Well then, okay. If indeed Jim's Bronx based 65'Coronet was a lightweight, it must have been a home made specimen since the radiator support that I've got from such car is not of the thin gauge variety. Factory A-990's came through with them as part of their weight loss program along with the other well known items.

At first, one suspect thing about it was that it is originally white, and a good portion of the 100 or so A-990 Dodge's came through in white. What settled the mystery was no signs of the flat black over spray from the deleted inner headlights area on the A-990's.
I've inspected that piece to the up most and the gauge of the metal seems to be of the regular production run gauge thickness. If indeed this Dodge was authentic, then Chrysler's murky waters just got murkier since lots of strange things happened in between the product planning boards, actual stamping procedures and testing along with timing schedules and end results stemming from such hurdles.
Skicker, that rad support helped me out greatly in not having to experiment on my own chassis without knowing if the idea would work. Now we know that it works and I can weld back the pieces to restore the support as I first received it.

You got that from a parts car he had. The real lightweight is genuine...black in color and was in his garage. I was looking at it wondering what to ask first when he said " Go ahead what do you want to know" Only thing I could stammer out was to ask about and look at the corning glass and ask if it still had the aluminum door hinges. The original lightweight fenders were hanging on the wall. He said he removed them and installed regular ones to prevent them from getting any damage from being leaned on. He is the original owner of both cars...
We'll have to talk about it sometime...a few details I'd care not to release here...

Roger that.
Thanks for clarifying the unknown being that I was ready to break out my micrometer, magnifying glass and crystal ball.
Plus I was ready to send out a restoration police posse to detain you for cutting up an original A-990 LOL..

Here's a flick from way back in the late eighties, early 90' when the feet were just getting wet with the weight loss push. Undercoating was heavy to say the least. IIRC it added up to around 65-75 Lbs or so.
Hand written letter (with misspelling and all) was to my friend "Haze" as he was in California at the time and both home and car sick after selling his.

I love that ugly car, one of my favorite bodies

The Haze... like Coke Bottle Kid Haze?

That's a different Haze

yeah, a much different "Haze"
He's a rather well known artist and graphics designer that absolutely loves Mopars.
His nervous 62' Savoy will debut this Summer.

What up RV2?

I have decided to share a "weight loss" story from 2 days ago.
Even though I don't post unless I have something interesting I check on this topic regularly. So on Wednesday on my way through the race forum I spot a post " A little disappointed in Mickey Thompson". I run Mickey Thompson tires on my drag car so I decided to read the post. What happened is the guy wanted a new set of 26 X 4.5 X 15 ET FRONTS and the new tire is 26 X 4.0 X 15. So I think to myself what if they did that to the size I run and they weigh less? So I stopped what I was doing on this site and went to the Mickey Thompson tire site and look up the ET FRONT tire section. Just I had hoped for my tire size 27.5 X 4.5 X 15 was now 27.5 X 4.0 X 15. They only did about 3 sizes so far and they are now called Light Weight ET Fronts! My current tires weigh in at 13 lbs and the new tires are 12 lbs. Since I'm due for new tires this will not COST anything extra and reduce 2 lbs of rotating weight up front! The narrow tires don't bulge as much on the side walls reducing rolling resistance also! With the new drilled rotors it will be -3 lbs of rotating weight. Now it gets even better! While in my race folder looking at tire info I spot my Wilwood info. I decide to check on EBAY and see if any of the ultra light calipers are listed. After checking a while I found an oddly listed pair of the ultra light calipers listed and the auction ending 4pm that day! I put in a decent bid and won! WOW! Take off another pound with the new calipers and pads!
I'll be back soon with what I found on the inside door handle pivots! MJ

The rockershaft stands from Todd at Marsch Performance look great.I'm gunna want cleartop valve covers soon!
I got lucky and found a set of pushrods that will work too!!!

MJ.

That's some savvy micro removal right there. Yeah, getting that outer pendulant weight of the tire removed is a very beneficial move.
Keep it coming.

MOTLEY bunch right there.............

This is a follow up from my post about the inside door handle pivot weight comparisons. If you go back to that post you will see that the two pivots on the scale are different! I didn't notice this until I was making the lighter ones even lighter! I have attached a picture showing the pivots from two different suppliers.
Notice how the one on the right is cut out compared to the one on the left. Again same part two different suppliers one lighter than the other.
MJ

Man, from left wing to righteous that's Harry Chargois JR. of F.A.S.T fame, Rick "The Palm Reader" behind him, Yours truly and Dave Dudek's Father behind me.

Wish that these were available today. Cool ad though.

Found some older pics I saved from Ron Silva's Silvaliant build a few years back.

He was super weight conscious and had some cool ideas. Too bad he does not come on the forum anymore, probably could have added a lot here.

I like the way he did his seats. Fiberglass buckets with factory looking upholstery. Must have gotten pretty familiar with that hole saw.



Brake pedal.


Check out this steering column.




Steering shaft.


Check this out.


I don't remember what the car ended up weighing in total but it was pretty light. I tried to emulate some of the things he did on my own car but his execution is way better than my hack work.

Wow, that was a long time spending by the drill press. A lot has come a long way in the way of materials and craftsmanship for some of those things. That was the most fundamental and economical approach to weight loss. Reminds us of the old Gassers with the drilled front solid axles.
I'd love to see and read his outcomes on the board again.
What ever happen to him?
He must have had that pup in the sub 3000 range for sure.

MJ on here has us beat with the madness by a long shot. LOL.
I think this forum should be retitled: "Real world asylum for the weight conscious deranged"

I guess a lightened center link is kind of like a drilled beam axle.



Surprised he added LCA stiffening plates. I thought the idea for those was more for handling so the sides of the LCA don't flex outwards under hard cornering. The plates themselves don't weigh a whole lot though.

My Duster has the aluminum tie rod sleeves like those. IIRC they save over a pound on either side.

I believe that Valiant had really light MW brakes ($$$) on 9" drum spindles in front and on the rear as well.

Though I'm nervous about certain front end parts being drilled, there are other means that are arguably just as concerning. I have the aluminum sleeves as well, but at least they are billet and quite beefy. Yes they do save a pound or less on each side.

BondoBob makes great hollow chrome-moly center links that probably save more in weight and are stronger.
The LCA's is a drawback as far as Drag activity is concerned, though as you said, those plates don't add up to much at all and they are indeed for cornering with rigidness.
I do wish that someone could fab STOCK looking types out of Titanium or billet aluminum. As you well know, the Vipers and Zo6's have aluminum struts and A-arms up front and out back.

In the end, these kind of creatures need multi-point check ups prior to seasonal use or pre-race prep rituals.