11 minutes ago, Ringo64 said:

You can have at minimum 20F from us.

Send it!

I installed the Petty Garage front strut tower brace tonight. It was easy but it didn’t take me 5 minutes Fitzy. I had to install it, mark an area on the upper support brace, drill a 1/4” and then a 5/16” hole through both sides of the brace and install the through bolt.

Drilling the through bolt. I torn up my ring finger. Once i got through the brace, my left hand scraped the engine cover and torn my knuckle. 
 

Nuts torqued to 35 ft-lbs. Covers put back on.

i have not test drove the car yet! Hopefully the rains will hold off this weekend long enough to take her out.

Edited March 28, 20251 yr by Frosty

Ah !!! Blood sweet and beers 🍺 

well done frosty , all boxes ticked ✅ 

SO IT WAS REALLY A PETTY JOB AFTER ALL LOL

Yes Joe! A Richard “The King” Petty job too!

Not sure what to get next before Power Tour…..a short throw shifter or a rear strut brace. Both are relatively expensive and I am not finding any used or fire sales on Craigslist, eBay, or Marketplace for any of it. Brace is around $270, and the shifter is $450. Can’t afford both before PT. The new shoes blew most of my budget for Violet for this year.

Edited March 28, 20251 yr by Frosty

On the up side frosty 

you won’t need to buy tires for years again 😜

Look great bro.

22 hours ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

On the up side frosty 

you won’t need to buy tires for years again 😜

WHAT! thats a sad sad statement LOL maybe i can bring him to the smokey side!

You been busy while I've been gone! Looks good! 30 years ago I would see a lot of tickets in your future!

22 minutes ago, Last Indian said:

You been busy while I've been gone! Looks good! 30 years ago I would see a lot of tickets in your future!

That’s only because I am not yet retired! That will change later this year.

Interesting article about what a turd the new Dodge Charger EV has been this year. I have also included the link RacerX is quoting from, for reference. So they sold under 2000 units in the US and Canada and sold as many or more left over 2023 Chargers and Challengers.

He has reported in previous videos what quality issues Dodge is having with these cars, with some of them becoming "bricks" (e.g. they don't run, the dealership/Dodge is unable to figure our what is wrong with them so they sit like bricks at the dealership or in people's driveways).

 

https://moparinsiders.com/dodges-electric-charger-daytona-faces-sales-struggles-in-early-2025/

 

This is the main reason Stellantis/Dodge is scrambling to bring back some sort of ICE powertrain back the new Charger. I think this is a case of (A) Stellantis not doing enough quality control on their new EV and (B) walking away from the HEMI/V6 RWD Challengers or Charges without a viable hybird alternative to pick up the sales slack that discontinuing this old platform generated. 

Edited April 11, 20251 yr by Frosty

I thought I’d get more done today since the weather finally cooperated. I bought some front splitter guards off of Amazon for $25. This was a five minute job Fitzy! They slip over the splitter and are retained with a single push pin/tab that goes in a pre-existing hole! Easy pezzy!

 

When I backed Violet out of the garage, I was getting a low tire pressure warning on the LF tire. New tires, only a couple of weeks old? No way!

Turns out I have a bad LR sensor. So I am spending my valuable wrench time sitting in the tire shop to get a new wheel sensor installed and the sensors reset. Ugh!

Edited April 12, 20251 yr by Frosty

Believe the guards are factory.  Wifes friend had me remove them after bumping something and it was hangin off her new car with less than 40 miles on it.   If they were mine, I'd paint em black.  Justa me. 

I actually like the contrast between the yellow and black.

A lot of Challengers and Chargers you see on the road have a yellow or green stripe all the way around the bottom of their air splitter. They, or the dealer, have failed to remove the shipping guard that is used to protect the splitter while in transit. This can eventually damage the splitter due to it's rigidity and weight. The guards I got are a couple of ounces and are easily removable.

There are also aftermarket guard pieces that go across the splitter that looks like the factory shipping guard but are actually much lighter and more flexible.

no matter what you do its going to get curbed Frosty !

i am as careful as possible and still i have scuffed the bottom of my splittter !

i simply clean it up with a file .

I hear you Kiwi. I get it!

I justa hit send on my order from Summit Racing. I justa ordered a Barton short throw shifter for Violet. I could not find any deals online on Marketplace, eBay, Craigslist, nothing. So I bit the bullet and ordered a new one. So $500 later….I should have it before the weekend. This is the cheapest one I could find and it lets me keep my Hurst pistol grip handle.

Edited April 15, 20251 yr by Frosty

4 hours ago, Frosty said:

I hear you Kiwi. I get it!

