My dad owned a Jackhammer business, he was the guy the broke up your cement driveway. He had a 66 Dodge 3/4 ton Camper special pickup that he had an air compressor trailer mounted onto the back of. The old truck (even in 1980ish) had a poly 318, truck 4 speed with the granny low gear, and a 4:10 Sure Grip rear end. The old brute could go anyplace you had the guts to drive it to, but it was getting tired. Dad had replaced it with a 75 Dodge camper special. He sold me the 66 pretty cheap. Back then trucks had to pass a safety inspection every year to be able to drive it on the roads. It had a new safety inspection sticker on it when I bought it from dad. It passed the safety inspection the next year OK, but by the 2nd year, the inspector advised me he probably wouldn't pass it again. This was already at the most forgiving inspection site in town. As we neared that 3rd inspection date I was getting a bit nervous. One day I was approached by the son of the local Dodge dealer, he was younger then I was, and I knew him well. He wanted my truck, even when he knew it wouldn't pass the inspection. He had a trade in mind, my truck, even up for his 1966 Dodge Coronet. It had a 383 4 bbl and a 4 speed (with a 3:23 sure grip, I found out later)! Seems the big block and the 4 speed had gotten him in a bit of trouble. From a practical level, I had a wife and a child, that back seat was a big gain in popularity with my wife, we really did not need a truck at that time, the big block Mopar with a 4 speed sounded pretty good to me, and not having to have the truck pass safety inspection was icing on the cake. The trade was made (and I didn't care what he did with the truck). The old Coronet needed a few minor things fixed, it needed tires, and a tune up, bad. At that time, I was working at J.C. Penny Auto Center, tires were easy, and a tune up was an expected need of any vehicle I bought. We were a high volume center, and any tire any customer replaced and didn't want, was available to us working in the shop, should we want or need them. Winter was coming, I was able to pick up a couple of decent pairs of tires in pretty short order and could mount and balance them myself for free. The Coronet had rusted lower quarters, but other wise was in pretty decent shape. The 383 purred like a kitten (this was not my first big block Mopar), the little AFB didn't add a lot of punch, but it did add the 4bbl howl. I worked from noon until 9 pm, with an hour supper break at 6pm. That winter was a pretty cold winter. The Coronet had a bad habit of not wanting to start if the outside temp dropped below -7 degrees! At -6 it would start, at -7 it wouldn't. I didn't have any issues getting to work, but sometimes when it was time to go home, it wouldn't start! Very frustrating! I tried everything I could think of, and then I tried everything the other guys in the shop could think of, I even had our service manager in on the deal. We did a compression test, I rebuilt the carb, replaced the carb, rebuilt the ignition system, replaced the ignition system, replace the fuel pump, replaced all the rubber in the fuel lines, inspected the fuel lines. I replaced the starter, checked the resistance on everything between the battery and the coil. I reset the choke, removed the choke, tried a manual choke, tried no choke, completely stumped! I even talked with my old boss (he taught auto repair at the local collage). The motor would spin over until it killed the battery, at one point we killed 2 new fully charged batteries back to back. We had gas, we had speak, we had compression, but at -7, it wouldn't start. Some of those guys had been working on cars a long time. At some point, the guy out on the sales floor would watch the outside temp, when the temp got down to -6, he would let me know, and I would either start my car and let it run until quitting time, or I would pull it into one of the 8 shop stalls until it was nearly quitting time. we did figure out that if I started it about a 1/2 hour before quitting time and let it warm up, it would start when it was time to go home, regardless of the outside temp (the motor was still warmer). With the experience I've gained since back then, now I would have changed out the timing chain and gears and that probably would have solved the problem, but back then, a motor with around 70K miles one would have never expected a timing chain issue. The car was fun (when it started) and I really liked that 4 speed, but before the next winter, it was gone, sold off to buy a different Mopar. That 66 Coronet was my 1st big block Mopar with a 4 speed. I managed to have several more of them, and several small block 4 speed cars over the years.
Sorry, no pictures. The Coronet was black, or very, very dark blue, I think, maybe it had a counsel and black buckets (sooo many cars...), I do remember the reverse lock out lever on the T handle shifter (the only car I ever had with one of those). The truck was tan 3/4 ton 4 speed pickup. Neither was an outstanding example (as most of my stuff was), already by that time, they were just another old Mopar. After my 1st disastrous Buick (which was gone in a year), everything after that was a Mopar, lots of Mopar cars and trucks over the years. We always had a pretty nice Mopar for my wife to drive, because she hauled the kids (we were married 2 years before the oldest and she is 3 1/2 years older then the younger berother) most of the time. If I had a hot rod, it may, or may not have looked good, but was nearly always a performance era Mopar car, or Dodge truck. Then there was often a 3rd car that was for me to use to get back and forth to my real job, and for about the 1st 15 years of our life together, a Mopar dirt track hobby stock car. Those dirt track cars were the cause of so many Mopars passing through my hands. I discovered early in our dirt track racing that it was cheaper to buy cars rather then parts, then sell off the parts I didn't need. The 2nd (or 3rd, or both) vehicle(s) often had parts on it that the dirt track car might need. (I pulled the fuel pump off the station wagon tow car at the track one night and put it on the race car, then had to take it off the race car and put it back on the tow car before we could go home!) How long they remained on the street depended on how soon I might have needed the parts it had. I also had a very good relationship with the 4 or 5 junk yards in our area, I junked a lot of car and truck body shells, and they sent people looking for Mopar parts to me. Pictures of cars were not a high priority thing back then, many of the cars may not have been around long and the pictures probably would have been lost through many computer crashes over the years anyway. Backing up things like pictures was not something I thought much about then back then.
I haven't had many Mopar's but this one is my favorite. Purchased just the rough body in 1981 and said it would be my Hot Rod when I retire, and the kids were gone. Finished in 2022 and driving the crap out of it. Getting ready to retire soon!
The Jalopy Journal
