Chuck's '78 264GLE - "The Black One" (Or, Delores's older sister)

[Chuck W]

Well, you may recall that I mentioned in my build thread for the 80 264GLE that I had been looking for a rot-free replacement for Delores.

Well, meet her older sister.






Like Delores, she was stuffed into a barn in the early '90's. However, unlike Delores, she did not suffer from a bad round of body work, before she was stuffed into that barn.






No rot on this thing. Just some minor cosmetic issues in a couple of spots



The guy I bought it from, bought it from the original owner. All he had done was replace the fuel tank and pumps.

Just didn't quite get the filler neck buttoned up.

The car starts and runs, but he didn't really address cleaning out the rest of the fuel system.


Brakes are locked up and the car needs a thorough going through.

I know I'm not a fan of the seats, but the rest of the interior is growing on me.



All the switches



The plan is to clean this up and swap over the mods, etc from the blue one. The M46 will go away and a T5 will be installed in its place, but other than that, just more trying to get it together and mobile and get the old car out of the way.

The blue one isn't terrible, but I wasn't wanting to deal with fixing the rot in the rear quarters/buttcheeks/rear light panel that had been poorly repaired.

I'm much happier that I got this one, instead of pursuing that green '76 on BAT. This one is much more suited to what I want to do.

[Chuck W]

So, I've had pretty much no time to even look at this since it was dropped off on Sunday. I have been formulating a plan for it though, in the meantime.

There was a little documentation with the car and it looks like the last dealer service was the 45,000 mile one (~47,000 mi), done in '86. So it saw about 20K in its last 5 years on the road.

- Swap the MS'd B21FT with minor changes (different injectors and fix the leaky turbo oil drain) (I want to Whiteblock-swap it, but that will have to wait)
- Ditch the M46 and install the T5
- Build new 3" exhaust, to replace the 2-1/2" one I built a while back.
- Swap over all suspension and brakes from the blue car.
- Replace the white upper half of the interior trim with the black stuff from the blue car. Will probably leave the door panels and lighter carpet.
- Swap seats from blue car
- Swap dash pad from blue car. This one isn't bad, but does have a small crack.
- Gas tank and pumps are brand new, but I'm going to pull them and install the 740T intank pump and also make sure the proper submersible fuel hose was used.
- Flathood it, and keep the quad squares.


The B27 runs, but I don't know if anyone would want it. Same for the auto trans. I guess we'll see.

I may try and get rid of the blue car as a (cheap) roller. Maybe someone more motivated that I would want to fix the rear quarters. It's a good-looking car going down the road, but I know I'm not going to have the time/resources to do the body work any time soon.

Hopefully I'll get some time to dig around a bit more this weekend.

[John242Ti]

Maybe take the B27F/Bw55 combo and stuff it into the blue car, reverting it to somewhat stock specs, then sell it as a project that runs and drives. Sell it with the uber rare gray velvet seats, etc...

Otherwise, everything looks good, plan-wise.

-J

[Chuck W]

Originally Posted by John242Ti

Maybe take the B27F/Bw55 combo and stuff it into the blue car, reverting it to somewhat stock specs, then sell it as a project that runs and drives. Sell it with the uber rare gray velvet seats, etc...

-J

I'm not sure how much I'm motivated to try and reassemble all of that. I made a few mods when I converted it to MS, but didn't really cut anything up.

[John242Ti]

Originally Posted by Chuck W

I'm not sure how much I'm motivated to try and reassemble all of that. I made a few mods when I converted it to MS, but didn't really cut anything up.

lol, true that. At least, you can chuck the B27/Bw55 boat anchor in the engine compartment and put the rest of the stuff in the trunk for someone else.


-J

[Chuck W]

Originally Posted by John242Ti

lol, true that. At least, you can chuck the B27/Bw55 boat anchor in the engine compartment and put the rest of the stuff in the trunk for someone else.

I guess we'll see what happens, when I get closer to that point.

[Chuck W]

So I've been busy with other projects and life to get into the 264 swaparoo, but I did get a chance to check out some possible wheels I may use on this, instead of the trusty old "Tri-spokes".




I think with the appropriate spacers they'll work out just fine. Offset is about the same as the Tri-Spokes

I needed to move the truck to get better shots, but I was on short time to mess with this.

I also need to try and find a new PS tail light. I'm sure there are PLENTY of these about. :p

[volvowagoon]

Nice score! It looks like it has all kinds of bells and whistles for it's time. Jealous.

[2 old for this]

Weren’t they called Diplomats? They were a hot item at our dealership. Full price was the only way they left.

[John242Ti]

^Paint color was Diplomat Black. Car was just called the 264 GLE, or Grand Luxe Executive. Dodge had a car at the time called a Dodge Diplomat that replaced the Aspen in the early 1980s.

[Chuck W]

So, depending on what happens with selling the '80 as a runner, this may wind up with a whiteblock swap.

That was the eventual plan anyway, but I was just going to use the B21FT as a start, to get the car on the road sooner. I do however have to RN whiteblock engines, and a full compliment of RWD conversion parts in the garage...

[kampman]

Nice find. I really like the seats and all the early details you don't see very often.

[Chuck W]

Originally Posted by kampman

Nice find. I really like the seats and all the early details you don't see very often.

Yeah, it's kinda cool. The top of the rear seat back is a bit sun-dried, but the rest seem to be in good shape.

It's going to get the seats that I have in my '80 installed in it, and I'm going to dye the white upper stuff black, but the door panels and carpet have grown on me. It'll add a bit of "color" to the interior, instead of it being all black.

