The Crusty Cuda: Whole lotta Shakin' (N96) Goin' on!

[njsteve]

I was rummaging through my 40 year old boxes of shrapnel and found two original 'cuda340 emblems. They were kind of faded but the chrome was excellent. So I soaked them in lacquer thinner overnight and used a brass bristle toothbrush to remove the paint residue. I then sprayed the with flat black and used a small rag with some reducer on it to wipe away the black off the face of the emblems.

The interesting fact is that original shaker hood emblems have three mounting prongs, while standard steel hood emblems have only two prongs. Since the odds of finding a real three pronged shaker 340cuda emblem are about as likely as me finding another hemicuda ragtop in my garage that I forgot to sell really cheap decades ago, I decided to use the two pronged emblems since they cover the middle prong anyway. This way only my hairdresser will know for sure.

Here's a comparison of an original three-pronged shaker hood 'cuda440-6 emblem next to the 'cuda340 emblems (after I did the blackout treatment).

After the blackout dried, I used some thinned out FE5 Rallye Red enamel (the same stuff I brushed on the brake drums) in a paint syringe bottle I got off of amazon. That worked great. I just let the syringe fill the channel with red paint, waited til it dried a little and then wiped it off the raised chrome edge with some reducer and a paper towel. I then cleared over the entire emblem.

[njsteve]

And here's the shaker all finished, all sparkley and drying in the sun.

[njsteve]

I also started working on getting the grill in place because I got tried of seeing the toothless grin of the purple mobile every time I opened the garage.

That was a little more involved than I thought. The reproduction grill is a great piece, in and of itself. It's the stupid stuff that "soiled my good mood" (a quote from the now framed, two page critique written by my then 6 year-old daughter concerning the behavior of her 1 year old little brother). The headlight buckets have two small Philips head screws that go through two holes in the outer perimeter. The screws go through the headlight buckets and into two white plastic inserts that snap into the inside of the fender edge.

First the headlight buckets don't fit because the inserts are twice as long as they need to be and won't let the headlight bucket even get into place. Then, once I sawed off half the height, the headlight bucket would actually go into place. The new problem was that the predrilled holes were about 1/4" away from the actual inserts. Not even close. So I pull out the headlight buckets and look at the hole. On the back side of the headlight inserts is a small raised, reinforced area where the hole should be. Now how frikken hard should it be to actually drill the mounting holes in that exact spot like the original buckets had, versus just randomly drilling a couple holes within a 1/2" or so???? Oh, and of course they were kind enough to include four chrome bevel headed Philips headed screws that were the size of something you would attach decking to your back porch with. If actually used, they would have instantly shattered the plastic once they were tightened into the much smaller countersunk hole in the plastic. Therefore, I once again went rummaging through my buckets of bolts and found the correct sized, tiny, bevel headed chrome screws for the buckets and used those instead.

So I had to drill new holes and then fill the old ones in the recently painted buckets. Luckily I had some leftover sparkley paint from the shaker. Once that was done, the grill bolted up nicely. The only finagling was to remove the two front bumper bolts so the elastomeric bumper could be lowered a couple inches to allow the grill to clear without scratching the paint.

I was also able to "adjust" the factory hood pins to clear the holes in the hood. The hood pin mounting flange is a separate bracket on the front of each fender edge, inside the engine compartment. They are painted with the car and not really adjustable. Even though the hole in the mounting plate lines up with the hole in the hood when viewed from above, the pin itself pokes up through at an odd angle which doesn't work. So I used the old factory "adjustment" method. I placed a 1/2" deep well socket over the hood pin, attached a 12" extension to the socket, and gently bent forward just a hair. Voila, the two pins aligns up perfectly now! And the pièce de résistance was finding a pair of original 1970 flat, hairpin, hood pin clips in my box of old emblems in the closet. (same place I found the 340 emblems!)

[njsteve]

Got the interior parts delivered today after a month or so on order. Unfortunately, they first shipped the $1700 order to someone with the same name as me in another state. I always check my tracking info and I noticed something wasn't right with the destination listed and gave them a call. They immediately contacted UPS and had the shipping cancelled and returned to sender. Once it arrived back, they inspected and reboxed and reshipped to me at the correct address. Everything arrived safely in four giant boxes this afternoon.

Soooo sorry PennsylvaniaSteve, you didn't get a free cuda interior on my dime, this time.

Luckily I have Grampa's Lincoln to lay out all the pieces on.

[A12pilot]

Bueno-Riffic, Steve-o!!

This was the part thst I was thinking I'd be curled up in a ball in the fetal positon after envisioning this train wreck starting to unfold! Aftermarket grille... factory fenders and hood...uh-boy

Glad it all came together!! Fantasmatic!!

Nice work! I know'd she was in good hands!

Cheers
Dave

[njsteve]

Been out in the garage all weekend.

Well, most of it except for the 4 hours spend replacing the PTO clutch on my 1989 John Deere 185 riding mower. I had to replace the PTO because it was 31 years old and when you would engage the blades, it would trip the 25 amp circuit breaker and kill the engine. When I checked the ohm reading on the clutch, it read 8.7 ohms. Anything over 3 ohms is bad. It was pulling so much amperage, that the wires were getting red hot.

And the biggest fun part is that it seems that the aftermarket PTO manufacturers decided to make all of their units with a built-in wooddruff key inside the bearing sleeve. That means you have to pull the main drive pulley above the clutch unit out, and then try to hammer/pry/visegrip/chisel out the two-inch long woodruff key that both the drive pulley and PTO are supposed to align onto. You then have to cut the woodruff key in half and reinsert it into to crank so only the upper pulley engages it and the lower portion of the channel is clear for the aftermarket PTO to slide on the shaft. YAY FUN! Once I got that done I mowed the yard to make sure everything was working again.

After all that I was able to assemble and install all four side marker assemblies (in their correct positions). After that I disassembled the rear tail lights and put all the parts into giant bucket of soapy water to soak for a day. They were packed full of a ton of grey silt, like the car spent years driving down dirt roads. So that was Saturday.

Sunday I spent all day trying to get the road lamps installed in a straight forward configuration and not looking like Marty Feldman appreciation day. The original road lamp brackets are slightly tweeked after years of use and after spending five hours installing/checking/removing/bending/hammering/prying I finally gave up and ordered a nice new repro set for $50.

So I spent the rest of my time installing the front valance. I taped all the edges up and fed one side in (it has to slip under the lower portion of the elastomeric bumper) and then gently persuaded the other side in as well. It worked out OK. No scratches!