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

[Lee Stewart]

[njsteve]

I got the car up on jackstands and started working on the suspension. I tightened, cotter pinned, and lubed all the tie rods and ball joints. I am working my way from the ground level, upwards.

I ordered a set of the front and rear ceramic metallic brake shoes from these guys and they should be here next week. http://www.musclecarbrakes.com/stage16572charger.html

I measured all four of the original 11" brake drums and it looks like they were only cut once in the past half century. The fronts are .010 over and the rears are .020 over so there's still a lot of meat left in them. Getting them cut this weekend at my friend's garage.

I have been buying up bottles of silicone brake fluid (DOT-5) to fill the system with something that won't harm Dave's paint in the event of a leak.

I was able to heat up the broken mirror glass in the passenger side racing mirror and pop it out. I brought the reassembled pieces, all taped together, to my local glass shop. They said it will be about a week and $20 to cut a new mirror. (1970 was a one-year only mirror size for the passenger side so the aftermarket doesn't make that mirror insert.

Other than that, I have been collecting parts and sorting through all the stuff Dave sent me and trying to figure out what language he labeled all the tiny bags of screws with. I think it's either early Olmec or possibly Prediluvian.

[A12pilot]

It’s a mix between Predelousional and Postbezerkian that I perfected between 2nd and 3rd grade. It stems from a long lineage of thinking the more the teacher doesn’t understand the less I get wrong on the test!

You know I’m a text away! Not that I’ll remember what I wrote, but still!

Those brakes are new that I put on there, so after you do a few burnouts, you’ll have an extra set on hand already!

Cheers
Dave

[Lee Stewart]

[njsteve]

I thought I'd swap out the brake shoes for the best material there is. Back in the day when I had my 71 hemi ragtop with the 11" drums, The Mopar Gods granted you only one stop at speed before the brakes faded into a distant memory.

In the mid 1980's there was a company called "Velvet Touch Brakes" that made sintered metallic brake shoes for these cars. It was a major improvement. They went out of business in the late 1980's due to the asbestos lawsuits as well as lawsuits from people who didn't understand that metallic brakes had to be initially heated up with some pedal application when you first took the car out for a drive before the brakes would grip fully. If you understood that, you were fine. If not, it took a lot longer to stop.

The guy running Musclecar Brakes was one of their original engineers. We swapped stories for a while before I placed the order. Turns out we knew some of the same people back in the day. Small world!



And just kidding Dave, I was able to decipher your coded messages on the bags into Pig Latin and then translate them into Modern Joysey-speak.

[sixt9rsx33]

Congrats to Dave and Steve!!
Dave as usual your cars come out so darn nice. I love watching you work your magic.
Steve, the bar is set high buddy. That interior is go to be installed perfect to finish this gem off!!
Can't wait to watch it all come together.

[A12pilot]

Thanks Lawrence! Oh, Steve won't disappoint and best of all he's building it how he wants it!!

It's gonna look SHARP!!

BTW... email sent

Cheers
Dave

[njsteve]

Got the drums cut last night. It took about .020 to get them clean of the bell shape from sitting for 42 years with the shoes rusted to the insides. Probably had the parking brake on all that time. My buddy has a 1970's era Bear brake lathe that I donated to him. I found it at an old garage that was junking it!!!! So I dragged my trailer down there, got it loaded up and brought it to his garage.

Got the mirror glass made at the local glass shop. Dropped the broken pieces off on Monday and they had it hand cut and beveled by Friday. Cost me $20. The old broken pieces came out with the use of a heat gun and small screwdriver. Turns out the factory used RTV or something similar back then to glue it it. You have to be careful with what glue you use to mount the glass to the bracket because most glues will attack the silvered back of the mirror and ruin it.

[njsteve]

I cleaned up the front drums and scrubbed them well. You can really see how much of the factory brushed on red paint is still intact on the drums. They really slopped it on there. And the outside of the hub had a green and white paint daub on both drums.

After that I painted the drums with some cast iron high heat paint and then found a 30 year-old can of FE5 Rallye Red enamel I had in my cabinet and used an old paint brush to slop on the red paint in the same finely trained assembly line technique as used by the artisans at Ye Olde Hamtramck Assembly Plant in April of 1970.

[njsteve]

I then mock assembled the drums (waiting on front seals to arrive) So I could bleed the brakes. Went through 4 bottles of Dot 5 purple silicone brake fluid just to make sure everything was flushed after I bench bled the master cylinder and reinstalled it. Also waiting on the little $3 rubber grommet that goes on the end of the brake plunger rod before I can final assemble the pedal setup.