Daily Driver 71 Cuda 440+6 / Shaker / 4 speed / Dana 60

[Craig J]

The car is missing one of the trunk lid torsion springs so it doesn't sit right, but the first step seems to be at least "ok" for a driver.

 

[rklein71]

My 71 only had one torsion bar for the trunk.

 

[heminut]

I dunno Craig, I would say that is much better than just "ok"! That car is going to look great when it's finished.

 

[Craig J]

a little while later... after replacing the tail panel I decided to make the car easier to drive on the street by installing a smaller cam and adding power brakes... yeah... at that point my toy started to become a turd.

Not sure what they gain with this valley plate thing...

 

[Craig J]

and from there it just kept getting better...

yeah that looks... not so great.

 

[Craig J]

#2 seems not good, but good enough.

 

[Craig J]

#3 ... wonderful.

 

[Craig J]

#4 & #5

 

[Craig J]

Engine out... and a few more gems... those flywheel bolts are pretty awesome.

 

[Craig J]

no surprise at this point.

And...
piston to wall clearance was too high making it sound like a diesel
skirts scuffed from debris... and, and, and...

 

[Craig J]

Dropped another block off at the local machine shop that has a huge backlog... then wait...and wait... eventually decided to just assemble some second hand stuff so I could drive the car again. I installed new cam bearings in the old block and of course the new cam would not even come close to going in, so I used the old cam to clearance the bearings... pretty barbaric solution but it seems to be normal. I found a nice steel crank, rods, and TRW dome pistons near Milwaukee for cheap... so borrowed my wife's car for the weekend and went over a friends house to drink a few beers and assemble the 'race' motor...

 

[Craig J]

After a few beers we had the engine together including the sweet fast fish rear seal that didn't leak a drop so far... I also figured out an OD water pump pulley setup that seems to have resolve the cooling headaches. Added a new flywheel and clutch decided to just drive it last summer. The mild cam and pistons resulted in cranking compression that is not so great for pump gas but after playing around with it I got it to work 'ok' on 91 octane.

 

[pschlosser]

I can offer an opinion on the DIY valley pan. This intake exposes the valley pan a great deal more than the factory oem manifold. As such, using the 1-piece oem-like gasket (covering both heads as well as the block valley) looks funky and ugly to some.

I'm diggin on your mini-van engine block rig.

 

[rklein71]

who needs flywheel bolts anyway....

 

[Craig J]

Drove it around in late summer until the first snow while waiting for the AMD parts to arrive... eventually gave up on the shaker hood and bought a flat hood off of marketplace, installed a sweet Dakota digital dash...
Putting a few hundred miles on it gave me some time to think more about what I really wanted...
Conclusions:
Even with narrow radial front tires parallel parking sucks without power steering
The 4 speed + 3.73 Dana and 75 mph on I-94 is not for me.
I don't like the Dana powerloc
I like driving it, and want a decent daily driver, not a race car or show car.
0.007 PTW is not for me.
The fast fish rear seal may be expensive, but it works.

 

[gzig5]

Looking good! That gauge cluster is sharp.
Not happy to hear about the backup at the machine shop. I need to get off my duff and get my block in if I'm going to have it running in the fall. Can you share who is doing the machining? I've talked to a couple local shops but always looking for options.

 

[Craig J]

So when I bought the car I did not do a very good inspection, and of course now regret it... certainly the cam bearings, custom flywheel bolts, and rod bearings were nice hidden gifts, but other stuff was right out in the open if I had just looked for a few minutes. ...

Somehow I think the frame didn't leave the factory looking like this... previous owner probably never noticed it.

 

[Craig J]

I suppose I should have just sold it at a moderate loss and moved on...nope... Solution: engine out, trans out, k member out, a few thousand more dollars down the drain.

 

[Craig J]

Time to make sure nobody thinks about turning back.

 

[heminut]

From the looks of that clutch plate and those flywheel bolts it appears someone installed the clutch plate backwards.