I justa hit send on my order from Summit Racing. I justa ordered a Barton short throw shifter for Violet. I could not find any deals online on Marketplace, eBay, Craigslist, nothing. So I bit the bullet and ordered a new one. So $500 later….I should have it before the weekend. This is the cheapest one I could find and it lets me keep my Hurst pistol grip handle.

love it !!!!

they are a cool car aye 

we went to wanganui for a cruise in the camaro last friday ... we got as far as the gas station and my power steer pump stopped working ... long shory short we crawled home and swapped cars, n  took the cat ! the boss was very happy, it was stinkling hot, on went the cool air to the seats , up went the sounds... i love pluging a stick in the usb port in the centre consul with alllllll my old music on it !!! . hit launch button and we flew for 3 hours in pure comfort 

with a nice wurrrrrr of that hair dryer under the hood humming its fav tune 

My package from Summit Racing came today!

2 hours ago, Frosty said:

My package from Summit Racing came today!

Where’s the pics ??????

I haven’t open the box yet. Had to deal with the grandson the rest of the evening.

On 4/16/2025 at 8:51 PM, 64 kiwi boni said:

Where’s the pics ??????

Here you go Kiwi! Fresh out if the box!

 

 

 

I hope to have some wrench time tomorrow (Saturday) to finish some things on Lucy and then start installing this into Violet.

Edited April 18, 20251 yr by Frosty

I knew I smelt pictures! Nice pretties Sir Frosty.

Ewwwww flash as man ! 

Today I spent wrestling the old shifter out and the new Barton short throw shifter in. I do mean wrestle. I watched 3-4 different installation videos for this and they make disassembly and removal of the old shifter look easy peasy. Ah no.

First you have to wrestle off the shift boot ring. Pops right out? Oh hell no. I had to use interior pry tools to get one end started before the rest popped out.

Now we remove the top console piece and disconnect the electrical connection on the back, Again plastic pry tools needed here.

Now we have to remove two screws at the back of the console (we have to move both front seats all the way forward to get to them) and two Philllips screws at the front. That was easy peasy. Now remove 2 more electrical connections. Then you remove an AC tube that runs along the passenger side of the console.

Now we peel back this plastic rubber mat to get to the metal shifter cover plate. Remove 6-10mm screws. Remove 1-13mm retaining screw to the shifter. Remove the metal plate. Now we have access to the shifter.

Now the real fun begins. The stock shifter is held in by a 10mm bolt to the reverse switch and two retaining pins at the front two forks. Getting the driver side out is easy. The passenger is terrible! There is exactly enough room for the pin to slide out of the passenger side. Be careful not to drop it or falls past the transmission to the floor! 

Yes! I finally have the old shifter out. Here is a side-by-side comparison of the new and old stock shifters. Note the 13mm screw at the back of the shifter. That becomes important later. The four screw holes on the back of the new shifter mount a special adaptor plate for the stick shifter handle.

Now the real wrestling begins - get the two front alignment pins in - especially the passenger side. I suspect I spent an hour plus getting them in. Driver's side was not too bad. Passenger side was a bugger! I ended up taking that pin to a grinder and took a couple of millimeters off it so I could swing it into position easier. Finally I got the passenger side pin in.

I must have dropped that damn passenger side pin at least 20 times onto the ground. Each time I had to climb out of the passenger seat, grab my magnetic wand, crawl under the car, get the pin and try again. There were a lot of cuss words too.

I bolted up the 10mm reverse throw screw. 

The new shifter is finally in. However the fight was not over.

The next fight was the new plastic rubber gasket that came with the shifter. It goes between the shifter and the black metal retaining plate. 

By this time, my son had showed up to the garage mahal. He came to swap his Hummer for his Silverado 2500 High Country pickup. He jumped in and helped me. As God is my witness, it took both of us, four hands to wrestle that new gasket on the metal plate and over the shifter and put the plate in place without the gasket popping out of place. It tooks us at least 5 attempts before we got it right.

We screwed on the 6-10mm bolts and threaded on the 13mm locator bolt. Put the rubber cover back on. Now we put the console back on. The shifter has a special mounting plate that adapts the stock shifter handle to the shifter. You are allowed to mount the shifter straight up or up to about 30 degrees toward the driver or 30 degrees towards the passenger. We installed the shifter handle straight up for how. Popping off the shifter boot allows you access to the bolts to adjust the shifter position.

AC tube re-installed, the main console screwed back into place, and electrical connections reconnected. Shifter boot on!

We are done, or so I thought.

Jacob and I went for a test drive to our local Auto Zone for some Stabil gas stabilizer for his Hummer's storage over the summer. It was definitely a different feel and much shorter throw. However when we got back, we were getting a bad vibration and the shifter was sinking down into the console. As I was putting the car away for the night I realized that we never tightened up that 13mm locating nut at the back of the shifter! Duh! I suspect the test drive knocked it loose! So now I have to take part of the console apart again to get to that screw and nut. Argh!

 

Obviously I will get back to it later this week.

 

well done mate !!!! 

at least pulling the trim off the second time will be wayyyyy easyier 

 

The question is .... do you like the short shift ?????