With a title, I set about getting the car registered and insured, etc. (The insurance guy was surprised when I listed my driving distance to work as 10 feet.)

The 'Cuda was in decent shape, but wasn't anywhere near being driveable.
I promptly borrowed off the 'Cuda...
4 14" rallye wheels,
a passenger seat,
drivers seat back (mine was missing)
the dash ashtray (mine was missing),
the female ends of the front seat belts (mine were missing,
fuel tank ground strap (mine was broken),
woodgrain console plate (mine was cut on).

That was a big improvement.

I managed to scrounge up 3 of the 72-74 style rallye wheel center caps. I went up to the mopar junkyard and bought another center cap so I'd have four of them. Also picked up a set of gauges to replace my fried ammeter, and the 70 Challenger only curved plastic trim that goes around the edge of the dash by the radio. It was fun looking around the junkyard. My favorite car he had was a 70 Challenger RT/SE dealer demo car from Jacksonville. 383, AC, power windows, cruise control, just loaded, but rusted very badly. He wanted $2,000 for it, but I thought it was too rusty. Now I wish I would have got it. Oh well. Several years later an 18 year old girl from Jacksonville bought it. Her father owns a body shop and they're going to fix it up together. Maybe I'll see it again some day.

I went out and had four matching brand used tires put on the rallye wheels and came home to put them on the car with the 72-74 center caps. With all the parts the 'Cuda came with I was able to round up 19 lug nuts, which was a big improvement over the 12 I had before. (I suggest running 20 lug nuts at all times if possible. )

At the end of February 2000 with spring in the air, it was time to get that new 318 from Pedro into the engine bay so that I could go drive my car. The new engine was a little stuck from sitting. I could turn it a little by hand, but not all the way around. I decided to open it up and have a look, hone the cylinders, and install new gaskets. I ordered up a gasket set, some new hooker super competition headers (my old headers were rusted through), new plug wires, some kerosene to clean parts with, the honing tool that is used with a hand held drill, upper & lower radiator hoses, bypass hose, heater hose block off caps, oil, transmission fluid, and whatever other odds and ends I thought I might need. It took a while for the headers to get in. Upon disassembling the stuck 318 from Pedro, I found it was actually a 360 with a Mopar Performance purple camshaft!

Mid March I was at the spring Daytona Beach car show (which is about half the size of the Turkey Rod Run) and picked up a new copy of the 1970 Challenger / Dart Factory Service Manual. I Highly recommend the Factory Service Manual to anyone who plans on working on their own car! It is an essential book, and I think I would recommend it over any other publication.

I took the 360 apart, honed it and put it back together. Learned all about the inside of an engine, and overall it went pretty well. I painted the engine Chrysler Blue like the 318 that came out of the car. That's what was in the car, it must be the right color.

Next, how to get the old engine out of my car, and get the new one in? I found 2 pine trees in the yard that were barely far enough apart that I could get the fenders in between them. Using a ladder, I knocked the bark off the trees & wedged a landscaping timber between them so that they couldn't get pulled together. Then I strung a log chain between the two trees up by the landscaping timber and secured it firmly to each tree. Then I hung a come-along in the middle of the log chain.

I got the car up between the trees and lifted the old engine/trans out. With them out of the car, it was easy to verify that they were the numbers matching engine and trans for the car.

Tav