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944t cruiser build

Got finished with all the hoses and am installing the new Red Top only to find that I'm short two 8agw x 3/8" eyelets........so I guess I'll be starting it tomorrow. I still have to repaint the strut brace and finish up with the grille. I'm playing around with some hexagonal insert material left over from a job I did a while back. So far it's not too bad, but I've got to make the upper mount brackets yet. And I'll need to figure out a new way of clipping the grille in. Mine was missing one one of the "V" clips due to a broken grille slot. I'm thinking about a captive nut on the grille side with a bolt, washer and centering sleeve for now.

Oh and this will upset the purists, a really close friend of mine picked up a couple of "R-Design" badges. I'm not normally a guy that throws on random badges, but he and I go way back so I'll make an exception. And since the car came with a moose on the trunk, and I'm planning on adding three more the badge ship has sailed. Also I really need to repaint those trunk badges.
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Are you out of factory spring clamps? I see you are using zip ties.

Yeah the ones that came off were dead or missing. I haven't decided if I want to order new ones or not yet. Over the years I've had good luck with tight lines and cable ties as long as I stay under 20psi, I guess we'll see if the luck holds.
 
Got everything on and the car running again yesterday. Had a DOA new ECT cause starting issues at first. I swapped the old one back in and everything is working again.

I had to scrap my grille plan for the time being so I pealed the poorly applied plasti-coat off to find the chrome plating in crap-tastic condition. I ground it down as smooth as I could, the really bad spots aren't visible with the grille mounted. But there won't be much painting today, it's 100% rain/humidity. I did get the center sash painted though. Just finished up the black stripe, I'll let it dry and see about the next coat. Then it'll get some gloss clear and my prancing moose emblem. also started making a mounting plate for the front RDesign badge.

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And my grille badge bracket. a quick coat of black and it should blend in pretty nicely.

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Got the moose badges on the fenders.

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I'm waiting on all the paint for the grille parts to set. It'll probably be Wednesday before I can get everything back together.
 
Well after painting the sash and grille frame a color that matched the wheels and side emblems I ended up not liking it at all. Luckily I has some shadow paint handy and a few coats later I got a charcoal type color that I can live with. And a shot of the "finished" engine bay.


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Now I just need to get ahead on a few home projects and start building my exhaust system. Then it'll be chips and unless I decide on a 16v swap as my engine choice the engine will be done. I still want to get some sways and I might go with aftermarket springs, but they have more drop than I really want. I think big sways on soft springs with get me there.
 
Rear muffler hanger finally rotted through on the way home today. Fun times all around. And I had a brake hose blow off of my Wrangler Saturday, luckily I was just moving cars around the driveway. So I cobbled together a hanger to get me through until I can buy the pipe to run the new stuff. Nothing special, just some 2.5" single muffler w/high flow cat and some tips :lol: I got lucky and have a 2.5" down pipe, so at least something is looking up.
 
Two weeks of driving the car aaaaaannnnnnnndddddd....I hate the transmission. Well that's a bit strong, but I'm highly displeased with it. This is my fist automagic and I wanted the auto because this is a cruiser/trip taking car. But my 1-2 and 2-3 shifts are crap, sluggish and dull. My 4-3 and 3-2 shifts are crisp though. I'm going to try the accumulator mod, maybe in a couple months it'll depend on what else is going on. If that doesn't "fix" it I'll either be seriously looking into a modern V8/auto combo or a manual trans. I honestly wanted to do a Whiteblock T5 engine 6sp MT trans, but that's not likely. The end goal for me is a good cruiser with a 300-350chp reliable engine. I've really been thinking about a Chrysler 5.7L/545RFE combo. But we'll see. House shopping is taking up quite a bit of time and cash right now.
 
It seems to be. I checked the measurement spec from the Brickboard FAQ when I first got it, then again after all the intake stuff. And like I said my down shifts are good, it's just the up shifts that are blah.
 
Yeah I flushed it right after I got it and have put maybe 3k on it since. I'm more used to AW autos in Jeeps and Toyotas than rwd cars. Other than their tendency to run hot I'm usually a fan of them.
 
Accumulator mod and it'll shift so "crisp" it'll jerk you back and chirp tires, going from 1-2, with more power the more they slip. Accumulator mod and you wont be dissapointed
 
No progress lately, unless you count having to pull the rear muffler due to the inlet pipe rotting off. I think it was compromised a while back when the hanger rotted out and just took a little longer to break completely. Overall the car is running well so I'm happy. I've got to put off any car work that isn't just absolutely 100% necessary for the time being. We accelerated house hunting from the summer of 2019 to the end of this month :roll: So there's no time or money for fun.
 
OK so we're out of the old house, into the new one and hopefully done enough with house stuff that I can get back to the car projects. I'm in a larger house, bigger/better driveway, but a currently smaller garage with poor lighting and minimal outlets. We're shooting for a 3-5 year timeline on building me a 24' x 24' garage in the yard.

Now onto car stuff. This car has had exhaust issues from the start of me getting it. I had to pull the center muffler due to it being clogged, and the over the axle pipe rotted off a few months back. So I've been running on cat and strait pipe for a while. I got most of the mock-up done today. I still need to pick up an O2 bung for the wide band, I ordered the wrong size. So I'm doing 2.5" pipe, high flow cat, center muffler delete, high flow rear muffler and some polished stainless steel tips. I really wanted the square tips, but I didn't feel that the added cost was justified. They were more than double the cost of what I got. I also wasn't planning on building a new down pipe, but went ahead and did that too. But I was a bit lazy about it and started it behind the factory O2 sensor. I picked out the APSX wideband because it has a super compact display and runs a basic Bosch 17014 sensor. I'm going to try and integrate the display into the instrument panel. I'm thinking inline with the idiot lights, just under the tach. And I like Thrush mufflers for street use, been using them for years with no complaints.
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Something I did notice during mock ups is that the muffler sits tilted to the outside of the car. I don't remember how the original was so is this normal? Other than that things seem good. I'll put in a few clamp points for ease of any future work and have to come up with a hanger for where the center muffler was.
 
OK so the exhaust is hung now I need to start working on my AFR stuff. I had one casualty while pulling the cluster though, I snapped the stalk on the wiper switch. Fortunately I have stuff for minitures/models so I'm hoping it'll be an easy fix for me. I've got to cut the panel to fit the AFR display, I'm hoping that goes well too.

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