The annoying part about making custom mounts for your shifter is that you then have to make a custom linkage as well... And every time you get one linkage rod to work and mount it up the next one interferes and you have to go back to the first one and make changes and rinse repeat.

But it worked out. It shifts, I get to see how the funky sequential shifting vertical gate works for myself now. And it means I can finally weld in the floor hump...

I'm making it down to the last few things on the list of must-dos before fire up! I FINALLY sorted out the madness with the wheels I ordered and got the shipping notice for them today(Only 2 months after I initially ordered them!) Now that I have a trunk floor I can install the fuel cell and the rest of the fuel system. Then its finish setting up the clutch, wire the car, and FIRE!

Hurst Ramrod shifter test. by Punk.Kaos posted Mar 19, 2024 at 6:31 PM

 

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Wheels and tires finally came in! Its always fun playing "Will they fit in the 66 B-Body's tiny rear wheel wells" with wider tires, but I did the math properly and they fit as designed!

The stance of the car isn't quite where its going to be, as there's still a coilover suspension conversion in the works but all in all I'm happy with the rims and how its looking!

 

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One of my final unknowns was answered while working yesterday. One of my coil packs was at ground zero for the crash, mounted in the fender right behind the initial point of impact. It bent the mounting bracket for the coils badly before tossing them across the engine bay. I wasn't sure if they were still functional or if they were toast which would suck as coils are expensive.

Today I mounted them up and set up the basic wiring to test them. I'm happy to say they all still work fine even though the drivers side ones are a little banged up.

So coils work, injectors are good, fabbed up my new oil lines and wired up my basic wiring (I still need to make the looms for the coils as they're just run across the engine for testing right now)

Technically it should run right now, but I have to get the turbo oil return lines setup first or I'll just pump the engine oil out on the ground.

Bit more to go before it DRIVES but the first test fire is eminent!

 

And it lives! I still need to get things installed before it DRIVES. Things like that loose pulley you can hear at the end. And maybe a gas pedal. But its running now for the first time since the 90's.

 

Congratulations!

 

Well.... THAT was an adventure!

This weekend was clocked for bringing the Satellite home, but it wanted to fight me a little bit. Saturday I fired it up to warm it up, then shut it down to adjust something and that was the last it would start... The starter was turning slowly and the crank position sensor was having problems detecting the crank so it just wouldnt start.

So back again today, I adjusted the crank sensor and got it to work more reliably and it fired up. It cruised 24 miles towards home quite easily, it was staying cool and drove well though the charging system was being a little inconsistent.

About a mile from home it started to get hot suddenly so I pulled off at the local grocery store to check what was up. My lower radiator hose had burst and began losing all my coolant. Luckily there was enough hose to cut it shorter and put it back without issue, but unfortunately it was back to cranking slow and I couldn't get it back running again.

My Son came and rescued me, we ran home with the battery popped it on the charger and after dinner took the battery back over to the car and brought it the rest of the way home.

So its home! It drives! The vertical gate shifter is cool, and really strange to drive with... I wound it up just a little on the run home and my Son said, "So it has a disappearing trick now, huh?"


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Congratulations, I know the feeling of getting the car home after a long time away, I just got mine home a little over a month ago and tore it apart after putting about 40 miles on it, but its great to be able to drive them once in a while when you're putting in the work on them.

 

For real. I started this build in January, its nice to be able to take it for a spin... Took a run up to the parts store in it a few minutes ago, ran like a watch. A very noisy watch. Very satisfying

 

Nothing like a quick coat of plastidip to improve the badly aged paint. Doesn't fix the dents and dings and rust holes. But it'll do for now.

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Took my Satellite out to our local Cars & Coffee's Mopar day and caused a bit of a stir with it, I was the only classic forced induction car out there(There were quite a few supercharged modern Challengers though!)

On the way home I had a pro-street 1970 Hemi Challenger goad me into a race(Ok it didn't take too much!).

While I took him by a fair gap over 16PSI I'm blowing through my clutch... Not wildly surprising as thats about where I pass the 1000HP mark but its annoying to have to let outa it so I don't leave bits of clutch plate behind.

Its the first real hard pull I've done since transferring this engine into the Satellite from my Belvedere and putting the 4 speed behind it. It was a bit more manageable with the Satellite's 2.76:1 rear gears vs the 3.55's the Belvedere had, and they really don't feel granny with that much power behind them.

It did twist so hard that it broke the mount to my shifter though... So I guess I'll have to do something with that!

 

Congrats on your journey thru the build(s).
These stories are what keep me plugging forward.

 

Thanks! Its been a really wild ride for sure, sadly looking back through my thread something has broken a buncha my images which is annoying.


I've been enjoying watching your build too, looks like you're getting pretty close to a runner judging by your post.

 

Yea, running blind with not seeing your pics.

Will update mine again soon. Small steps backward again in order to move forward.

 

I'm gonna have to see if I can go through and fix those, like you said its running blind without them.