Restoring Abandoned 1966 Dodge Coronet to Muscle Glory with Steve Dulcich! | Roadworthy Rescues

this week we're back in the midwest we found this 1966 Dodge Coronet in southern Missouri I honestly don't know anything about this car other than all the documentation we found suggests it was parked 45 years ago now I am a Dodge and Mopar fan of General I've got a few of them but I got to be honest I am not an expert and this is going to be a huge undertaking so I happen to talk the legend himself into helping Steve dich is here Derek how's it going what do you think man this thing looks like it's ready to roll if you have a key and a battery we're on our way right we definitely don't have a key oh man also couple issues wheels are locked up tighter than alcatra and so is the engine really yes let's have a look all right look at that beauty wow so is this possibly a 273 or a 318 what are we looking at here that's 318 but it's not the one that most people know this is the early 318 the PO spere head the a the heavy one the a engine because the later one was La for light a engine but this basic engine structure came out in the 50s and 66 was the last year so it's an old school but a goodie this one looks like it drugg the Mayflower to the bottom of the ocean though and I've been told it's locked up I actually have to confess I I've never built one of these and I have no desire to really cuz they're kind of an archaic design but I have a solution for this we'll talk about in a little bit but this is a pretty cool AC car oh yeah was power steering looking at that Fender apron and the firewall and the cowl none of it's rusted out this thing is solid pretty solid nice yeah so this is really cool too this actually has the certic card still in the car wow I think it has the original owner's name there somewhere yeah W Winston if you could read the hydroglyphus this thing a little bit more and check it out show me what you [Music] got so this confused me Steve 440 I thought I had a 440 in it but that's a trim model isn't it right it's the trim level designation cornet 440 is kind of mid to Upper mid 500 yeah okay we got a Oklahoma sticker of some kind that says 78 got a Air Force sticker up here and back here there's a university sticker of 7 three so I what I assume what happened is car was bought new guy went to college went to the air force force and parked and then moved to Oklahoma parked this thing yeah but the body is solid it looks like a new car basically except for this little bit of a flyer action on the wheel well yeah I don't know why they did higher clearance maybe do we dare open the door quick let's have a look all right oh hey you leave the way oh boy smells like a bowling shoe full of Mouse house with a hint of green onion little chop back actually will fix that right up seats actually not terrible the dash is all there oh yeah giant mouse house in there I mean I don't know it's got pedals in a steering wheel I can admire The Styling inside it's pretty Sleek that's solid old car actually it is it's in remarkably good condition showroom showroom all right I think here's the plan delish a cherry picker is going to sink into the Earth out here nice thing is the guy we bought this from has a shop right down the hill he said we can use it so let's wash this then get all the ants and grime and dirt off of this thing I'm going to drag dolage he has no choice but to follow me a roll put the car on the trailer trailer it down to the shop and then somehow push that in there and then start blowing this thing apart in theory well you realize that was the easy part if you're going to be getting it off the trailer is going to be a tricky part oh so this Steve is a 318 a 318 but it's a little different those aren't 318 I can tell you that right now this started as well it was supposed to be a dingle ball hone and just a quick cheap cam well when we broke it down Pistons were seized in the block it needed to go for Machining well then you might as well Bard it out well yeah right and then the crank was knocked out of the thing cuz the main bearings were gone so you might as well put a 360 crank in it okay right so we did that so when you get to the valve train on this thing it's actually all Chevrolet this is LS valve train in here on a Mopar Head I recognized him that's the coolest thing I've ever seen yeah so my friend just machined this piece here dialed Everything In It's got 20216 Chevy valves Chevy Springs LS rockers Chevy push rods and now oils like a Chevy even it also has Dodge Viper rods in here what else would you use right they were used laying around through them and so basically it's a 351 stroker we've been calling it The LS 318 but it's really unique and probably one of a kind I'm guessing so now we just got to throw this in and see if it runs test how long of burnouts we could do on the way to Nashville