Blue 64 Dart GT

robjkc · Mar 12, 2012

I thought I would post a few pictures of my 64 Dart GT restoration. I purchased the car from Georgia in 2010 and had it transported to Springfield, Missouri. I thought it would be a good "learning" project since I worked at O'Reilly Auto Parts.

I bought it only seeing pictures of the car. The person selling it told me that he could not find any rust so I thought it would be worth taking a chance on. It was my first Mopar so I was pretty excited. I had also heard good things about the slant six.

After getting the car it was not in as great condition as advertised. There were some obvious bubbling under the paint in places so I decided to see about getting a few "spots" fixed up. Those few spots have turned into pretty much a complete restoration as you'll see in my pictures.

It's been a very long two years and the car is just about ready to get completely painted. The car is in really good hands at the moment. After having a local person start restoration work on the car in 2010, I finally got in contact with one of the best in the business, Mike Roeder, in Rolla Missouri. He is the owner of Roeder Restoration. I think you'll see here that his work speaks for itself.

Anyway, enough with the talk. I'll post some of the pictures of the car to show what's been done so far. It hasn't made it to the paint booth yet but will be soon.

robjkc · Mar 12, 2012

Here are some pictures of the car when I got it in May 2010:

robjkc · Mar 12, 2012

A local bodyman started work on the car during the winter of 2010. We initially just planned on fixing a few of the problem areas but ending up stripping the car down to bare metal. The right corner was full of bondo as well as the decklid lower portion and the nose of the hood. I had new metal put into the quarter and replaced the decklid and had new metal put into the hood.

We also cleaned out the surface rust in the trunk and put down some eastwood rust preventer.

63dartman · Mar 12, 2012

That is a very nice Dart. Every car that age has it's issues. Good luck on the rebuild and post some pics of the finished product. I really like the interior color.

Where did you get the quarters from?

robjkc · Mar 12, 2012

The local bodyman started to paint the trunk and interior around the first part of 2011 and I wasn't really satisfied with the results and all the dust that was showing up in the paint. I was also running a little low on cash so decided to bring the car back home and save up some more.

During the first part of 2011 I did a lot of research on paint and talked to a lot of people. I wanted to find someone with a paint booth so I ended up calling a lot of body shops in town.

I was also reading a lot on the forums and heard good things about SPI clear. I ended up callling Barry and asked him who used his product. That's when Barry told me about Mike Roeder in Rolla Missouri.

I instantly called Mike and was able to drive a couple of hours to take a look at my little Dart. Now Mike is a guy who is used to doing "big" jobs so when he agreed to work on a little slant six car I was overjoyed.

The rest of the pictures are of Mike's work, which I'm sure you'll appreciate.

BillGrissom · Mar 12, 2012

I can see why you thought it was totally solid from the photos of the body. What lurks beneath the paint can add years and $$$ to a restoration. However, your rust is fairly typical and doesn't look too bad. Be glad you didn't buy a 64-1/2 Rustang. Much of yours looks like surface rust so something left to build from. Make sure you spend time on the inside of panels since most 60's cars rust from inside out. When you see it on the outside, there is no inside left.

Interesting that your engine looks "too slanted", like my 64, even after I installed a new right mount. I thought my left mount might be too thick, but maybe they were all like that. My distributor seems too close to the inner fender. But if I lower it on the left side, my oil pan will almost touch the K-frame.

robjkc · Mar 12, 2012

63dartman said:
That is a very nice Dart. Every car that age has it's issues. Good luck on the rebuild and post some pics of the finished product. I really like the interior color.

Where did you get the quarters from?

Thanks 63dartman! It's been a long process but I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The lower quarter was just a patch panel made from some galvanized I believe. The guy who did it also put new metal into the nose of the hood. I was very pleased with his work. I had a polaroid but have misplaced pictures of the quarter panel work.

I had new foam put in the front seats. Went ahead and repainted the frames while we were at it. The foam was from Gary Goers and I was able to reuse the legendary covers that came with the car.

By the way, you didn't purchase a very nice 63 Dart horn button on ebay did you?

robjkc · Mar 12, 2012

BillGrissom said:
I can see why you thought it was totally solid from the photos of the body. What lurks beneath the paint can add years and $$$ to a restoration. However, your rust is fairly typical and doesn't look too bad. Be glad you didn't buy a 64-1/2 Rustang. Much of yours looks like surface rust so something left to build from. Make sure you spend time on the inside of panels since most 60's cars rust from inside out. When you see it on the outside, there is no inside left.

Interesting that your engine looks "too slanted", like my 64, even after I installed a new right mount. I thought my left mount might be too thick, but maybe they were all like that. My distributor seems too close to the inner fender. But if I lower it on the left side, my oil pan will almost touch the K-frame.

