4th Dec 2023, 19:12
This is the original reviewer posting an update for my 1971 Plymouth Barracuda. Since the last review more than two years ago, I have driven 1,515 miles, all in nice weather on weekends. During that time, I performed a few repair and maintenance items as described below.
At 113,468 miles, I had to replace the alternator. We had driven to a state park about 30 miles away and at some point I noticed the charging needle lying slightly left-of-center toward discharge, but the new battery kept it firing until we got home. A rebuilt lifetime warranty alternator was about $80, which is what they have always been for these 1970s Chryslers. Even though I like things original, I didn't care enough to have the original alternator sent to a rebuild shop to preserve the look. It's not that kind of car. So I went with a Carquest option. Something must have been going on with the charging system in general, because prior to this I had bought a new battery, followed by the alternator, and then 150 miles later I had to buy a new voltage regulator. I believe both the alternator and voltage regulator may have been original to the car. You can tell the difference between the alternator and voltage regulator, because with a bad alternator, the system simply isn't charging, so the heater fan runs slow, the headlights are dim, wipers are slow, etc. With a bad voltage regulator, the ammeter needle is all over, heeled over toward discharge at idle, but heeled over to charge when you give it gas.
Early this spring I finally did something I had meant to look into for a long time. Despite having the front end rebuilt, the steering wheel still didn't quite center going down the road, and some degree of correction for slight wandering was required. Also, I really wanted to repack the front bearings, which requires replacing the grease seals. As usual with old car replacement parts, the replacement grease seals were not an exact match to the originals, differing in that the originals had a protruding cylinder that provided additional protection to the seal, so when seated in the brake drum, it would stick out and surround the spindle. A nice extra touch, really. The new seals didn't have that protruding cylinder or lip, which caused a little confusion when I had to remember the seal is supposed to seat down in the hub and not be flush with the hub. I also realized I had been under tightening the spindle nut. I thought I was following the directions to torque the nut to 20 ft-lbs. while rotating the hub on the spindle, then back off a quarter turn and tighten finger tight. My idea of finger tight was just that, applied directly to the nut. This time I used a socket on the nut and tightened it fist tight. Still inconsequential to a torque wrench, but it really made a difference to driving. The steering wheel is now centered and there is no need for correction, and the wheel stays tight and true. Repacking bearings is really easy on a car with front drum brakes because there is no need to dismount the caliper. Brake wear looked good, and the hardware looked good, no sign of leaking cylinder seals. While I had the car up and the wheels off, I rotated the tires. The tires have low miles but many years on them, but thankfully no sign of deterioration.
Finally, at 114,023 miles I had to replace the battery clamps. I had just gone to the car wash, went to restart the car, and nothing, not even the click of the solenoid! My mind immediately went to the battery/alternator/voltage regulator out of fear I had missed some larger problem, maybe an intermittent fusible link that had finally blown or a loose connection. Just when I was at my wit's end, the dome light flickered, which told me it was just a bad battery connection, and I found I could turn the battery clamps by hand on the posts. I got the car home, but couldn't really get the old clamps tight because they had become deformed over the years. For some reason, it was hard to get a good contact even with the new clamps; I really had to wire brush the posts on the new battery and really tighten the new clamps. At any rate, problem solved (finally) and it has been good since then.
Current mileage is 114,403. In recognition that the car is now for relaxed weekend cruising, I knocked the timing back a little. That resulted in some loss of acceleration, but it also lets it run on 93 octane pump gas without knocking under acceleration. It's a compromise I can live with. It has been my impression that most of the octane booster products either don't do very much, or some of them have a syrupy texture that can congeal in the cold and clog up fuel flow. As this is a driving car and not a street/strip car, I don't need that annoyance. Though it's December, there is no snow yet even though mornings are just above freezing. Driving conditions are still suitable so long as I don't have to contend with congealed gasoline additives. In the Spring it will be due for an oil change and new air filter.
I still love the car and intend to drive it until I'm enfeebled, and then just sit in my wheelchair and look at it if that's all that's left.
15th Aug 2021, 15:46
This is the original reviewer posting an update of my 1971 Plymouth Barracuda. Mileage now stands at 112,888 miles, so I have added 1,058 miles since the last update in 2019. Obviously the car is in retirement status since coming out of the body shop and is only driven on nice weekends, no rain, no snow, and no high heat and humidity. That leaves spring and fall, which is why the car only gets driven less than a thousand miles per year on average.
This summer has been the time to catch up on much maintenance that was deferred thanks to the pandemic, and not only on the Barracuda, but in general. Prior to going into pandemic lockdown, I had kept intending to take the Barracuda in to check the front end. With the car looking like new, I wanted to make sure there were no suspension or steering problems. For a number of years there had been a need to correct steering, as the car wandered. For some time I passed it off as merely 1970s technology, but then noticed the front tires were beginning to show some uneven wear, and made a point to take it in. Lucky I did, because it turned out the idler arm was near to popping out of its bushing. A worn idler arm, to my recollection, is a common weak point on Chrysler steering systems of the 1970s. I think just about every 1970s era Chrysler (generically including Dodge and Plymouth) that we owned, including my 1973 Dodge Charger, 1974 Dodge Monaco, 1977 Dodge Tradesman, 1985 Dodge Ramcharger, maybe even our 1968 Dodge Coronet, all needed either the idler arm or Pittman arm, or both, replaced. Those cars all had high miles, so I was a bit surprised that it was needed on my Barracuda at only 112,000 miles, though for that era car, maybe that is high mileage. As long as it was in the garage, I also had the lower ball joints replaced, and the stabilizer bushings. That all cost $855.65. It really made a difference! Now the car tracks straight and true, no wandering, and no slop in the steering wheel whatsoever. When you watch old '70s movies and somebody is driving and their hand on the steering wheel is traversing back and forth 10-20 degrees of arc going down the highway--no, those cars don't really drive like that. They maintain a straight line with just one finger on the steering wheel.
This spring I finally had to buy a new battery, which really has nothing to do with the car. The only other maintenance item since the last update was the odyssey of replacing my windshield wipers. The problem is that because the car looks all original, just the way it would have sat in the show room in 1971, I wanted to retain the aluminum wiper assembly that came on the car and simply replace the rubber wiper blade, or refill, they call it. Well, these were not to be found. Every auto parts store carries only the modern wiper assembly that clips on to the end of the wiper arm, which requires discarding the original aluminum assembly. I could not live with some piece of plastic on my original car. I have made that sacrifice on my 1973 Charger, though, mainly because on that car, the wipers recess below the hood so nobody can see them, anyway. On the Barracuda, however, they do not recess, so would be displayed to the world. Once again, I turned to the internet and discovered a variety of blade refills, although buying sight unseen, I had to order three different iterations to see what actually fit because they don't list them by car make and model, only by a measurement in mm's. In the end, I ordered Trico "break to fit" 47-700 7mm refills, though in retrospect will probably get the 8 mm next time because I had to crimp the wiper assembly claw a bit to make sure it was a tight fit. The refills themselves are only $13, but I had to do it X3 before I figured out what fit right.
So the car is probably at its pinnacle right now, the best it will ever be since it was new, with nothing to do but enjoy it and try to keep the ravages of time from tearing it back down. Barring something very unexpected and outrageously wrong occurring, I expect to keep this car the rest of my life.