My 67 Ranchero

thats quite a list....I really need to get back to work on the wifes' mustang....just been too busy ....saw her sway bushing the other day and they are scarey....

 

Yup. Long list, but most of it has been waiting since we bought the car last year. Old engine mounts are the biggest priority as they looks like old dry rotten wood. Those and the dash/steering wheel stuff will probably be the most time intensive. I'm hoping that I can get it all done this weekend, but more than likely it will be a two weekend job. Have to send her PS pump out for rebuild which will take a week+ anyhow.

Need to give the 67 a major bath or I'm sure the parking authority people are going to give me crap about it being on the street.

 

Glad you got it going, at least enough to get it out of your driveway under it's own power! Just a word to the wise, make sure the tags are current or the local parking authority may tow your car! Expired tags (by more than six months I think) or cars registered as 'Planned Non-Operation' can't be parked, driven or transported (I regularly ignore that last one if I'm hauling it on a trailer) on a public roadway.

Just wanted to give you a heads-up!

Kevin

 

I got the tags for it on Thurs. or Fri. It has been on non-op since 2012 so that was one of the things I knew I needed to do before moving it.

 

Well the apocalyptic rain we had this weekend (seriously SoCal, one good rain and it seems like the end of the world to everyone) only allowed one good day to work on the wife's car. I managed to get the Engine mounts replaced, the front shocks, and the power steering pump pulled. I started on the passenger side because everyone said that would be the hardest. In all it took only about half an hour to do the mount and the shock. Driver's side took close to 4 hours due to the shock not wanting to go into the mounting point and just some weirdness in how the slant 6 sits on it's mounts. Power steering pump was a bear to get out as well just because of how it mounts and the A/C stuff being in the way. It will get shipped out tomorrow for the rebuilt. Hoping that I can knock out the other stuff next weekend so that I can pull my Ranchero back in the driveway.

 

Didn't get to work on the wife's car on Sat. but got on it Sun. Replaced the trans. mount, gas tank seal, and rear shocks. Didn't have the energy to dive into the brakes so that will happen if I take a day off this week or next weekend. I bought a new modulator valve for the Ranchero which I am itching to put on to see if that solves the shifting issue. I want to get it back in the driveway so I can finish up some of the interior stuff and pull the tans. valve body. I might look into a shift kit, but will at least give it a good cleaning. I'm sure it is clogged with lots of nasty stuff.

 

So my wife's brakes turned out to be a major ordeal. I initially thought that I'd just have to do a simple spring replacement and maybe a wheel cylinder or two. As soon as I took of the first drum I knew it was going to be bad. Shoes were cracked and worn really badly all around. All of the wheel cylinders were leaking. And to make it all so much more fun the front wheel hubs were seized to the drum. Also I discovered that the rear drivers wheel is reverse threaded on the lugs. I found this out the hard way when I snapped one off. I bought some replacement, standard threaded lugs to replace it. In the process of getting the driver's front hub off of the drum I screwed up those lugs as well so I ordered replacements for those as well. Getting them out of the hub took two days as all of the conventional methods wouldn't work. I ended up having to grind of their heads and pushing them through the front. Not sure if the rears will be as difficult, but I assume so and am not sure how I will tackle them at this point. Might end up being a "let someone else do it" kind of job.

Had a lot of "fun" bleeding the brakes, which I had never done on a car yet. With replacing all the wheel cylinders and rebuilding the master cylinder there was pretty much no fluid in the lines so it took forever to do. Found out that one of the new cylinders is faulty so I ordered a new one and am waiting for it to finish up the brakes. I swear nothing on this car has been easy.

Hoping to get her car out of the drive way tomorrow so that I can pull mine in. My front tires don't hold pressure for more than a day and I am surprised I haven't received a ticket yet. My brother in law is buying me some new tires for my birthday but since the car isn't really ready to drive that far (and I wouldn't want to on those tires anyhow) I'll need to remove them to take down to his shop. Can't really do that while it is in the street. So hopefully I can get the wife's brakes done tomorrow and I can get mine to drive into the driveway. lol.

 

haven,
yeah, mopars are reverse thread on the driver side. i forget the year when they stopped doing that. brake systems like cooling systems, usually fail at the next oldest component that needs replacement. hence, you do at least front or rear brake jobs. start a job log with part numbers and dates. bleed your brakes staring with the wheel cylinder furthest from the master cylinder. and i highly advise using a flare nut wrench on those bleeders, nothing worse than rounding those corners. you'll end up with a metric wrench and a lot of swearing.