I think it' be pretty good all right first we got to get this junk out of here yeah wow it feels pretty good see that's what I'm saying we just throw it back in look at that nice that's got a lot of Wiggle left in it does that turn oh it's it's locked up well now we know why it was parked yeah yeah so when we were dragging this the tires were rotating in an opposite direction I figured it was a locked up rear end you can see we can't turn this even with a bar and this is really stiff and it's not rotating the pinion or the yolk no that just pulled right off oh wow look at this back shoe it's like as thin as a razor blade looks like a Minnesota highway take a look at that got a tight [Music] one about to flip this car over into Kansas stuck wherever it went now we're in business Del W there you go oh my there seems to have been a little uh water Ingress huh third member out next you think yeah yeah oh that is the clearest looking gear roll I've ever seen yeah I think it's synthetic yeah it's probably fine wow that is pure AA Frisco water no oil how does the whole rear end get full of water did it sit oh look at this come back here doesn't this look like a water did it drop in a well it did look this side is all rusted remember the brake shoes and stuff so this left rear sat in water and sucked water in you're like a forensic mechanic that's what I do man that's what I do wow that's out ready to go I got the fuel tank out [Music] okay we should just swap the rear end here's where the oil went that's mud so we got the third member pulled out of the rear end housing and there wasn't any gear lube in it it was just full of water so this is all rusted up and pretty much turned to Jell-O and junk we don't know what we're going to do with it but we'll take care of it one way or another on the way here I said you know the one thing that would really mess this whole thing up as if the rear end was bad transmission crossmember bolts out speedometer cable on hook transmission cooler line stays shift linkage is on hook transmission drive shaft is out oh I went right through it like butter we might have to drop that cross member [Music] yeah so this is going to keep the ATF in the transmission in theory cuz when this tilts it's all going to want to come rushing out the tail shaft now we just need the chains on the boom and then b a bing come on me there we go oh she po why is it pulling up so hard cuz you're now the Hoist oh if I left my leg up this is going to flip over oh the mud water coming out the trans is plentiful are you serious yes even though we had that secured with a surgical glove watch out for the body work ah that was not pretty not pretty at all but effective oh my sludge water word yeah this thing was flooded well with all that water that came out of it it's probably got all rusted hard parts inside did you ever watch watch Murder She Wrote no oh this is the how it would start oh really yeah it was like that game it's like it was Bill in the library with the pipe wrench but oh show now we're going to get on the line again I guess and start calling around junkyards I don't know yeah that's what I recommend our transmission is useless to us I think this could have ran you know what I [Laughter] don't things and stuff have happened Steve has successfully cleaned the rear end and mean Wist Parts have shown up we've got now a used transmission another rear end piece down here so this is a py or both tires are going to spin with a 323 I'm not sure but I think this is an old true track unit and we got a smoking deal on this we gave the guy $300 for this whole unit here so that's great and then this over here is a torque converter off of a 360 engine it's a bigger torque converter it's going to have a better stall for our mid Performance Engine that we're putting on here rather than a smaller one with like a 12200 or 1500 stall we just had to knock the weights off of that we don't really know if it's going to work we're just going to gamble and do that I guess we're going to start in the rear end get this member put back in get the axle slammed in put some oil in it so that is done then we'll get this transmission mounted to the engine and get that in the car there we go installed like it when things are going back together what are the chances there's a Mopar hoer right in town they're all over we got really good play here nice and smooth so the actual shafts are in rear end is done now I just need to assemble the brakes back here body work man that looks much [Music] better so DOL and I are out here in southern Missouri making progress on the 66 Coronet and now we've got our hopefully good transmission lost of receipts with the other hopefully good torque converter all bolted together dich modified the mini starter this is out of a Dodge Dakota and we're going to try to stick this thing in the car and hope that this