MAINTENANCE IS THE KEY

Diligent maintenance is the key to getting the most miles and most years out of your car. Perhaps because this is the age of technology and “hands off” equipment, many people seem to no longer have the maintenance connection with their car. The advantage of older vehicles, such as from the 1960s, 1970s, and even 1980s, is not only that they can be acquired cheaply, but are also easier to work on.

Oil Changes
If you buy an older vehicle, you will probably need to perform some catch-up maintenance that may have been neglected by the previous owner. As soon as you buy your old car, change the oil so that you know the starting point. I would suggest changing oil every 2,000 miles for city driving (e.g. driving in stop and go traffic, or making short trips of less than 20 miles at a time), or 3,000 miles for highway driving. You will note that this is substantially more frequent than the 5,000 or 7,500 mile oil change intervals commonly discussed today. Don’t believe them, they are fooling themselves! Changing the oil and filter is the cheapest thing you can do to prolong the life of your engine.

It is fairly simple to perform most routine, and not so routine, repairs if you have some patience. Troubleshooting can be more difficult, and requires some logical, analytical ability. I would suggest acquiring a Chilton’s or Hayne’s manual for your new old vehicle. They are extremely valuable in taking any shade tree mechanical endeavor to the “next level” of troubleshooting. First a note about common things that you may have to change, and then a detailed account of problems that I had with my cars, and how I fixed them.

Consumables
This is the term that is commonly applied to extraneous items that wear out on a car, including brake pads and shoes, as well as some items bolted to the engine block. On many old cars, you may assume that within a year, you will have to replace the starter, alternator, and troubleshoot some other annoyances, which probably induced the previous owner to part with “Old Betsy”. Starters and alternators typically cost in the neighborhood of $65 for most 1970s and 1980s cars, so this is not a major expense. If you can loosen and retighten two bolts and two nuts, then you are qualified to change both of these items yourself in about half an hour to an hour.

Other common initial annoyances are the starter relay or solenoid, which is what makes the “clicking and rattling” noise when the engine won’t turn over. Once again, no problem if you can loosen a couple of nuts. The voltage regular can be a mystifying annoyance, but is extremely simple to change.

Brake shoes and pads are an easy operation to change, and are considered as the “entry level” shade tree repair for do-it-yourselfers.

Regular tune-ups are a cheap way to really refresh your old car. The $30 you spend on a tune up will pay for itself within a month in saved gas mileage. I consider a tune-up to include spark plugs, distributor cap, rotor, and spark plug wires if you’ve just bought the car and don’t know the history. Old wires can give you subtle but annoying problems like stalling in wet weather, or rough idling due to arcing. Don’t buy the cheap-o house brand of plug wires, go ahead and spring for the more expensive 8 mm wires. I have seen the thin house brand wires, brand new out of the box, put on a fantastic light show as sparks dance off touching metal engine parts. It isn’t worth it!

Car Repairs, Play by Play

1964 Dodge “440”
This car was fabulously dependable with very low maintenance, at least that I was aware of it needing. These are the things that I did do to it.

* speedometer cable broken. This was a fairly easy fix. The instrument panel tilts forward after removing several screws from the face of the panel. In this position, the speedometer cable housing can be felt in the back. The lower end of the housing must be unscrewed from the side of the transmission, which will result in fluid spilling, so have a pan ready. The broken ends of the cable can be removed from the bottom as gravity pulls them out. The new cable is cut to size, with the square speedometer end crimped on and slid up the housing until it seats in the back of the instrument cluster housing. Reassemble at the bottom.

* the thermostat was replaced, which on the “Slant-6” is is somewhat different because the thermostat housing is mounted on the side of the block, rather than on the top. Thus, the thermostat may slip down during tightening, causing the housing to crack when tightened. The thermostat should be held in place by the gasket, with some Permatex. The housing bolts can then be started until the neck is snugged up to the block. Don’t tighten the bolts until you are sure that the thermostat hasn’t slipped out of its recessed divot in the block, or you will be on your way to Harry’s junkyard to look for a new housing.

