By the time Boone got back, Dad and I had spent a good while visiting, and not much else. I had my nuetral safety switch re-wired, and had transfered the spark plug wires from the old tach drive MP distributor to the new MSD piece.
Then I re-mounted the old side exit exhaust, with a new rubber bushing for the back mount, and aluminum gasket for the three bolt connection up front to the header. Unfortunately when I had ordered the cool little "snap-fit" rubber bushing from cherry-bomb, I didn't realize I would only get 1! With the other side mounted solid in the back like it was last year, it didn't allow the aluminum gasket room to fit..so one side was improved, the other would just have to survive another year as is! I noticed Boone and Dad struggling with mounting the front fenders and core support, so went over to help out, this decision, I can assure you had nothing to do with the fact that I was losing shade in my area of the yard, and it was 15 degrees cooler where they were working!
Boone went with new hardware in most cases, but these were the fenders and core support off the parts truck, and none of the 40+ old sheet metal ever quite goes together like it came apart! By the time we massaged it all into place the sun was fading and Dale had made it home from work. He couldn't wait to show me his new K-member/rack mount under the Gremlin, and the fact that while he had a good start on the pass-side header, but the steering was still a problem with it and the driver's side header trying to occupy the same area. Dale's friend Tom showed up to help, but Dad had already took Boone's truck and bailed for the night.
We agreed it was a good time to set the bed for the truck down on the frame, so the four of us muscled it over and lined it up for installation, I think Boone got 2 bolts in it in the fading light, and we decided to call it a night.
Boone and I jumped in the Belvedere for the drive to his house, and it was the first time I had driven the car I had traded for/ purchased nearly 10 months earlier.

First thing I noticed in the Belvedere was the steering, which felt as though you were herding it down the road with it's quarter turn of play...not a big deal for me, just wondering how the early-20's daughter would do. The brakes were acceptable, and the rear springs felt like they were just perfect for a big ole road pillow..no stiffness of any kind left in them! Dash lights were abysmal, not that any guages appeared to work anyway...
"If you see the temp guage move, it's getting hot!" Boone seemed to be reading my mind. We pulled up and spotted Darren laying under the Charger.
"I can't get this tank to fit in the car..filler neck won't line up, I've lost my linkage to the column shift, I don't know how in the heck I'm going to finish this car with working all week..."
"Are you gonna get my parts from that guy?" Boone changed the subject.
"Yeah" , Darren affirmed, "I'll bust his chops in the morning!"
We went in for showers, a bite to eat and bed. I told Boone before lying down, "You and Dale need to chose which of those cars is going, and concentrate on just one...it may be too late already".
"I know.., I KNOW!"
Another day in the books.

Has your dad gone on DW?If not he needs to.Once we got to talking I knew he was a Gebhart. LOL.Pretty proud of his kids.

Boone and I were woke up Wednesday morning with Dad standing over us.
"Thought you boys wanted to get an early start...it's already 7:15!"
I was immediately drug back to the days of our youth, when he'd roist us out of bed Saturday mornings to go cut wood or haul hay.
He was met with the same groan as 30 years earlier, "C'mon Dad! We had a long day yesterday..."
"I've been up for an hour..let's move!"
Some things in life, just never seem to change!

It was well after 8 by the time we arrived at Dale's to start work. I started deciding how I was going to re-route the shielded wire from the distrubutor to the Digital 6 plus. Last year it was too close to the alternator wiring, and I was getting interference when the lights were on and the charging system was under a load.
"Thought you were getting an alignment this morning?" Boone interjected.
"When I called Sams yesterday, he said they are first come, first serve, and open at 8. So I'll try to get there early tomorrow morning, and get a jump on it...today, I just wanna hear the thing fire!"
62 Valiants have a larger cowl/wiper area than later versions, so I decided to run the wire through this void, and drill a hole just above where the box is mounted on the inside. I borrowed Boone's truck to go get fuel in a 5 gallon jug, and pick up some ice for the cooler...Tulsa felt just as hot as Phoenix, with a serious dose of humidity and I was mowing through lifewater and powerade at an alarming clip.
Once I returned and dumped the fuel in the cell, I hit the big 250gph electric pump, and immediately heard liquid hitting the steel runners on the trailer...not good!
I noticed Boone was walking around the Truck having an animated conversation on his cell phone.
"What's up?" I approached him.
"That was Darren, he has the parts from the truck..only one fender was re-worked, the door and other fender is untouched, and he wants me to come to his work and pick them up".
"You don't need them at this minute, why doesn't he just bring them by when he gets off?"
"He says they won't fit in his Dakota..."
"Geez, like your shortbed 1/2 ton has any more room?"
"It is what it is..." and he stomped off towards the Pick-up.