oil pan clears and everything just slips right in and then we've got a full chassis again oh oh No Easy there big guy this is not a very good lift all right come forward again don't you get that thing in there like that there's water coming out of that one no look that's oil that's 10% ATF is it yeah but it can't be this is our new transmission well just pretend we didn't see that that is water it is water oh man no this thing came with the warranty and everything it was a driveway warranty yeah I don't know maybe we should once we get it bolted in and everything tomorrow morning we'll drop the pan a look at that keep coming oh I got it okay now I can get a jack there it it should be bringing it back automatically so if you go down just to tickle there we go yeah nice yeah I like how weird it looks now we finally got the engine transmission Drive po third member brakes fuel lines gas tank rear shocks front shocks front brake lines installed we're on Easy Street tomorrow yeah for two days I mean I I feel pretty good how much Kitty ler do we have laying around this is going to get [Music] splashy now what you don't want to find in the bottom of the pan is the friction Linings that make the transmission transmit uh um how much do we pay for this good transmission oh no the clutches in the pan oh my goodness that ain't going to hold 450 horse that ain't going to hold nothing there's no clutch material left that's a quar inch thick yeah didn't the guy say he ran just oh it ran great ran great when he pulled it yeah and then he added water to preserve it I I pulled apart 100,000 mile transmissions and not seen that in the bottom of the pan so basically forget about the entire list on the windshield and just remove trans I think so yeah I mean I I I don't think this is going to get us anywhere son of a biscuit eaten poodle hair so here's the thing we were in a pickle because the transmission that we picked up from Craigslist used turned out to be junk but keep this in mind I don't care where you are in the country you're always going to find the torque flight guy it's the guy who's been building them for years years and years and years he knows them inside and out and he may even have a couple ready to load up in your truck and take away and that's what happened here because boom just like that we rustled up another torque flight and this one I'll bet you it's going to be a lot better than the other one and we also got a higher stall converter so that smaller converter a flex plate the transmission and puts us right back in business hot delivery can't see nothing I hear stuff bending though I'm going to keep going there we are now officially right back where we started early this morning I Steve we ready to start this thing predictions it's going to fire right up hit the ignition press the button and let her rip there go down [Music] straight all right first time on the road in 45 years [Music] nilly well here we are Steve 4 days later we're in southern Missouri we found the 66 cornet it was sitting right there right in that spot Over Yonder I remember 45 years off the road I got to be honest normally I'm pretty humble about these things but we absolutely thrashed on this thing I mean what did we not touch other than the glass and maybe the stainless it's got new engine used transmission used torque inverter we put one or two used rear ends in we've got new brakes and brakes I mean wheel cylinders Hardware shoes drums all of the brake lines fuel lines fuel tank fuel sending units fuel filler neck radiator electric cooling fans BL blah blah I can't hear you anymore gauges and buttons and switches and dobs I mean pretty much everything I feel like I've been overworked here trick question yeah what do you think it's going to make it a Nashville that is a trick question of course it is how could it not that's just only has one answer well let's get started we've got 500 miles and a little less than a day and a half so we got to start making some Trails uh no we've got we got a lot of daylight each one of these is one hour 15 minutes finger okay I'm driving let's go teaching [Music] work oh [Music] [Music] nice oh yeah she's driving out don't hit that thing yeah don't hit that thing you weren sure which way we were going to go but you chose wisely yes that was pretty [Applause] [Music] good oh nilly that thing pulled pretty good up there all right 500 highway [Music] miles

Channel: MotorTrend Channel

Views: 363,658

Keywords: motortrend, motor trend, motor trend channel, automotive, auto, Dodge, 1966 Dodge, 1966 Dodge Cornet, Steve Dulcich, Vice Grip Garage, Roadworthy Rescues, Roadworthy Rescues New Episode, Roadworthy Rescues Full Episode, Roadworthy Rescues Full Season, Engine Masters, Roadkill Garage, Derek Bieri

Id: t8PrrDJDauY

Length: 19min 33sec (1173 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 24 2024