I drive a Demon (and not the other way around)

I started this in a garage file, it got too wordy. This is the 4th Dart I have restored, the second where I am not trying for a 100% restoration. What I am trying to do is re-create a car I shared with two of my siblings while I was in college. It's more like in the re-creation process, I am making improvements on the original. Let's get started. Originally fished out of the California desert as a parts car. Engine and transmission are no shows, and the rag joint on the steering column is shot.

Found and bought on the basis of these photos on ebay. I spoke with owner about potential rust issues. I checked floor boards and found some pin wholes. I checked roof out. Other than some orange patina, it looked fine. I became the new owner and loaded the car on a towing dolly.



I hit a bump on I-10 coming home. In the mirror, I noticed an orange cloud puff from the car and vanish in the air.


The cloud appeared from the area of the hole you see in the roof.

Roof cancer was found in the A-columns, too. The passenger side door was off of a Dart Swinger. I had missed that one, too I was beginning to doubt if I could do this. I found another door off of a Duster. (thank you mother Mopar). I checked with my painter. He cut into the A-column until he found good metal. He said if I could find a roof he would do it.


In the process we created a Demon roadster.

There was some body work that need to happen.

I forgot. In between I located the column cancer, I found an engine. The transmission I had kept in storage for five years.

The engine was not without problems. There was a burned ring on the number 4 cylinder.


Add to that a number 2 cylinder without valve reliefs and a number 8 cylinder that had a valve bounced off of it.

Not to worry, though. The block came from a 1968 Coronet so all of the new pistons would have the highest deck of any made for the 318. I ran a caustic soda solution through the block. I oiled and honed the bores. Good news (finally), the honing got the bores cleaned. No need to re-bore the engine.

I used the opportunity of no engine in the car to paint the engine bay and trunk. My nose hair was blue for a while.




One of the things I wanted to accomplish was to upgrade the brakes from drums in the front to a single piston disk brakes.

Then, I also needed to change the k-frame to allow me to use the V-8 I had recently completed. I also wanted a anti-sway bar in front, too. The front end of a '75 V-8 Valiant would accomplish all of these things in one fell swoop.

Because the engine came from a 68, it didn't make sense to replace the valve. It would be better to use a post 71 set of heads because they had hardened valve seats. So, I found a pair of 302 heads (small, heart-shaped combustion chamber, topped off with a new Edelbrock manifold

Carter AFB, and stuffed with a Crane Fireball camshaft. I prettied it up a bit with a pair of Mickey Thompson finned aluminum valve covers. (Ultimately, I was not satisfied with the valve covers, so I pulled them off and sent them away.)




The engine, transmission, and a cop-car steering box was assembled on the '75 K-frame. Then I dropped the car on top of it. It took two weekends of work to get everything ready and 20 minutes to put the car on top of it.

Then it was off to the paint shop. Before roof surgery :

After roof surgery before paint:




It looks like Dodge Division of Chrysler Motors Basin Street Blue. It is actually the 72 rendition of Ford Motor Company's paint code J, Grabber Blue.





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Complemented with a set of white stripes. Then it was off to Dallas.

Here it is fresh off of the trailer. Over the next eight years work slowed to a crawl.

Cool build. Thanks for sharing

Nice color. Love the Demon taillights. My builds take years as well.

Very Nice!
What water pump and timing cover did you use?
Looks like '68 style pump but in aluminum? and a maybe a later style cover (if I'm seeing the timing marks on the left?)

Looking really nice. I admire anyone who would tackle a roof replacement. I love grabber blue, my grandfather bought a 1970 Mach 1 in GB brand new and I remember at night under street lights it would take on a light purple hue.

I was all white knuckles when I HAD to finally put the windshield & gasket into the car. The guy who did the surgery on the roof broke the windshield I had. He discounted his work to account for it, but he didn't try again. So there I was about ten years later putting a Chinese windshield into the car with a new Steele Rubber gasket. I'm not a glass guy but I had a pair of guys, that I shamed into helping me, who were. It was at a point that the windshield was nearly in the car that they both had no more to go, when I got on the car and delivered the coup de grace. It was scary for an instant, then one of the pry handles in the gasket came out. One of the guys let out a whoop. It was in. We high-fived each other, I finished clean-up, while they went back to work.

