My eBay purchased 74

[Jamiez]

After seeing Burdar's work on his jack, I decided mine needed some attention.  The mast portion is in good shape, the plate and tire iron are in need of some cleaning and probably a repaint.


The wing nut cleaned right up.  The tire iron had some minor surface rust and paint chips.  I've stripped it and it is soaking in evaporust to get rid of the last of the rust.  The stand cleaned up decently, but at least one side will probably need a repaint.  I would repaint the whole thing but unfortunately no one seems to reproduce the sticker that is on my stand:

There are similar stickers, but mine is gold with red lettering.  None of the ones I've seen for sale match that.  So for now I am just cleaning that side as best I can.  depending on how close the paint match is I might be able to mask and blend it without removing the decal.

[Padawan]

Too lazy to set up a cable, just went under the hood every time I started the car in the cold weather, and this was my daily driver in the Boston area.... 

I do have a cable, but it's bent to the degree that I can't use it any more, so the "under the hood" thing is what I have been doing recently as well. Good thing it's not a daily driver.

I have the conversion kit lying right here, but not only do I not get around installing it because of time constraints, I haven't even been able to drive the old lady recently. 

Great work, Jamie! And the jack, all that is left of mine is the mast, I should try to scratch together the other parts.

[Jamiez]

Week 80:
Well I haven't been working on the car all that much, but I decided to buy myself some new rear shocks for Christmas.  They showed up today, and I figured I would try them out.  Turns out removing the existing shock was quite a beast, access to the upper mount is a pain and the bolts were seized solid.  Anyhow here are the shocks side by side.



The old shocks are very rusty and all the rubber is dry rotted so they definitely needed to go.

[brads70]

Week 80:
Well I haven't been working on the car all that much, but I decided to buy myself some new rear shocks for Christmas.  They showed up today, and I figured I would try them out.  Turns out removing the existing shock was quite a beast, access to the upper mount is a pain and the bolts were seized solid.  Anyhow here are the shocks side by side.



The old shocks are very rusty and all the rubber is dry rotted so they definitely needed to go.

Nice shocks! Are they single or double adjustable?  I'm on the hunt for new shocks too, let us know how they work out!

[Jamiez]

Nice shocks! Are they single or double adjustable?  I'm on the hunt for new shocks too, let us know how they work out!

Single adjustable. QA1 TS 901.  The double adjustable (QA1 TD 901) shocks are pricey. Nearly $70 more a corner.
My old shocks are in pretty bad shape, so I think anything would be an improvement.  Having any adjustment at all is an added bonus.   I don't really do any kind of performance driving so something that feels good going down the road is all I really need.

[Jamiez]

After all the Christmas festivities were done, I decided to head out to the garage and start working on the passenger side shock.  Everything went very easy on this side and I had it off in about a half hour.  THis shock was in even worse condition than the driver's side:

Not only did it look bad, but it only has about an inch of travel.  Definitely needed replacement.

I mounted the new shocks without any real difficulty.  I discovered I was out of anti-sieze and given what a beast the driver's side was I opted not to torque them all the way down.  I'll complete the install later in the week if the blizzard of doom doesn't bury me alive.

[brads70]

Looks Great!  MUCH better!   ( I'm not a big fan of air shocks...can you tell? haha) I also had air shocks on my car when I first bought it. One of the first things I removed.
I wonder how your ride height will be?

[Jamiez]

The air shocks had almost no air pressure in them.  They were both under 15psi.  I am not sure if they had leaked down or if a previous owner had discharged them.  I measured to the lip of the wheel well with the air shocks as is then I discharged the shocks and the measurement didn't change by any appreciable amount. So I'm hoping the ride height will not be any different.

I dropped it off the jack stands and measured.  It's about the same as it was, maybe 1/8" different...it's hard to get a precise measurement.  There is still a lot of space in between the top of the inner fender and the tire. The width of the tires has always been the issue and the shocks have no effect on that.

[MEK-Dangerfield]

I had air shocks for almost 2 years.   

Even though I only had them filled with 40 PSI of air, the ride was still harsh. I found that they would lose pressure after a year or so.

When I replaced my front driver's side shock, it was as dead as a door nail. Gee, no wonder my driver's was lower than the passenger's side.   

You'll be glad you went the route you did.   

[Jamiez]

While I was under the car, I noticed the leaf springs have a part number stamping on the bottom.  They are hard to read but they are 3643 595 which is correct for a JH23 according to my 74 parts manual.  At least that definitively answers what is on my car so I can order replacements if the shocks aren't enough of an improvement (I suspect the shocks alone will do it).

[Jamiez]

Well the weather finally turned and I was able to repaint the trunk items which had prepped weeks ago:


I took a look at the spare and cleaned it.  Unfortunately it's scuffed and has some surface rust on both sides of the wheel.  I'll have to pull it, strip it, and repaint both sides.



But for now I am happy I put the whole thing back together as is.

[Super Blue 72]

Looks good, Jamie. 

Does your original spare hold air?  Are you going to keep it as a useable spare in the trunk?   

I have my original spare with the bias ply tire, not sure if it holds air though.  If it doesn't I was thinking of tubing it or something.

[Jamiez]

It had all of 4 PSI in it when I checked it, but I had never checked it before.  I filled it back up before putting it back in.  I'll check it in a week or so and see how it's doing.  It probably has a slow leak, but if it's not too bad I'll probably just keep filling it.

[Jamiez]

Week 83:
Some decent (non-freezing) weather this weekend so I decided to use the compression tester I got for Christmas to see where the engine stands.  The Hooker headers make the number 5 and 7 cylinders a challenge to get to, but eventually I worked it out. 
The tester has marks every 5 psi, so I rounded to that.

Cylinder	PSI			Cylinder	PSI
8	130			7	125
6	130			5	125
4	130			3	125
2	125			1	125

FSM says 100psi min and no more than 25 difference cylinder to cylinder, so it looks like the engine is pretty healthy.  I hope?

[walkAbout]

Always nice to read what you are doing Jamiez.

The compression tester looks good. Should do that on mine to, as I have been told I have "some" blowby in the cylinders.

I wish I'd have so much time and the space to do so much on the Challenger. Just have my A/C heater box at home and redoing it and converting the 5V voltage limiter of the dashboard to a new electronic one in the original housing...

CU

walkAbout