1973 Dodge Charger. "The Oly Express"

oh, and since the snow has decided to subside a bit, I figured it was time for a proper covering for this poor girl:



(the car, not the dog...)

But that does remind me, the car finally named herself!  She has hereby been dubbed "Lacy" (and if you're from the area, you'll catch the reference )

Good times. 

Welp, after practicing I had pretty high hopes that this post would simply read "Second verse, same as the first!"  and POOF! there'd be a picture of the second repair.  All done and primered up.

But if I did that, you'd miss all this:







I mean looking at that picture now, it all looks so pleasant!  Sure there are a few grinder marks... sure you can see a rather porous weld... but that's not too bad, is it?   How DID that little bit of imperfection end with the fit of rage that lead me to repeated fender punches and the photo posted above? 

Well, I'm glad you asked.

So we start our day much where we left off.  The machine was set up and I was running low enough on gas that I said I'd kill the bottle by practicing my welds until I felt confident enough to go back at the panel:





And practice I did! 

Except I wasn't really supposed to be in the garage today.... 

See, I don't know what it is about this week but man have I been in a bad mood.  Maybe it's lack of project time or something, but either way I went to bed just absolutely fuming about absolutely nothing to the point I had a pretty good headache going by the time I put my book down and went to sleep.  I woke up this morning in not much better shape.

Today was supposed to be the warmest day this week.  We were supposed to have weather near 12-degrees (C, no idea what that is F), but when I woke up it was cold to the BONE!  So after I dropped the kids of at school I decided that instead of heading to the house to prune back my last two pear trees,  a mental health day was in order and I would spend the morning napping until I couldn't nap anymore (about 1-hour... it was a lame nap and the dogs woke me up...).  Irritated at my lack of ability to nap, I figured a bit of project time would do me good.  Out to the garage I went, and before long I was laying beads on the practice piece.

Things didn't start so well..

That's front side, followed by back side

I mean it's just two tacks so far, and I've seen fewer pores in pumice stone!  I've seen shallower caves!!!!

I play with the settings (up the gas, really) and try again:






And try again

and play with the settings

and try again

and play with the settings

and try again...

Finally, I get a decent weld down (look back at the last picture.  Kinda in the middle, it's the lowest one).

What I ended up deciding was that I needed better shielding gas coverage.  SO what I did was clamp a piece of aluminum to the back of the panel and use that, not so much as a heat sink, but as a way to keep the gas near the backside of the panel while I welded on the top.  It was working pretty well

Ok, so I got one good blob out of about 20 so I decide another practice pass is in order





 

Front side and back side (you're looking at the lowest weld when it comes to the front side.  The other weld is old...)

Again, not perfect and I STILL cant seem to weld in a straight line, but no pores and not excessively blobby so I'm happy.

Back to the panel

These little magnets I bought aren't really doing a good job of holding what I need to be held:

So I ditch them in favor of clamps, and a I get to tacking things into place so I can do my passes.  Welder settings haven't been touched and I figure I don't need to clamp in the aluminum piece just yet as I'll be going over everything with my final pass:




 

First four tacks went juuuuuuuust fine, but that fifth one there?  That BIG BLOBBY one?  Yeah.  For some reason when my torch hit THAT SPOT the metal just DISSOLVED!!!!

I was able to get it filled back in by building up the edges with my filler rod, but that rage headache was starting to come back as a result...

"No big deal, move on" I tell myself.

I clamp the aluminum to the back side and change my bottle.  This one is just about empty anyways:

So how did things go?


berkeleying terrible...





It goes like this:

1) start at the top left

2) Completely dissolve metal with torch...

3) turn amps down on the foot pedal

4) weld until you get too close to your clamp.

5) Let that side cool and work on the other side, where that big blob is...

6) hit blob with torch and get showered by sparks.

The whole time I'm doing this, I'm going back and forth between my fender and my practice piece...  On the practice piece I can weld just fine, on the panel it just all goes to E36 M3!

The worst thing is, I somehow manage to burn through that big blob when I tried to pick the weld back up.  NO IDEA how I did that, but POOF!  Right through I went!

I almost didn't take that picture.  You can see that I started with the grinder before it was taken, but you guys need to see my mistakes.  Too often in this internet world do people pick up tools for the first time and instantly do amazing work.  That's not me, and that's definitely not this build...

So here we are:  I've ground things back, I'm touching things up, and AGAIN!!!!!  Right there at that damn "big blob location" the welds just turn to E36 M3!