Mattax said:

Very Nice!
What water pump and timing cover did you use?
Looks like '68 style pump but in aluminum? and a maybe a later style cover (if I'm seeing the timing marks on the left?)

Click to expand...

I played games with the front of the engine in order to be able to get the water outlet from the pump where I wanted it. It also allowed me to do without an idler on the A/C belts (the alternator provides tension adjustment).

RE: Panel 14

Sorry you can't see photos. I assure you they were all uploaded. I checked my source files. Most of the ones I used in the post were small files (ca < 25Kb). It sounds like a Joeychgo or Tech Admin question.

Mattax said:

Very Nice!
What water pump and timing cover did you use?
Looks like '68 style pump but in aluminum? and a maybe a later style cover (if I'm seeing the timing marks on the left?)

Click to expand...

RE: Panel 13

I remember playing around with the front cover in order to get the pumps discharge to work with the radiator I could get. Also had to take care of the harmonic balancer so timing could be set. I also recall that the change to the Sanden compressor entered into the decision making process. It allowed me to eliminate the A/C idler pulley. (The alternator lets me apply tension to the belts.)

Progress went slowly, but it did occur. Rear seat was re-upholstered. and I worked on fixing up an instrument cluster. Had to use a pro to clear up the speedometer.
There is nothing in the chassis and body manual that spoke to me about where precisely the "tape" demon labels are placed. Using some old military photo scaling techniques, I placed the Demons on the front fenders.




Kind of tired now. I leave the reader to ponder how to solve the problem. If I have an actual height for the pitchfork of the letter M above ( dimension Z) it can be solved. You will need a copy of the photo and an engineers' ruler with 1/16 of an inch gradations and a fine tipped writing instrument for measurements. To make a template, a pair of sharp scissors and 3 x 5 card are suggested. Tape can be used only once and is not reversible.

Since no one has added: All I had was a photo of a factory insignia in the original location and a measurement of how tall the pitchfork letter M was. Here is the solution. I used a pair of calipers to determine the actual height of the pitchfork, 2.052 inches, on the photograph it was 2.75 inches. Divide 2.75 by 2.052 to develop the scale. On the photograph, I measured x to be 1 9/16 or 1.5625 and y to be 5 15/16 or 5.9375. Just to check my work, I measured the unlabeled dimension and came up with 3 15/16 or 3.9375. I multiplied these numbers by the scale of the photograph and came up with x being 1 3/16 and y being 1 7/16 inches respectively. I made a another piece of cardboard up to graphically solve the puzzle. I took the piece of cardboard and then drew a line about six inches long an edge. Then I took a pen and stuck it in one end of the line I had drawn. I measured 5 15/16 along the line and stuck a second pin into the small piece of cardboard and stuck it in at that point.
I took the short leg of the right triangle I had drawn on a piece of cardboard and measured 1 9/16 inches. This is where I anchored one of the two pins. Using the anchor pin as a pivot point. Along the longer leg of the right triangle, I drew a line that went to the end of the card. I swung the free leg over the line drawn until the point of the pin was directly over it. I pressed down on the pin hard enough to create a small hole. I drew a line connecting the two dots to complete the triangle. I cut the triangle out and measured the longer leg of the right angle coming up with 5 5/16 inches. I checked my work with the Pythagorean Theorem; I came out very close.
I taped my triangle up on the side of the car. The placed the pointed end of the triangle in the apex of the curve of the character line in the fender. I uncovered the decal and placed the pointed part of the decal immediately against the sharp point of decal. I was struggling with too much, my Parkinson's Disease brought on shakey fingers and hands. You guessed it, I had the point of the pitchfork in the correct location, but had angled the decal. I uttered an epithet and tried to remove it . No such luck.
I had the dimensions right, but not the orientation. I went back to the drawing board and put a pan on top of the triangle. This is the version I used to put the other decal on the door, even with the PD shakes it worked. I put a small notch in the pan where the longest point on the trident goes.
It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, so here is a photo of the Mk IIb

