Sci/Tech What do you say...

[Grateful Dude]

Another update:

The rear cradle is narrowed, and all the suspension links for the independent suspension have their bushings replaced with Poly bushing from Energy Suspension. The rear cradle was mocked up under the Duster, and Holy Shit, the mounting points for the IRS align almost perfectly with the frame rails on the Duster.

So I stuck the original steel wheels from the Charger on it, and Holy Shit, they tuck right under the fender lip. So I grabbed a 'resto-mod' rim and stuck it under there.

So the next step is to order the rack-and-pinion set, and that should take about 1/2 a day to get in. I also found a machine shop, and I'm loading up all the engine pieces and parts and taking them over tomorrow or Monday.

Here's the rear cradle, narrowed and awaiting powder coat.

Powder coated and set in place.

Mocked up with the factory steel rim

Mocked up with aftermarket rim. Just one that was laying around and looked like it would fit.

It's coming along man!

 

[Mix6APlix]

Well thank you, pal. The day I get out of prison my own brother picks me up in a police car.

You don't like it?

No. I don't like it.

*Elwood floors it and jumps a fucking bridge*

Cars got a lot of pickup.

It's got a cop motor - a 440 cubic inch. It's got cop tires. Cop suspension. Cop shocks. And it was made before catalytic converters so it runs great on regular gas. So what do you say, is it the new Blues Mobile or what?

Fix the cigarette lighter.

***I probably fucked some of that up, but I was actually anticipating a Blues Brothers thread when I saw the title. Love that movie.

A kid I knew in high school tried this. He failed and died.

 

[Filthy]

It's coming along man!

Fast, all of a sudden.
And here I am, buried in a summer class for my MSEE.

Forgot to mention the other big news:
-
The Rear Sway-Bar FITS!!!

just need to shorten it, and then that beefy bastard will be up under there.
Obviously, I lose the gas tank location, but I'll probably put a Mustang tank in place of the spare tire well, and just fab an in-trunk mount for the spare.

Now I'm just trying to figure out the color scheme for powder-coating the suspension parts. The cradle will be black, probably the knuckle, too.

But the other suspension links I want to color in a way that pops, but isn't gaudy. I want people to notice the rear suspension, but I don't want body-color or shiny chrome crap. Thinking about doing a type of copper, ordered a couple swatches from Prizmatic that'll be here tomorrow. I'll take a pic and get some inputs.

 

[Grateful Dude]

The Rear Sway-Bar FITS!!!

That's a big win

But the other suspension links I want to color in a way that pops, but isn't gaudy. I want people to notice the rear suspension, but I don't want body-color or shiny chrome crap. Thinking about doing a type of copper, ordered a couple swatches from Prizmatic that'll be here tomorrow. I'll take a pic and get some inputs.

There seems to be a trend around here, at least in my little bubble of observation, where people have painted the suspension links blue, green, or red. The red is my favorite of the 3, the blue is ok, and the green looks weird to me. The green I saw was on a huge jacked up dually truck (body and emblems all blacked out, with some tacky green decals). And then a bunch of the suspension components and diff covers were all bright green. It just didn't look that good IMO. Looked like a monster energy can lol. All in the eye of the beholder I suppose

I've never seen a copper color in that application, but I think that could look cool depending on what the rest of your color scheme is.

What color(s) is the body going to be? And are you going to detail out the engine compartment too?

Keep posting pics as you get further along!

 

[Filthy]

That's a big win


There seems to be a trend around here, at least in my little bubble of observation, where people have painted the suspension links blue, green, or red. The red is my favorite of the 3, the blue is ok, and the green looks weird to me. The green I saw was on a huge jacked up dually truck (body and emblems all blacked out, with some tacky green decals). And then a bunch of the suspension components and diff covers were all bright green. It just didn't look that good IMO. Looked like a monster energy can lol. All in the eye of the beholder I suppose

I've never seen a copper color in that application, but I think that could look cool depending on what the rest of your color scheme is.

What color(s) is the body going to be? And are you going to detail out the engine compartment too?

Keep posting pics as you get further along!

I'm thinking of doing the whole car in matte black or dark/smokey gray, and doing some exterior trim parts (like reflectors and stuff) that are normally chrome, in a dark copper. Engine bay will probably be mostly black, with some copper powder coated parts where you normally see polished or chromed metal.

 

[Grateful Dude]

I'm thinking of doing the whole car in matte black or dark/smokey gray, and doing some exterior trim parts (like reflectors and stuff) that are normally chrome, in a dark copper. Engine bay will probably be mostly black, with some copper powder coated parts where you normally see polished or chromed metal.

