91 Shadow R/T Convertible

[jonnyb]

I haven't gotten the price yet, just some ballpark numbers. Would you mind letting me know about how much that cost you Gary? Any why did it take months to get it finished? Power company? Slow/busy electrician?

My overhead door install got delayed until tomorrow, so still no cars going in there yet!

Jon

[mcsvt]

I think it was about $1,400 for everything. The main issue was scheduling the inspection and then getting the electric company to do the final hookup. I'm still not sure who dropped the ball the inspector or the electrician..

[jonnyb]

Oh, that's not bad at all. That included running the new wire from the pole and the new meter? I might have to try to get a second estimate - I budgeted $1500 for wiring, but the ballpark estimate from him was $2900. He hasn't gotten back to me with a final quote yet, but if it does come in over $2K, I think I'll call around for another estimate.

Jon

[mcsvt]

Yeah, that was full breaker panel and install, permit and inspection and wiring to pole. The pole for me was only a few feet from the garage. No outlets though, right now I have a panel all hooked up with no way to use it....... I'm going to add an air compressor and welder soon though. The garage does have service from the house, but it'd never support anything big.

[jonnyb]

Thanks for the info Gary. OK, maybe the ballpark figure he mentioned does make sense. It included the 200 amp panel, wiring for overhead lights, upstairs lights, light switches, a bunch of 110 wall outlets and a 240 outlet for the lift. I'm hoping it included the new wire from the pole and the meter too, but that's the part I'm not sure about. Hopefully he'll get the final quote to me soon so I can stop guessing! LOL!

Jon

[mcsvt]

For all that it does sound like a decent price then. My guy wanted $250 or something just to run a wire from the new panel over to the old panel.. I think the wire to the pole might be on the electric company actually. My electrician just wired up to the top edge and the electric company did the rest.

Good luck!

[jonnyb]

Doors are installed:


I took a couple pics, but all of them had some kind of weird fisheye lens effect on them. This one was the least out of whack. I'll have to see if I changed setting on my new phone by accident.

OK, now that this project is nearly complete, I can get back to the project car in this thread! Well, after I clean up the Spirit RT next weekend and get it ready for emissions and then winter storage...LOL!

Jon

[jonnyb]

OK, the cold of winter has finally subsided and the snow is pretty much gone, so time to start working on this project again!

I pulled the car out of the old garage Sunday afternoon so I could get a good look at it and try to remember exactly where I was at 6 months ago when I stopped working on it. LOL!

As I was looking over the car, I really didn't like the way the dash was looking. It was sun faded and had some stains that didn't really want to come off, so I decided to rip it back out and spray it. Here's a close up of the dash above the instrument panel after multiple cleanings:


That just doesn't pass muster. So I did a final cleaning Monday night and prepped for paint, then I got up early this morning, did a final wipe down and sprayed it. Here's before and after shots:



They were taken in different light, so the colors look a little different, but the paint is a perfect match and I'm really happy with the way everything came out. Since everything looked good, I reinstalled and assembled most of the dash components:


I only slid the center console piece in to test fit it (and for the pic...LOL). It lines up nicely, but the armrest piece that attached to the rear of it doesn't line up with the floor mounting bracket. I'm guessing the spirit's body was a little longer in that area of the floor pan. I can probably move the mount and make it work, but I'm worried about it being too far back to be of any use. TBD at a much later date...I have much bigger fish to fry!

I plan on getting the glove box and other wiring items wrapped up on the passenger side of the dash and also pulling the steering column tomorrow night. It's pretty nasty, so it will get dissembled, cleaned and painted as well. I'm hoping to have it all reinstalled and have the dash area all buttoned up by the end of this weekend. Then I'll move back to working in the engine compartment so we can get the drivetrain installed in this puppy.

[wheming]

SDAC27 or bust, right?

[2.216VTurbo]

Isnt it supposed to pour rain as soon as you start painting?? Looking good JB

[jonnyb]

SDAC27 or bust, right?

LOL - this aint no medium suede van!

Seriously though, while I do hope to drive this one out to an SDAC event, it definitely won't be ready for Detroit this year.

Tonight I reassembled the glove box, but didn't install it due to 2 wiring connectors behind it that had no home. I just dug out my service manuals and will take a look shortly to see what the heck they're for. Rather than wasting more time on that, I pulled the steering column and disassembled and cleaned it for paint. I also switched out the spirit lock cylinder with the original one for the car so that I only need the one original key. I'm hoping to paint it all tomorrow night and get it all assembled Friday night.

[jonnyb]

OK, try number 4 on posting. Previous replies (Sunday night and several times today) with pics sent into oblivion due to Frontier's routing issues in their network. Hopefully I can get this post up before their routing tables go bad again!


I got the dash pretty much all together and finished up a few odds and ends in the engine compartment. So it was time to move on to getting the T3 ready (this is an R/T, so it needs a T3, right?), and I just happened to have one laying around.





