Over the last few days I've been continuing to set up stuff in the storage trailer, going through the large amount of loose and small contents that still litter the garage and sorting through what's trash and what's not. More stuff continues to make it to the outgoing scrap pile while certain things like boxes or wrappers/containers for items I end up sorting into organizers ends up in the fire can. Other items make it to the regular shelves to be organized according to its category. Things are slowly thinning out but there's still a long way to go.
The biggest thing that's been going on over the last couple of days has been the work started back up on the old Dodge Charger, the flagship car of the fleet. There were some things I had to do based on what I had available parts-wise. I still had to install the harmonic balancer and valve cover gaskets I bought on ebay, along with installing some components after that. Some things have to go on in a sequential order. I can't put fan belts on w/o the balancer. I can't put the radiator in w/o the balancer. I can't put the valve covers on w/o the gaskets. I've been avoiding the work for some odd reason while trying to get other things done but like with many things in life, sometimes you have to get that itch or bug once again to be able to just jump in. And usually what ends up happening is I'll go in hard and fast for a minute then crash again for a while. Hopefully that won't be the case, especially since I'm so close. Anyway, I swapped out the balancer and put the pulleys back on. The next main thing I wanted to see was if I can reuse the bracket that holds the alternator and AC compressor that was on the engine when it was in the truck that it came from. It would've worked if not for the compressor bumping into the thermostat housing. About the thermostat housing. Originally I thought I would have to buy one off of ebay as I didn't have one for the 318. When I did another search I ended up finding out that the housings are actually interchangable between the small and big block mopar engines. With that in mind I borrowed the thermostat housing from the 440 that's on the floor that came from the car originally. I had to cut a new gasket from some gasket paper and test the thermostat itself to make sure it still worked. I did this by putting the thermostat in a pot of water and bringing it to a boil to get it to "operating temperature". Sure enough it popped open. Now whether its opening with the right temperature I'm not 100% sure as I didn't have a thermometer. The water wasn't physically boiling but it was steaming so it wasn't quite at 212 degrees. Bubbles were not forming either, just surface steam, so maybe it was around 170, 180? Who knows. Point is, the thing opened up when in the hot water and closed shortly after pulling out, then sprung open when put back in the water so its functional. I assembled the unit with the gasket and a little goop for good measure. The AC compressor bumping into the housing prevented me from being able to use the old bracket that would've facilitated hooking up AC in the car using the current hardware I have. It also prevented me from hooking up the alternator as well. I would've had to find a compressor delete pulley or shorter belts that would route around everything except the compressor. Instead I had already bought the little brackets to mount an old school mopar alternator to the engine. I also found out that the alternators used on the mopar big blocks also works for the small blocks too. This was perfect not because I could borrow the unit from the 440, but because I already had a spare alternator on the shelf that I could use. I was able to install the old school alternator and brackets along with some large nuts to act as spacers for the bolt that hooks up to the cylinder head to fully secure the unit. The only thing was the pulleys on the crank were for the truck setup. The pulleys that lined up with the old school alternator needed to line up with the water pump as well but the water pump is a long neck unit whose pulleys extended out farther. I did a little looking at the shorter belt that loops around the water pump and power steering pump and crank pulley and found that it worked for the alternator to the crank pulley, except I would have to put it on the outer grove on the pulley. Both sets of pulleys are double V belted and the inner groove would've had the belt rubbing along the bottom of the water pump neck. The outer grove cleared just fine, so I'll end up having to roll with one belt on the alternator to crank pulley run. This still kinda works out fine as that means I only need to stock the same belt for either the power steering/water pump run or the alternator run. As of right now I won't be able to do any kind of AC hook up with this current configuration. I could spend the extra money and get the short neck water pump for the old school set up, along with the right pulleys and the proper mounts for all the old school shit, including the power steering pump. More money, much more money. It would make sense to not do any of this and just dedicate any monies spent on getting the 440 right and getting its transmission right so I can put that rig back into the car at a later date. With those things all hooked up the next thing was the valve cover gaskets. These are nice rubber units, not the cork shit that used to be used on old school setups. The valve covers went on with no issue. I even installed both heater hoses, hooking one up to the engine. I just have to get a fitting to go in the intake to hook the other heater hose up to conclude that part. I did attempt to put the radiator in but I found out that the bottom hose port was on the driver's side. The bottom port on the 318 is on the right side so that would mean either doing a bullshit extended run of hose that'll be problematic or just spend a couple of bucks and get an aftermarket aluminum radiator for this configuration and call it a day. I found one on ebay, 3 core, for $140, not that bad all things considered. After the dodge I did take time this morning to load up the truck with a bunch of shit from the garage, a lot of it being garbage destined for the burn can. A good amount was also scrap. I had a lot of it staged behind the dodge in the garage previously. I loaded up all this crap and found even more crap off of the shelves still in the garage. A lot of this stuff is stuff I would either be putting to use in the near future, like battery chargers and what not, or I'll be using the stuff to build new stuff or continue to repair other stuff. That is my biggest thing, anything that is moved down to the trailer has to be getting put to use, I don't want to end up making the trailer like the garage was, just a bunch of shit piled on top of shit. Even after shit ends up organized in the trailer, it needs to get put to use to move it from the trailer to its final spot in a car, a building project or what not. The main goal is downsizing on everything to get to a slimmed down, neat, organized inventory where everything has an immediate use, not a maybe or what it application.
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