It's HEMI time !!! Compliments of NJSteve

[mockingbird812]

Yowza! She looks FINE and FINE! Happy Father's Day Mac!!

[MosportGreen66]

Looks like you had good results Steve! Good work. I have been using clay bars for many, many years and it has taken several years of market wide advertising to bring an article on correct detailing procedure into fruition in Hemmings. Not a knock in the slightest. Just a little FYI - if you think the transformation is good on a seldom used muscle car, you should clay your daily driver! Not to steal the light, but if anyone needs detailing pointers, PM me, I love correcting paint.

-Dan

[njsteve]

I have been itching to add some gauges to the car to bring it back to it's original Day 2 look. (This car has been Day 2 since before Day 1. )

I added the 1970 Mopar tach a few months ago and now I finally found the right gauges. I wanted the original 2-1/16" black face/white needle, Stewart Warners but it was hard to locate the right temp gauge.

All of the current SW mechanical temp gauges have 2 problems:
1) they go to 265 or 280 degrees, which is crazy hot and a waste of half the gauge.
2) they have the capillary tube with the giant nut that has to go through an equally giant hole in the firewall. Not gonna drill. No way!

Searching the catalogs I found that the electrical temp gauges SW makes go to 240 degrees, like the old days and use a small temp sender and some 16 gauge wire to connect to the gauge.

I was trying to be as incogneto as possible in my engine bay so I used the block drain plug next to the front freeze plug on the passenger side and screwed the sender and adapter into it. It worked out great. I then used some 16 gauge wire and fed it along the wiring harness through an existing grommet and under the dash.

As for the oil pressure gauge, I used the 100 psi version since my factory gauge is always pegged at 80 psi when the car is running. So now I know how far off my factory electrical gauge is:

When the engine is cold they both read 80 psi. When the engine is warmed up at idle, the dash gauge reads 80 psi and the SW reads 45. When running, the dash reads 80+ and the SW read 65 psi. Gotta love that good accurate factory reading.

I used the secondary oil galley plug on the back of the block next to the factory sending unit to mount the oil line.(Hemi's and all big block Mopars have two plugs back there, thankfully) In order to feed the plastic line through the firewall, I found an existing grommet and heated up a metal pick and then just melted a hole through the grommet and fed the line through it, and on to the gauge. I also hid the line underneath existing harnesses.

Here is the finished product:





I bought the temp gauge off of ebay along with the sender unit (which sells seperately. I paid $40 with shipping which was better than the $42 for the gauge and $20 for the sender that the speed shops wanted. The 100 psi oil pressure gauge was a little harder to find on ebay so I found the cheapest mailorder place around: www.speedwaymotors.com. The gauge was $35.99 plus shipping. That was about $15 cheaper than most other places. I got the mounting plate from my local Napa store for $9. I even lucked out and was able to use the existing ashtray mounting screw holes for the faceplate. The two holes in the bracket were in the exact same spot as the ashtray.

P.S. Check out the odometer: it looks like I might actually roll over to 17,000 miles tonight! Gee, it's only taken me 21 years to go 5,000 miles. (Bought it at 12,234)

[Xplantdad]

Neat stuff Steve! Now, get out and drive it!

[njsteve]

Here is a shot of the SW electrical temperature sender in the block. Luckily it cleared everything. The passenger side drain plug is actually in a good spot between two cylinders, unlike the driver's side plug which is right next to a cylinder wall and wouldn't have allowed the sender to screw in far enough without hitting the cylinder wall water jacket.



The oil line at the rear of the block. Yup, that's real street driven, New Jersey dirt, oil, and grease back there. Nothin's too good for my old Jersey Girl!



The white oil line going through the tach lead grommet in the firewall. Once the oil filled up the line, it got dark and looked less obtrusive.



And the engine view. Looks just as stock as always...

[njsteve]

And as is the nature of the beast, no good deed goes unpunished.

After I got her all warmed up, I decided to hook her up to the Sun machine and set the idle mixture on the rear carb. (The front is non-adjustable).

I got it to where I was happy, and then went to set the idle speed and, of course, used a screw driver that was too long...I heard a r-i-i-i-i-i-ing, which was side of my hand being buzzed by the fanblade.

Fortunately, my Super-Mopar reflexes allowed me to quickly perceive that 1) That's a weird noise the engine is making and 2) Why is my hand vibrating? and 3) Why is my vibrating hand bleeding on my nice paint? Which lead me to 4) get my damn hand out of my car's spinning fanblade.

Luckily it was only a couple scratches but a wake up call nonetheless.

I guess I have been ignoring her lately, She gets hungry when you don't feed her often enough. (Cue the Twilight Zone theme here)

That's all for now from the Little Garage of Horrors.

[ORIGLS6]

I just helped patch up my neighbor from a similar experience. No real damage but it definitely got his attention.

Tach & gauges are a nice addition.

[njsteve]

Went to the cruise last night in my town and the odometer is now officially 17,004 miles. I had to drive slow to watch it roll to the zeros. I've done this every time it has passed another millenial milestone over the past 21 years. I still get a vicarious thrill out of it.

[m22mike]

Hay Steve
You need one of those Ford stickers
Mike

[njsteve]

Your right!

Does anyone with a Camaro out there want to loan me their CAUTION FAN sticker?