On the way back from California, the Slant 6 threw a rod east of Winnemucca at 3 in the morning with a snowstorm coming on. That was the deal-breaker! The engine had run fine up until that point, and I can only assume that the rear main seal had dried out, become brittle, and allowed a massive oil leak.

1967 Chrysler Newport
This was a really neat car, just for giving you an idea of what was available on a more luxurious car in 1967. I loved the toggle switch map light. The fact that the car had no power steering and no power brakes meant that I never had to fix either of those things.

* intermittent headlight flickers and failures. This consisted of several annoying problems. One of the high-beam headlights (it had 4) had a broken prong, so would not light. The other problem was in the switch itself and amounted to a design flaw. The back of the switch had metal tabs riveted to the switch, with the wires soldered to the metal tabs. I discovered that with the heater on, the wire insulation was just soft enough to allow the wire to contact a metal tab and short out the headlights. Thus, driving in the winter with the heater on caused the headlights to go out. Very annoying! I fixed this by replacing the switch with one from a 1968 Newport.

* intermittent starting problems. Sometimes after stopping, the car simply wouldn’t start, not even crank over or click. The problem turned out to be loose terminals on the back of the voltage gauge in the dashboard. The solution was simply to bolt both wires, the heavy black and heavy red, to the same terminal. Until I figured this out, I had to replace several mechanical voltage regulators from an incorrect method of jumping the circuit, which destroyed the regulator in the process.

* starter quit working. Easy enough to change out, even laying on the frozen ground outside my college tenement house in December.

* the radiator neck had come off for some reason, and I had to have this brazed on by a professional welder, which only took 10 minutes.

* very difficult starting when first acquired. I had to rebuild the Stromberg 2-barrel carburetor, which was quite simple. The jets and float bowl were very gummed up, with sludgy tar in the bowl. The rebuild kit was very good, and I had no problems rebuilding the carburetor in an afternoon.

* tune up. I changed the spark plugs, replaced the original spark plug wires with 8 mm wires, and installed new points and a condenser. I never was happy with the mechanical distributor, and eventually installed a Mopar Direct Connection electronic ignition system. These systems come with the distributor, electronic control module, and electronic voltage regulator. I paid $200 for this, but removed it when I sold the car, and subsequently sold it on e-bay for $200, so it really didn’t affect the cost of the car. However, it really ran a lot better, and started much better on cold mornings with the new ignition system.

* muffler. There was no exhaust behind the Y-pipe when I acquired the car, but a friend found a muffler laying in a ditch, still warm. I fastened that onto the Y-pipe, securing it with a small bolt drilled through the pipe, and held up the other end with a chain from a manure spreader, secured by running a thin bolt through one of the chain links and bracing it against the trunk floor through a drain plug.

I had this car running great, but it outlived its usefulness. I eventually sold it to the local junkyard when I no longer needed the transportation. The guy said he wanted the 383 for a roadrunner, which was a compliment. The other compliment was from the guy that I bought it from, although in a roundabout way. He surely assumed the car was junk, and that he was ripping me off. However, when he saw how well the car ran and drove after I had worked on it, he got mad and said “Humph, I never should have sold you this car!”

1973 Dodge Charger
This car just looked so cool when I first saw it, that I overlooked the fact that it was a trashed out basket case! Even nestled under that pine tree in the biker-dude’s back yard, filled with old tires, it just had a shape that caught my eye, with the flared out fenders like a coke bottle. Although I spent years gradually fixing things, there is a difference between things that absolutely need to be fixed in order to drive a car, and those that just make it nicer. What really needed to be fixed was the engine.

