1987 CSX for SDAC 2015

[2.216VTurbo]

Yeah but it will only take you half as much time to get back with the Hemi

[wheming]

Yes, I'm trading in my current Challenger for a 2 year older Hemi car from Steve White Motors.

Were going to blast down Friday night to Newton NC, have breakfast and be at the dealer at 9AM.

And then cranking right back home. 1450 miles in 24 hours with co-driver. I'm going to be cooked on Sunday.

Damn! That's out near Hickory.
You taking 95 to 85 to 40?
That intersection of I85 and I40 is a bit of a ride from me, but i need to be up in North Raleigh that morning with the van for some measurements for custom radiator.
But it will take you a bit to be back that way with all the dealer paperwork and stuff.
Let me know if you want to try and meet for lunch, on your way back.

[mopar-tech]

But it will take you a bit to be back that way with all the dealer paperwork and stuff.

Actually there will be very little paperwork since my Challenger is paid off in full and I hold the title and the small difference in price I'm paying with cash.

Going to be a quick in and out, not even a road test as a friend of mine 1/2 hour from the dealer has already driven the car.

We plan on being the first dealership customer Saturday morning and dropping rubber in front of the dealership shortly after and being home before midnight.

[wheming]

Nice.

[mopar-tech]

Yeah but it will only take you half as much time to get back with the Hemi

With 305 HP the current car is no slouch and has used all of the 140 mph speedo ;-)

[mopar-tech]

So long time followers of this thread know that I am not really comfortable with the ergonomics of my vehicle. I always hated the leg to steering wheel clearance and the fact that I could not see the top of the tach and speedo without ducking my head. I made modest improvements in the past by shimming the column slightly and lowering the seat track. This time around I decided to take a bigger bite out of the problem.

While I had the column out I doubled the thickness of the shims at the base of the column and checked clearances around the dash trim, so far everything looks excellent. By shimming the bottom it pivots the steering wheel up. On the other end of things I made plans to lower the seat track as low as it could go. At work today I made up two nice little pieces to replace the front seat track bases, I'm pleased to report they work great and I can finally see the top of the speedo and tach and have great general clearance on the steering wheel.

The interior is now more or less done and I have to step away from the car for a few days. I still have to swap out the head rests (I don't like the ones with the "Shadow" script on them and give everything a good vacuuming. Once the new Challenger is home I'll bang out the rest of my list of things to do.

Gary

[mopar-tech]

Minor panic last night- After wasting an hour or two working on Kyle's CSX trying to get the stereo working (wiring issues raise their ugly head) decided to clean out my Challenger, give it a bath and do some minor touch up. Part of the stripe was lifting on the passenger quarter panel and I decided to touch it up with some vinyl glue and it proceeded to melt!

JEEZE

Lucky I still had the optional R/T sections so stripped both sides of the car and installed them instead. I'm getting scary fast installing stripes, practice from work helps.

Still on track for leaving Friday night to NC.

[mopar-tech]

Installed a new underhood pad from off Ebay tonight, nice piece! Would have been nice if the seller let me know it needed clips though.

I should be done with Kyle's car in another day or two so I can get back on my car and be back on the road again.

[jonnymopar]

Installed a new underhood pad from off Ebay tonight, nice piece! Would have been nice if the seller let me know it needed clips though.

Was it new new, or just new to you? Furry friends made quite a mess of mine during her winter nap a few years ago, so I pitched it. It would be nice to replace it.

[mopar-tech]

Was it new new, or just new to you? Furry friends made quite a mess of mine during her winter nap a few years ago, so I pitched it. It would be nice to replace it.

Brand new, I'll post a picture tomorrow and a link to the clips.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/330811494934...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

[mopar-tech]

It would be nice to replace it.

Picture of the unit off Ebay.

I'm off to work, feel the boost! woot!

[mopar-tech]

Drive to work was fine aside from one item of note- When I was cleaning the duct work I found a patch of old 4" x 4" foam stuck to the duct that goes to the drivers top left panel outlet. I removed it as I thought it was there for the wiring which I have pretty much protected from everything and tied back.

Not so!

As I'm going down the highway I could hear a distinct speedo cable whirring noise and I'm like "what the heck it was fine before!" pulling on the duct makes the noise change pitch. Sure enough I checked at lunchtime and the cable rests right on the ductwork where the foam patch was. I found a piece of foam in the shop and slipped it in and all is well. Pretty funny.

[wheming]

That was probably a TSB back in the day!

[mopar-tech]

So yesterday I ambled out to the garage to work on my car finally. I have a set of lower door/belt line decals from Positive Impressions to install but have to strip the originals off first.

What a nightmare.

1) The pieces of decal comes off in quarter size hunks. If you are lucky, you can heat the heck out of the door and get larger pieces off at a time but not much larger.

