The Crusty Cuda: Whole lotta Shakin' (N96) Goin' on!

[njsteve]

I thought it looked way too suspiciously like my FE5 red paint from an old can of enamel. Maybe I can bottle it and sell the paint as NOS assembly line red drum paint!!!

[njsteve]

With the issues with the site for the past few days I wasn't able to upload any updates. So here's some stuff.

I painted the shaker dome in the same matching chunky-sparkley-argenty paint that the grill was done in. It came out nicely though my recycling trash can/painting dolly is now kind of sparkley from overspray and is at present, the envy of the neighborhood.

Anyway, here's a couple shots of what the underside Rube-Goldberg mechanism looks like. There are two fresh air doors: one that lets air into the shaker grills and one that has a bypass trapdoor to the underside of the baseplate for rainy weather. The doors connect via a linkage arm which is connected to a repurposed vent cable, that goes through the shaker metal baseplate and connects to a bellcrank on the underside of the baseplate. Another actual vent cable (with the word "vent" covered over with a red foil label that says "Fresh Air" connects to that and goes through the firewall and under the center of the dash. When you manually operate that Fresh Air vent cable, it moves whichever door you intended to open or close for whatever purpose you deem necessary.

Final photo is of the two piece baseplate - the metal outer ring with the trap door hole, and the unobtanium, single four barrel, Carter AVS baseplate for a 1970 only, 340 only, shaker hood 'cuda. (1971 used a Carter Thermoquad which used a different height baseplate). Interesting trivia fact: Fram made all the shaker dome parts up in Canada, for the E-body cars, hence the "Made in Canada" stamp on the outer baseplate.

One thing you have probably noticed are the seven 1/2" holes in the outer perimeter of the outer shaker baseplate ring. I noticed these as well when I went to bolt the shaker down and the bolts fell right through the holes. Well, it turns out that this baseplate was among a bunch that slipped out of Fram back in the 1970's without having the circular, flanged, nut inserts tack welded in place. Luckily Dave had an extra three and half pairs of the "special nuts" and I was able to use some JB weld and set them in place, after this photo was taken.

[njsteve]

I was rummaging through my 40 year old boxes of shrapnel and found two original 'cuda340 emblems. They were kind of faded but the chrome was excellent. So I soaked them in lacquer thinner overnight and used a brass bristle toothbrush to remove the paint residue. I then sprayed the with flat black and used a small rag with some reducer on it to wipe away the black off the face of the emblems.

The interesting fact is that original shaker hood emblems have three mounting prongs, while standard steel hood emblems have only two prongs. Since the odds of finding a real three pronged shaker 340cuda emblem are about as likely as me finding another hemicuda ragtop in my garage that I forgot to sell really cheap decades ago, I decided to use the two pronged emblems since they cover the middle prong anyway. This way only my hairdresser will know for sure.

Here's a comparison of an original three-pronged shaker hood 'cuda440-6 emblem next to the 'cuda340 emblems (after I did the blackout treatment).

After the blackout dried, I used some thinned out FE5 Rallye Red enamel (the same stuff I brushed on the brake drums) in a paint syringe bottle I got off of amazon. That worked great. I just let the syringe fill the channel with red paint, waited til it dried a little and then wiped it off the raised chrome edge with some reducer and a paper towel. I then cleared over the entire emblem.

[A12pilot]

And yes, Steve. Get a set of 15" Keystones and keep the stock 14s in the garage! That would be sweeeeeeeeet!!

Cheers
Dave

[Lee Stewart]

[R68GTO]

A12 Dave would have had this thing all put together and half-wore out by now Steve....why are you dragging your feet so much? It's looking great, can't wait to see the finished product!

[A12pilot]

Hahaha! I don’t know about that!

Looking good Steve-O! So glad no collateral damage done!!

Cheers
Dave

[njsteve]

Those original brackets seem to all be that way. I remember going through the same kind of insanity back in the day my other 'cudas. I think people believed the way to adjust the aim was to grab the bulb pod with both hands and bend it around, instead of simply loosening the retaining nut and moving the ball and socket mount on the back of the light.

[njsteve]

Spent a few days filing, and sanding some of the stainless pieces - the tail panel trim (4 pieces), the passenger side drip rail molding (3 pieces) and the two hood pin bezels. I had to use my trim hammer and little anvil to get the dings out of the drip rails and tail panel trim. That was rather time-consuming. Then you use a file to get it flat again followed by 220, then 320, then 400, then 600, the 800, then 1000, then 1500 wet sanding. Then the buffing wheel - sisal with stainless compound first, then a sewn pad with stainless compound, then loose pad with the white rouge.

Trying not to get the very thin and long tail panel pieces caught and either wrapped around the wheel or flung across the room was rather nerve wracking, but in the end it all worked out.

Here's the results on the original stainless hood pin bezel with the original hair pin clip all polished up.

I didn't polish the driver's side drip rail as I am looking for a replacement piece for the front A-pillar section which is too bent up to repair.

[big gear head]

Nice. I've got a scar about 1 1/4 inches long on the right side of my face from trying to polish a headlight ring.