After 4.5 months, time for an update.

I've been picking away at the car over the past few months, but never able to get anything back together. Over the past few days, that's finally changed, and it feels good. Here's what’s been done on the car so far :

Brakes- Where to start...in the front I guess. I caught a break with the rotors: they must have been NOS units hung on the car back in the 1980's as they were OEM thickness (.875). So, after soaking in Evaporust, a light cut and they were ready to go. I replaced all the front bearings and hung them on the spindles. For the calipers, I purchased a remanufactured pair from Calipers Online in March. I pulled them out of the boxes 2 weeks ago and saw that one was not reassembeled correctly. The heads of outer bolts that hold the 2 halves together are to have 3/8-16 tapped holes so the hose bracket can be bolted on. An e-mail to Mark at Calipers Online and he mailed out the correct bolts. With that, I was then able to get the new calipers on along with the new hoses and pads.
For the rear brakes, the hardware and shoes were very clean and fresh- looks like everything was done a short time before the car was parked. I replaced the wheel cylinders though, just in case. The metal brake lines on the axle were a mess and the vent bolt, which also holds the Y Block, was broken off flush with the housing. I got new lines from Fine Lines and a replacement vent bolt from Mopar. After extracting the broken vent bolt, the new lines were fitted. One of the replacement lines fit perfect, the other not so much: the bends were sloppy and no matter how I tried to massage it to fit, it was over an inch short. A few e-mails and pictures later, Fine Lines set out a new one... which did not fit properly either . This time the bends were nice and crisp, but the line was now over an inch too long and the final bend at the Y Block was 90+ degrees in the wrong direction. I shortened the line, tweaked the bend and all was good. The rear flex line looked like the original one, so this was replaced as well.

The master cylinder was pulled and soaked in PB Blaster as the piston would not move. Once apart, it was clear the bore was pitted beyond what could be cleaned up with a brake hone so I will be sending it off to Brake and Equipment Warehouse to be sleeved.

Fuel System- At Carlisle last year, I picked up a replacement 3/8 fuel line from The Right Stuff, and a few months ago bought a new Spectra gas tank and sender unit from RockAuto. Today, I finally got them installed. With the car already on stands and rims off, the only things I had to do were to pull down the right exhaust pipe and remove the right side shock- after that the line went in. The fuel line required only a very minor tweak- otherwise it fit great. The tank was next- the sender unit was installed, using the lock ring off the old tank (not the new one with the tank). The gauge of the metal with the new rings is not as thick when compared to the original. This slight difference in gauge can cause the sender unit gasket to not be compressed enough once installed, resulting in a fuel leak. With the sender and filler neck bushing installed (bought from Herbs), the tank was then hung in the car.

Drivetrain- Back in January, I started pulling the car apart to inspect the clutch and swap out the scattershield for the correct bellhousing. It got as far as getting the trans out, and then sat. This week, the rest was pulled apart. The clutch is in excellent shape- little wear and the flywheel is/was a new Zoom piece. The replacement bellhousing was mounted and run-out checked: .017 total run-out . I ordered up off-set dowels from RobbMc and hope to have it dialed in this week. While the trans is out, I am also replacing the hacked trans tunnel: the old one is out and I just have to burn in the new one.

Once the trans is back in and the brakes completed, the next steps will be to rebuild the carb, replace the engine bay wiring and battery cables (for safety's sake..), new fluids/wires/plugs, etc. and see if this will fire up