[Chuck W]

Did some digging on what rear axle is in this thing. Half of the tag is missing, but the PN "255762" was still visible. Looking that up, it's a 3.54:1, like in the '80. It's also listed as a 1031. I wouldn't mind actually having a limited-slip in there, so I need to dig into those options.

[Chuck W]

Well, since it looks like Delores (The '80) is going to be leaving pretty much complete, the project scope for this is going to change up a bit.

Since the B21FT is leaving, it's going to need a new powerplant. Seeing as I've wanted to do a whiteblock swap, that's what we're going to do here.

I've got a '99 RN LPT motor in the garage, and pretty much all of the whiteblock-to-RWD conversion parts (bell and adapter, oil pan, etc), so I think I have a good start there.
A couple areas I'm going to need to sort out are:
- Clutch set-up - Pretty sure I'll need to go hydraulic here. I think there are some good resources in a couple of the other build threads. I'll be using a T5 trans (for now).

- Exhaust manifold - I don't think the stock 5 cyl manifolds will fit in the 240, but I don't *really* want to build anything. I think I do have a head flange though in the parts I've got.

- Engine management - I'm torn here. I could do MS or make use of the stock M4.4 Motronic stuff. Been reading up on trying to see the best way to do it with MS, but I know it's more limited with odd-numbered engines. I'm able to flash/tune M4.4 ECUs, but I'm not as comfortable with that as I am with MS.

- Brakes - At the very least, I need to rebuild/replace what's there, but I think I'd like an upgrade. At least for the fronts.

I have some basic suspension upgrade plans at the moment, but that may change. Seeing as my IPD sways are leaving with the '80, I want to get another set of those.

Going to work on getting the B27/auto out of the car this weekend, and get everything else sorted with the '80, so I can turn more attention to this.

[matt b]

Pull the B27 engine and sell it on a Delorean forum. The PRV's are still in demand, you should see pretty money if you offer a running engine with documented compression numbers.

[Chuck W]

Originally Posted by matt b

Pull the B27 engine and sell it on a Delorean forum. The PRV's are still in demand, you should see pretty money if you offer a running engine with documented compression numbers.

I have someone interested in the K-Jet stuff, but I'm, more interested in getting old engine/trans out of my way sooner, rather than later.

The engine only has 67K on it, and it will start and idle, but at this point, everything is halfway disconnected for removal. Just don't have a lot of extra time to mess with it at the moment.

[Chuck W]

Today's progress



It looks like that PS fender has been off of the car at some point, as the spot welds at the front were both apart. The DS needed a bit of persuasion to get things apart over there, as the welds were still intact.

A couple more things and it will probably move into storage for the winter, or at least until I can get the TBird out of the garage.

I still have an engine to sort out, as well as other projects to tend to on this in the meantime.

[DET17]

Nice survivor from NC! I dig the 264GLE models, what with all the frills & stainless. Should be pretty sweet with the 5 cylindering whiteblock. I hope you go MS Pro, and have the boosted timing all sorted out before I build mine!

I'd polish that paint a la Freiburger.....warts & all.....patina is hip!

If I'm not mistaken, the 6 cyl. whiteblock M90 cars got a 3.54 gear in Europa, so all you need is an LSD and "run what you got" out back.

[Chuck W]

I'm leaning towards the MS3 stuff, and I *think* I'll still be able to keep the Exhaust VVT that's on the engine I'm using.

I don't plan on painting the car, but I do need to paint the flathood I have for it, so I may at least shoot that fender again, just to get rid of that flaky stuff. The upside is, that since the rest of the car isn't "perfect", my paintjob won't have to be either.

When I was researching the rear axle, it does appear that the V6 cars got either a 3.54 or a 3.73 rear and were 1031's. The number on mine is for a 3.54, which is what I wanted anyway.

It's supposed to be nice tomorrow, so if I have time, I'll probably hit the engine bay with the pressure washer, just to clean things up a bit.

[Chuck W]

OK, well after Delores left, I had a little time to wash out the engine bay and wrestle the car into the temporary storage spot.



Add a little Simple Green and a powerwasher (and some lens flare), things are a little better.



Wrapped up and waiting for the spot in the garage.

[Vol242vo]

Hey that storage spot doesn’t look too bad at all! Nice work.

[Chuck W]

Originally Posted by Vol242vo

Hey that storage spot doesn’t look too bad at all! Nice work.

Yeah, the cars stay pretty cozy in there. I needed a viable storage spot, seeing as I can only really fit (and work on) one car at a time in the garage.

I can fit 2 in there, but not much work is getting done around them...

[Chuck W]

I was messing around looking at wheel specs this evening, trying to see what I needed to adapt the Eros wheels to this thing.

They are a 17x8 ET40. I ran the Mustang Tri-spokes with 225/45 tires on Delores (And pretty much the same set up on the other 3 240's I've had), which were 17x8 ET30, with 25mm adapter spacers, which works out to an ET05. I was happy with the overall fit, so I was wanting to stay within that same range for this car.

Doing the math stuff, I would need about 35mm of spacer to put these Eros in the same location.
It looks like 30mm is the max for just spacers (From Motorsport Tech), so it looks like the "adapter" type with studs is going to have to work.

[jmc0369]

Black with all the chrome/stainless trim sure looks nice. I really like your score. The only non-Volov motor swap I ever considered was to replace a PRV with either a Ford Cyclone 3.7 v6 (60*, 305 hp bone stock) or in the case of a 780 the appropriate non-Vovo motor would have to be the Alfa Busso 3.2 to compliment the rest of its Italian flair.