If the radiator is at all questionable, I would R&R it. Cheap insurance.
66 Valiant
- Thread starter urrlord
- Start date
Had a '62 Lancer in 1968. Didn't even remember that Valiant started out as a single brand dished out to Dodge and Plymouth dealers for a year or so until they came up with the Lancer. Think I liked the front end clip of the Valiant better. Traded it for a 1969 Fiat 124 Sportcoupe. Remember it being unremarkable but reliable, which was a big change from the Fiat which was remarkable and unreliable. Those slant sixes were unbreakable.
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- Nov 19, 2020
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Brings back great memories. My first car, given to me by my grandmother so I could commute to college and work on the weekends, was a 10 year old 1963 Plymouth Valiant v200. 170 cubic inch slant 6 with Torqueflite (sp?) push button transmission. It was a light metallic blue with absolutely no gloss on the horizontal surfaces. No rust, remarkably as it was a New England car. 4 40 air conditioning (4 windows down, 40 mph). Nice two tone vinyl seats, an upgrade from the v100 cloth seats, AM radio. To get fresh air into the car there were small doors under the dash that could be opened to let air in. Definitely a bare bones car but I was ecstatic to get it and enjoyed every minute I owned it.
I learned to do most maintenance on this car (mostly because I had 0 dollars lol). Oil changes were Quaker State 10w30 with the cheapest filter I could find. Fram, Lee, whatever K Mart had on sale. I was able to do yearly tune ups with spark plugs, points, condenser and rotor. Timing also. Great skills but useless now, except oil changes.
Sold the the car after I finished my residency In 1980. Had 165K miles and still running well. Never changed the transmission fluid. Never new it needed to be done! lol Wish I had kept it.
I learned to do most maintenance on this car (mostly because I had 0 dollars lol). Oil changes were Quaker State 10w30 with the cheapest filter I could find. Fram, Lee, whatever K Mart had on sale. I was able to do yearly tune ups with spark plugs, points, condenser and rotor. Timing also. Great skills but useless now, except oil changes.
Sold the the car after I finished my residency In 1980. Had 165K miles and still running well. Never changed the transmission fluid. Never new it needed to be done! lol Wish I had kept it.
The anti theft device.
A big flex fan even without a shroud will move a lot of air through the rad.
Pics as requested
Too bad Earl Scheib is (mostly) gone. This thing cries out for one of those great one day paint jobs, extra $ to put it in the oven.
To address some of the posts.Here goes'
I've owned 3 Dodge trucks with slants. The 74 and 82 were great the 86 (my only new vehicle purchase)was a dog. I think they are good engines . I did a good bit of stuff on the earlier ones.In fact I upgraded the carb, fan,radiator and added a shroud from junkyard trips on the 74. I still have those parts out back. I'll be doing some work with a tape measure to see if I can use them on the Valiant.The Valiant cooling system is rather cramped in the front.
I used to hang around slantsix.org til some mods tee'd me off.May end up going back there as my experience with slants has been in trucks and will probably need some guidance.
I have always wanted a classic car and cannot afford most of them or they are too far gone for me.I had been looking for a Valiant or a Falcon.I happen to think the Valiants look better. My wife does not concur with that ,in fact she was a little ticked off about this purchase.
I have her half convinced that I can handle this.LOL. It's going to be a lot of work and probably a grand or two invested.
I've got a funeral and work the rest of the week ,so anything with the car will be sporadic this week.
I've owned 3 Dodge trucks with slants. The 74 and 82 were great the 86 (my only new vehicle purchase)was a dog. I think they are good engines . I did a good bit of stuff on the earlier ones.In fact I upgraded the carb, fan,radiator and added a shroud from junkyard trips on the 74. I still have those parts out back. I'll be doing some work with a tape measure to see if I can use them on the Valiant.The Valiant cooling system is rather cramped in the front.
I used to hang around slantsix.org til some mods tee'd me off.May end up going back there as my experience with slants has been in trucks and will probably need some guidance.
I have always wanted a classic car and cannot afford most of them or they are too far gone for me.I had been looking for a Valiant or a Falcon.I happen to think the Valiants look better. My wife does not concur with that ,in fact she was a little ticked off about this purchase.
I have her half convinced that I can handle this.LOL. It's going to be a lot of work and probably a grand or two invested.
I've got a funeral and work the rest of the week ,so anything with the car will be sporadic this week.
Op, I don't want to hijack your thread, and I've posted about this before, but your thread brings back memories. Back in the seventies one of my cousins bought a '60s valiant and if I remember correctly I think the engine size was 160, anyhow his brother had a big old Newport that was rusted out and just parked sitting waiting for them to take it to the junkyard someday, and he got the bright idea of pulling the 383 and trany out of the Newport and dropping it the Valiant. They had to do some makeshift fitting between the back of the tranny to the rear end of the Valiant and the first time they got it running and really stomped on it they blew the rear end right out of the Valiant. So he took the rear end out of the Newport and took it to work at a steel mill he worked at and had somebody reduce the width of it and then they put that in the Valiant. Then one night when he had three other guys in the car he was coming up 18th Street and he opened it up and lost control of it and went up a hillside and rolled it over sideways onto its roof. They all got out and uprighted it and it wouldn't start because the fluid had drained out of the battery. So he drifted it down 18th Street and believe it or not caught it in gear even though it was an automatic. That was one strange thing to do but apparently there was a particular transmission that Chrysler made for a while that you could get away with catching it in gear, and he got it going again and turned around and came up the hill and picked up the the three guys he had left standing there.