That should look pretty dope!

 

[Filthy]

That should look pretty dope!

We'll see...probably doing shake-out drives in the current config this winter.
How much I like it is going to determine how much I spend on paint/body/interior, and what I do. The 'looks' that sell aren't usually the same as what I want for myself.

 

[Filthy]

Just got in the front suspension. I've never done a color-scheme for the front suspension, let alone doing one before the car is painted.
So I laid everything out to see how it's going to look 'together'. If you don't know what you're looking at, you're looking at the front suspension of a car, from the front of the car. This is a rack-and-pinion that's been modified to drop the front end an inch, so it's lower, has more clearance for headers and ground clearance, and handles like a modern independent front suspension.

This is how it looks all put together. The black cradle in the middle is where the engine sits, the red beams are the frame rails of a car, and the springs/struts are between the control arms. The silver/metallic stuff in this picture is the stuff still in boxes in my pictures. The rear suspension is about to go off to powder-coat.

Not a great picture for seeing the color scheme, but it's what I have handy. It actually bolted in on the frame rails in the front, and 3/8" off-center of the frame rails on the rear. It's like it was made for it. The shiny metal frame rails will be flat black, the parts that are coming from the inside to the spindle will be the copper color, and the spindle will be gloss black, like the fronts. Also ordered some coil-overs for the rear and I'm going to make a custom mount for the struts. I want them a little more vertical and inboard at the bottom. Should improve handling a little bit, and make room for slightly larger tires. Anything bigger than 10" will probably break the axles, I just want to make sure there's no tire rubbing at any point in the suspension travel.

 

[Filthy]

Rear Suspension is done.
Here's a standard Duster/Demon stance. Belongs to a person known to me. It's real nice.
I like this style of rim, looking at some Torq-D Bullitt rims.

Here's mine, sitting on some rims that were laying around in the shop. But it's very close to the same size as the rims above. If you look at the gap in the pic above you can see how much it's dropped in the rear. The front suspension includes a 1" drop at the spindle, plus whatever I want to take out of the springs (if necessary). I also have a lot of room to go wider on the rims/rubber, and taller if I work the inner fender well on the street side. It has a weird little 'shelf' that juts in just a few inches up from the lip.

Here's a shot of the rear suspension from behind and below.
Digging the color scheme, but I've also discovered I can do Rose Gold as a metal...

Also been experimenting with powder coating the nylon valve covers. They should be able to take the heat, but they out-gas forever. Tried the first time and there were spots that wouldn't take the powder, but I think they might just be oil-soaked. I told the powder coater to put it in the oven overnight. Wish me luck, I want to change the color on the intake manifold.

@sparkuri

 

[Filthy]

wiring harness is almost out of the Charger, just need to get up under the dash where there are two wire bundles going through the firewall.
Because it's a cop car, it has all the accelerometers and dynamic suspension/braking systems. It's slowed me down a little to make sure I have good measurements of the physical locations of the sensors, relative to the suspension centerlines.

And I got her home today, in a freaking downpour.

The rims are temporary. It'll sit ~ 1" lower in the rear on proper wheel/tire combo, and ~ 1.5" lower in the front.

 

[Hauler]

wiring harness is almost out of the Charger, just need to get up under the dash where there are two wire bundles going through the firewall.
Because it's a cop car, it has all the accelerometers and dynamic suspension/braking systems. It's slowed me down a little to make sure I have good measurements of the physical locations of the sensors, relative to the suspension centerlines.

And I got her home today, in a freaking downpour.

The rims are temporary. It'll sit ~ 1" lower in the rear on proper wheel/tire combo, and ~ 1.5" lower in the front.

Love it dude.
I can't wait to restore a muscle car.

 

[Filthy]

ran in to a problem pulling the wiring harness last night. It's a police car, so there's no inner door release. And the doors are locked in the rear. And the entire electrical system is basically out of the car. So I have no idea how I'm going to open the rear door to pull the inner trim that needs to come off in order to get the wiring bundle out that runs from the front to the back of the car.

dammit. May have to manually apply voltage to the door release switch on the driver door.

 

[SongExotic2]

ran in to a problem pulling the wiring harness last night. It's a police car, so there's no inner door release. And the doors are locked in the rear. And the entire electrical system is basically out of the car. So I have no idea how I'm going to open the rear door to pull the inner trim that needs to come off in order to get the wiring bundle out that runs from the front to the back of the car.

dammit. May have to manually apply voltage to the door release switch on the driver door.

