s standards.   I would not be surprised of some of these misalignments are actually
birth defects.    The 3/16 diferences are actually within the 1/4 inch margin of error cited in the factory
service manual, but my OCD won't allow that to fly so we are going to dial 'er in as close to zero as
possible!   

And yes, as much as I hate metric, it would be MUCH better to do all this in mm instead of fractional
inches.   But that is historically how the measurements are all presented.

[RacerX]

The door skins were all tore up so pulled em off today....

Doors will go back to the blaster to have the inner structure blasted.

Removal relatively straight-forward but tedious due to the number of spot welds
used by the factory.   40 grit flapdisk around the edges made quick work of the skin.
Spot weld drill got the leftover skin flap off of the frame.   Only tricky part was the
top of the door where the skin is spot welded to the inner frame.   Luckily for me (?)
the factory did more crap work this day and the weld was already broken on one door
allowing that piece of the frame to come out and be worked on with the spot weld drill.
You can see the piece in question on top of the door that is laying on the floor.

Test-fitted the new skin and it looks pretty good.   Minor tweaking may be required
but looks like it will go back together without too much drama.

[RacerX]

yeaaa baby!  hemi in da house!

[RacerX]

So that is going to fit in there?   

Will be a while before it goes in...  lots to do beforehand but the motor popped up at a good
price and had to jump on it.   2016 392 with only 65k miles.   Good condition but will still go
through it and check everything and freshen up where required.   

Plan is to delete the beer barrel intake and use a more "normal" four barrel style EFI intake.
There is one being produced that accepts the OEM Mopar fuel rails and on the top we would
use something like the Holley "air valve only" throttle body.   This will allow the functional use
of the shaker setup with only minor mods to the baseplate due to differences in the overall
height of the engines.

Best of both worlds-- stock-ish appearance with the convenience of modern port injection.
For control will probably go with the Holley Terminator X setup as it seems to provide the
path of least resistance versus trying to mod an OEM Mopar computer.   

As the engine comes together I may split off a separate thread in the Modern Hemi Swaps
message area unless it would be beneficial to keep it here...

[RacerX]

There has not been a lot of updates here for a while...  Progress slowed down due to a few
things coming up.    We had a new son in January and that has kept us a little busy!   

Beyond that, an attempt to plate the 1974 Roadrunner that is the background in some of the
pictures snowballed into a seemingly never ending rabbit hole of small problems.   Got the
plate and registration finished, but there are still a few things that it needs to have done.
Overall it turned into a major time sink...  car was always in the way and "just one more thing
to do before I can move it..." turned into a scenario that repeated itself ad infinitum.     

But I was finally able to switch gears for a while and get some progress on the 'cuda.   The
frame rack is complete, along with the "back brace" for when the rear frame is removed.

The plan here is to use the Dynacorn 6000WT E-body "ass end" to repair the swiss cheese
that is the trunk floor and frame rails all in one shot.   Since this is a major structural unit
some braces were added to stabilize the car when the original piece is removed.

The car is currently supported at 8 points by 1 inch bolts located in the factory jig alignment
holes in the front and rear frame rails.   The 4 in the rear are not "fixed" to the frame rack but
are on a "sled."   When the spot welds are cut out the existing floor and frame should slide out
the back of the car.   We can pick it up off of the sled and drop the Dynacorn unit down on the
bolts.  Then, slide it back in and it should fall into place.  Or close to it.    Because the 4 rear
frame supports will move with the sled, an additional support at the pinch weld of the rocker
panels was added.   This will support the rear of the car when the rear clip is not attached.

Some will say the jig holes on the aftermarket parts are not consistent, but we measured and
compared to the original and if it isn't spot on it is darn close.   The sled was designed with
this possibility in mind though.  If the holes do not line up we can compensate.

The first spot welds were removed tonight.   Seems like a small thing but for this project it is
a huge step forward.  Finally some work to the actual car instead of just preparing for it!   
The spot weld cutter goes through the metal like butter and it is so satisfying hearing the POP
when the cutter gets through the first layer and the two pieces separate.        

Only a 1000 or so more to drill!     

[Challenger in NC]

Impressive jig. I'm sure the final fit will be great.

[RacerX]

Impressive jig. I'm sure the final fit will be great.

Thanks!    It may be a little over-engineered but I didn't want anything to move during the process.

It has wheels for moving around but for working it deploys eight scaffold levelers so the deck of the
fixture is 100% flat and level and solidly planted on the ground.  That provides a good reference that
doesn't move during surgery of the patient

[RacerX]

So is this weld up to Corporate standards for appearance and penetration?     

Or was it "bring your kid to work day"  ...   "Hey junior!   shoot some weld in here
while dad has a smoke..."

Lots of sloppy mess like this all over the car.   

[RacerX]

Was such a shame to take a grinder to such beautiful welds, but had to do it...

First piece of rusted original metal has been removed.     

Right away an anomaly with the new AMD piece has been detected.    Notice
how the reinforcement bracket for the seatbelt bolt sticks waaay out beyond
the sheet metal while the original is flush.    Will need to be ground down because
it has to be flush or it hits the inner rocker panel.   The bracket is also different
and puts the seatbelt bolt in a slightly different location.   I don't anticipate that
to present much of a problem though.

Thanks AMD for the extra work!   what were you thinking?!?!?     

[anlauto]

I wouldn't be too quick to blame AMD for that difference. You purchased, or were supplied with the wrong parts. There are 1970 and 1971 specific rear floor pan sections dues to the seat belt retractor location  410-1570-L/R  VS 410-1571-L/R

[RacerX]

I wouldn't be too quick to blame AMD for that difference. You purchased, or were supplied with the wrong parts. There are 1970 and 1971 specific rear floor pan sections dues to the seat belt retractor location  410-1570-L/R  VS 410-1571-L/R

I went back and checked the invoice which we checked the parts against when they arrived and it
shows 410-1571, not 410-1570.   Packaging for this part is gone but it visually matches the 410-1571
as shown on their (AMD) website.

I think what we have here is another situation of Chrysler using 1970 parts on the line until they
were gone.   This car was built in August of 1970, and has other 70-ish anomalies.

Looking at the pictures on AMD's website, the floor pans they sent me are correct for 1971-up.
However they clearly are not the same as my originals.  AMD's pictures for the 1970 floor pans
show a much closer match to the original that was removed although it is far from an exact match.

I'm gonna say that they used the 1970 style pans when this car was built.

However, none of this excuses the bracket protruding 1/2 inch out beyond the edge of the floor
pan.  Even in all of AMD's photos they show it flush.   There is no way the pan can be installed if it
is not flush.