* the engine. This had a junk 360 when I first bought it, origin unknown! I figuratively rolled it down the hill and replaced it with a ‘71 318 that I overhauled myself. I used a set of micrometers to measure the wear on the 318, which had been running, and after determining that the wear was still within tolerance, elected to overhaul rather than rebuild. After 60,000 miles it is still running. I had the heads professionally rebuilt at a machine shop. However, I replaced the main and connecting rod bearings myself without removing the pistons, and also replaced the oil pump, timing chains/gears, push rods, lifters, water pump, fuel pump, and distributor.

* starter relay. The hippie biker dude had for some reason wired in (with lamp cord) a remote starter switch because the car would not start by turning the key. Charming as that was, I spent the $4.99 for a new starter relay and dumped the remote starter switch. Never had a problem since.

* overheating. This baffled me for a few years, although I drove it across the country with the temperature needle hovering near H. God Bless the 318! What I never realized was how important the fan shroud is to this car! I had once installed a larger radiator in an attempt to address the hot running, and done the usual blowing out chaff from between the AC condenser fins, but to no avail. I tried flex fans, clutch fans, numerous cooling system flushes, and only achieved marginal gains. After a trip to Harry’s junkyard, where I acquired a fan shroud out of an ‘89 Lebaron for $5, my cooling system mystery was solved! Apparently, the fan shroud is an absolute must for pulling air through the narrow grill and focusing it through the radiator fins.

* discharging battery. This can fool you because it can be hard to notice. This is commonly a problem with the voltage regulator, the thin rectangular black or chrome box bolted to the firewall behind the distributor with a plastic plug-in. People often assume the alternator is at fault when in fact it is the voltage regulator. The symptom is that the voltage needle leans radically to discharge at idle, but pegs radically to charge when you give it gas and the headlights can be insanely bright. The voltage regulator is not regulating the current from the alternator. This differs from a faulty alternator in that the needle may also show discharging. You can check this with a circuit tester, set to the 20V range (DC). First test the battery: it should read 11-12V. With the car running, ground one lead, and place the other lead on a terminal on the back of the alternator. There are three, and you won’t hurt anything by trying them all until you get a reading. The alternator should be putting out around 13.5V. Open the throttle and the voltage should increase, but drop back if the voltage regulator is working correctly.

*non-critical driving issues that I fixed. These are things that I fixed to make the car that much nicer, but that would not have prevented its use as a daily driver. In fact, I drove the car with these problems for years. I replaced the front rotors because the originals were deeply grooved from total lack of maintenance by the previous owner, when the rivets of the worn down pads ground into the rotor. Thanks, buddy. While replacing the rotors I bought new wheel bearings and repacked them, and obviously replaced the brake pads. I also replaced the rear brake shoes, and replaced a rear axle seal that was leaking. This required removing the axle, for which I thank the Chilton’s manual! I also replaced the master cylinder, and years later had to weld a snapped engine brace.

* non-critical driving issues that I had fixed professionally. The drive shaft was always bent, and I drove it that way for 30,000 miles. Go Mopar! Had a new drive shaft installed. The transmission was junk ever since I bought the car, but it kept working for 50,000 miles even slipping and chattering. Again--go Mopar! I finally had it rebuilt when the front seal gave way and started gushing fluid. It is beautiful now, shifts smooth and authoritatively giving the engine power I never knew it had. I had the torsion bars adjusted, and leaf springs re-tensioned, because the car used to veer in hard braking due to sagging torsion bars.

After 60,000 miles on the 318 that I overhauled on a cheap budget, how does it hold up? Great. For the last 5 years I have used Mobil 1 synthetic oil and changed it every 3,000 miles. I’ve driven it on at least one 1,500-mile road trip every summer for the last five years with no problems, and it gets slightly over 22 mpg on the highway. This car is now probably too nice to use as a daily driver.

1985 Dodge Ramcharger
This truck was purchased for $2,500, which at the time was $1,000 below private party blue book because, as it turned out, the owner couldn’t figure out why it would sometimes not start or would quit while running. He didn’t tell us that, but felt too guilty about it to charge full price. For the first 40,000 I did almost nothing to this vehicle, but I will list the prominent issues.

