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"The Ghost" 65' 122s Project

how are your bushings? especially the rear trailing arm bushings, if they are worn they don't really talk under load, but when the load isn't there they speak up. U-Joints usually clunk pretty good when changing direction like rolling in reverse and taking off in a forward gear like backing out of your driveway. The rubber donut around the carrier bearing would also cause some shaking but it should be just speed related and not necessarily load related. The carrier bearing itself would be a rattlely sound with speed increases, but shouldnt be shaking like in the steering wheel. I'd also suspect that a wheel bearing or out of balance wheel would be more likely.
 
One engine mount is brand new. Haven't done a compression test since I've had the car running. I need to.
Chris, thanks. I'll check those items out and will see how they look. I think the trailing arm bushings are shot iirc.
 
One engine mount is brand new. Haven't done a compression test since I've had the car running. I need to.
Chris, thanks. I'll check those items out and will see how they look. I think the trailing arm bushings are shot iirc.

as far as I can think, the compression test isnt going to tell you anything about a speed related shaking issue. So I'd save that for another time. The wheels being out of balance seems most likely to me, especially the rear, I know that your feeling the shake in the steering wheel, but I'm thinking that a rear wheel is the culprit. Then bearings, like the wheel bearings, then bushings/ball joints, then carrier bearing, then u joints (but if they dont clunk really hard when switching from rolling backward to forward I'd assume that these are fine)
 
Yea the compression test was more for general info then the vibration. The motor is smooth under load. Loud but smooth haha.
It's not really in the steering wheel. It's like the whole car shakes haha. Seems like it's coming from the back. Odd the wheels would be out of balance with the bb's they put in them. Guess it's possible though. I havnt ever tried putting it in reverse then forward again without coming to a complete stop. I do know it kinda thumps when I really hammer it through the gears. Like it has ujoint play. But idk.
 
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I do know it kinda thumps when I really hammer it through the gears. Like it has uniontown play. But idk.

thats the carrier bearing support, pretty normal since it has a bit of give, but unless the driveshaft is also out of balance, I dont think it would be too noticeable.
 
Well I'll put the stock wheels/tires on tomorrow and will inspect the rear bushings. I'll let you know what I find.
 
Well it's the front wheels. I'm thinking it was my grinder modification haha. Now to find a lathe large enough to even it out. Whoops, oh well they were cheap.
 
The mounting flange on those dodge wheels is almost 1" thick. Well at the outer perimeters it rubs the front calipers. I'll try to post a pic.
 
Even if you took the grinder to them, the wheel balancer should have adjusted for it. I've seen aluminum wheels that were like 3oz off with no tire.
 
Time to update this thread. The shaking was because the Yokohama Avid Envigor tires I purchased new from Tirerack we're factory defects. They refunded me, but I was out the shipping cost and the cost to repeatedly mount and balance as I chased the mystery vibration. Lesson learned, wont buy Yokohama again!
 
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Its BACK!!!
A lot has happened with this car since I updated the thread. After it became my daily driver for about a year I found out it had holes in 2 of the pistons. It still got me back and fourth to work 20 miles each way in the mountains for about month or so, just a littler slower then before haha.

Shortly there after I ended up buying a 142 with a mildly built motor and swapped it into the car in a night to have it ready for a friends wedding the next day. Risky, but it turned out! The result however was some half-way rushed work that would haunt the car for several years. Then the typical story, life got busy, new job, moved and had a kid. The car mostly sat for almost 4 years! However; now that story is changing and I hope to actually keep up with this thread. I started working on it again about a year ago and just got it on the road about a week ago.

This is the car as of last week:

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The first issue (other then old fuel) coming out of its slumber was the brake system. The front brakes needed to be replaced and I was not thrilled about the cost of a full stock rebuild for mild braking ability, not to mention I enjoy frustrating myself. So with that I decided to swap the front brakes. A friend of mine had done a similar swap on his 24 hrs Lemons car and had some templates for the caliper mounts. I took those, made some changes and modeled up new brackets to mount 99-04 Mustang GT calipers/pads/rotors using the stock hubs/bearing assembly. The mustang parts are readily available and performance upgrades are affordable. It took some time but I eventually got it all fitted up. Then the real headache began, bleeding the brakes. The original system was single circuit, I wasn't a fan and decided I should go dual circuit for added security. At $140+ for a dual circuit MC from IPD I opted to go for the rx7 MC (13/16" bore) swap many of you have read about. Bad idea, pedal feel was all wrong and the cheap MC stripped a fitting. After a lot of wasted time I ordered the MC from IPD (7/8" bore). I was all excited and began the install process again and could not get the system bled. I tried everything, power bleeders, friends helping, the bottle of fluid trick, etc etc. I pulled the calipers countless times, inspected the lines, test drove and still terrible pedal feel and more importantly squishy brakes! Finally I determined that it had to be a bad seal inside my new MC. (Still in the process of this warranty claim). Either way I wasn't going to let this car sit any longer. I ordered a wilwood unit that matched what I thought I needed based on my calculations. After bleeding (It actually worked this time) I took it out for a test drive. WOW! This things stops incredibly now!

Oh I forgot to mention, new wheels and tires too!
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I decided to upgrade the sway bar and reinforce the sway bar mounts while I was at it.

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Ignore the ugly line routing. I'll clean that up later, I wasnt going to make special lines since this was the 3rd try haha
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Also if your clutch or brake pedals don't travel/return smoothly you should take a look at the pivot bolt and bushing. I cleaned mine up and it really helped the pedal return.

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More pics to come of the brake swap when I get them off my other computer.
 
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Now that the car was operational again I noticed it was running super rich and lacking power.

Specs on that warmed up motor I mentioned before:
-b18 high compression bottom end (stock)
-professionally ported/polished b20F head
-upgraded valve springs
-vv71 camshaft
-lifters
-weber dcoe 45's with long intake runners
- 4-2-1 exhaust header

In the middle of working this out now, but I suspect the cheapo Mr. Gasket fpr went bad after years of sitting in ethanol. I checked the carbs and adjusted the floats as well. But if these carbs get more then 3psi they flood. Here is the new FPR, gauge, soft lines and filter. Still need to test the new setup. Please excuse the messy engine bay haha

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Another thing I noticed after driving it to work for the first time in 4 years was that the exhaust sounded like garbage and it would hit the rear axle/floor pans going over bumps. This was the exhaust that was built out of scrap to have this thing wedding ready in a night haha. Under axle and junk, time to go! In the pic its the parts circled in blue, the new parts are scattered in between. I'm going full 2.5" with a Borla ProXS muffler and Magnaflow resonator/muffler. Decided to put a couple vband connections in the system for easy removal later. Still in progress and waiting on some parts.

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New proper over axle pipe I welded up.

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I also grabbed a rusty red 122 that hadn't run in 15+ years with no title or keys that had a black interior, b20 and m41 OD trans. I swapped the interior and transmission into my car but just couldn't bring myself to part/scrap the red car. Too rusty to restore and without title I decided to make it a weekend rallyx car. I rebuilt the su's, built a makeshift wiring harness with push button start, added a side exit exhaust, and welded the rear end. I must admit the old thing runs great and I'm excited to mess with it more as things progress. Also excited about its donation of an m41 setup!

I'll add a pic of that car here later.
 
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