I've had it at this point.  With the filler rod still in my gloved hand I start punching the fender repeatedly.  E36 M3's falling off, my ground clamp drops to the ground, and I'm yelling loud enough that I'm sure my elderly neighbors can hear me...

So what happened?

Well, I tried all the usual things along the way.  Grind things to bare metal, file of any shards/etc, clean with acetone...

It turned out that this switch was the culprit:





I must have bumped my machine somewhere during the course of the day (bottle change, maybe?) and my foot pedal switch got turned to "Panel control".  This means that no matter what foot position I was in, I was giving the panel "full beans" and the machine was set at twice the amps that I wanted.  It certainly explains the dissolving metal...

Now the right thing to do would have been to go back to my practice piece, and re-figure out what the crap I was doing but I had had enough of doing that for one day.  I stubbornly soldiered on and quickly found out that I was going to have to re-learn (or un-learn?) what I was doing with this panel all over again (I don't think I can adequately convey how long it takes my brain to adjust.  My whole reason for practicing is to get in a "groove" and then transfer that "groove" to the panel.  With everything going cattywampus, my brain was all over the place and I was completely unprepared for how the weld would behave when I tipped in that pedal for the first time...)

anyhoo, when the smoke cleared and I stopped seeing red, things looked something like this:

Somewhere in there was one good section where I was actually happy with what I was doing and that reminded me:

I've been surfing once.  It was in Aberdeen, WA back in 1999 or 2000.  I was on a big foam rental surfboard and all my buddies had their own gear (they were good, too).

I spent the whole day falling down and watching everyone else make it look easy.  I was relatively convinced I would never be able to figure out this surfing thing... 

But somewhere in that cold miserable day, I actually stood up and caught a wave.  I have no idea how long I rode it for, but there are very very few moments where I felt as good as I did just then.

So I just spent the whole day today falling flat on my face with this welder, and the damn machine definitely wasn't gentle about it.  But somewhere in that last photo was at least 5-good seconds where I caught JUST the right groove and felt pretty damn good about it, and that's something.

And with that, we end the day with things looking like this:

That's the first two repair sections welded up.  Sure they're not perfect, and sure that spot I'm pointing to with the filler rod needs to be touched up again, but man.... that is not a bad start for an idiot that has no idea what he's doing

Good times.

Oh.  and I caught my new gloves on fire...





I got kind of complacent switching back and forth between them and my welding gloves...  It turns out that these ones aren't very heat resistant

Ah well.  Good times.

welding old metal sucks balls.  you are doing well.

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

welding old metal sucks balls.  you are doing well.

Thanks man, I really appreciate it.  Being new to this, I can never tell if its me, the machine, or the metal, so I often default to "me" and get frustrated

I did some google-fu about TIG welding old metal... I'm glad it's not just "me".

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

Not just you for sure. You are doing awesome. 

I feel like not calling your car "the Oly Roller" is a missed opportunity.  But, that's okay.

Once, while welding together my Gunblade, I ran the tank out of argon and blasted a big ugly divot into the metal.  I promised myself that when I got my tank refilled, I'd go back over it and clean it up.  I never did.  Welding is hard and doing less of it always sounds so much more enticing than doing more of it.

From the pictures, I'd say you're a better welder than I.  Though, I like to keep that bar pretty low for reasons stated above.

RamenTamer said:

I feel like not calling your car "the Oly Roller" is a missed opportunity.  But, that's okay.

Once, while welding together my Gunblade, I ran the tank out of argon and blasted a big ugly divot into the metal.  I promised myself that when I got my tank refilled, I'd go back over it and clean it up.  I never did.  Welding is hard and doing less of it always sounds so much more enticing than doing more of it.

From the pictures, I'd say you're a better welder than I.  Though, I like to keep that bar pretty low for reasons stated above.

Oly Roller,  I get that!

Yeah, owning a welder is like owning a trailer.  Suddenly everyone is your friend, and they all need something done real quick

Man, I cannot believe it's been two months since I touched the car.  Sorry guys, I've been a bit busy with all that's going on next door recently (referring to Ukraine, for any readers in the future).  That being said, the weather has been absolutely BEAUTIFUL and I made it a point to get out and enjoy a bit of it.

aaaaand that's about it. 

