Project "Unicorn" 69 Dart
So the reason for the interesting title, I have been working at this shop for a little over a year now. when I was hired I mentioned that I have the car, well the manager keeps telling me to bring it in, so I did on his day off. all of the other co-workers got to see it and told him, but since he didn't see it he doesn't believe it's real! Sadly in the little over a year I have only brought in the car once, due to many setbacks and a few bad choices for a daily driver. All of that is straightened out now so I can finally start making forward progress on the dart.
Now a little bit of history on the car since I should have started making this thread a while back. Almost 2 years ago I just sold my '73 Plymouth satellite due to being too over my head for a project. So searching on craigslist I came across a listing for a 69 dart in Pullman, no pictures but seemed solid called the guy he seemed pretty cool so I asked for a few pics which I never got and set up a date to take a look at it, I'm on the other side of the state. So the big day comes my girlfriend at the time and myself got into the civic (first bad daily driver mistake) and drive there without ever seeing a picture. In Pullman driving down the street see the car under the carport and like WOAAHH that looks a lot better then I expected. The guy shows up and I'm already looking at the car, you can tell he is disappointed I'm only 21, probably wanted to sell it to someone older. Took it for a test drive to learn the beast and instant love. Drove it back gave him the cash he actually handed some back and said use it for gas to drive it home.
Driving the car home over snoqualmie pass it starts to snow. My gf calls and is all like were gonna die! I'm like no your fine in a FWD with brand new tiers. Turn the corner and complete white-out in the middle of march! I've driven snoqualmie a lot but that is new haven't seen that before so I tell her to shift to 3rd. Long and short make it home just fine.
Two weeks after I make it home I get a no spark in the car. Well it's pretty old and looks like someone hasn't put new parts into it for awhile so I pull the ignition control module box and take it to o'reillys and get a new one as well as new spark plugs. take it home pop it all in and VROOM fires right up. Drive it around for a couple of weeks no problems but I can stat to tell the radiator is on it's last legs.
So then I end up getting a new job at a quick lube in renton. work there for a bit and tell everyone about it and no one believes it's really mine so I drive it to work all is good, but on the way home it starts to misfire on I5 and my gas gauge doesn't work so I get gas pull into the station and clouds of smoke from under the hood. Damn radiator is dead and causing the misfire so I wait put some gas in the tank while I'm there. Get a lot of comments on it. turn the key and cranks a bunch battery starts to sound like it's going to die when it fires. Hook up with 518 to 509 make it almost home and it dies at a stop sign that I basically ran literally less then 300 ft from home uphill though.... Finally got it home and it sat for a bit because of my second bad daily driver. (04 Nissan sentra ser) <------ P.O.S. I would NEVER recommend one the Qr25 is garbage worth more in scrap.
In that time of sitting I learned a lot taking to some local mopar guys. So while sitting I ordered a new steel radiator (ended up getting an aluminum one for no extra charge!!!) , coil pack, deleted the cheesy tach, dropped the gas tank replaced the fuel sending unit and ground strap. Installed everything turn key no spark...
Hmmm have to dig deeper, ordered a laminated and colored wiring diagram off of ebay, to help track down the culprit, mopar guys suggested a new pick up for the distributor since the problem seemed to be intermittent. Popped that in also found out about mymopar.com and they have some useful diagrams for wiring, so 3 hours of tracing wires (they all looked black with all the dust and grime) and looking at 2 different schematics I finally figured it out. The idiot that swamped in the 360 and 727 was a lazy mother fer.
They wired the ignition up so I still don't know how the car ran and fried all my componets except the ballast resistor. Test for spark got spark tun key and nothing..... so I say F it went out bought a brand new spool of brown wire and ran a brand new wire form the box on the firewall to the box. Try it again VROOM instant success stated better then when I bought the car! So it's running let it warm up bleed the cooling system and check for leaks nothing looking good I'll take it into work tomorrow! Next day turn key fires right up key goes to run and it dies.... try again same thing and a third time call one of the mopar guys at oreilly's hes absolutely sure that its' the ignition key switch.
So that's where I'm at now I have a new ignition switch, battery tray and hold down, new door hinges and a msd 6A box waiting to go in, also ordered a custom dash from peak dashes it should be about 1/2 way from being done, still have to get gauges and prep my other dash that I got (current one is shot to heck). Sorry for such a long 1st post I should have done that a while back had the car for coming up on 2 years now. More pictures soon to follow as well as future plans for the car.
