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Dodger, you are mostly right. The stuff I was talking about is very
expensive but also very good. The people couldn't be better to deal
with. But a set of plug wires cost me $160. I burned a couple of
wires and I think one wire was $40. The battery is cheap at $120 and will
crank a 15:1 compression motor. But you need to buy (or make your own)
battery mount for it and the factory one is now a whopping $80. Oh, by the
way, this doesn't include shipping (and handling and anything else they can get
in. Tax sometimes too, depending on states).
There have been times when I didn't buy a magazine, cloths, or anything I
didn't absoutely need for 2 years or more. This happened to me several
times. My mother just died on 9/11 last year and her nursing home care was
more than $250,000 and we're pretty much wiped out again. I've never been
rich. The first car I ever had was that old "Grim Reaper" '62 Dodge that I
used to drive on the streets flat black with blacked-out windows and blackwall
tires. Actually, 3 of us owned the car but the other guys had cars and I
didn't so they let me use the Reaper. It was my daily
transportation. It had 4.89 gears but gas was cheap. 29 cents a
gallon.
The whole car, painting, lettering and everything cost $1500. It had
a brand new Max Wedge Stage I 11:1 413 in it with a Mallory Mini Mag. It
was $450 for the engine complete with carbs and no headers or $500 for the
engine with a set of 2 1/8" Hooker fenderwell headers. We took it with the
headers. The cut out area for the headers came out real good. The
engine was brand-new, sitting on an engine stand and had never even been
started.
We solicited from the owner of the local Goodyear tire shop and got him to
donate a set of slicks that came from Roger Penske/Mark Donohoe Racing
Enterprises. They were 30" tall and the tread was wrinklewall. I put
screws in the rims to the tires so they wouldn't turn on the rim coming off the
line. The first tire I drilled through the rim, through the tire and
through the inner tube and I only had 15 more holes to drill. Hd to
drill them to put self-tapping screws in them.
The car was a terror on the street. It had a full race solid lifter
Crane cam in it with the best Mopar rocker arms they had at the time. The
guy who sold us the engine had a Sun distributor machine in his garage. He
took out the Mini-Mag and put it in the machine. He started up the machine
and had and insulated area of a spark plug wire in his hand. He also made
sure the floor wasn't wet first. That Mini-Mag threw a spark about 2
inches long when he move the electrode in his hand towards any metal ground in
the place he could reach. He touch it near to a bare iron pipe and out
shot a steady spark about 2 inches long. We liked it.
The trans we got rebuilt in the race mode for a whole $50. The guy
did something called "putting paper between the clutches". He said it made
the transmission shift hard and fast. I had never heard that one but it
sure worked real good.
We had no kickdown lever for the trans, so we wired it all the way back and
it shifted HARD even when we were going slow. At about 10 mph it shifted
to second and it chirped the tires every time, no matter how slow you pulled
out. It also jerked your neck. It got driven on the street mostly
with fairly skinny 28 or 29" tires on it unless we were racing it, mostly on the
street. Then the slicks went on. People told us we were lucky our
trans did gernade on us as we had full line pressure at all times. I
didn't care, I loved that hard shift. I have never again felt an auto
trans shift that hard. With those skinny tires on it, it was like it was
on ice. On a two lane road the guardrails went by so fast that you had to
watch for the bad spots in the road or you were toast. We mostly ran the
river road as the speed limit was only 40 MPH and you don't want to go much
faster than that with 4.89 gears. Unless you felt like stomping it down
and gearing it down and hanging on.
That was back in 1969 and 70. We sold the engine to one guy and the
motor to another guy and split the money. I had been wanting another Max
Wedge car for 40 years before I got the one I have now. I have driven all
manner of crap ever since "my" first car and I wanted something that I didn't
care if I died in. At least I would die happy, flying down the road in my
old car that I call "The White Coffin". People are afraid to ride with
me. They push on the brake but they don't have a break, poor things,
I have the break. I also had the throttle (heh heh). Then somebody
said, "What if the hood flies off"? This was at about 110 MPH. In
town. Got me to thinkin' maybe I'm going too fast.
Yes, I blew all my money on my car. It is the only enjoyment I have
had out of life for a long time and I just figured, what the hey, go for
it. When the Pristine car showed up with blown head gaskets and blown
every gasket in the car, I had to build a new engine. I spared no
expense. Spent all my money and even borrowed money from the bank.
I'm sorry I got a little ticked off. I spent an hour putting together
a nice package for a guy (at least the battery is neat and pretty darn cheap)
and a minute after I send the email I get an "I'm not interested in any of this
stuff. Its too expensive for me".
That told me the guy just looked at maybe a few prices and didn't even
bother to read what I took so long to write him. Or maybe I just took it
the wrong way. I don't know.
I do know that I am sincere and I apologize to anyone and everyone if
anyone feels that I have offended them in any way, I know what it is like
to have nothing. Been there, done that.
My hat is really off to the people who have rescued old Mopars, especially
'62 to '65 Mopars, and to the guy who put the wonderful site 1962 to 1965 Mopars
up. That site was like a Bible to me. It always will be.
Chick
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