* intermittent starting problems. Every once in a great while, the truck would not start. It was so intermittent that I could never pin down the problem, and assumed that it just had a very touchy choke and would flood easily. The truck otherwise started so easily that if it didn’t start on the second turn, you knew something was wrong and it would have to sit a while. This problem was so inconsistent that it took me years to figure it out. I had the magnetic pickup replaced, the electronic piece in the distributor that took the place of the old mechanical points. These are known to fail, so that the coil gets no spark. That seemed to work for a time, but a few years later the problem returned. I eventually used my Hayne’s Manual and a circuit tester to determine that the rubber-armored plug that connects the electronic ignition control module to the distributor (the rubber male/female plug) was shorting out by resting on the hot intake manifold. When it got hot, it expanded or increased the resistance to where the distributor no longer got a signal from the control module, and when the engine cooled off, the plug contracted, forming a shorted circuit so that the engine would not start the next time. The solution was classic redneck: I used two bread ties to tie the plug up off the hot intake manifold. That was nearly two years ago, and I haven’t had a problem since. The lesson is that if these Dodge trucks don’t start, check for spark right away.

* transmission fluid filter change. I have done this service twice, at the recommended intervals in the manual, and first when I bought the truck. Be sure to use a torque wrench to tighten the transmission pan to specification, or the gasket will leak. Also changed the transfer case fluid twice over the years, in accordance with recommendations (37,500 miles).

* ball joints (upper and lower) and front axle u-joints. I had to pay to have this done, as this is beyond my ability. The cost was only $800 and has lasted for over five years to present.

* front and rear differential rebuild. Again I paid to have this done professionally. The cost was $1,300, but it was worth it because that was the last major repair I needed, and it has allowed me to get another four years out of a decently running vehicle. This vehicle gives you plenty of warning when something is going wrong. Apparently I drove it for 50,000 miles with junk differentials that had previously been rebuilt improperly. The mechanic informed me that when he disassembled the differentials, it was apparent that half the bearings had never been installed! I drove the truck until the pumpkins were hot to the touch and was lurching from side to side down the road. I drove it to the garage like that, but it has driven smoothly and straight ever since the repair.

* carburetor rebuild. I had to mess with this only because of Denver’s emission testing. The truck passed this very stringent regulation, but when I moved, the engine was running too lean for lower altitudes. I disassembled the carburetor only to discover that all three rebuild kits I bought were incorrect. Eventually I had to use an exacto knife to cut out the soft facing material and reuse the original hard gasket between the base plate and body because the other replacement gaskets opened up or closed off different holes and the engine wouldn’t run at all. I had to disassemble the carburetor three times to ascertain this. I also had to install an aftermarket tachometer in order to properly adjust the mixture and idle settings. This truck, like many Dodges, had cold idling problems, stalling at stop signs. I determined that this is due to the choke setting. The choke setting can be extremely finicky, and if you attempt to drive too soon before the choke pulls off, the choke setting will cause the engine to flood out and die at the first few stop signs. I adjusted the choke linkage so that the choke flap can never be fully closed, but will retain a 3/16” gap with the air horn. This may require require pumping the gas pedal three times when cold starting, but the engine will then run without dying, and is ready to idle in gear at 500 rpms within a minute of cold starting.

* because of shorter driving trips, I change oil every 2,000 miles in this vehicle. The transmission still shifts well with no hesitation or stuttering, and the engine runs okay, but with some lifter rattle and unevenness until warmed up. The transfer case still works great, as does the four wheel drive. I have extended the life of spark plugs by adjusting and rebuilding the carburetor. The plugs used to foul out with carbon by 9,000 miles and since the rebuild, they have lasted over 15,000. However, it appears that the oil blow-by will cause fouling that requires changing plugs prior to the recommended 30,000 interval.