Blue's Barracuda

Blue · Post by **Blue** » Sun Feb 26, 23 3:35 pm

What I'm going to try and do is give it a neat couple of coats of fibreglass mat and then carefully remove it from the original. If it looks good enough that will be my new console. If not then I will use that as the mould to lay up an exact copy of the original. I'm making this up as I go along...

Stu · Post by **Stu** » Sun Feb 26, 23 4:09 pm

Fair play.

Matt74 · Post by **Matt74** » Mon Feb 27, 23 4:58 pm

Impressive stuff!

Blue · Post by **Blue** » Sat Mar 25, 23 1:00 pm

Not got much done in the last few weeks due to moving house but got back on it Yesterday and pulled the trans out. When you get a driveline failure on a Mopar it can damage the sprag in the transmission so to avoid catastrophic failure of the front drum, it’s wise to check. Unfortunately it means a full transmission strip as it’s right at the back. It was undamaged luckily and the rest of the trans is still minty fresh which is reassuring. Suspecting this might be the case I bought some parts to upgrade so the whole exercise wasn’t a waste of time.

Blue · Post by **Blue** » Sat Mar 25, 23 5:07 pm

Friction is one of the first things you come up against on a Torqueflite when you start making some steam. The aluminium rear support has the output shaft running through it and the rear drum riding on the outside of it, at some point it will gall at both points. The fix is a modified support with a roller bearing for the mainshaft and the drum support milled off, the drum is modified to take another roller bearing and that then runs directly on the mainshaft.

Blue · Post by **Blue** » Sat Mar 25, 23 5:09 pm

I also opted for an aluminium park gear to replace the heavy cast iron one and a spacer to replace the governor assembly which no longer does anything with a manual valve body.

Stu · Post by **Stu** » Mon Mar 27, 23 11:06 am

Transmission internals are still voodoo to me, so I like reading these updates and explanations.

Any shifter updates? Looking forward to seeing the finished article.

Blue · Post by **Blue** » Mon Mar 27, 23 3:13 pm

Thrust washer’s between the planetries also get replaced with roller bearings, couldn’t resist a lightened sunshell obviously…

Blue · Post by **Blue** » Mon Mar 27, 23 3:15 pm

All back together and ready to go back in. Shifter just needs me to sort out the cover, that’s coming next.

Blue · Post by **Blue** » Wed Mar 29, 23 6:28 pm

2 layers of mat over the shifter cover, see what that looks like when it’s gone off.

Blue · Post by **Blue** » Thu Mar 30, 23 2:19 pm

Bit of trimming and rubbing down and we have this, not perfect but good enough for the likes of me. For a first attempt at trying something like this I'll call that a success.

Stu · Post by **Stu** » Thu Mar 30, 23 2:52 pm

I reckon!

Looks good to me. What paint you giving it?

Pete · Post by **Pete** » Thu Mar 30, 23 3:58 pm

That sums the car up, really - lots of neat, bespoke, and trick items that most uninitiated people would not pick up on; a quality detailed and highly personalised Build.

Blue · Post by **Blue** » Thu Mar 30, 23 4:04 pm

Stu wrote: ↑Thu Mar 30, 23 2:52 pm I reckon!

Looks good to me. What paint you giving it?

I want a textured finish so I’ll try truck bedliner and then a coat of blue to match the interior.

Stu · Post by **Stu** » Thu Mar 30, 23 6:50 pm

That’s a good idea. I wondered if you’d go wrinkle finish, but the blue would be way different.

Mopar Muscle Association UK

Blue's Barracuda

Re: Blue's Barracuda

Re: Blue's Barracuda

Re: Blue's Barracuda

Re: Blue's Barracuda

Re: Blue's Barracuda

Re: Blue's Barracuda

Re: Blue's Barracuda

Re: Blue's Barracuda

Re: Blue's Barracuda

Re: Blue's Barracuda

Re: Blue's Barracuda

Re: Blue's Barracuda

Re: Blue's Barracuda

Re: Blue's Barracuda

Re: Blue's Barracuda