I had just enough room to get a jack under the front-end of the Valiant on the trailer runner, and get it up far enough to get my hands in the passenger's side front wheelwell, and tighten up the 90 degree fitting from the fuel line to the regulator sitting above it, luckily, that solved the fuel leak. I jumped inside and rolled the engine over, then hit the ignition...nothing. Again....nothing. I crawled out of the cage and manuvered around the front fender to peer under the hood, coil wire is not in the coil. The next try she fired right up, and after a few blips of the throttle, settled into a 1200 rpm rumble. First time I had heard the little small-block make noise since I loaded it on the trailer at Drag Week 2011!

Musta been a beautiful sound!

I realized it was getting later in the day, but I hadn't seen any delivery trucks. I hollered at Dad who was working around the engine trying to figure out how to mount the hilborn style scoop to the carbs, and determine the hole needed in the hood.
"Dad, you heard or seen any deliveries? I think everyone is expecting some today."
"Nah, nothing."
I walked around to the front of the house, and the porch area looked like Christmas Eve with all the Summit boxes stacked up. Dad and I about had them all emptied out when Boone showed up with the body parts...and Pizza! I knew there was a reason he was my favorite brother!!
As we worked our way through Pizza Hut's finest, and sorted through new parts (thank goodness Boone ordered Red/blue AN fittings and Darren ordered Black, or we would still be sorting) I asked Boone about the down bars on the Truck.
"You seem to be avoiding them...we have to get holes in the back of that cab sooner or later."
"Yeah, Dale and I have discussed it several times, but I haven't really decided how to go about it."
So, we started looking it over, and those who've spent time around sweptlines will know what I'm explaining. We decided to drill the holes in the stamped metal of a small window cab, that basically takes the place of the big back window..so if it were a big back window cab, the bars would be going through the area of the glass as far up and out as you could get. Of course it was still double walled, and beat the heck out of the cheap hole saw we were trying to use. Next we grabbed up a stick and started bending...now we are far from master fabricators, and the first bend meant to bring the bar through the cab was a failure, so we turned the stick around and started on the other end!
About the time, (hours later) that Boone and I felt we had one bar bent and mocked up perfectly, Dale came home from work: "That looks like Fido's butt!" he exclaimed, "I thought we agreed on X-bars", he glared at Boone, "Short ones, coming out of the cab in this area!" he pointed to a spot much lower and further inboard.
"That angle would never work", I interjected, "Besides, that would be too low on the hoop to cert..."
"That looks like a work truck, or a stinking mud truck..." Dale continued to protest. About that moment Darren walked in the back yard to pick up his fittings and stainless exhaust parts, "Grood grief..that's hideous, who's idea was that!" he pointed at the single down bar resting in the back of the bed.

It was going to be a long night...

I was moving before the alarm Thursday morning, since I wanted to get to Sams Alignment and Brakes before they opened. I dressed, and had Boone moving shortly...by the time he was in the shower, I went out to check on Dad, as he had been staying in the pop-up camper. There he sat, with the light on reading his Bible, shirtless, with his reading glasses on. He looked up, "You guys ready?"
"Yeah Pops, just checking on you, since you weren't in there already..."
"Just doing some reading...I'll get my shoes and shirt on and be out in a short."

I turned away quickly and shut the door, hoping he wouldn't notice how much that moment had upset me. When I was a young boy in Aug. of 1970, my parents were preparing to move from Kansas City Mo. to share the 40 acre farm in Oklahoma that Dad had bought for his parents. They sent me ahead early so I could start 1st grade, as Oklahoma's birthday cutoff was Nov. 1 and Missouri's was Sept. 1. Mom didn't want me to be held back a year, or be under her feet for another year depending on the story you choose to believe. So I spent Sept-Oct, and Nov. with my Grandpa and Grandma Gebhart, and really enjoyed the opportunity to get to know them quite well, an opportunity my 3 younger brothers would never have. The rest of my family arrived around Dec 1st...on Christmas morning my Dad walked into his parents house to find Grandpa is his favorite recliner, hands on the bible resting open on his chest, reading glasses still perched on his nose...and he was no longer with us.

Some people may read this and say, "What's this got to do with Mopars or DragWeek?"
Well, Racing our Mopars is a passion, a glue of sorts that has held our family together for 30+ years. It's where some of our fondest memories have been created, and when I look around at racing events and Drag Week, and Moparts, and I see the familys and the combinations of familys and friends and I don't think our situation is all that uncommon. I realize my Dad is 9 years removed from a 4 way bypass, and 4 years older than his Dad when he passed...and then a moment like that just makes you think, how many more times do we get to enjoy days like this together? There are no guarantees, no "We'll get it done next year" promised to us...maybe that's why we try so hard to make it happen sometimes, I don't know...

Thanks for sharing MoparBilly!

Keep it coming...

