Here's an update. I've got the engine compartment looking a lot better. I sanded all the corrosion off of the clear zinc parts and sprayed them with a clear coat. They look pretty good again. All the bare metal spacers and bolts were cleaned up, redarkened and dipped in the sealer that came with the black oxide kit. I still need to clean up the wiper motor, brake booster and master cylinder cover. I'm going to drive the car this summer and worry about those things this winter. I still need to clean up all the rusted suspension pieces. I can't just leave things the way they are.
When I parked the car, there was still a list of things I needed to fix. I've been slowly making progress on them. The main problem was the rear end. I had a friend go through it and replace all the bearings. There was a faint wine during decel before I had it rebuilt. When I got it back, the faint wine turned into a LOUD wine. After setting it up again, the LOUD wide on decal turned into a LOUD wine on decal AND accel. I decided I didn't need a sure-grip in this car so I put the stock open 2.76 rear back under it. It hasn't been rebuilt but I figured it couldn't be any worse then what I had in there already. To my surprise, it's pretty quiet, and doesn't leak at all. You can easily turn the wheels when they are off the ground. It was VERY hard to turn the wheels with the sure-grip in there. I don't even notice an acceleration difference between the 3.23 and the 2.76.
The turn signals weren't working very well. I installed a new stock style flasher but there was still a 5+ second delay from when you activate the switch, to when the lights start flashing. They were also flashing very slowly. I installed an electronic flasher and the problem went away. The signals now flash at the proper speed and the lag/delay is gone.
A couple weeks ago I noticed the engine was running very badly. It had a miss and it was shaking when you gave it gas. I looked at the plugs but they looked fine. I had a lifter tick on #3 cylinder that I needed to look at so I pulled the valve covers, rockers and all the lifters out of the engine. With all the camshaft failures lately, I wanted to have a look at the lifters. They all looked fine. I reset the pickup gap to .008 and put on a different ECU. I even disconnected the EGR and vacuum advance to isolate the problem. Still, the engine ran very bad. I was convinced it was something internal. I talked to the machine shop about looking at it for me since I was out of ideas. They suggested putting new gas in it just to be on the safe side. They said gas only lasts 90 days any more. I put stabilizer in the gas before I parked the car but it had been sitting for a year and a half. Last night I siphoned out the old gas in the tank and filled it with new NON ethanol gas. As soon as I fired it up, I could tell it was running MUCH better. I should have suspected the gas but it didn't even cross my mind.
The PS brake hose had a small leak where it seals at the caliper. I bought the thicker washers from the dealer but still had a leak. I removed the reman caliper and saw that the sealing surface was heavily pitted. No wonder the washer didn't want to seal. I sanded out the pitting with a flap disc on my angle grinder, then hand sanded it to get the sealing surface flat. No more leak. Check your calipers for pitting where the copper washer needs to seal.
Today there was a big cruise in a town about 40 miles away. The wife and I drove up there in the Challenger for the afternoon. It's really starting to feel more like a reliable car.(not there yet but getting closer) The drive up there and back went great. There was a little hiccup during the cruise itself. The last time the car was at this cruise was more than 20 years ago. It got hot sitting in the slow moving traffic back then and it did the same thing today. It started creeping up during the first loop. During the second loop it started running rough and actually died. I was lucky that it fired right back up. For the rest of the loop, I kept my foot on the gas and let it idle a little higher. I assume that was my first taste of vapor lock. As soon as I was able to pick up some speed, the temp came right back down. I talked to the owner of a really nice 68 Charger 440 car. He was getting hot too and had to park it. Overall, it was a nice day cruising around in an old Mopar.
Sorry, I just noticed how long this post ended up being...
