Rosie the ‘65 Dart
Day of the Purchase: 10/22/2022
Getting a little personal for a second, I’d been pretty depressed for a couple months between things going on at work, the general Covid malaise and the seasons changing. The idea of a day spent road tripping to rescuing a classic machine completely snapped me out of that funk.
I had a U-Haul car trailer reserved but I’ve also had terrible luck with U-Haul reservations in the past. The morning of purchase, I packed up my beater F150 with Supplies for the rescue: Gas, oil, a fresh battery, tow straps, a come-along etc.
I drove down to U-Haul and miraculously they had a trailer ready for me!!! We hooked up the trailer and even more miraculously the trailer wiring on the truck still worked. I should have bought a stack of lottery tickets at that point.
This, my friends, is what the beginning of a poor financial (read “fun”) decision looks like:
I drove two hours north to Vermont and met up with the owner’s father, Keith. Amazingly, the car seemed to be in really good shape for a 57 year old machine. I look WAY BETTER underneath than the 14 year old truck that was going to haul her back to New Hampshire.
This is my first glimpse of Rosie:
Notice the original dealer sticker from Florida, and what I presume is the original tailpipe. Underneath was a cherry bomb cobbled into the exhaust with bunch of reducers and pipe clamps. I was transported back to my misspent youth in the 1990‘s.
Keith and I pushed the car outside and it looked even better than I had imagined.
The “rotted” quarter panel. I might be able to sweet talk my way into an inspection sticker with that little amount of rust!
The engine seems unmolested:
Keith was nothing less than amazing. This car was loved by his family and he was willing to do anything to make sure she was loaded up safely. Thanks again Keith!
The way back home was uneventful. The little 200HP 4.2l V6 in the truck pulled the but she could have used another 50-100 ponies.
On the way home, I brainstormed how I was going to get Rosie off the trailer, in the middle of the night, without help, without a running engine and without brakes. I figured plan-A would be to try getting her running long enough to back off the trailer. The backup plan was to abuse the starter and hope it had enough oomph to pull itself off the trailer. Worst case scenario, I’d enlist the help of my wife in the morning but I really wanted it unloaded that evening so I could return the trailer in the morning since we had plans in the afternoon.
I stopped by the car was on the way home to give Rosie her first bath in 20+ years. This is the before photo, unfortunately, literally 30 seconds after this photo was taken the lights in the wash bay went out and I used my flashlight for the duration of the wash.
When I got home, around 10pm I cracked open the master cylinder and found nothing but a thin layer of rust at the bottom. I cleaned it out best I could and tried “bleeding“ the breaks by myself, in the dark, on the trailer. Turns out this thing had two 1/4” bleeders, one 5/16“ bleeder and one 7mm bleeder screw?!? Amazingly all of the brake lines were intact. I robbed the fuel tank off my snowblower and was able to get her running long enough to back her off the trailer and into a temporary parking spot.
I washed up and crawled into be a few minutes before midnight. What an fantastic day!
Day of the Purchase: 10/22/2022
Getting a little personal for a second, I’d been pretty depressed for a couple months between things going on at work, the general Covid malaise and the seasons changing. The idea of a day spent road tripping to rescuing a classic machine completely snapped me out of that funk.
I had a U-Haul car trailer reserved but I’ve also had terrible luck with U-Haul reservations in the past. The morning of purchase, I packed up my beater F150 with Supplies for the rescue: Gas, oil, a fresh battery, tow straps, a come-along etc.
I drove down to U-Haul and miraculously they had a trailer ready for me!!! We hooked up the trailer and even more miraculously the trailer wiring on the truck still worked. I should have bought a stack of lottery tickets at that point.
This, my friends, is what the beginning of a poor financial (read “fun”) decision looks like:
I drove two hours north to Vermont and met up with the owner’s father, Keith. Amazingly, the car seemed to be in really good shape for a 57 year old machine. I look WAY BETTER underneath than the 14 year old truck that was going to haul her back to New Hampshire.
This is my first glimpse of Rosie:
Notice the original dealer sticker from Florida, and what I presume is the original tailpipe. Underneath was a cherry bomb cobbled into the exhaust with bunch of reducers and pipe clamps. I was transported back to my misspent youth in the 1990‘s.
Keith and I pushed the car outside and it looked even better than I had imagined.
The “rotted” quarter panel. I might be able to sweet talk my way into an inspection sticker with that little amount of rust!
The engine seems unmolested:
Keith was nothing less than amazing. This car was loved by his family and he was willing to do anything to make sure she was loaded up safely. Thanks again Keith!
The way back home was uneventful. The little 200HP 4.2l V6 in the truck pulled the but she could have used another 50-100 ponies.
On the way home, I brainstormed how I was going to get Rosie off the trailer, in the middle of the night, without help, without a running engine and without brakes. I figured plan-A would be to try getting her running long enough to back off the trailer. The backup plan was to abuse the starter and hope it had enough oomph to pull itself off the trailer. Worst case scenario, I’d enlist the help of my wife in the morning but I really wanted it unloaded that evening so I could return the trailer in the morning since we had plans in the afternoon.
I stopped by the car was on the way home to give Rosie her first bath in 20+ years. This is the before photo, unfortunately, literally 30 seconds after this photo was taken the lights in the wash bay went out and I used my flashlight for the duration of the wash.
When I got home, around 10pm I cracked open the master cylinder and found nothing but a thin layer of rust at the bottom. I cleaned it out best I could and tried “bleeding“ the breaks by myself, in the dark, on the trailer. Turns out this thing had two 1/4” bleeders, one 5/16“ bleeder and one 7mm bleeder screw?!? Amazingly all of the brake lines were intact. I robbed the fuel tank off my snowblower and was able to get her running long enough to back her off the trailer and into a temporary parking spot.
I washed up and crawled into be a few minutes before midnight. What an fantastic day!