T-Cows 68 T/C wagon updates...

Great thread, great wagon and really great work.... Hope the new engine works out for you...keep us posted
 
Great thread, great wagon and really great work.... Hope the new engine works out for you...keep us posted

Still running the old hurt motor. Makes some rattling noises, and smokes on deceleration on the highway...but is still going. Hope it makes it until it's daily driver duty is done. Will try and get a new motor for it next year. Thinking I might go 500" stroker???
 
Thinking I might go 500" stroker???

Might as well...I'm going to do a build up in my cars if/ when the engines in my C's wear out. Are you going to use the hurt engine in it as the starting point for your build?
 
Still running the old hurt motor. Makes some rattling noises, and smokes on deceleration on the highway...but is still going. Hope it makes it until it's daily driver duty is done. Will try and get a new motor for it next year. Thinking I might go 500" stroker???

sounds like some bad lifters or a broken exhaust spring ... I had a number seven exhaust spring break and it sounded for all the world like a bad rod.. And smoked pretty bad on decel. New spring later and all was well.
 
sounds like some bad lifters or a broken exhaust spring ... I had a number seven exhaust spring break and it sounded for all the world like a bad rod.. And smoked pretty bad on decel. New spring later and all was well.

Good advice...I will check it out.
 
Well as you probably know the wagon has been doing daily driver duty since the crewcab is down for it's 4wd conversion And since I'm driving in rainy wet coast weather I've noticed a few things...and had to fix some things as well.

First is the Heater/AC system. I had retrofitted all the underhood components to modern pieces. And when the heat/def is on the A/C pump cycles. Now I have no idea if the original RV2 AC compressor would do this as well? But I was thinking that since the AC compressor requires a bit of power to lock up I would unplug it and save a little draw on the electrical system. So I did this and noticed that the wagon would fog up horribly on the inside. It is getting a bit of water inside.

So I plugged the compressor back in and within about 5 minutes of driving down the road the interior glass was almost completely clear. Now I do understand what is happening, and thought that the original Auto Temp systems would be the only ones to function like this? But clearly my system is working the same way...with no complaints from me I might ad. ;)
 
I noticed too that the tailgate carpet was getting wet...especially the small lower piece. It was completely soaked through. So I decided to pull everything and see what was going on.

Once I got it open I could kind of see why it was getting wet. The original tape was rotted out and allowing water to splash up and be soaked up by the fiber board backing. So I cleaned off all the old tape and residue...had to use lots of water and SOS pads.



Once it was clean I noticed some scale rust around a couple of the holes where the screws went through. Cleaned it up and I have a little rust out!! This is the only rust I've found so far on the entire car...little sad but should be an easy fix.

 
Once everything was clean and dry I used some aluminum tape to cover and seal up the holes. And put some plumber caulk around the big openings on the upper panel as well.



I then cut out a couple pieces of tar paper for a backing on the lower panel...just a little added water prevention.



And all sealed back up. I had to pound almost every screw hole flat again...they had been over tightened many times by the looks of things. I also put a little grease on each one since there was a little light rust around them as well....until I can clean them up properly and prime and paint.



 
I hate going in to find out why something's wrong and then finding out why!
Oh, what fun...

I enjoy going in and finding the problem and figuring out what the hell happened. LOL! I've had many opportunities on the NYB.
 
Well a little update....

I changed out the front calipers, since I had done everything else, pads, rotors, hoses, and even used compressed air to blow out the hard lines in each direction, and I was still having the car pull to the right when I applied the brakes. With the front end up in the air, and spinning the tires, you could feel the passenger side dragging more then the drivers side. Well that solved that problem....brakes nice and straight now!!
 
I bought a new ECU for the OEM style mopar electronic ignition system I have on the 440. It was running a dinosaur old OEM ECU from probably the mid 70`s, factory part numbers and all Thought I may as well put in a new unit and keep this one as a spare. Well that opened up a big Ol`can of worms.

Motor would not run with the new ECU. I tried a spare, older ECU I had...would not run on that one either, borrowed one from a friend, would not run on that one either. I checked, and re-cheched the wiring. Tested the wiring to every component in the system and everything checked out fine. Even swapped in a spare ignition switch to eliminate that as a potential problem. I finally decided it had to be in the single ballast wiring system. So I rewired it again with a dual ballast system, and now all the spare ECU`s work, but the new one does not.

I returned it for a refund and all is well.
 
I did all this because we were going ot be using it again for our family vacation. We were driving through the mountains of BC to visit my brother in-law, and my niece for a few days.

We got back last night, and the old wagon did pretty good. Even with the hurt motor it still got between 11 to 14.5 mpg....and that`s loaded with me, wife and two teenage daughters...and all the baggage that goes along with it. ;)

Did 980 miles in the old girl....and other then a few new noises, one new front end clunk that I think is a worn suspension piece, it did darn good. People love seeing the old wagon out on the Hwy and being used for what it was intended for. Had thumbs up and excited people everywhere I went.
 
That's because old cars are cool! I do appreciate the smiles and looks when I'm out in my old cars.
 
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