 

Thanks for the advice Davis. Biggest issue that is plaguing the wife's car is that it sat for over 13 years without any care. Because of this almost every piece of rubber is toast. Only real original parts left on the brakes are the hard and soft lines now. The new wheel cylinder didn't get here until late yesterday so I think I am going to go ahead and order some new soft lines and replace those too. I'll get to replacing the last parts this weekend. Hard lines all look pretty good on the outside and I didn't see any rust in the drained brake fluid.

 

Yeah, I brought it up a few pages back. It is a 66 Dodge Dart GT with a Slant 6, Automatic, AC, Power Steering, and Console Shifter. Fairly rare model from what I've been told. Good little car, just lots of little things to do since it sat for so long. The car is almost completely original. The interior is nice, though the seat foam is disintegrating and the radio doesn't work. We looked at a ton of different cars. She really wanted (wants) a Ford Pinto, but those are really becoming hard to find. Her mom had one when she was growing up that she loved. Big issue when looking was that she needed an automatic. This is her first car and she is learning to drive in it, so we didn't want to throw a manual into the equation just yet. Especially an old manual. She was also looking at older British and German cars like VW Squarebacks and MG's but those are pretty much entirely manual cars. I'll get her there eventually though.

 

Eh. Not a massive deal really. Biggest pain was the front hub seizing to the drums and then screwing up the lugs in removing them. Being as I could easily put the hubs on my workbench to remove the lugs a little better to deal with. Don't want to have to pull the axel to the do the rear so I'll let someone else figure that out.

 

Finished up the wife's brakes this weekend. Had to wait on the hoses to come in then I spent most of yesterday in the hot sun getting everything finished up and bleeding the brakes. Learned a whole lot of things that should have been obvious, like bleed the brakes with the drums on. Not sure why I thought doing so otherwise would work out. Going to write that off as a slight sun stroke. Her battery was dead so it sat on the charger all night. I'll be able to test everything tonight, and if it all works out I'll move her car into the street tonight and pull the 67 back in the driveway.

My wife and I had a long talk about our cars this weekend. She is really unhappy with her Dart. Biggest thing is that we spent X dollars on it and then spent near the same price fixing all of the neglected things and paying the back registration. She thinks it is too big for her too, which I can't figure out. She really wants a Pinto or MGB GT. I am all good with the MG, but am on the fence about the Pinto. Told her that the only real way of avoiding the issues we've both had with our cars is to find something cheap, like a decent shell, and build the car that she/we want. Yes even with a shell there are caveats. So the plan is to sell off her Dart in the coming months once I get the last few things fixed and then buy her a Pinto or MG shell that I get to build like I want. Not sure what I'd do to the Pinto. Probably do a Turbo Coupe engine swap with a Mustang II rear end. MG would most likely get a beefy 302 or late 5.0 and complete suspension upgrade. Seems to be more things along this route for the MG than the Pinto.

If she insists on the Pinto I might end up getting the MG for myself. Just darn cute looking cars and putting a beefy engine in there just sounds like a ton of fun (as long as the handling is upgraded too). If I go that route I will probably pass my 67 off to my nephew who is really into classic cars. More than a few years down the road, and I'll probably end up with another Ranchero a little further down anyhow. Lots to do before that day comes so don't count my 67 out yet. Hopefully it will be in the driveway tonight or tomorrow.

Once it is in the driveway I have a few things planned for the coming months. First thing is to get the new tires for it. Then I need to replace the trans modulator. I'll be dropping the trans fluid pan to clean it out. I may pull the valve body and do one of the shift kits on it. Next is finishing up the interior. I am still not 100% on the seat mounts that I made. I am on the fence about making new mounts that follow the floor pan, chopping up the floor pan so that it is more flat, and hence easier to mount/better fit the seats, or adapt some early mustang pans in that will also give me the flat flooring. I want to figure this out before I get the carpeting in there. Then I need to finish the bed/cubby area. Not thrilled with how the initial work I did went so I'll be tearing a good chunk of it out to redo it. Amazingly that will probably be the easiest part. Lastly if there is time this summer I'll be putting the EFI stuff back on. I am not super happy with the quality of the wires on the original harness and connectors, and have no clue as to the condition of the computer so I am thinking that I will scrap that stuff and just go with a MegaSquirt system. I may do a turbo on the 302 in another year and the MS will make it a lot easier to adjust things if I do so. Originally I was going to do the turbo as a proof of concept for adding a turbo to my wife's Dart, but since that may be going away I am not sure if I want to dive into turbos with the 67. An MS has always been on my want list of the 67 though so I might as well get it on there now and not try to trouble shoot an unknown computer.