So the reason for the interesting title, I have been working at this shop for a little over a year now. when I was hired I mentioned that I have the car, well the manager keeps telling me to bring it in, so I did on his day off. all of the other co-workers got to see it and told him, but since he didn't see it he doesn't believe it's real! Sadly in the little over a year I have only brought in the car once, due to many setbacks and a few bad choices for a daily driver. All of that is straightened out now so I can finally start making forward progress on the dart.
Now a little bit of history on the car since I should have started making this thread a while back. Almost 2 years ago I just sold my '73 Plymouth satellite due to being too over my head for a project. So searching on craigslist I came across a listing for a 69 dart in Pullman, no pictures but seemed solid called the guy he seemed pretty cool so I asked for a few pics which I never got and set up a date to take a look at it, I'm on the other side of the state. So the big day comes my girlfriend at the time and myself got into the civic (first bad daily driver mistake) and drive there without ever seeing a picture. In Pullman driving down the street see the car under the carport and like WOAAHH that looks a lot better then I expected. The guy shows up and I'm already looking at the car, you can tell he is disappointed I'm only 21, probably wanted to sell it to someone older. Took it for a test drive to learn the beast and instant love. Drove it back gave him the cash he actually handed some back and said use it for gas to drive it home.
Driving the car home over snoqualmie pass it starts to snow. My gf calls and is all like were gonna die! I'm like no your fine in a FWD with brand new tiers. Turn the corner and complete white-out in the middle of march! I've driven snoqualmie a lot but that is new haven't seen that before so I tell her to shift to 3rd. Long and short make it home just fine.
Two weeks after I make it home I get a no spark in the car. Well it's pretty old and looks like someone hasn't put new parts into it for awhile so I pull the ignition control module box and take it to o'reillys and get a new one as well as new spark plugs. take it home pop it all in and VROOM fires right up. Drive it around for a couple of weeks no problems but I can stat to tell the radiator is on it's last legs.
So then I end up getting a new job at a quick lube in renton. work there for a bit and tell everyone about it and no one believes it's really mine so I drive it to work all is good, but on the way home it starts to misfire on I5 and my gas gauge doesn't work so I get gas pull into the station and clouds of smoke from under the hood. Damn radiator is dead and causing the misfire so I wait put some gas in the tank while I'm there. Get a lot of comments on it. turn the key and cranks a bunch battery starts to sound like it's going to die when it fires. Hook up with 518 to 509 make it almost home and it dies at a stop sign that I basically ran literally less then 300 ft from home uphill though.... Finally got it home and it sat for a bit because of my second bad daily driver. (04 Nissan sentra ser) <------ P.O.S. I would NEVER recommend one the Qr25 is garbage worth more in scrap.
In that time of sitting I learned a lot taking to some local mopar guys. So while sitting I ordered a new steel radiator (ended up getting an aluminum one for no extra charge!!!) , coil pack, deleted the cheesy tach, dropped the gas tank replaced the fuel sending unit and ground strap. Installed everything turn key no spark...
Hmmm have to dig deeper, ordered a laminated and colored wiring diagram off of ebay, to help track down the culprit, mopar guys suggested a new pick up for the distributor since the problem seemed to be intermittent. Popped that in also found out about mymopar.com and they have some useful diagrams for wiring, so 3 hours of tracing wires (they all looked black with all the dust and grime) and looking at 2 different schematics I finally figured it out. The idiot that swamped in the 360 and 727 was a lazy mother fer.
They wired the ignition up so I still don't know how the car ran and fried all my componets except the ballast resistor. Test for spark got spark tun key and nothing..... so I say F it went out bought a brand new spool of brown wire and ran a brand new wire form the box on the firewall to the box. Try it again VROOM instant success stated better then when I bought the car! So it's running let it warm up bleed the cooling system and check for leaks nothing looking good I'll take it into work tomorrow! Next day turn key fires right up key goes to run and it dies.... try again same thing and a third time call one of the mopar guys at oreilly's hes absolutely sure that its' the ignition key switch.
So that's where I'm at now I have a new ignition switch, battery tray and hold down, new door hinges and a msd 6A box waiting to go in, also ordered a custom dash from peak dashes it should be about 1/2 way from being done, still have to get gauges and prep my other dash that I got (current one is shot to heck). Sorry for such a long 1st post I should have done that a while back had the car for coming up on 2 years now. More pictures soon to follow as well as future plans for the car.
