Updating the Super Street Mopar

Hello there, my name is Carl. My longterm project is a 1965 Dodge Coronet 500 that I intend to use for driving events and autocross events along with daily fun driving. Maybe an occasional dragstrip run. This car is the cover car for the second edition of a Mopar Handling tech book from the late 80's. It belonged to a freind of mine who was good freinds with the two gents who owned the tech publishing company. Since I've mostly posted on another forum about the car, I'm going to put the link up to that site so those interested can read multiple pages over 8 years of my work. This will make it easier for me, writing wise. As I continue working on it, I'll add content directly here.

https://www.forbbodiesonly.com/moparforum/threads/updating-the-super-street-mopar.116131/

That's quite an epic build! It's a beautiful car and it will be pretty amazing when you finally get it on the road again. 

Today was fairly simple. Cut/filed a couple of pieces to go between the front triangle piece and the side frame units. Once I had those fitted up, got out the Lincoln glue gun and welded them together on all 4 corners. Tomorrow will be grind the welds down and start laying out the lid. I still need to get the short straight filler neck and 60* fill hose from Tanks Inc. so I can cut the hole in the rear panel of the nest. I want to get that done before I secure it to the trunk floor.

Today I ground the welds down on the frame. After that, I tacked it to the nest to help me get a handle on forming the lid up. Since I don't own a slip roller, I looked around to see what I had available to hand form the lid. Had a piece of 3" EMT so I used that. Its getting there enough for me to figure out what needs to happen on the rear portion which needs some compound forming.

Nice to see a car with a history keep on going!

Thank you.

Over the last few days I was working out what I needed to do on the rear portion on the lid where its arched east-west. I went through my textbooks from the class I took in 13 and found my solution. My thoughts were correct in that I needed to stretch that area on my wheel. Today I ran the lift up so I could get the wheel out from its spot along the wall and proceeded to work the needed area. It fits up way better after getting wheeled. My lack of continual working with the machine shows in some areas but the general outcome is fine. I was thinking about doing some bead rolls in it but decided that may cause other issues so its going to stay as is, smooth. Since it has the contours in it, its fairly strong so I'll make sure that nothing heavy can get on it making dents etc.

What an awesome build--the history element is amazing.  The Gear Vendors thing definitely retains relevance in the drag & drive world these days.  Looking forward to more!

Thank you for that.

Very cool!

In reply to ckessel :

I heart the old MoPars, and a 65 Coronet is one of the finest IMO. Looking forward to your posts!

Thank you. Of the early b-body units, 62-65, I actually like the 64's best. I got such a deal on this car, plus I knew its original owner/builder, couldn't pass it up. This car replaced the 70 Challenger that I lost in a wildfire back in 07. 

rustomatic said:

The Gear Vendors thing definitely retains relevance in the drag & drive world these days.  Looking forward to more!

What isn't said is the GV don't last long. They last but it's pretty much done after 1.5-2 events, sometimes even less, with anything having 4 digit hp.

I look forward to further updates because well old school muscle.

I don't plan on using the GV when I'm throwing the car around. The trans was done by Pro Trans, a Torqueflite specialty company. They put together an essentially Class 8 or Trophy truck[ desert stuff] unit for me since they knew how it was going to get used. Similar deal on the converter by Continental.

I set the tank nest into the frame and tried to set the lid into it. Didn't want to fit. Hmmm. Then I remembered that I added the floor mount flanges onto the nest making it a touch wider. So did some more grinding on the lh rail to remove more of the floor mount flange, pretty much flushed it up so its straight vertical. After that I welded the cut edge of the floor to the vertical edge of the rail to solidify them. Grind those welds down, then try the nest and lid again. Bingo.

Since I failed to clean off a prior felt pen line, I managed to punch 12 extra holes in the wrong area near the front edge of the lid. So today I plugged up the holes. Some years ago I discovered that the removed piece, using my Blair Rotabroach cutters, can be used for plugging up holes. I measured the cutters until I found one that was 5/16" on the inside of the cutter. This piece ends up with a nice thin flange on the outside which gives you something to tack weld with. Got them tacked on the backside with the TIG then on the topside I used the TIG again with some Silicon Bronze filler to fill up the remainder of the hole.

Made some more progress over the last few days on the 65. The back piece is trimmed up, ready for welding. I put some screws in the nest to hold it on the floor, this will get welded when I'm ready to do so, then cleaned off the next area ahead of it for the front piece. Made some measurements and cut out some material for the front piece. Wiped it down with Acetone, roughed it up for paint adhesion using a Scotchbrite disc, cleaned it off again with Acetone then doused it with Ospho. Today I marked out the front and back pieces for some bead rolls. This will take the flop out of the sheetmetal and give some rigidity back to those two areas.

Today I ran the two next pieces though the bead roller after doing some pre stretching of the target areas on the english wheel.

I back burnered the 65 for a bit. I have a 67 Coronet wagon as my daily driver. I'm taking it on the Hot Rod Power Tour West next month so its getting an oil change, checkover and cooling system update. The PO had put aluminum pullies on the crank and water pump which looks cool but the pump, fan, alternator and p/s pump are underdriven by 22%. Thats effecting my temps so I scored a pump and crank pulley from a gal who deals with old rides. I took the car to Famosa two weekends ago which gave me a good indication how it did in high ambient temps with the larger 26" radiator. Previously had a generic Nova/Mustang sized aluminum unit that didn't cool unless you were at speed. Plus he bent the fan blades to fit the trimmed down shroud. Useless! I'll get the car wrapped up today and see how it does with proper drive ratios.

The wagon looks great!
 

Good luck with the cooling system issues.  I struggled with those a few years back on my Cougar and went all gonzo on it to get it fixed-DeWitts aluminum BB radiator, dual electric fans (beefy motors) and shroud, FlowKooler water pump, correct Cleveland t-stat and diverter, blah blah blah.  It works wonderfully now and cooling isn't an issue.  

Just the new brass/copper unit made a nice difference, along with a fan thats not dorked up. Electrics may be an upgrade in the future but not now. The 65 will have them as that was part of the package from BeCool.