 

Eventually I would love to have a Dart as well. That is one of my favorite cars but I want to wait until I have a garage or somewhere to store it.

 

It is a good car and I love the slant six. Not my favorite year of the Dart, but this is a nice example of it. Super rare combination from the factory. I'd love to turbo one of these things just for the mpg savings alone and the slant can take it without much modification. Maybe down the road I'll get an early Barracuda with a slant and do the things I've wanted to do to this car. This Dart is super stock original so it is really had messing it up.

Garage space is something I know nothing about. Lol. We have a one car driveway with a one car garage. With the washer and dryer in there my 67 just barely fits in there front to back. With my workbenches and whatnot it makes opening the doors all but impossible. Both doors is impossible. One of my points about the MG is that it would fit in the garage and still have room. Heck, I could work on it in the garage and still have room. I miss having a driveway that was used to park car sin and not work on them. We were planning on moving this summer but decided to hold off a year and try to buy a place next year instead of renting again. Two car garage and driveway are must haves for that. 3 car garages are fairly common here too so I may push for that.

 

They made MG's with the old 215 (now 4 L)aluminum Buick motor that Rover uses. Lots of people put 289/302's in without any real issues - you can probably buy a swap kit from somewhere. We had a VW 1500S square back that we(family) picked up in Amsterdam in '64 - toured around Europe and UK, shipped it home and it was my Mother's car for a few years. Twin carbs on the "S", but the throttle rods kept dropping off onto the electric choke wires - did a "Lucas" and let the smoke out of the wires a few times!!

MG parts are easy to find -lots of suppliers - VW's are so popular today it may be the same for them.

Peter

 

I've been reading a lot on the MG conversions the last few days. There are a lot of people that put in the Rover/Buick engine. Looks like the most common. Next would be a toss up between the GM 60 degree v6 and the 302. I'm a fan of the 302/5.0 so I would look at that if we get the MG. There are a few places that sell conversion kits. Most consist of motor mounts and special headers that exit into the wheel wells. There is a good one, though pricey, that is the engine mounts plus a modern front suspension. There's a guy about 50+ miles from here selling two rolling shell MGB Gt's for 1500. I'd probably get all the trim pieces and whatnot for one and then scrap what was left on the other one. The leftover budget would all go towards the engine/trans, mounts, and interior pieces. Whatever would be leftover would go towards the front and rear suspension. I've seen a lot of people use the stock suspension components without a problem so that is why it is for the leftover bit. If it looks like I can't afford all new bits I've just do an overhaul on the components. One of my coworkers has an MG of some era so I am going to talk to him about his experience with it. He's an engineering professor so I am sure I can get some more technical info from him.

I love the squarebacks. One of my friends had one a bit over 10 years ago that I was hoping he'd sell to me before he went into the military, but he ended up giving it to his brother. I want to get one years down the road when I have the money, time, and space to do one the way I've been imagining the last couple of years. It is a bit crazy and might not even work, but it is my vision. Hahaha. We looked at getting her a squareback a year ago, but we had a VW when we first got together that ended up as a money pit, so that kind of burned her to them. They're also all manual and she can't do that.

Pinto seems to be a lot more complicated to do the swap into and has less in the way of aftermarket. At least with the pre 74 models, and that's what we'd be looking at. Think it will all come down to what is available for our budget when we get rid of the Dart. Right now there are more than a few MG's out there and not many Pintos. It was around the same state when we looked around last year too. Still a few things to do on the Dart before we can really talk about selling it anyhow. Tested the brakes today and they feel spot on amazingly. Transmission is acting weird though. Might be from the fluid change still getting fluid into everything or I tweaked something while putting the new trans. mount in. I'll take a look at it more this weekend. Need to charge up the Ranchero's battery and get it ready to roll again so I can swap places with the Dart this weekend as well.

 

If you want to go midsize how about a Fairmont? You might even find one with the 302 option.