I mean it doesn't look like much, and it really wasn't.  Just a couple hours to myself, kicking around an increasingly cluttered (and now oil stained) garage.  I separated the transmission and moved some stuff around to tuck it away in the corner.  I got the torque converter removed, and all that good jazz.  Then I had plans to lift it on my engine stand, but the hoist gave up the ghost.

I topped up the hoist recently with jack oil (as most of its previous precious life blood had departed the system) but I think all that surface corrosion on the shaft there finally did the seals in.  It just hasn't got the gumption to get that engine up anymore...  ah well, new cylinder on order.

Speaking of "on order", I'm not sure if it was mentioned previously but I bought a used Holley 1850-1 that I'm hoping might be in restorable condition, as well as an Edelbrock Performer intake.  The carb was a whoppin $50 bucks, and the intake ran me about $199.  That saved me nearly a hundred-and-fifty bucks versus the purchase of a new intake, but we'll have to see where I land with the carburetor.  Fingers crossed, and photos to follow.

Holy smokes man, I tell ya.  Back in the day these car parts used to be a lot cheaper (and I couldn't afford them then either!).

I e-mailed Mancini racing a while back about this engine ID plate:

Which I thought was a super cool way to advertise my small displacement, but they never wrote back.  I was wanting to know what the diameter was for the lid so I could order a base and a filter as well.  I guess I'll find out when it gets here.  Also on order with Mancini are a set of aluminum valve covers, and all the respective hardware for carburetor, air filter, and valve cover installation.

My goal with the engine ID plate is actually two-fold.  One, it'll look good.  I like it.  But two: it'll make the intake and 4-barrel carb look like they might be original to the vehicle.  If I have to register this car, then it's going to have to go to the state inspectors office where people say "nothing gets by".  Well, I've kind of learned otherwise.  If all the safety stuff is up to snuff, all your bushings are good, etc.  If your engine number matches your registration... if everything LOOKS like it could be original to the vehicle, then it tends to fly under the radar.

The people inspecting the car are going to expect a shiny stock V8 with factory paint, so that's what I'm going to make it look like

Now I need to save my pennies and buy a cam to compliment this thing.  Something so lopey, diesel will squirt out from the other vehicles when I idle by...  actually maybe not.  I still have to deal with that stock auto-trans and torque converter.  Maybe I'll wait until the manual swap before I go doing that.

Good times.

Hi Bill.  Good to see this back on the the first page.  I'm local to Mancini Racing/Detroit Performance Center, one of the last remaining local speed shops here in greater Detroit.  I visit them semi-regularly and hand them money for bits.  If I can be of assistance let me know.  

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:

Now I need to save my pennies and buy a cam to compliment this thing.  Something so lopey, diesel will squirt out from the other vehicles when I idle by...  actually maybe not.  I still have to deal with that stock auto-trans and torque converter.  Maybe I'll wait until the manual swap before I go doing that.

Good times.

You reminded me of an early-70s ('73, I think) Satellite a buddy had in high school.  It was a 318 two-barrel car with an automatic. He did the high school kid thing, swapped it to a four-barrel and slid in a Comp 268 cam. Sure sounded sweet, but in that big car with no compression and a tall rear gear, it wasn't going anywhere.  A manual trans and a set of gears would sure have helped.

wawazat said:

Hi Bill.  Good to see this back on the the first page.  I'm local to Mancini Racing/Detroit Performance Center, one of the last remaining local speed shops here in greater Detroit.  I visit them semi-regularly and hand them money for bits.  If I can be of assistance let me know.  

oh man, you are RIGHT on time.  The valve covers I ordered were removed from my invoice (I'm guessing they didnt have any in their inventory?).  I was going to order another set but didn't want to risk the same thing as it takes DAYS (and begging for APO box space) for that order to go through and for me to find out something isn't making it.  If I sent you maybe a top-10 list of valve covers, might you be able to snag one and kick it my way?

DarkMonohue said:

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:

Now I need to save my pennies and buy a cam to compliment this thing.  Something so lopey, diesel will squirt out from the other vehicles when I idle by...  actually maybe not.  I still have to deal with that stock auto-trans and torque converter.  Maybe I'll wait until the manual swap before I go doing that.

Good times.

You reminded me of an early-70s ('73, I think) Satellite a buddy had in high school.  It was a 318 two-barrel car with an automatic. He did the high school kid thing, swapped it to a four-barrel and slid in a Comp 268 cam. Sure sounded sweet, but in that big car with no compression and a tall rear gear, it wasn't going anywhere.  A manual trans and a set of gears would sure have helped.