Cheers,

Arnie

I fired up the ole 1-ton and headed into Tulsa, missed the place the first time, and had to back-track. When I stepped out of the truck after parking on the opposite side of the street, I noticed my tailgate had popped open during the drive...just great. On a good note it now cleared the jack on the trailer just fine! There were already 4 people in line in front of Sams, yikes! Walked into the customer sitting area and grabbed a chair that was backed up to a Jensen Interceptor, and panned the shop that was decked out in Mopar banners and pictures everywhere..yeah, I was in the right place! When my turn came, I drove the Valiant off the trailer, across the street, and onto the rack.
"When you called about a 62 Valiant, THIS was not what I expected", Jim Sams joked, "I was thinking ole beater with crusty old 50-year-old parts...everything under here is new!"
After aligning the front end and commenting on how nice it was to have 2 degrees positive caster with the tubular uppers, he addressed the rearend. "You have a small amount of toe-in, not bad, fairly common with an un-braced ladder-bar 9 inch. But it's 3/8 of an inch crooked in the car, you need to either back the driver's side up about 5 turns, or pull the passengers side forward."

On the drive back to Dale's, I answered a call from my buddy Darryl (Darryls-Demon, Moparts), who was bringing his Q-5(turquoise, teal, seafoam??) 69 Dart out from Phoenix for the event as well. He informed me he was in Okie City, and still rolling.
"You should be here in about 2 hours", I let him know.

Another good read. Keep going Billy.

Love the stories! Can't wait to see that truck when it's finished.

Once returned to Dale's back yard, I unloaded the Valiant, hopefully it wouldn't go back on the trailer until after Drag Week was completed. The yard was a flurry of activity, Dale and Dad were working on the Gremlin, Boone was working on the second down bar, so I walked over to help him.
"You seem a bit agitated", I commented
He quickly looked over toward the Gremlin, then thumbed me over towards the makeshift "prep and paint area". Once over there he showed me the freshly painted bed fenders, and hood. "Dale ran out of paint...these look terrible! I've cut a bunch of corners on this thing trying to get it done on time...but, I don't know.."
"The H-brace in the hood looks good". I tried to change the subject. The night before we finally figured out, after carefull measuring, that a hole wasn't going to work. The Weiand tunnel ram sits so close to the firewall, and the back of a sweptline hood rotates forward as it opens on the hinges. This meant the entire back of the hood had to be opened up for clearance, which removes a pretty substantial brace, so we had come up with an h-brace which seemed to stiffen it back up, but until it was mounted...who knows.
For the last 2 weeks, Boone's focus had squarely been on paint and finish work, every peice was getting massaged and shot before it was allowed to be bolted back on the truck. I had tried to convince him when the fenders showed up, to just shoot the remaining parts in primer and bolt them on but he would have none of that. Everyone else just wanted to see it run, but Boone's vision was something completely different, and the time for comprimise had already passed.

Good stuff

You tell a great story Billy.

As Boone and I continued to work, he answered his cell phone and after a quick conversation, said "That was Darren, he wants me to go load up his Charger and take it to the muffler shop to get the exhaust put on..."
"Wow, does he understand you're on a vacation day, working on your stuff?"
"Well...if it were actually ready to go that would be one thing, it doesn't even have brakes yet!"

My cell phone rang, and then I saw Darryl's rig go past the houses behind Dale's property on the next street over.
I answered the phone with, "You turned one block too soon".
"How do you know?"
"Saw ya drive by..."
"I didn't see you..."
"Come back around, come in the driveway, angle to the right, and then bring the whole rig around back beside mine".

A few minutes later the Cummins idled around the side of the house and Darryl pulled his truck, trailer and Dart under the same tree where I had set up camp a couple of days earlier. Reinforcements!

Hey wait one minute I do not remember giving written concent to using my photogragh in this thread. I may have to post a photo of Boones hairdo[remember he IS your brother] or a photo of your tool box.
How where did I put my lawyers phone number.

Darryl milled around talking to everyone for a few minutes, then retreated back to his truck to fetch his camera. "If I don't get pictures of this, no one will ever believe me", he mused.
Dale took a break from the headers to make a trip to a tire shop and swap the ancient slicks off the Gremlin for a new set of ET Streets, and street legal tread on the frontrunners. Boone and I were throwing one last gasp Summit order on the PC when he returned. "I better make sure the Gremlin doesn't have a Pro gear in that Dana 60", he decided.
"Well, I guess pull the cover and get some numbers off the ring gear...I don't know how to tell just by looking..." I added.
He brought back some weird numbers that yielded no info after several different internet searches, we knew they were 4.56 but little else.
Finally,I called a friend who had knowledge of the build, and had worked with the previous owner. "There is no way He would have bought Pro Gears", my buddy relayed to me, "In fact, he was working at a Dodge dealer at the time, so I bet he just warranteed out a set of gears from there". When I relayed that info to Dale, he just smiled and shook his head, "That's exactly what they are...Oh well, should be OK".

