Like a lot of cars and bikes that have become ''collectible'' and fetch stupid prices....and legends of no substance - they were pretty common and just cars in their day.Valiants of that era were pretty crappy,bad interiors....I welded many seats back together,and top inners ripped out of the chassis.I never liked the 6 cyl Hemi - the Slant 6 was one of the best engines ever made,the Hemi was a piece of shit in comparison.Too much cam gear end float caused a rattle and gave fluctuating timing,and a surge.Head gaskets were common,and gasket sets came with a recommendation to use Hyloma as a sealer.They had no cranking vacuum and so were a real shit to get tuned for gas....using a manometer you had to restrict the intake down to about 20mm to get enough signal to suck the gas.
Last one I worked on was a resto.....we did the mechanicals,pulled the engine,did the twin plate clutch,brakes,including the internal pipe down the sill.It was still a pain to set those triple Webers up,I prefered the SU's.I couldn't get filters,and had to get some foam ones made up locally.An old friend of mine sold his one a few years ago - it was a real sleeper,made to do the Auck/Well run back in the '80's.It was turbo'd,putting out 450hp and over 500ft/lbs of torque,a huge custom tank in the boot...funny making a sleeper out of a performance car,but this thing was really fast.
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