Had an extra week off between Christmas and New-Years so I spent a lot of time in the garage.
Been 15 degrees outside. A friend gave me an old apartment electric furnace that I took the "A" coil out of and reworked the sheet matal to make a small electric heater. It's about half it's original height. I wired it to a dryer cord from Lowes and wired in a 220 30 amp circuit. Put a thermostat on the wall. Work great!
I found this in the paper Classifieds for $400.!! a few years ago. It's about a $1100 new. I guess he couldn't sell it for $750. I found a 4bbl 900cfm throttle body at a swap meet for $15. I found another one for the Cuda on Craigslistfor $500 that came with a Throttle body. Have to jump on these.
I wanted the computer to control timing, so I made this with a GM 8-pin module look like a Mopar ECU. The plug on top still goes to the coil, power and distributor The way I wired it, I can plug in a stock ECU and still get spark.
I have to install a bung hole for the wideband O2 sensor so I bought a couple of non-foulers, cut them off, then welded them on. You can also by an 18mm nut to weld on but these are 1/2 the price.
You have to run a return line for this system so I modified a new 3/8 pickup by removing the 1/4" return line and soldering on a piece of 5/16 brake line. Old fuel line is now a return line.
Found a hall effect distributor in an early 90s Dodge truck at the Junk yard. I had to grind down one of the vanes to make all 8 the same width. I will use this later but I have it running now with a standard non-advance, electronic-Mopar lean burn distributor.
Had to bend up a bracket to mount the high pressure pump. It mounts next to the sway bar bracket and hooks to the new 3/8 brake line I ran from the tank all the way up to the firewall.
Here it is all mounted after I programmed it and fired it up and watched it on the laptop warm up.
Moved on to the last MAJOR section, The Right quarter. Out of all of the parts, it was the biggest pain in the butt trying to get the outer wheel house and wheel lip to mate together PERFECTLY. I wanted the inner lip to have full contact all the way around. In a convertible, the whole top half is thrown away since it is covered with a cap to allow the top to fit into the well. I had to cut it into sectons the put it back together.
Had to repair the rocker and front wheel house before I could move on. Pics don't show the top pieces that I also welded on.
I also welded in the right half of the trunk floor and the tank braces. I painted under the trunk floor with truck bed liner and mounted the tank.
Here is a pic of the quarter screwed on. Must have installed and removed this thing at least 30 times and it still isn't welded yet. If you think quarter panels are easy, think again. I coated inside the panels with Zero-Rust and can only get to some parts when it is open. I did the other side with POR-15 so this will be my test. Remember, convertibles dump most of the rear roof water down into a gutter that empties into the 1/4 window's pockets. This area has to have all metal coated very well.
Slowly getting it done...........
