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Post by spanks79 on Apr 20, 2015 6:22:56 GMT -5
Not to pile on here, but from a safety standpoint (in regards to their actual purpose) are those belts... safe? The car looks GREAT, btw. Thanks! I honestly don't think safety is a huge concern here. The material, while thinner, is basically just modern seat belt material. It's no thinner than what's in my 02 caravan or 05 Toyota. It certainly can't be any weaker than the 40 year old seat belt webing and stitching it replaced. As for the mechanism itself, it all seems to work fine with the exception of the release of the retractor. But that seems to be working ok with the addition of my extra wrap of belt material. Maybe I will contact snake Oyl and express my concerns. I'm not taking the belts back out now but perhaps later on this year I'll do it.
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Post by countrybunker on Apr 20, 2015 8:18:45 GMT -5
I'd think their safe. The material looks just like any modern belt. Looks just like the belts in my ram.
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Post by Elwood on Apr 20, 2015 10:44:28 GMT -5
Cool... I guess that shows how long it's been since I've been in a newer car....
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Post by AZBlues on Apr 20, 2015 18:59:55 GMT -5
When I re-webbed the seat belts in my '60 Comet, I searched high and low for the thick webbing, but the thin stuff was all I could find. It's a bit softer than original, and seems more flexible. Though I haven't put it to the test, I'm sure it's safe. -AZB
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Post by spanks79 on Apr 21, 2015 6:05:16 GMT -5
AZ, did you do the re webing yourself?
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Post by spanks79 on Apr 21, 2015 8:02:22 GMT -5
No pictures but got a couple ore loose ends tied up. The speedometer was reading about 7 mph too fast according to a free app on my phone called Speed Box. This is the third time I have used this all to verify speedo accuracy and it works pretty good. Considering this is a 140 speedo that I salvaged out of an old cop car that was seized solid when i got it. It seems to work pretty dam good. The main reason for the speed difference was I changed the rear axle ratio from 2.76 to 3.23. Usng a chart like this I just selected a different speedo gear for the trans. www.mymopar.com/speedometer.htm There is also a nice chart in this thread, www.cuda-challenger.com/cc/index.php?topic=75786.0Basically I have a 3.23, 27.9" rear tire and HAD a 26 tooth gear. looking at the chart I needed a 31 tooth gear to correct the speedo. I ordered one on ebay, make sure you get a new speedo housing O ring as well, my trans was just rebuilt and the O ring had already swollen to the point where it was hard to re install the housing again. Needless to say, with the new gear the speedo reads spot on! Its also worth pointing out that, unlike GM cars, when you get a new gear you do NOT need a new gear housing for the trans. The 727 gear housing can be clocked to different positions according to gear size to achieve the proper mesh between the drive gear and driven gear in the transmission. I recently had the experience of of changing the rear axle ratio on a 69 Cutlass and when we changed the speedo ear the housing had to be changed as well to maintain proper mesh between the gears. Good job Mopar! We also replace the fuel tank sending unit. I had attempted to use an old sending unit (with new gasket and lock ring) that was in the car when I got it. It tested OK on the bench but for some reason it didn't work in application. I ordered a new sending unit online. It came with a new gasket and lock ring and good thing it did. After installing the new sending unit the gauge was working but after filling up, I had a significant leak at the lock ring flange. After messing around with it a bit with no success, I ended up stacking the "old" and new gaskets together which made the lock ring really tight but that cured the leak at the flange. For those that remember I used an old tank and had do some cosmetic work on it to remove some dents. Even did some welding and soldering on it. I would have bought a new tank, but with a $300-$400 price tag I wanted to take a sing at repairing it. After filling the tank and fixing the sending unit leak, there was a small leak just above the center line seam of the tank. Not really a hole or crack more like porosity from rust. Ended up draining the tank, again, and applied a little bit of tank epoxy on it. Have not tried to fill it yet, but I feel pretty good about the repair. Still finishing up seat belts and stencils. More to come!
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Post by AZBlues on Apr 21, 2015 11:28:14 GMT -5
AZ, did you do the re webing yourself? Yes, no retractors on that car, and the webbing is soft enough that a regular sewing machine stitched it up fine. I matched the original framed X pattern on the overlap.