2) The adhesive is some rude mixture that looks impervious to every chemical in my garage including acetone. I had to resort to using a single edge razor blade to scrape it off.

3) The paint on the lower door started to come off! I lost about 20% of the top coat. At this point I removed the air dam plug off the lower door and started blading off the remaining paint down to the primer, wet sand and will reshoot the lower sections before installing the new decals.

Tell me again how much fun were having? I'm not seeing it at the moment.

[jonnyb]

I feel for you - I've done two of those 87 csx decal removals. Luckily I was repainting so I just went to town on them, but it was still a huge pain!

I keep asking myself a similar question Gary: "Now what is it that is fun about any of this again?"

I decided to take a break from restoration work today and pulled my SRT6 out of storage. I figured a nice night for a top down cruise to relax. Well, of course, nothing is easy. The car was absolutely filled with rodents! I spent 2 hours cleaning it out and 5 minutes driving it! The smell was still so bad even after cleaning that I couldn't enjoy the car - and this was with the top down! I took the cabin filter out when I got back from my 5 minutes of nastiness drive, and it was filled with mice and nesting materials! The blower motor was filled and seized up as well.

I walked away from the car in disgust. Good times indeed.

Jon

[Pat]

I just had a "why am I doing this?" moments over the holiday weekend. I even at one point told my wife that I'm selling all of the old stuff and buying a 6spd Challenger. I've since settled down a bit. You both will too.

Although, I'm still liking the idea of a Challenger...

[2.216VTurbo]

So on the trip out from Memphis in RedBox, the SMEC melted down in Flagstaff AZ and since we couldn't borrow one from anyone in the PHX area where the car spent a few nights resting, it came home on my car dolly thanks to an 11 hour quick turn trip by my Bro on Wednesday. So this afternoon I had a couple hours, cleaned the road grime off it, installed a new SMEC driver board leaving the socked brain board and custom ForceFedMopar cal that runs it, topped off the oil and coolant, tidied up[ the interior because it's the First Thursday SoCal Applebees meet night. ready to leave, fire it up and the PS pump is shaking like mad, like I can't believe the belt is staying on! Ah, the side bolt behind the passenger side motor mount is missing, I'll just wind a new one in real quick and debut RedBox at the meet tonight... Nope. Bolt is broken off in there. Why do we do this again?

[mopar-tech]

I just had a "why am I doing this?" moments over the holiday weekend. I even at one point told my wife that I'm selling all of the old stuff and buying a 6spd Challenger. I've since settled down a bit. You both will too.

Although, I'm still liking the idea of a Challenger...

The results at the end make it worth it.. but it is a pain at times especially after a very long hot and humid week.

Challenger is fun with its own personality but I'd rather build not buy a hot rod and it still is for me just a "toaster car" daily driver. I was considering doing some performance upgrades... but as time passes I think I'm just going to leave it be. Oh it is going to get the R/T stripes and some practical upgrades, why these cars don't have splash guards and sill protection from the factory out of the box is beyond me... but for its intended purpose I think its best to leave it alone. I have a Dart and Reliant still waiting in the wings.

My buddy is ragging on me for not starting the Dart as soon as the CSX is wrapped up this month. I have to swap gears in the Duster and pull the trans to replace the clutches in the front drum and play with the timing of the 2-3 shift. Should be no more than 2 weeks and then the car is ready for the track in the fall and should dip into the 12's. If I start on the Dart now that means no track time this year as it will tie me up for several months.

I don't get enough track time as it is.

Anyone can buy, not all can build. Part of what I like about restoring cars is the hunt. Finding the car. Building the car in my mind. Finding parts for the car. The road trips to drag home parts vehicles. Hearing it fire up for the first time. The first road test.

Sometimes things go to plan... other times not.

Kyle's CSX went surprisingly smooth all things considered, I really enjoyed setting the car right and saving it from the crusher.

Gary

[jonnyb]

Kyle's CSX went surprisingly smooth all things considered, I really enjoyed setting the car right and saving it from the crusher.

Those are the ones that keep us going. It's like getting that hole in 1 golfing - the game is a little boring at times and can get you really down if you play a few bad rounds, but land that hole in one, and you're hooked! LOL!

Jon

[jonnyb]

I just had a "why am I doing this?" moments over the holiday weekend. I even at one point told my wife that I'm selling all of the old stuff and buying a 6spd Challenger. I've since settled down a bit. You both will too.

Although, I'm still liking the idea of a Challenger...

Too funny Pat - I muttered those same words to my girlfriend a few weeks ago after that paint incident on the convertible I'm working on. I tell you, if they come out with an AWD Scat Pack version, I really think I might just sell most of my old stuff and buy one of those. What would it be like to spend weekends/weeknights NOT working on cars? LOL!

Jon