Saturday November 1st, A Day That Will Live In Infamy.
Dateline Holly Pond Alabama, Mopral's Garage to be more specific.
1st of all sorry guys no pics...we stayed pretty busy & my hands were deep in the grease.
I arrived mid morning a little before 10AM CDT. to find Big AL and little al (think American Chopper) cleaning up the tools in the shop left lying around from the previous days work, guess this makes me Mikey.
4-speed & pedal assembly is mounted & ready for z-bar & shifter install. Crew was looking forward to the mail running to receive the proper shifter mounting plate that supposedly was express mailed on Wednesday.
Shortly thereafter C-C.C member, Jacksboys drops by for a brief howdy as he was on his way to a family gathering & could not stay for more than an hour.
We go about preparing to weld in the frame side z-bar pivot mount only to discover that we're short a set of bushings. About noon & Miss Peggy has prepared a feast of baked ham, beans, corn, mashed potatoes & some of the best gravy this Southern boy has ever tasted. After dinner calls to the local parts stores were fruitless but Alan had a local Mopar connection that was able to provide a good used pivot bushing so while Big & little were gone to fetch them I started taking brakes apart to find out why little had "no brakes" as he arrived Wednesday evening. Eventually traced the problem to rear adjusters not engaging but finding the solution took me most of the afternoon along with re-assembly of the drums.
Meanwhile the Do-Crew got the mount welded on & we installed the Z-bar & linkage. It's getting over toward late afternoon & the mail finaly runs.....you guessed it......no shifter plate. So the next few minutes are spent questioning the eBayer's family heritage then brainstorming possible solutions. little is put to work drilling holes in a piece of steel plate. After about 30 minutes of burning drill bit tips the steel plate idea is put aside and a shifter plate from a B-body appears...seems that you can at least get 2 mounting bolts in the E-body location...so onward we go...mount the shifter..looks good...BUT the shifter rods won't clear with this B/E shifter plate combination....little re-configures a dozen times to no avail. Finally my presence pays off with a suggestion to add some spacers to move the shifter over a smudge & wallah we have a complete 4-speed setup installed.
There was talk of pulling the rear chunk as there is a lot of play in the 8 3/4.
As I left them around 6:30PM CDT Big & little Al had a running car that was basically ready to drive other than the tunnel needed installation & the interior put back together.....
Hope they got a good nights sleep & have a successful shake down today.
It was great meeting Drew (little al) & working with The Man & of course enjoying Miss Peggys hospitality
Wade
Topic: Report From Moparal's / Sleepychallenger's 4-speed install (Read 1320 times)