 

I always say:  The smartest thing I ever did, was be "young and dumb" when I was young enough to get away with it.

All my friends in highschool were putting giant wings on the backs of FWD cars.  Your friends sound way cooler

Youtube is going to mute this for copyright stuff for sure...  but in case they don't, Moby came on the radio while I was tinkering with Mrs. Hungary's Saab:

And sticking with the "it's just too dang nice outside to be inside", here's yesterday's progress:

Totally being distracted from the metal bending that I'm supposed to be doing, but any progress is good progress right?

Good times

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:

wawazat said:

Hi Bill.  Good to see this back on the the first page.  I'm local to Mancini Racing/Detroit Performance Center, one of the last remaining local speed shops here in greater Detroit.  I visit them semi-regularly and hand them money for bits.  If I can be of assistance let me know.  

oh man, you are RIGHT on time.  The valve covers I ordered were removed from my invoice (I'm guessing they didnt have any in their inventory?).  I was going to order another set but didn't want to risk the same thing as it takes DAYS (and begging for APO box space) for that order to go through and for me to find out something isn't making it.  If I sent you maybe a top-10 list of valve covers, might you be able to snag one and kick it my way?

Fire away Bill.  I'll be close to their joint next week and I'd be happy to stop in for you.  Let me know if you need my email addy again.  

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:

I always say:  The smartest thing I ever did, was be "young and dumb" when I was young enough to get away with it.

All my friends in highschool were putting giant wings on the backs of FWD cars.  Your friends sound way cooler

Heh. Maybe just way older. Class of 1992 here.  The high school parking lot was full of hand-me-down four-door Valiants, Chevy LUVs and Ford Couriers sitting on the bumpstops, etc..  Giant wings on FWD cars had not yet become a thing.

Good times.

Cragar wheels, raised white letter tires and air shocks on 70's cars or new IROC Z's or Mustang GT's here.  

DarkMonohue said:

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:

I always say:  The smartest thing I ever did, was be "young and dumb" when I was young enough to get away with it.

All my friends in highschool were putting giant wings on the backs of FWD cars.  Your friends sound way cooler

Heh. Maybe just way older. Class of 1992 here.  The high school parking lot was full of hand-me-down four-door Valiants, Chevy LUVs and Ford Couriers sitting on the bumpstops, etc..  Giant wings on FWD cars had not yet become a thing.

Good times.

I'm not too much far behind ya.  Class of 2000.  I was wrecked my first car (1986 Cadillac Cimmaron) and was rocken a 1981 Ford Courrier I picked up for $250.  In a world where everyone else had civics, fox bodies, and cool jobs at McDonalds I was a bit of an outcast working at a used tire shop with my little blue pickup. 

wawazat said:

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:

wawazat said:

Hi Bill.  Good to see this back on the the first page.  I'm local to Mancini Racing/Detroit Performance Center, one of the last remaining local speed shops here in greater Detroit.  I visit them semi-regularly and hand them money for bits.  If I can be of assistance let me know.  

oh man, you are RIGHT on time.  The valve covers I ordered were removed from my invoice (I'm guessing they didnt have any in their inventory?).  I was going to order another set but didn't want to risk the same thing as it takes DAYS (and begging for APO box space) for that order to go through and for me to find out something isn't making it.  If I sent you maybe a top-10 list of valve covers, might you be able to snag one and kick it my way?

Fire away Bill.  I'll be close to their joint next week and I'd be happy to stop in for you.  Let me know if you need my email addy again.  

Good news!  On a bit of a late night whim I decided to try the black painted version of the valve covers I wanted and it looks like they've shipped!  I just wanted to say I appreciat the good looking out and will hit you up first in the future.

Hopefully they follow my special shipping instructions...


 

Good times.

Good to hear.  Let me know if I can help in the future.  

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

welding old metal sucks balls.  you are doing well.

Thanks man, I really appreciate it.  Being new to this, I can never tell if its me, the machine, or the metal, so I often default to "me" and get frustrated

I did some google-fu about TIG welding old metal... I'm glad it's not just "me".

TIG welding is awesome... about ten percent of the time. The other ninety, it makes you want to punch kittens... and I used to get paid to do it. Pretty welds take practice... and a lot of patience.

Another couple months has FLOWN by.  Still busy with Ukraine, but still trying to find ways to sneak in project car time.

First up, I had a bit of free time to open up that Holley 1850-1 (a 4160, I've learned).  And honestly, I'm feeling like I got a good deal.  It is missing a couple items that seem easy enough to procure, but is otherwise filled with gaskets and seals that look brand new!