After that he decided to junk it. I do remember that he had cut out the crossmember and engine mounts from the Newport and welded those into the Valiant before they dropped the 383 into the Valiant. He also put headers that he had laying around on the 383 but he had to pound in a little bit of the headers and also take a sledgehammer to the wheel wells of the Valiant to get the headers to fit. When he rolled it over the welds he had made himself for the crossmember from the Newport to the Valiant, broke, and I think that was one of the deciding factors for him to junk it.
That engine and transmission that he put in probably weighed more than the whole Valiant weighed before he started on it. I don't remember what he had to do to the front end to get it the handle the weight but I do remember he had to do a few things to it. I mean that 383 was a huge engine under that huge hood of the Newport and putting it in that little Valiant really took a lot of guts to even think of about trying to get it to fit.
After that he decided to junk it. I do remember that he had cut out the crossmember and engine mounts from the Newport and welded those into the Valiant before they dropped the 383 into the Valiant. He also put headers that he had laying around on the 383 but he had to pound in a little bit of the headers and also take a sledgehammer to the wheel wells of the Valiant to get the headers to fit. When he rolled it over the welds he had made himself for the crossmember from the Newport to the Valiant, broke, and I think that was one of the deciding factors for him to junk it.
That engine and transmission that he put in probably weighed more than the whole Valiant weighed before he started on it. I don't remember what he had to do to the front end to get it the handle the weight but I do remember he had to do a few things to it. I mean that 383 was a huge engine under that huge hood of the Newport and putting it in that little Valiant really took a lot of guts to even think of about trying to get it to fit.
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3 on the tree when it first appeared was considered an upgrade from 3 on the floor. You didn't have to move your right hand so far off of the wheel to shift. Also made it much easier to get frisky with your sweetie.
IMO a rare surviving 2 door. Most of the ones left are 4 doors. Good luck on your quest.
The slant 6 is indestructable. I had a 1975 Plymouth Volare with a slant 6.
Bought it as a beater, don't recall how many miles were on it but it burned a lot of oil. I used to change the oil out of my Harley and put that 20w-50 in the Volare.
Anyways, when it came time to get rid of the car, my buddy and I decided to blow up the motor. So I started the engine, and wedged a 2x4 on the gas pedal. It ran for quite awhile, then stumbled and quit. No bang, no blow up. We let it sit for a short time and it started right back up. We could not blow that thing up LOL
Bought it as a beater, don't recall how many miles were on it but it burned a lot of oil. I used to change the oil out of my Harley and put that 20w-50 in the Volare.
Anyways, when it came time to get rid of the car, my buddy and I decided to blow up the motor. So I started the engine, and wedged a 2x4 on the gas pedal. It ran for quite awhile, then stumbled and quit. No bang, no blow up. We let it sit for a short time and it started right back up. We could not blow that thing up LOL
A student in a high school power mechanics class was able to. It ran wide open on a stand. It only took a few seconds to put a rod through the block. Of course, it may have had something to do with the quality of the reassembly.
In and up for reverse, down and in for first, up and forward for second and down and forward for third. Clutching in between.
My parent's new 63 Dart Wagon had to be towed back to the dealer because that linkage hung up.
The problem seems to have been baked in from the factory.
I fought mine for years in the Valiant until I adapted the stouter z bar from the -67 & up [available from Classic Car Industries, btw].
Wish I had known about the vise grips...
I saw an old Slant Six being run without oil after having been treated to some sort of snake oil. They were selling the snake oil... [Dura-Lube...? '80s, early '90s] at the Rose Bowl Swap Meet in Pasadena. The demonstration drew a crowd and I bet they sold a ton of it.
IIRC there was a late night TV ad that used the same gimmick. And a Slant Six
Sort of like the Vita-Mix demos at the LA Auto Show back in the '70s. Live, interactive info-mercials.
Congratulations. I have loved mine and still do.
My entire automotive philosophy is anchored in the type of car the Valiant represents [as influential as the books "Why Trade It In?" and "Drive It Forever"].
One of the best things I have done to mine is adding a Pertronix electronic ignition. Almost instant starts.
And yes... to another poster, dropping a screw in a distributor is a very real risk......
Classic Auto Industries has a lot of reproduction parts for A Bodies and their catalog is huge. Even sheet metal, door cards, upholstery, wiper gaskets and arms...
They have stuff for early Valiants and Darts people would have laughed at the idea of anyone ever producing for them 30 years ago.
Actually, they used to laugh at cars like this ever developing a following as "classic" cars.
Mine has survived my ham handed mechanics for many years. I am sure your skills and instincts are far better than mine since you have worked on Mopar trucks.
Looking forward to seeing your progress.
I want to say, that used to be a popular thing. I used to marvel at it, then I came across someone's webpage where they admitted, as kids, they tried to destroy a B&S motor by trying all sorts of "oil" in it. At one point they got down to water, and it ran happily on it--well, until it boiled off all the water. It'd seize up, then they'd let it cool, and then they soldier on, again.
Some time later I came across a test for the slick 50, where again they ran it, I think in an B&S motor again. Thing is, they did it in a lab with a control subject that hadn't been treated with slick 50. Both went 50 hours or whatever, at full 3,600rpm (but no load). After that I wasn't so impressed with slick 50.
Not too many inline motors left to blow anymore. Most of 'em were so choked up on intake and exhaust that they really couldn't rev high enough to hurt themselves, even unloaded. Might be a more interesting test, pull some V8's out and rerun these snake lube tests, my money is on the answer being found in a much shorter time.