The guy who could work on my car intelligently was let go by the shop. It was a bit scary for a while. I spent a bit of time with the shop's foreman and scheduler and a rookie mechanic to determine my next move. The biggest things that need correction are the master cylinder and the front-end bushings. The master cylinder is clearly their foul-up. They used the VIN and body tag to order the part. The VIN and body tag reflects a drum brake car. The car has disk brakes, not from a SBP '72 model, but from a '75 model which uses the larger bolt pattern.
Re-bushing the front-end is another matter entirely. The shop and the rookie mechanic are very apprehensive about removing the torsion bars. Never mind the 4wd GM products had TBs, this is a Mopar. Rather than make a big deal and possibly have something go real bad on them, their involvement is limited to the master cylinder swap out and a brake bleed for no charge. They will replace the UCA bushings at my expense.
Since I moved, I now have everything I own under one roof (1st time in 20 years), except the Demon. But, I have the space for it. Therefore, I will do the LCA bushing replacements. I may need to enlist assistance when I begin to re-assemble the front end. (My PD has accelerated the loss of strength that is a part of the normal aging process. The days of rowing a car on jack stands around the garage are gone.) I will see how they do when the Thanksgiving feasts are done.

2 Darts said:

This is the 4th Dart I have restored, the second where I am not trying for a 100% restoration. What I am trying to do is re-create a car I shared with two of my siblings while I was in college. It's more like in the re-creation process, I am making improvements on the original. Let's get started....

Click to expand...

Wouldn't you know it!!!! My father passed away in August, my mother passed in 2007. Unlike most parental units, both of mine were "savers" and not "pitchers". This is especially true when it came to pictures. From the year 1974 and parental archives comes a decent photo of the car in question from posting with which I started this member restoration thread. (Thank you Mom and Dad!)

We purchased the car in 1972 as a new vehicle from Tait's Huntsville (AL) Dodge. Optional equipment on this car included tinted glass, rallye wheels, white wall tires and tape stripes as shown. Not shown is the 225 /6, Torqueflite transmission, and cut pile carpeting hidden by sheet metal. It did not have power steering, disk brakes, or air conditioning. The radio antenna and a Mopar AM radio were Day 1 adds from a local salvage yard. After one failed DIY attempt, I went to the dealer for a face plate for the radio.

Also in the photo are my dog and a corner of the deck my brother and I hung on the house during the summer of 1972. Both brought to mind stories that are best left off of this thread.

Well, we are at home. I took these photos at my Dad's place a few weeks ago. Today, I was going through boxes in the garage at my place in order to find just what I had in boxes. Then the name of the game was to put boxes in the house close to the where the contents will actually be used. Work on the Demon progressed. It now has the exterior mirrors and most ot the windshield trim. The goal of this is not as much to complete the car, but rather to fit it in the garage. I am finding I was a real pack rat with parts. Over the years, I have more accumulated headlight trim than I can justify. And radios. I have two AM/FM/CD units, an AM/FM cassette, a factory AM unit, and a semi-working AM/FM/8-Track. I say semi-working due to the fact I can hear tape running, but don't have any noise from the speakers to go with it.
Work on the car will slow down this week, and probably the next few due to surgery. While I'm on the mend, I'll try to inventory and photograph the excess parts. I feel a sell-off happening in late January.



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Love the car and your write-up, especially the fender emblem topic. Glad to see how far along it is, don’t fret about speed of progress, many including myself have not done as well as you have, especially given the substantial project it started as.

MOPAR4Me said:

Love the car and your write-up, especially the fender emblem topic. Glad to see how far along it is, don’t fret about speed of progress, many including myself have not done as well as you have, especially given the substantial project it started as.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the encouragement and kind words. I really would like to get it finished before I am unable to drive.