It’s official, the Charger has come off the road for the remainder of 2022. All in all, the late-B Body Mopar has had a pretty good year, racking up over 6,000 miles on the clock. At the start of this year it was still a barely-together mess, only able to make small trips in town before the fuel pump would stall out, leaving me on the side of the road. From there, we got the Halibrand mags, tweaked the 360 up a bit, and finally got the fuel pump to live longer than twenty minutes at a time and the end result is a comfortable cruiser that can roll on the Interstate like nothing is wrong.
That’s not saying the car is perfect…far from it. I’m watching the clearcoat wash off of the hood, the HVAC system is still red-X’d (that means dead, inop, DOA, you get the hint), meaning that I get to pull the dashboard AND the box back out of the car. The door weatherstripping needs to be replaced. So do the shocks at all four corners. The front units are so dead I can almost dribble the nose of the car if I get it bouncing hard enough and the air shocks out back leak like an excited puppy. Speaking of “leak”, I also need to do more transmission pan work, and I recently swapped in an aluminum radiator to replace the one that popped no less than three major leaks.
But the real reason the Charger is parked for the rest of the year? Daylight Savings Time. Apparently, when you roll the clocks back, the general population get startled by moonlight and suddenly forget how to drive. And any minute now the weather is going to go straight to Hell in a handbasket, and with no heater, that’s a no-go.
So what about you? Is your ride already put up? Got plans for it’s wintertime rest?
Yep! My spring-summer-fall ride is put up for the winter…the north east is brutal on sheetmetal…
Would love to see a Huges cam, recurved distributor, shift kit & 3.00 gears in that thing!(and tuned with wideband O2) No real need to spend the money on a limited slip…cars that heavy rarely have major traction issues…and I suggest not over gearing it. It will never be FAST, so making sure its still pleasurable to distance cruise is important.
We’ve found well thought out mild mods can make malaise era cars really fun without breaking the bank and near factory reliability. They’re still fairly slow…but in a fun way!
Still trying to get a few safety and driveability issues resolved on my Dart so it can be roadworthy. And if that’s not done until January, I’m driving it everywhere in January. Road salt is rare here.
Mine stay in storage most of the year,I have more cars than time lol