Ownership Verified: The horribly-behind-schedule family project car - 1968 Plymouth GTX 426

My favorite muscle car! Those things are loud with straight pipes.
 
Der Stig said:
HEEEEEEEEEEEEMMMMMIIIIIII!!!!!!!

:thumbsup: :woot:

One of my favorite muscle cars is your folks' car's sister, the Roadrunner, although mine would be "Plain Jane" black on black with a 426 Hemi and a 4 speed :D
Click to expand...

It's a fact: all B-bodies are made of solidified awesome. :D


cdbob said:
My favorite muscle car! Those things are loud with straight pipes.
Click to expand...


Yes indeed; Plymouth's ads for the GTX quite rightly said "It goes Rumpety-Rumpety-Rump." We don't have an exhaust system picked out yet, but the first drives around the neighborhood will be with open headers. :lol:

Edit: Found a low-res pic of that ad

e66ae5f8.jpg
 
Last edited:
FUCKIN' AWESOME! :thumbsup:
 
So apparently "monthly" is my projected update schedule... go figure. Anyway,


The wiring harnesses continued to unravel as we discovered more wiring "improvements" that had been made. Most harnesses got tossed in the trash.
3af2bbe7.jpg



We'd purchased a battery/starter harness back in like 2003 for a '68 426 auto, which it was tagged as. Sadly, upon looking it over I discovered it's actually for a manual trans and just mislabeled. Sigh. It'll get thrown on eBay and we ordered the correct harness in the meantime.
6d2f6d19.jpg



Yet another Year One shipment. Fuel lines, sound deadening, door seals, glove box liner, etc etc. Not the first box and definitely not the last. Not pictured: all the new interior upholstery.
239dcf56.jpg



Once more into the void. I had my doubts it would fit with the headers installed, but what the hell, might as well try.
0604d02c.jpg

21b4816d.jpg



DAT ENGINE
a9b9cf75.jpg



We figured the easiest and safest method would be to hoist the engine and slide the car underneath it.
63c5ce24.jpg

7b4bdddc.jpg

8a591491.jpg

63ef689b.jpg



NEWS FLASH: That thing isn't gonna fit with all of the exhaust attached.
e6615af1.jpg



So we detached the driver's side header and pressed onward.
1d4e12af.jpg

5f6d5850.jpg



We got about this far and determined that the passenger side header wasn't going to fit like that either, so we took it off as well.
ff5fac60.jpg

81114ad1.jpg



After much yanking, levering, twisting, and in some cases hitting with a hammer, it finally went in.
a9718d74.jpg

d97506ca.jpg

0e013e48.jpg


You can see how the headers really don't have much clearance down there.
c72b292e.jpg



So afterwards we managed to get the passenger side header installed, but I have issues with the driver's side. On that side, there's a brake line fitting box that has a couple of hard brake lines running to/from it, and it happens to be located exactly where the header wraps under the frame rail - if installed as-is, the brake lines would run about half an inch from one of the (extremely hot) tubes, which as you can probably guess falls squarely into the "bad idea" category. I'm going to have to reroute the brake lines and fitting up the side of the frame rail instead. Aside from that, we salvaged a pair of horns and shift linkage parts form a junked '68 Satellite, but have yet to track down the drive shaft that went missing during it's stay at the paint shop.
 
Last edited:
It's official, I love this car.
Not surprising on the lack of header clearance though, the HEMI is a massive engine, looks like it barely even fits in your engine compartment.
This thing is going to be ?ber awesome when you finish it though, I'm crazy jealous at the moment lol
 
FUCKING AWESOME
 
Damn that's a cool car.
Those headers look awesome.
 
Cool project man. I might of missed it but what transmission are you using? It has such a freakishly long tailshaft. Out of curiousity, why was it sitting in a paint shop for 15 years? I know you said other things to do but surely the paint shop coul turn work around more quickly? Were they just waiting on you guys?
 
airmenair said:
Cool project man. I might of missed it but what transmission are you using? It has such a freakishly long tailshaft. Out of curiousity, why was it sitting in a paint shop for 15 years? I know you said other things to do but surely the paint shop coul turn work around more quickly? Were they just waiting on you guys?
Click to expand...

Just the Hemi version of the 727 Torqueflite transmission, all the 727s of that era had that huge tailshaft for some reason. No, the paint shop wasn't waiting on us, it was just a lot of excuses and we weren't hounding him since we were working on other projects for most of that period.
 
Hell yeah, I like these things more than the Chargers. GTX, the Gentleman's Racer!

101plymouthAd.jpg


70rtsad2.jpg
 
So, long time, no update. Unfortunately, no progress either. Most of the time that would have been spent on the GTX has been spent finishing up all the little detail bits on the GT500 to get it ready for auction - it'll be sold at Russo and Steele in January. It will be shipped down to the States in the next few days, so once that's out of our hair we'll be able to get back to the GTX. The GT350 is also due for some refurb (new paint at the least) so that will have to get done at some point as well.

D3C_1848_zps975c97fd.jpg


D3C_1709_zpsf02ad935.jpg


D3C_1771_zps04335a60.jpg


D3C_1777_zps52deef5b.jpg


D3C_1814_zps45bb19fe.jpg


D3C_1827_zps9ac01a5e.jpg
 
Discovered the headers are definitely designed for a manual steering box, not a power unit. Had to do some calibrating (read: hammer-beating) to get the frontmost tube to fit. Rearmost tube will require rerouting a brake line to fit, which shouldn't be too tough.

Home sweet home!

DSC_0385s.jpg
 
Awesome garage!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top