Minggu, 18 Januari 2009

The Dodge Dart

Haven't worked on the airplane in several days. Here's what I have been working on with Austin. It's his 72 Dodge Dart that we're in the process of swapping the slant 6 for a V-8. Quite a job but actually kinda' fun working on it together. The engine hoist will come in handy for hanging the RV engine in a few years. Hope Austin can return the favor.



(update: May, 2009) Austin had a mild overheat on the Dart so we pulled the engine and tore it down to look for damage. It wasn't serious so we replaced all the gaskets and reassembled it and made some improvements while we were at it. We added a Lokar kick-down cable with a matching stainless throttle cable. We removed some head studs which made it hard to remove the Hooker headers. We also carefully straightened the oil pan to stop a small leak in the corner. All appears well as he is using it for his daily driver.
(update: June, 2009) The new motor is running too good! Austin broke the rear end so we had to R&R a new (used) one. The new one has 3.23 gears for faster acceleration and now it's easy to smoke the tires.