When I went back outside, Darryl wasted no time getting down to the business at hand, "What do you have left to do to have your two cars ready to go!"
I knew Darryl was about to start cracking the whip, I also know he's a detail guy, and if I gave him jobs I would never do, maybe they'd get done, and I'd keep him off me for a while...it was worth a shot.
"The passenger's side door is screwed up on the Belvedere, won't open from the outside, and I need to put this shifter handle in and wire it to the nitrous."
That kept him busy for about an hour, then he was back...so after a quick discussion we decided to tackle getting the new Hemi leaf springs under the car. The ones Dale was supposed to add when he installed the Dana 60, the Global West subframe connectors, the 3/8 fuel line, and 3/8 tank pick-up...all of which were still in the same boxes they had occupied for the last 4 months...FAMILY!
The first thing I noticed when we got the new springs out beside the car, was the lack of shackle bushings...so, a run to NAPA was in order, and it was nearly closing time. Darryl and I made the run into Tulsa, and stopped for something to eat on the way back, by the time we returned the sun was gone and so was Dad.
"Where'd Pops run off to?" I asked Boone.
"He asked Dale to borrow his 1 Ton and took off...I'm not sure."
"Well, if he's going to load Darren's Tank to take to the mufffler shop in the morning, he has to have a truck to pull it with." I surmised.
"Ya think?...Yeah, you're probably right", he shook his head.

Darryl decided we should tackle one spring at a time, so we started on the driver's side. The rear shackle came apart without a problem, the front mount bolts, no problem, the 45 year old u-bolts...Big problem!! After an impact, big breaker bars, and two cans of penetrant...we decided they were unsalvageable.
About that time Wade Metzinger showed up to give Dale a hand, and I thought, "Wow, what a nice guy"...little did I know he was just a Moparts spy sent there to report on the ongoing thrash at our clandestine Skunkwerks!!

By the time I took a die grinder to the u-bolts and removed them then slid the old spring out of the way... I realized I'd only bought 2 sets of shackle bushings.
"Dang it, the tops are shot too.." I groaned as I slid it out of the frame.
"I started to say something when we were at NAPA", Darryl commented, "But I didn't want to spend your money..."
So we used both sets on that spring, and bolted it into the car. That took the remaining adrenaline out of Darryl, and his long drive out was beginning to set in, so we showed him to Dale's spare bedroom so he could crash for the night.
I went back out to the truck to find Boone, Dale, and Wade working on the headlight and engine wiring, laying everything out to figure how much wire they needed. With the Belvedere out of commission, Boone was my ride back to his house, and I was ready to call it a night. He had started walking around tidying things up from the days work, and it didn't take much prodding to get him pull the plug on another day as well.

Friday morning started exactly as I thought it would. Dad woke us up to help him, Darren, and Jamie load the big Charger on Darren's open trailer, which was already hooked to Dale's 1 ton. We shoved it aboard, and held it while Darren hooked the front straps. Then Dad and Boone loaded the ramps, and all the new exhaust parts. Darren layed out the plan as to where to take the car, and where to pick up another stick of 3" stainless to finish everything. Then Jamie and him left for work, and Boone and I were trapped into helping Dad. We couldn't very well leave a 68 year old man driving a 3900 lb behemoth around on a trailer by himself, especially considering it had no brakes, and no interior. The 3 of us jumped in the truck and headed off to get the job done.
When we came around the corner, and made visual contact with the shop contracted to do the work...I knew we were in trouble. 4 inviting bays greeted us, one marked exhaust, one marked brakes etc., The building sat on a concrete slab that was eye level if you were standing in the street in front of it, and the asphalt drive was about 3 car lengths long..it was an 8% grade it if was any at all!!
"Guys", the muffler tech shook his head, "I'll be glad to put a system under that baby for ya, but I ain't pushing it up here on this rack!"
Well, at least we knew the score...
"Boone, we got one shot, you're gonna have to turn it out of the road, line it up, and then get back here and help."
"Alright", he said as we pushed it off the trailer and stained just to get it stopped, "But we have to get up some speed!"
Dad and I pushed from the back, and Boone pushed from the drivers door as he steered, miraculously he got it straight as we headed for the rack. When we hit the ramp to the four post lift the skinny front tires bounced up without too much trouble, but we were loosing momentum. Dad and I both turned to put our backs into it grabbing the back bumper, and I heard Boone slam the door and join us, we muscled it up until the rear tires started up the short ramp..it stopped, then sarted to inch back...my quad muscles started to shake like jello, as I accepted my fate of being run over by a 73 Charger. At that moment Mr. muffler decided we were close enough and put his shoulder into the equation. The car lurched onto the rack in a final heave, and Dad hit the ground, rolled over and looked under the car, and said, "Yeah...I think that's good, we made it..." we all started laughing as we helped him up.