1967 Plymouth Barracuda

To prepare the 360 for a new coat of paint, I ordered the Hemi-Orange engine paint kit from POR-15.  The kit comes with a cleaner/de-greaser, some primer and the hemi-orange paint as well as some gloves and brushes.  After using the de-greaser and some wire brushes the engine just didn’t look great.  I got a tip from a friend (thanks Fronk) about using Easy-Off.  Tried that and it worked like a charm.  It removed all kinds of dirt and grease and even paints.  The block was cleaned and scrubbed with Easy-Off.  Then I removed the old camshaft and lifters.  I installed a new Mopar Perfomance Purple Shaft cam with new lifters as well as a new Cloyes double timing chain with gears.

Managed to pick up a 360 flywheel and bellhousing from a pretty cool guy in Denton.  He has a nice 70-71 Dodge Dart.  So now I need a clutch/pressure plate, shifter, shifter rods, z-bar and pedal linkages.

Painted the k-frame with some chassis black from Eastwood.  Got the steering cleaned up and painted.  Sandblasted, painted and installed the battery tray.  Began test fit of the master cylinder and front brake lines.

Began reconstruction of the engine compartment.  Cleaned/Painted and re-installed the blower motor and wiper motors.

After sandblasting the engine compartment, got the primer down.  Sanded it and laid down the color which is a candy apple color purchased from paintforcars.com.  It’s not a candy process, but a color/clear coat process that mimics candy apple.  The primer and paint were sprayed with a generic HVLP 20 oz gun obtained from Harbor Freight Tools.  It turned out very nice…for a hack.

Decided that sandblasting the engine compartment would be the easiest process.  It saved lots of time.  Ben and I created a nice little tent to contain the sand (black beauty) and it worked quite well.   Sandblasting cleaned up the painted surfaces on the firewall, wheel wells as well as the k-frame.

Started stripping the drivers side front fender.  Needed to use a combination of wire wheels, chemical stripper and a grinder to get the paint removed.  This car has multiple coats of paint and the grinder just causes the paint to gum up and clog the wheel.  Also hit some putty in a small dent near the front.  At least 6 coats of paint.  Primer-Red-Primer-Yellow-Primer-Primer and Red.

Started gathering pieces necessary to convert this Barracuda to a 4-speed.  I’ll need a flywheel, bellhousing, clutch, pressure plate, clutch fork, clutch pedals, pedal linkages, transmission, shifter, shifter rods/handle, z-bar, floor and any other miscellaneous pieces.  At this point, the pedal assembly and A-833 transmission have been acquired.

Started the same process of stripping the paint from the driver side engine compartment.

Used a combination of a wire wheels and chemical stripper to strip the passenger side engine compartment paint.  After paint removal, used 320 grit sandpaper and then primered with some Red Oxide rattle can primer.