Project 80 proof Spirit (AMC content)

[Thephranc]

Door card dry fitted with hardware. Still needs map pocket/speaker grille made. It will be the same brown suede stuff as the armrest.

[Thephranc]

Went up to Carlisle today and bought this:



its a 406 450ish HP.

[Thephranc]

Trans should get here next week as long as there are no more delays....

In the mean time I decided to get an oil catch can. Spent a bunch of time researching designs and prices, ended up making my own from the cheapest ebay one available.

Cost was a paltry $15 on sale. A catch can is incredible simple and the super cheap ebay ones are about 90% ready to actually do something. They dont come with any baffles or filtering media. Its just a can with 2 nipples and a drain hole.



The first thing I did was remove the nipples then drilled out holes to allow the insertion of a tube so you can have the flow go to the bottom before going back up through a filter. The tube I used was an old Holley part that connects the front and rear bowls on a 4150 style carb. It was cut to about an inch above the very bottom and red lock tighted in.



For the filtering I used stainless steel scrub pads stretched out. There were 2 layers of course stuffed in the drain hole first followed by a layer of medium. Total cost was less than $20 and I don't see why it wont work as well as some that cost 5 times as much. Mounted it below the PCV valve location and every thing that builds up in the tube runs down to the can.




I recently made decals for the car too when I had some time I needed to fill.

[Tig]

Awesome build, my neighbor has 3 AMCs. A Spirit, the same car that's in Hornets sig and another that's never been uncovered from a tarp, hah.

I'm in for this, subd.

[Thephranc]

Also managed to finish the door card.

[Thephranc]

2004r trans from CK performance came in. Should start going in Friday.

[Hornet LSX]

Cool idea with gauges in the "radio" bezel. Something My Son is considering on His Spirit GT. How is the Motor swap coming along?

[68firebird]

I like this. Looks good, and I too enjoy these cars that are hardly seen.

[Thephranc]

So the motor and trans are in. Install was pretty straight forward as far as physically fitting. Ran into several issues most caused by me like the fuel pump plumbed backwards and shearing the head off a grade 8 bolt when I went to install the smaller harmonic damper because it didn't clear the electric water pump. Had to have some one else drill out and tap the damper bolt. Then for the part that wasn't my fault. Went to start it and there was a horrid sound from the starter and the rebuilt carb leaked like a colander. It was just too warped. Bought and installed a new Summit 4100/4010 style carb and looked at the dist that I knew wasn't lined up optimally because the intake runner was sitting where the vac advance would have normally sat. At that point I gave up and pushed it to the speed shop around the corner. AA Speed in Woodbridge, VA. They set the dist, installed the 6AL fixed the fuel pump and a few other things I just didn't have time to deal with while closing one business and starting two others. Then they looked at the starter and fly wheel to see if they were straight. Flywheel was good but the starter was off. Turns out the block had been broken and welded at some point so now the starter doesn't sit right. It only has holes for the offset bolt pattern on the starter. So its getting machined for the straight bolt pattern and the starter is getting milled so everything fits perfectly and no more binding.

There have been so many little things going wrong on this build but it should all be sorted out and I should get it back running by Monday or Tuesday. After doing all the work on my own cars for decades it pained me to see the price for some one else to do the work but its worth it to mitigate the stress when you so much else going on at the same time.

[Thephranc]

Latest iteration of the gauge cluster with heat controls.



The paint still looks good after 32 years when you clean and polish. There is something to be said about old thick automotive paints.

[Motorcitydak]

Cool car, glad you are putting so much time into it. Sorry to hear about that block being broken but glad you are getting everything fixed

[Thephranc]

Well since my last post I had the 406 in and running before it blew up after about 500 miles. It was legit scary fast. Got a new job. Now just waiting for money to buy yet another motor then rebuild this one. Luckily my new job will let me do a motor swap in the bay when the time comes in exchange for some publicity at the track. It might get a red white and blue wrap reminiscent of the SCCA Jav.

[Johnny Blaze]

What killed the engine?

[Thephranc]

The piston rings blew. It was a lemon of an engine. The heads, intake dist are good parts but the block was crap.