440- A New Home

In she goes... We hooked it up, aligned the motor mounts, took the engine back out, strapped the 727 Torqueflite up, jacked it up and.... noticed the flywheel was lining up. So, we disconnected the tranny, took off the flywheel (it came from the motor home) and almost called it a day. Larry then had an idea that he could see if one of his many motors he has sitting around (Mopar, Jeep, and Chevy blocks) and see what we could find. We went straight to his Chrysler 400 block, climbed over a Jeep just to get to it, and took it off. To the eye we thought it would work, and it did. So... we bolted that one on, hooked the tranny up (which seemed to gain a 1000 lbs from the last time we lifted it, and jacked up the hoist again. She slid in nicely I must say. I just need to get a couple new bolts for the cross-member and we'll move on from there.

440- The Traveller-hemi orange

After 3 cans of Mopar hemi orange, The Traveller finally came to color. I went to Extreme Dodge for the paint, and of course I got the wrong stuff, so it took practically a week and a half to complete just the paint. But in the end, she sure looks good.

440 A Project within a Project

Itching to get the engine started, we got right to it after Christmas.

Under the car paint

This was a long long day under the car. I had my paint, paint brush, and also a head-ache (probably from the paint fumes) with me from early morning til well after the sun set. I started in the front of the car and went all the way to the back coating everything I could possibly reach. And what I couldn't reach I had a spray can to help out. As I was doing this my dad sought to fix the small hole by the door. He did set the car on fire... We frantically worked to get the flame out before it caught the installation in the dash. The car is still there, and we managed to have another fire. All in a day's work.

More Console 2

About 40 years of dried glue is just amazing to get off the console. We are just going to repaint the back paint and shine up the chrome the best we can. After all that cleaning is done we will put the new woodgrain "sticker" on the console. Not too much work on here, but just something else that needs to be done.

Middle Console Repair

I called on my cousin Larry (Cooter) to help me get the console back into shape. It seems someone had busted out the back plastic piece in the console for whatever reason. We suspect a hiding spot as the carpet still covered the area. Larry devised a plan to rivet a piece of metal for strong supprt. He likes to make a cardboard layout before he does any metal work. Then we just bent the metal to fit the cardboard. It worked great. Now I need to clean it up, paint it, and place the new wood sticker on top. Then it goes in the car.

Back Window Installation

There was a lot of prep work involved in the back window installation. Cleaning the chrome and back windows, along with getting the back area smooth and level. The greatest thing was the propane heater we borrowed from Larry. It is an old model, but it still pushes out a ton of heat. This will allow for more work through January and February.