These are the seats I went with. Since I was leaning toward Bonnevile and possible roiad racing I went for a seat with all the support
Update on My 64 Dart project
- Thread starter dart4forte
- Start date
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Well for those of you that have followed this over the years the motor was fired several weeks ago. Today, the Dart ran under it's own power since I brought it home back in Jan 06. AZMOPAR sold me the car. Aside for the small nit noid things like a clutch adjustment, the distributor 60 degrees advanced and loose ends it runs pretty good. Have some issues with the fenderwell headers hitting the floorboard that I have to resolve. Thanks to Jim for building an assume motor, Nick and his guys at the shop for their support (pushing it in and out of the shop). Man, I've done two major restos since I started on this car. Hard to belive it runs. Now, have to sort out the roll cage, some more wiring, door panels and rear panel. Here's a pic of the motor.
fstfish66
Well-Known Member
kool keep up the good work,,,
pettybludart
Well-Known Member
Looking good dart4forte.Do you have a cage already?I bought mine(8point)from S&W Racing,was an easy install will just having to trim a couple bars.Price was right at $180.
Looking good dart4forte.Do you have a cage already?I bought mine(8point)from S&W Racing,was an easy install will just having to trim a couple bars.Price was right at $180.
Not yrt on the cage but S&W is my choice. Have to get a basic 8 point and go from there. Most of the cages that people are doing for Bonneville seem to follow the NASCAR designs except for the multipule side bars.
The headers on the car right now are 1 5/8" Cyclones. The headers I have waiting to install are custom made 1 3/4" fenderwells.
On another note my buddy Jim took and recurved the dist. Being without vac advance it was set up with a total 60 degree of advance which was way too much. Now the weight travel is restricted via shortening the stops and a little heaver spring is being used it has a total of 30 degrees. I also had to re-wire the alternator so that when the kill switch is hit I have absolutly no power going to the engine compartment. Since I'm still leaning in the direction of a Bonneville car I also wired in the kill switch in the passenger compartment so that every thing is killed by the driver. I'll add an inertia switch later on when I add the fire system. Have to wait to do the cage first. I'm still studying on how to prceed with that. Not many A bodies, not to mention Mopars compete at Bonneville these days.
On another note my buddy Jim took and recurved the dist. Being without vac advance it was set up with a total 60 degree of advance which was way too much. Now the weight travel is restricted via shortening the stops and a little heaver spring is being used it has a total of 30 degrees. I also had to re-wire the alternator so that when the kill switch is hit I have absolutly no power going to the engine compartment. Since I'm still leaning in the direction of a Bonneville car I also wired in the kill switch in the passenger compartment so that every thing is killed by the driver. I'll add an inertia switch later on when I add the fire system. Have to wait to do the cage first. I'm still studying on how to prceed with that. Not many A bodies, not to mention Mopars compete at Bonneville these days.
Well made a lot of progress. The car runs and drives. Rings are seated. The carbs are quite touchy in that they feed a lot of fuel. Have to be carefull starting in that it floods out easy. Starts on first hit on the starter. I removed the adjustment bolts on the Calvert bars. Car rides really rough on the street with them installed. Also, I need to shim the rear end to get the proper angle. after that I can play with the adjustment. One setback though. Have to change out the throwout bearing. Squeels like crazy. Suppose to of been brand new however I'm sure it was made in China.
Now all I need to do is change out that throwout bearing and while the driveline is out intall the driveline hoop.
Now all I need to do is change out that throwout bearing and while the driveline is out intall the driveline hoop.
fstfish66
Well-Known Member
sorry to hear about the throw out bearing,,,,
Oh well, messing with old cars, it kinda goes with the hobby. I'll probably start on it next week. might as well change over to the 1 3/4" headers while I'm at it.
Commando66
She's a beaut Clark!
Do you already have some 1 3/4" headers? If not, send me a pm.
I have a set of custom made 1 3/4" headers. Can't really go any larger with the 273. My buddy ran 1 3/4's on his 273 (Jr Stocker) and the motor liked it.
Well, I'm back. Got the tranny out last weekend and found that I have too much clutch travel. The fingers were hitting the springs on the disk. I went ahead and changed out the TO bearing just in case. I'll need to fab up a stop for the clutch arm. The focus now is getting the torque arm re-engineered. I have a problem with alignment between the inner fender mount and the mount on the bell housing. The original mount I got from Brewers was hacked trying to make it work. At the time I was working on this the car was on jack stands with me lying on my back. Now, I have the car on a lift which makes it easier to look at the torque arm at different angles.