Yeah, I've learned a lot on this project. The floors were in great shape, mostly due to the car being undercoated from the factory and spending most of its life in Georgia. Everyone that has worked on the car thought it was really solid. Since I plan on keeping the car a while I have tried to make sure new metal was put in everywhere it was needed.

Thanks for pointing that out about my engine. I didn't really notice that. I'm sure I'll get around to it soon enough. I am having the engine pulled for painting inside the engine bay and I will be putting in some new poly motor mounts purchased through here. Hopefully it goes back in correctly.

robjkc · Mar 12, 2012

Here are the first pictures from Mike Roeder. He started work this past June. After getting the car he noticed that a little rust was coming through the epoxy on the top of the car. I was surprised since the previous guy took the car down to bare metal. Unfortunately, he didn't prep the metal like you're supposed to so Mike had to remove the epoxy primer and treat the metal.

robjkc · Mar 12, 2012

July 2011 Update photos. Fixing some problem areas around the windows and removing surface rust from the decklid.

robjkc · Mar 13, 2012

Body work is done, time for some epoxy primer...

robjkc · Mar 16, 2012

I sent off my instrument cluster and all the other dash chrome to get an estimate for rechroming and changing over the fuel gauge to solid state and recalibrating the speedo. They also reface all the gauges back to factory and paint the needles. The price they quoted is around $1500. I didn't really plan on spending this kind of money but it would be nice to have done. I'll probably have $15,000-$20,000 in this thing by the time I'm done. Oh well, just can't think about that.

trapster · Mar 16, 2012

Nice, keep the pictures coming

robjkc · Apr 3, 2012

Just made the 2 hour trip to Rolla, Missouri this past weekend and came back with a few of these goodies...

I was amazed at Mike's painting (the picture is before he color sanded) and am very happen with the paint color. I'm using RM Diamont basecoat with SPI clear. Also got some new Legendary rear seat covers put on by a great interior guy in Rolla, Reinhard.

robjkc · Apr 30, 2012

The brown truck came today and delivered my restored dash from JustDashes. I am very pleased with the results. They took a $25 dash I found at a swap meet a couple years ago and turned it into a thing of beauty. They also painted all my arm rests, door knobs, and dash end caps.

More pics of the car coming soon. Should be painted this week.

robjkc · May 22, 2012

Got these pictures from Mike today. I don't think it could have turned out any better. He will be color sanding next and adding a few more layers of clear. Doors, hood, and decklid will be painted separately as well as the engine. More pics to come...

toolmanmike · May 23, 2012

Beautiful !!!!!!!!!!

goldfish65 · May 23, 2012

It is going to look better than when it came from the factory when you're done.

65dartcharger · May 23, 2012

What a great project and your doing a super great job on it too.

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breakstuff · May 23, 2012

Thats a pretty color.

robjkc · May 31, 2012

Few more pictures of the car. Color sanding is next as well as painting all the parts not currently on the car. We decided to do the trunk area in a single-stage to save a little paint costs. On the rest of the car we're using Diamont base with SPI clear.

It's killing me that the car is about two hours away from me. I'll be traveling to see it this weekend to behold it in person. If anyone in the midwest area is looking for an excellent restoration shop I highly recommend Mike and Michele at Roeder Restoration. You can see his "company" car below taken at the Hot Rod Nationals in Springfield last weekend.

Looking back both Mike and I wished we would have just put the car on a rotisserie. Someone before Mike had supposedly done all the prep work correctly but Mike found out quite a few issues that had to be addressed. It would have been nice to have a painted underneath but I think it will be just fine.

dusted72 · Jun 1, 2012

That thing looks AWESOME. Glad it came out looking good. Looks like you made a new friend in the process.

robjkc · Jun 1, 2012

dusted72 said:
That thing looks AWESOME. Glad it came out looking good. Looks like you made a new friend in the process.

Thanks dusted72! Yeah, one of the best things about restoring a car is all the great people you meet along the way. It's also helpful to have a patient wife

dusted72 · Jun 1, 2012

So true. Some of the best people I have ever met have been through the car hobby.

robjkc · Aug 8, 2012

More great work from Mike. I'm replacing the drum brakes and 7 1/4 with disc brakes and an 8 1/4 (3.55). Maybe a sway bar as well from Firm Feel. You can also see the new engine mounts I purchased through the this forum.

Will be getting the car back for suspension work and final assembly in about a month. Hopefully I can get it back on the road by this Fall.

Trying to decide between running ralleys or small hub caps. Am leaning towards the 14" ralleys with Radial T/A or just plain blackwalls.

Blue 64 Dart GT

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