1969 Dart Street/Strip (Re)Build

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looks great ! will be kick a$$ w/ a flat , or satin black hood. I have used the john deere black and like it too. it`s what mine was before it went to the body shop. I always made my hood pins out of alum. 3/8" rod, and bought the small safety pins at attwoods. run 3 front,three back, and two in the center of each side(especially w/ a scoop.) tried four , one in each corner back in the day on the hemi, the hood raised up so far , I thot it was going to tear it off, made 1 run that day. don`t let people tell u that a 6 pack , or hemi style scoop won`t take in some air! there is NO DOUBT IN MY MIND, u couldn`t install hoodpins, w/ all you`ve done to that car! I tried the alum.button safety latches about the size of a quarter. they are neat , but hard to get right and will cause you to scar ur paint up if putting the hood on by urself. only have one in the front center now. will look forward to next November.

Yep I think I could do it. Just need to plan it out and know exactly what I want and learn how to do it before I go diving in. Looking forward to seeing your car next year!
 
Yep I think I could do it. Just need to plan it out and know exactly what I want and learn how to do it before I go diving in. Looking forward to seeing your car next year!
ity ain`t bad , "but is not as nice as yours." hope I get the glitch out of the fuel inj. and broke in. being sick and cold weather sucks ! feeling better now. now about that cold weather!?!
 
A little video that is long past due. This was taken during the same trip when the car was in the wreck. Camera died just a few minutes too early lol.

 
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A little video that is long past due. This was taken during the same trip when the car was in the wreck. Camera died just a few minutes too early lol.


I had about as much fun as your rider did ! STRONG small block, solid. but< you need to tighten that mirror up !
 
leave the mirror alone....it is a good indicator when you go to warp speed.
 
Mopars at the Park 2016. Reaction time killed me but it was still fun.

 
Looks like a Comp Engineering anti roll bar under there. I've thought of installing one but have never talked to anyone that had one. Do you like it and what has your experience been with it; track and street?
 
A little video that is long past due. This was taken during the same trip when the car was in the wreck. Camera died just a few minutes too early lol.



That ***** runs strong! Your end of video credits cracked me up. I have to promise on my life I won't get on my dart when and if my wife rides anywhere with me.
 
Looks like a Comp Engineering anti roll bar under there. I've thought of installing one but have never talked to anyone that had one. Do you like it and what has your experience been with it; track and street?
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Looks like a Comp Engineering anti roll bar under there. I've thought of installing one but have never talked to anyone that had one. Do you like it and what has your experience been with it; track and street?

Yes that's what it is. The car used to roll really bad in corners and tires would rub the wheel wells. After the bar was installed it solved that problem. At the track it seems to keep the car straight and keeps the axle from twisting away from the car. But what I do notice around town is that I'm getting a clunking sound if the car shifts left to right suddenly. What I think this is, is that there is just a small amount of slop between the teeth that are welded on the bar and the aluminum arm. There is a set screw that screws through the arm and into the welded in "cog" piece (if you will) and it's not really a great design to keep things tight. The set screw merely wedges against a smooth surface on that cog and doesn't truly hold IMO. My fix is to partially drill into that cog where the set screw is so that there is a positive fit and no way for the set screw to keep sliding back and forth. I think this should take the slop out and eliminate the clunking I hear at times. If it doesn't eliminate it, then the slop has to be in the links between the heims and bolts. Will have to wait for the verdict on that. But otherwise it seems to work well. If you're wanting something more "street friendly", probably a rubber mounted setup would be better to not transfer noise through the car.
 
You can't see it here but that cog or gear, whatever you want to call it, has a smoothed area in the center for the set screw in the arm, which is on the opposite side in this picture.

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ity ain`t bad , "but is not as nice as yours." hope I get the glitch out of the fuel inj. and broke in. being sick and cold weather sucks ! feeling better now. now about that cold weather!?!
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started moving the shifter back, so I could reach it w/ the harness on. going to be about 5" back from the stock location in the console. will have to mod the heck out of the console top. found the glitch in the f.i. I think, blown collector flange gasket, letting air into the exhaust, making it read lean. will it never end ?
 
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started moving the shifter back, so I could reach it w/ the harness on. going to be about 5" back from the stock location in the console. will have to mod the heck out of the console top. found the glitch in the f.i. I think, blown collector flange gasket, letting air into the exhaust, making it read lean. will it never end ?

That's exactly the issue I have! Have to loosen the shoulder harness to reach the shifter in neutral. I'm either going to change to Procar 90 buckets with shifter back where it's in reach or going to make the shifter sit up next to me on the bench seat. The bench is pretty worn out and bounces you all over the place. It's money either way to rework the old or put in new. That sucks to hear on the EFI. It really is always something with these cars!

Mine is STILL sitting in the body shop. They messed up the bumper and dented it somehow a couple weeks ago. Cracked the chrome and everything. AMD bumper fit like a big piece of SHET too! Lines were horrible. So the shop is "waiting on an email reply" from AMD to resolve the issue. This pisses me off because A: CALL THEM TO RESOLVE THE ISSUE! and B: You guys put a big dent in the bumper so just eat it and replace the thing already. This is putting me so far behind. Race season around the corner and I still have so much to do.
 