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Post by spanks79 on Apr 22, 2015 6:40:34 GMT -5
AZ, did you do the re webing yourself? Yes, no retractors on that car, and the webbing is soft enough that a regular sewing machine stitched it up fine. I matched the original framed X pattern on the overlap. That's what I should have done. I didn't even think of it. Snske Oyl didn't do anything to the retractors anyhow. It would have taken some hours to do but I would have saved a ton of money.
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Post by AZBlues on Apr 22, 2015 11:43:00 GMT -5
I can't imagine that they charged four figures for that. Company's pretty well named!
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Post by spanks79 on Apr 22, 2015 14:19:42 GMT -5
I can't imagine that they charged four figures for that. Company's pretty well named! I'm not trying to bust anyone's balls or make it sound like I'm bragging about the cash I spent on this car, nothing could be farther from the truth. I don't mind paying for a good quality product or service. I don't necessarily have expensive taste but my dad always said "It only takes a little more to go first class", I treat my cars and customers cars the same way. I want to be proud of it when I'm done or when I toss someone the keys. Its typically not cheap to do it right. With that said I contracted them to do the work because I figured it would be far superior to my ability to repair them. All I really know about the interior industry is that good work is not cheap and cheap work is typically not good. I paid $1273.95 to have the seat belts done back in Feb. That seems like a lot for the work but I don't know, maybe that's a deal. They cleaned and dyed the plastics black, cleaned the retractors and buckles, re webbed with black material. No chrome work or retractor repair. I also paid a bunch for my seats but the material and workmanship is second to none. I may not be super happy with the shape of the seat back, but I have no issues with the quality or workmanship.
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Post by AZBlues on Apr 22, 2015 15:56:04 GMT -5
Good restoration work costs big money. The average muscle car restoration, complete and correct, is well north of 100K. Many if not most shops farm work like that out because there isn't enough time in the day to address every little thing on a car in a reasonable time frame. I'm no seat belt expert, but for the money, I'd expect a more durable finish and no retractor issues that had to be corrected by the end user. I'd want something perfect that I could bolt in and use. That's all I was implying. Around 10 years ago, I had the webbing redone in my '64 Falcon Sprint. I looked into Snake Oyl, the price was silly, so I found another guy to do the job. Turns out, he was an ex-Snake Oyl employee, he had the correct 4 row green webbing, and it was the thick stuff, and he supplied a missing FoMoCo date tag and sewed both in place. He also centered the buckles, as they were originally to the outside, and when I got the car, it only had the original passenger side belt, the driver side was an incorrect parts store belt - so I had to track down another chrome Sprint buckle and the attaching hardware, and he made me up a pair. Did a beautiful job, and the price was about 2/3 of the Snake Oyl quote. It wasn't cheap, but I was a happy camper. -MJS
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Post by spanks79 on Apr 22, 2015 21:35:52 GMT -5
For what it's worth, I will be calling Snake Oyl in the morning. The front retractors are being difficult as well. Tried to take a customer for a ride tonight and he had all kinds of trouble getting the seatbelt to pull out of the retractor.
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Post by james on Apr 26, 2015 5:43:28 GMT -5
Stumbled across this thread looking for stuff for my Plymouth Fury and spent the next couple hours reading it. Absolutely awesome build! Love it. Signed up so I could follow. You got plans for that RV Spanks?
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Post by spanks79 on May 3, 2015 22:35:26 GMT -5
Stumbled across this thread looking for stuff for my Plymouth Fury and spent the next couple hours reading it. Absolutely awesome build! Love it. Signed up so I could follow. You got plans for that RV Spanks? Thanks for the kind words. It is the biggest, most involved build I have ever done. The RV is long gone. I never actually owned the RV. I bought it but paid the guy an extra $100 to take the engine and trans out of it and let him scrap what was left. I did not have the space to deal with it. It was a mess.
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Post by spanks79 on May 4, 2015 10:42:22 GMT -5
The Blumo made its first appearance this past weekend and it was a huge success. The past couple weeks leading up to the debut has been busy so I got lots of updates. I'm traveling this week so Ill work on it between classes and flights. Mile 19 Water Stop at the Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon Much fun was had by all. The car was a big hit, we already got asked to return next year to do it again. Some of the more casual runners even stopped to get pictures next to the car and enjoy a water and potty break before finishing the last 7 miles of the course. Murf and the Magic Tones stopped by couple days before the debut. Actually we had a customer bring his Fleetwood in for service. This is the only pic I got of the two cars together. The customer couldn't understand why I wanted to paint his car pink.
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