What have you done to your wagon lately? (Let's keep the thread going!)

Well my 67 Plymouth wagon isn't home yet, but my buddy who's storing it for me in Massachusettes is going to convert it over to electronic ignition for me. So, I ordered a new engine wire harness from Bill Evans (manufacturer of reproduction wiring harnesses. Since I plan to hide the control box under the horns on the radiator core support, I asked them to run the extra wiring for the control box in the harness along with the wires for the horns, but to make the wiring for the control box 8" longer than the wires for the horns. Kind of cool that even with the special request for a custom wiring harness, it was only $125 and they said it would be made today and shipped out tomorrow.
Next thing is convert the AC to R134 and get it operational again after the car has been sitting for much of the past 15 years. That'll be alot more expensive.

 

Depending on what power you are making and how heavy your trailer is I think you should be fine if the 700r4 is built with good heavy duty parts. I ran a fairly heavy duty 700 in my Electra estate wagon (4770 lbs) with a healthy 406 SB (was dyno'd at 414hp 450tq) and ran it at the track 3~4 times a week. It ran in the mid 13s at just under 100mph (best time was 13.51@99.98) and it was my work car that I put 1000~1500 miles a week on and some times carrying over a ton of cargo.

After that I pulled the drive train and put it in a Regal for a real play car which was fun, but I let the lifters get out of adjustment which took out one of the rollers and ran some nasty things through the oil system and caused a rebuild. When I reassembled I cc'd and found that it was only about 7.5 to 1 compression so ordered some flat tops which brought it up just under 11:1 and a bigger cam which at the track picked up about 1.2 seconds in a car with a weight of 3880lbs. I would guess the HP and TQ to both be over 500 and ran it for two years the same 3~4 times a week and the same 20+ passes each time.

It was a lot of fun having a real 11 sec street car that would get over 18mpg on the highway.

All that on a built 700r4 and no trans failures. I feel that as long as you have a good cooking system for the trans you should have no problems. Heat would be the only concern I would have towing over what I put mine through. When I took my trans guy's boss for a ride he had said before hand that even with just a slightly looser converter heat would be a problem, but after the ride he said the even with just the in radiator cooler my trans temp was actually a little cool from what he would of like to see.

I don't know if it helped but all the trans ever had in it from the day it was built was Mobile1 trans fluid. One thing he did mention was the it smelled like the good old stuff made with whale oil.

Also the 4l60 is the same as the 700r4, not beefed up at all but the 4/6l80 is.

 

Thanks Ancient. I've spoken to a few folks who say run it till it breaks and that is my usual approach. However, toasting it on some mountain 2 lane road is a bother when you have a 24' Trailer hanging out back. But the guy who built it swears it will take any abuse I can throw at it, we have good cooling in place, and it is hardly ever abused . Well, at least when we are towing the trailer other than one little incident a year ago but that was an anomaly. Honest.

So I sit and wait for the starter. Parts guy says around 4. It better be the right one or I'll be very disappointed. In the meantime working on some trinket stuff that needed doing, and the trailer getting it ready for next week. Oh yeah, that means I'll be off line for close to two weeks.

 

I am fairly sure most of those toasted 700's were from inadequate cooling and/or towing in OD.

 

Hubby's been working hard on a wagon, just not mine...

mom brought a ride-on mower and a little wagon to tow behind.

 

'58 Chevy Sedan Delivery

Gutted the interior, took out the plywood deck in back, pulled all the wiring & fuse box. Going to install new wiring and refinish back deck in hardwood instead of old dirty carpet. Bad part is that I can't get to it to do anything until the end of the month.

 

Went to "Das Awkscht Fescht" in Macungie PA and had a great time!
Also became an AACA member and hope to get out to Hershey this or next year to enter for an HPOF award. (For those of you who don't know that is "Historic Preservation of Original Features," basically AACA certification of originality.)

 

Have you been getting pointers from Dewey?

 

New connecting rods

I ordered a set of Molnar connecting rods for my 64 Valiant.

 

Nicole's 96 Roadmaster wagon

After almost the entire summer My daughter Nicole's 96 roadmaster wagon is roadworthy for the ride back to school from Mchenry, ILL to Soccoro, NM. Here are some photos of the work and the final product. The complete underside of this car has been gone thru with many new parts.

 

Did a photo shoot with the wagon with the different wheels on it

 

Danr63 does your daughter know how cool her wagon is?

 

Yes she does!!! She still wants to install a push bar from a 96 caprice police cruiser and change the wheels (large photo of swannys wagon rally wheels) She gets teased about not owning a honda or a toyota and why would a 19 yr old want and old man's car? her reply: Those men get old because they don't drive tin cans!!!

 

I love the top photo with the rally wheels. When cash allows would like a set for the roadmaster!