Yesterday, I went ahead and ordered another bell housing bracket from Brewers. The plan is to start from scratch. Between several of us we should be able to solve the problem.
I also removed the 1 5/8" headers so I can start to do a little more trimming for the new headers. Those 1 3/4" tubes are a little bigger. I may have to re-route one of the tubes on the driver side to clear the master cylinder.
I also decided to hold off on a cage. I want to run the car this spring at the track to dial everything in. I need to consider weight. If I pursue running at Bonneville with this car I may only need a 4 point.
Yesterday, I went ahead and ordered another bell housing bracket from Brewers. The plan is to start from scratch. Between several of us we should be able to solve the problem.
I also removed the 1 5/8" headers so I can start to do a little more trimming for the new headers. Those 1 3/4" tubes are a little bigger. I may have to re-route one of the tubes on the driver side to clear the master cylinder.
I also decided to hold off on a cage. I want to run the car this spring at the track to dial everything in. I need to consider weight. If I pursue running at Bonneville with this car I may only need a 4 point.
fstfish66
Well-Known Member
clutch linkage on the early A can be a pain to get lined up,,,back when i ran linkage,,i dont remember why but we went thru the inner fender well with the bell crank,,z bar,,welded a thick pise of flat stock to the frame rail and drilled and taped it for the ball stud,,then made my own bell crank out of thicker tube, weled the factory arms to it and made them go completely around the tube,, hope this may give u an idea of how to modify a week factory clutch linkage,, the factory bell cranks are pron to tear and split from age and from having a heaver clutch then stock,
Well, we got it done as of 5pm last night. Worked all day Sunday on it. I ordered another Brewers conversion bracket. Anyway, got everything in and again the bracket holes are off causing the Z bar to be off and not level between the two mounting points. The bracket is designed to be used with two difefrent later model bell housing. The holes on the bracket are marked with the the last theree digits of the part number. the holes are suppose to be drilled accordingly. Whoever engineered that piece needs to go back to school, not even close. What we ended up doing is making a template and redrilling the mounting holes. We also reversed the bar which located the lower arm further away from the bracket giving us more room to get the bracket bolts in. The lower arm is now off center of the clutch fork mounting point which will now work with the appropriate clutch rod.
Now all that is left is to fab up a clutch peddle stop so that when the clutch pedlle is depressed the fingers stop short of the clutch disk.
To anyone planning a 4 speed conversion on an early A body using a later bell housing, plan on doing a little FAb work when using the Brewers conversion parts.
Here' some pictures of the final product. Everything is mocked up one final time so I can get the clutch stop figured out.
Now all that is left is to fab up a clutch peddle stop so that when the clutch pedlle is depressed the fingers stop short of the clutch disk.
To anyone planning a 4 speed conversion on an early A body using a later bell housing, plan on doing a little FAb work when using the Brewers conversion parts.
Here' some pictures of the final product. Everything is mocked up one final time so I can get the clutch stop figured out.
Well I removed the highback buckets and worked the hardware so they fit the new buckets. Here's pictures of the seats. I put an A-100 bucket next to one and they are almost identical. I also adjusted the clutch and adjusted the ride height of the front end.
I still need to fab up a clutch peddle stop but the new haeders install comes first. May do that tomorrow
I still need to fab up a clutch peddle stop but the new haeders install comes first. May do that tomorrow
You may notice the old schhool Wieand valve covers. Back when I first fired the motor I noticed a tinny sound coming from the engine. Could not figure out where it was coming from. I decided to re-adjust the valves ande when I pulled thge valave covers off I found the problem. The adjusterd were hitting the oil shield on the valve covers. There wer tiny impressions left in the sheet metal. I decided that I needed a taller cover so I went with these
tntperk
Well-Known Member
Wow nice job ....and good looking work too.
Interested in selling the commando covers? Send me a PM. Thanks!
Thrashed on the Dart today, making adjustments on the fenderwells for the headers. Being that these headers are custom made they get into the front end structure a little bit. They also fit up into the body a little tighter so some clearancing is in order. Here are some pics from today.
I'm following along as I'm doing the same to a 64 Dart.
Thank you for all the info.May I ask where did the blue low back seats come from? Just what I'm looking for.Also did they come with brackets?
Thank you for all the info.May I ask where did the blue low back seats come from? Just what I'm looking for.Also did they come with brackets?
I got them through Summit. They came in black so I had to recover them in the blur that you see. I working on the brackets.
They are actually fairly light even with the sliders bolted on.
Mad Dart
Nothing to see Here!
Cool car, a lot of work going on.
I see you changed seats to the low backs. What seats are the high backs?
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