I think I may have posted about this motor years ago. It was in my daily driver Spirit R/T and suffered oil pressure loss, but when I pulled it apart, I was shocked to see that it wasn't due to the usual stripped oil pump/ishaft teeth. It was actually caused by the implosion of the balance shafts! I think a bearing must have went in the assembly and it threw one of the shafts through the case. Here are some pics of the carnage, and of the motor rebuild:







And BAM! it's all assembled. I wish it was that easy and quick. I was just too lazy to take more pics while I did the assembly. LOL! It's basically a stock T3 with ARP rod bolts and head studs, cometic head gasket and the balance shaft assembly removed. I port matched the exhaust manifold and did some smoothing in it, and added a Super 70 turbo, but otherwise the motor will be basically stock to start. Once I get everything working correctly, I plan to add bigger injectors and a cal to run more boost (hoping to eventually make around 275-300 whp). The transmission was also recently rebuilt and I added a quaife and a TU purple plate to it.


I had some time on Sunday, so I decided it was time to drop the assembly into its new home! Here's some pics:






Note to self - auto transmission mounts are not the same as standard trans mounts!!! I've done tons of motor swaps, but never converted an auto to stick before, so this was a nice gotcha that I wasn't prepared for! I had to dig out the original mount from the spirit and clean it all up and use that. I've been tossing tons of parts into the dumpster lately trying to lighten the load, so luckily I still had it! And yes, this was noticed as I was trying to mount the engine into the engine bay! So I had to leave the assembly dangling there (second pic of the install above) while I sanded, cleaned and painted the correct mount. There's nothing stressful about having a couple grand worth of drivetrain and dozens of hours of labor dangling on a cherry picker for 3 hours. Is there? LOL!


The front mounts I had were all pretty shot, so I reached out to our friend Johnny at Polybushings yesterday and he has the mount (and some new shifter bushings) on the way. Once those get in, I'll finish buttoning up the bottom (front motor mount, exhaust downpipe, shifter cables, axles, etc.) and then slowly work through the wiring and other odds and ends on the top of the motor.


The goal is to be ready to fire it up Memorial Day weekend.

[wheming]

Great work JohnnyB! That will give you plenty of time to get the kinks worked out before SDAC27!!

[2.216VTurbo]

Looking very nice as always Mr B


It looks like you are planning a stock appearing look, I know you probably know this but the stock airbox to turbo inlet hoses are old and soft and will collapse when the turbo starts drawing hard against the hose walls. That syndrome befuddled me at the track on the Rampage RT years ago, it was like hitting overboost cut off. The motor would just stop making power.

[jonnyb]

Thanks for the tip. I have heard of that happening, but had forgotten about it. I'll keep my eye on it.

I have a front mount intercooler and an idea for a custom air intake setup planned for the car after I get it through inspections and registered.

[jonnyb]

06/29/2017 6:52 PM EST - It's Alive!!!

I finally got the engine compartment together enough to try to fire it up today. After double checking everything, I turned the key, saw the gauges come alive and heard the fuel pump prime. So I went for it and keyed it over to the start position and it turned over it fired right up! I let it run for a minute and it sounded good, but then I noticed a coolant leak coming from the water pump so I shut it down. It was late and the goal of getting it started this weekend was met, so I packed it in and called it a success.

I have to get to some much needed yard work now, so I probably won't get back to this car for a few weeks. Once I figure out and fix the water pump leak, the plan is to get the front end back together and enough of the interior installed to make it derivable. I'm shooting for having it on the road in July.

[wheming]

Geez, with progress like that, you could make it to SDAC with it... no one sees your yard from the road....

[jonnyb]

LOL - I really could care less about what my neighbors think about my yard even if they could see it! This is for me! I need to finish grading the dirt around the new garage and get grass planted so I don't keep tracking dirt in every time I go in and out of the house. And I have a NASTY gypsy moth caterpillar infestation that I need to work on. My new garage is covered with the little beasties and I get covered in their silk web every time I go in and out of the garage or my house!

Here's a pic of the nearly completed engine bay:


I'm planning on giving it a more factory look and will swap out the red plug wires with some black ones and the red duralast battery with a nice Mopar one.

And those with an eye for detail (ahem...AJ) will notice a not so factory air intake to turbo hose. I couldn't use the factory one with the monster inlet on the super 70 compressor cover, so I used a coupler and a 90 degree steel elbow and connected it up to a nice sturdy 88 T1 intake hose. Looks and fits almost like factory, but with no chance of it collapsing.

[85glht]

Looks good Jonny!

[2.216VTurbo]

I didn't mean to come off as being critical Mr B Sexy engine bay FoSho Are you running sneaky under the-shock-tower camber plates? Strut nuts look a little cambered out, er in I mean