This may sound silly but if you can find a live feed in the front just set your meter to "bell/continuity" and the voltage will feed from one lead to another. Rather than just measuring it. I do it at work a lot.

 

[Filthy]

This may sound silly but if you can find a live feed in the front just set your meter to "bell/continuity" and the voltage will feed from one lead to another. Rather than just measuring it. I do it at work a lot.

I did manage to successfully hotwire the door and get it open. There was a moment where I hit the juice and nothing happened. But I just had to bypass the "Door Mux"...no idea why you need a mux for DC voltage for doors...but whatever. I posted in the "What Manly Sh!t Have You Done Today" with pics of the Charger getting winched down the driveway, and the Duster getting winched up in to the garage. Charger is getting sold/scrapped in the next week or two. There's nothing left but sheet metal and seats.

Excited for this weekend, I'm going to see how far I get towards removing the eng/trans/front suspension from the Duster. If you've never worked on an old Mopar, the front suspension doesn't use coil springs, it uses 'torsion bars'. The perk of this is that if you

1. unbolt the upper control arms
2. take off the shock tower nut
3. slide the torsion bar out
4. unbolt the transmission tail shaft from the crossmember
5. lift the front bumper of the car 3' with a engine hoist

you can grab the tailshaft of the transmission and roll the entire drivetrain and front suspension out like a wheelbarrow. I'll scope out the work space and maybe set up my camera to do a time-lapse.

So that's what I'm starting this weekend. My oldest daughter (she's 5) is very excited to be the Official Flashlight Holder for the project.

 

[Filthy]

so hit the first snag. The dipshit that fabbed the rear cradle threw 'whatever' rims on the back and used 'whatever' lug nuts. Except that two of the lugnuts are shorter that the depth of the hole in the rim, so there's no way to get a grip on it to take it out.

Fuck that guy. I'm about 2 minutes from carving out a dish around the lug nut with my grinder and throwing the rims through his fucking window.

 

[BeardOfKnowledge]

Except that two of the lugnuts are shorter that the depth of the hole in the rim, so there's no way to get a grip on it to take it out.

I can probably help with this, but you aren't explaining it very well. Can you get a picture up here?

 

[SongExotic2]

so hit the first snag. The dipshit that fabbed the rear cradle threw 'whatever' rims on the back and used 'whatever' lug nuts. Except that two of the lugnuts are shorter that the depth of the hole in the rim, so there's no way to get a grip on it to take it out.

Fuck that guy. I'm about 2 minutes from carving out a dish around the lug nut with my grinder and throwing the rims through his fucking window.

How did he tighten them down if you can't get a bite on them?

 

[Filthy]

I can probably help with this, but you aren't explaining it very well. Can you get a picture up here?

Matthew 7:7

The lug nut in the middle is the one that has a shorter shank.
I'm a model of restraint to not have pulled out the side-grinder and lowered the surface of the rim.

How did he tighten them down if you can't get a bite on them?

It looks like he spun them on with an impact wrench, and the last few 'hammers' rounded over the last point that had any grip. Now the hardening is torn off the lug nut, and nothing will bite on that point. I tried grabbing with Vise-Grips and then putting a monkey wrench on the Vise-Grips, but it was taking a lot of torque and not moving. I might just stick another nut on it and MiG it, I give no shits about weld-splatter on the Al rims.

EDIT: obviously I also tried electric and pneumatic impact wrenches and a socket/breaker bar. A thin-wall socket might work, but I'm resentful towards spending a nickel on this to preserve his fucking rim.

 

[Filthy]

Those longer-shank lug nuts around the motherfucker are all torqued on with the impact, so the rim isn't levering the motherfucker.

 

[BeardOfKnowledge]

Those longer-shank lug nuts around the motherfucker are all torqued on with the impact, so the rim isn't levering the motherfucker.

A chrome socket would probably fit there, failing that a thinwall. If you really don't want to spend any money, you should be able to get it off with an air chisel and some finesse.

Stupid question, but are you using the right size socket?

 

[Filthy]

Stupid question, but are you using the right size socket?

 

[BeardOfKnowledge]

Americans aren't exactly known for their embracing of the metric system.

 

[Filthy]

Americans aren't exactly known for their embracing of the metric system.

I'm an Electrical Engineer with a Physics degree.

I only use metric.

 

[BeardOfKnowledge]

I'm an Electrical Engineer with a Physics degree.

Aren't gauges still used for electrical wiring?

 

[Filthy]

Aren't gauges still used for electrical wiring?

Electrical Engineer /= Electrician