The intake manifold and valve covers arrived as well, and they made things VERY pretty as far as looking at the engine goes.  However, I did get a bit of an initiation into the "Dodge crowd" as I've learned that a bit of grinding is required to make the valve covers work with the intake manifold...  That was a bit of a new one to me:

That gives a whole new meaning to "air gap intake" huh?

I haven't yet filed anything, but instead took it all off and threw it in the attic.  Just stuff to remember for later.

Back in May, I mentioned that the engine hoist gave up the ghost.  Well, I was able to source a replacement hydraulic cylinder from the UK, so that's back in operation.  Which was perfect timing because I had to do some cleaning in the garage and that engine was right in the way of EVERYTHING.

Unfortunately, I think it might have given the Hungarlings some ideas...

Unfortunately, at THAT time I had to order bolts from Germany to mount the engine to the engine stand so much waiting had to happen.  I did get a few good days with the Hungarlings in the garage though:

(Of course, that meant the dogs HAD to help...)

Eventually though, the bolts DID arrive and the engine was mounted in its proper place:

From there it was just some general exploring and looking up of casting numbers to see what I had.  The cylinder heads are run-of-the-mill lumps, but the block casting came back as "318 Series Small Block, Race Engine" which got me super excited!  This would have meant 4-bolt mains, and who knows what else (probably just bragging rights, really).  But alas, in order for it to have been "race prepped" I would have needed an "R" on the front of the engine near the timing cover (which wasn't there).

Oh well, it still made for a fun morning.

In other news, I was doing some poking around the interwebz and discovered that you could still find old NASCAR rule books on ebay!

Totally an impulse purchase, but I thought having this might give me some insight into roll cage requirements, safety (or lack thereof), etc from that era of racing.  I'm not too worried about building this to an exact copy of the original or anything, but thought this couldnt hurt.

And speaking of impulse purchases...

So my company has this thing where if you do good stuff (or are just around for milestone anniversaries of your employment) you can earn "points".  I recently had a balance of 250 of these "points".  You can use these points to buy things from the company store, or from an online catalog, OR you can use them to purchase a gift card for an equivalent dollar amount.

I opted for the gift card ($250!)

(quick fun fact:  The last time I was out here, I stocked up like 450 of these points and turned them into Cabela's gift cards.  I intended to buy a Marlin Guide gun chambered in .45-70, as it would have been a freebie, but ended up standing in line SO LONG I ended up just purchasing a complete reloading setup for my milsurp rifles I was shooting at the time instead.  fun stuff)

Anyhoo.  Armed with my free $250 I perused Summit's catalog and purchased the following:

Carb rebuild kit (obvious reasons), intake spacer (to clear enough room between carb and manifold for the choke assy), carb stud kit to go with, timing chain, a gasket and a socket to kill some remaining bucks, AND a summit cam and lifter kit.

The cam isn't the comp cam XE275HL that I REALLY wanted, but it came recommended on some of the forums I was perusing.  Plus it was LOTS cheaper. 

Steve Dulsich specifically recommended the XE275HL as he says it takes advantage of Dodge's wider lifter profile, but people report that this cam will work with the stock converter, will smoke the tires, and as far as free camshafts are concerned, I was really just out spending silly money to be goofy.  I STILL haven't decided what (if anything) I want to do with this engine, I think I'm just going to goof around with $50 and $100 purchases until something happens. We'll see what happens from there. Promises are promises, and I'm not allowed to take money away from our house building for project car stuff yet (otherwise I'd have that 426 hemi block I saw on Mancini racing on order already).

And speaking of doing stuff with the engine, I did attempt a leak-down test on it to see where we stand.

Honestly, after the 3rd cylinder I just gave up.  It was being a pain in the butt and I wasn't sufficiently prepared to be doing such a thing.  The compressor was too loud when it was running, and the engine kept spinning when I applied anything over 30psi to the cylinder.  Perhaps worse, everything just leaked into the case or out the valves.  Overall, I'm not too worried about it.  I've got to open things up to inspect anyways, why not take a little time to lap the valves and measure ring-gap while I'm in there?

Good times

Oh!  The rear axle appears to be an 8-1/4" unit.  The general consensus I see on the interwebz seems to be that this isn't a worthy unit to be messing with.  For now, it's just "gee whiz" info, for later it might be something to consider.

Good times.