That's exactly the issue I have! Have to loosen the shoulder harness to reach the shifter in neutral. I'm either going to change to Procar 90 buckets with shifter back where it's in reach or going to make the shifter sit up next to me on the bench seat. The bench is pretty worn out and bounces you all over the place. It's money either way to rework the old or put in new. That sucks to hear on the EFI. It really is always something with these cars!

Mine is STILL sitting in the body shop. They messed up the bumper and dented it somehow a couple weeks ago. Cracked the chrome and everything. AMD bumper fit like a big piece of SHET too! Lines were horrible. So the shop is "waiting on an email reply" from AMD to resolve the issue. This pisses me off because A: CALL THEM TO RESOLVE THE ISSUE! and B: You guys put a big dent in the bumper so just eat it and replace the thing already. This is putting me so far behind. Race season around the corner and I still have so much to do.
dam that sucks ! makem fix it !--- my shifter ended up being 5" back, and a 1/2" higher. had to make a new alum. dummy top for the console. fit it in the orig top that I cut the interior plate out of, then covered it w/ the black speaker material I used on parts of the interior. had to "southern?" engineer a way to hold it down so I can get it all off w/o pulling the console base. doesn`t look too bad., but lost my home made cup holder. (no place to put my once a year beer !) 3 1/2" copper collector gaskets this afternoon, maybe.
 
Well my baby is back home, but with some disappointment. There's bondo issues on the trunk lid from previous work and it's affecting the clear on the new paint. Going to let it cure for a while and we'll go back and buff it again and hopefully the clear will stop hazing and shrinking up. Then we can install the tail stripe. That's the hope anyway. Other than that, the paint is far better than it was. Not a show quality $20K paint job but it will do just fine.

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So here's where my frustration really starts. This is the new rear bumper and when they told me over the phone how good it looked and fit, I trusted that it was just that. Ha! Not even close to being correct on the fitment. They didn't replace the bumper brackets from the wreck and tried to tweak the old ones. They even had that green '69 right next to it and the bumper fitment was perfect and then they tell me that mine is good too?! WTF people? Are you serious??? I can stick my fingers through the gap between the lid and bumper! How the hell is that a good fit? Some people I swear.

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So I let them know I wasn't happy with it and that since they couldn't get it to where it needed to be, that I'd just fix it myself. And these guys are supposed to be the professionals.
 
So instead of enjoying the nice weather and driving the car, I had to start fixing what a shop was paid to do.

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I started by just cutting all the brackets in half and bolting each side so that it was all in a relaxed state. They had everything so bound up it was ridiculous. Plus they reused the old rusty bumper bolts on a brand new bumper!

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I couldn't keep the bumper in place where I needed it with straps in place and still be able to close the trunk lid to see my lines so some frog tape worked like a charm.

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To them it's just a job. They don't have any personal connection with the car and don't care much about the details. It's sad that they work that way. I'm sure it because of the insurance companies not wanting to pay anymore than they have to. I've been there and went thru it myself.
 
This bracket was the worst of them so far. The others seemed to line back up pretty good.

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Now I've got it close to where it's supposed to be. Lines are much better and even. Need to finish up the outer brackets and should be done with this part.

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No more giant gap between the bumper and trunk lid.

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That paint pops in the sun though. She's a sun bather for sure.

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Here's another big disappointment. The front bumper I ordered and had the shop put on. Apparently the shop doesn't pay attention to detail because I found bubbles in the chrome right on top where it's completely visible. This bumper will never last with bad prep like this. Time for an exchange for another. Why is it I can never get a decent part??!!

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To them it's just a job. They don't have any personal connection with the car and don't care much about the details. It's sad that they work that way. I'm sure it because of the insurance companies not wanting to pay anymore than they have to. I've been there and went thru it myself.

Well one problem is they switched managers midway and right then I knew I was going to end up with some problems. New manager blames old manager for not doing this or that right on the estimate, they forgot to replace the windshield before it was painted (he claims he didn't know about the windshield even though we went over the extras not too long before that and it was right there on his computer screen), they knew they needed new bumper brackets and instead decided to spend hours tweaking wrecked ones and never got it right, the trunk lid isn't pulled out like it should be, I could go on but what's the point. But you're right, it's just another job to them. Get it done and out the door. I paid them nearly an extra $3K for extra work on top of their insurance payment too but apparently that didn't matter.
 
Ur car got hit or something? Insurance work?

My paint and body lines came out amazing. I did find a few spots and they said bring it back. They even paid for the tow there and back again

Chew them losers out man!!
 
Ur car got hit or something? Insurance work?

My paint and body lines came out amazing. I did find a few spots and they said bring it back. They even paid for the tow there and back again

Chew them losers out man!!

Yeah rear ended back in November and been in body shop ever since. They got all the lines straight but where it was hit, they didn't do a great job of getting it back to what it was. Won't be as noticeable once I'm done with it.
 
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