This car has been in several folks shops over the years. It’s been here about 6 months and it should be finished in about 90 days or thereabouts.
Here it is when we picked it up in November of last year. The car was completely disassembled with a lot of missing parts. But it still has it’s original transmission with VIN stamp. Unfortunately we had to search and find many parts of the engine.
It’s an Augusta Green XR-7. Fortunately we found a 1968 XR-7 parts car with the correct black interior and tilt - away to use for parts. Between the parts that came with the car and the parts car we had most of the suspension, trim and interior.
One of the most important parts of any restoration is panel alignment. In order to have an excellent result you can’t start with big alignment problems. As part of the process one of the first jobs was to rebuild the door hinges with new bushings and pins.
The XR-7 uses special door latch assemblies that incorporate a door ajar lamp switch. We had four from the two cars. All of them had a rusted or broken detent spring which had to be replaced in order that the lock knobs would stay up when unlocked. We got similar springs from the local Ace Hardware and cut them to length to make new ones.
Long lead time from when the order was received to when it was built (according to the Marti Report). Wonder if it was always intended to be an R code. No Dealer, or Dealer unknown to Marti?
The May 1968 date coded C scratch 428 engine block cleaned up at .040" over. It was checked for squareness, decked, and sonic checked for cylinder wall thickness. Custom forged pistons from Icon were used along with plasma moly ring set from Speed Pro. The rotating assembly was balanced before assembly. Original 428CJ rods were used with new ARP rod bolts and nuts. The rod bushings were replaced and the new bushings reamed to size.
This is one of those occasions when Kevin has the dealer code but no name for the dealer. No idea on the reason for the dates.
Looking at the dates again I realized that the 428CJ was not announced yet so it very well could be the order was originally placed for a 427 car. Interesting!
C8OE 6090-N heads with 8C7 and 8C11 dates were rebuilt with bronze guides, stainless 2.09 / 1.66" valves, new springs, retainers and keepers with PC seals. I tapped all the smog port holes to make sure installation would go smoothly.
There are lots of parts that make up an engine. Every one of them is important. Here are a few pictures from the assembly process.
Notice the windage tray. 1968 was the only year 428CJ that did not have one originally. I installed the windage tray in order to check clearance of the oil dipstick and pump. This one is from Milodon and fit fine.
We were lucky enough to find a New Old Stock 428CJ intake with March 1968 date code. This is how it looked before cleaning. Parts of the original cardboard box were still adhered to the intake.
The front suspension was coated in 50 + years of grease and road grime / tar. I took all of it apart and then delivered it to Auburn Cord Duesenberg company for wet bead blasting which they do for a very reasonable fee.
Many of the steering components were rebuilt by Chockostang. I cleaned the power steering pump tag before I shipped it out just to be able to document the tag data.
The water pump was rebuilt using parts from Dead Nuts On. Here’s the engine as it appears today. Many items including the water pump will be removed for ease of installation. For now it is expedient to store all the parts on the engine. It also is a good way to make sure it is all here.
After bead blasting the front suspension parts looked a lot better. We reassembled it all after painting with new bearings and seals.
