Rosie the ‘65 Dart
Goal: Drive into the Garage - 10/23 to 11/11/2022
Rosie was last titled in 1980 so all of her mechanicals were suspect. She’d run but only for a few seconds and her master cylinder was completely empty when I found her.
I checked the local parts stores (Advanced, Autozone and Napa) but none had brake or tune up parts in the region so I placed a Rock Auto order for: points, condenser, ignition coil, cap, rotor, wires, carb kit, brake pads, wheel cylinders, master cylinder, hardware kits, seals and brake hoses.
While I waited for the parts to arrive:
- Siphoned 15 gallons of vintage gas out of the tank
- Replaced the battery cables. I couldn’t find a 24“ negative cable with a connector that would fit over a 7/16” bolt so I ended up making one. A Chineesium hydraulic crimper worked awesome.
- Replaced the burnt out bulbs in the cockpit
- Started cleaning and soaking the carb. It wasn’t that bad in side and all the jets came out without a fight:
Drums from Rock Auto were >$80 each and I want to upgrade to discs so I took the drums down to my local machine shop (Sanels in Concord, NH) had them turned and sand blasted.
After the parts arrived I went through the front brakes, wire wheeled and painted things as they came off and cleaned up literally inches of grease off of all of the suspension components. This car was owned by a farmer and it showed. Not only did it seem like this car was greased up before ever use but there were some “interesting“ brake line repairs.
Boring photo of the new front brakes and hoses:
I tried blowing out the gas line but it was completely blocked. I shoved a long piece welding wire through the fuel line but couldn’t find the blockage so the problem was likely with a clocked fuel pickup and it turns out the tank was completely junk:
Luckily, repop fuel tanks are readily available and cheap.
I reinstalled the rebuilt carter carburetor and hooked up the gas tank from my snow blower to the fuel pump. She fired up and just purred!
While the fuel tank was out, I changed the diff lube. Looks like the Pinion seal on the diff and the output seal on the transmission have been leaking for a long time. Luckily, there was still at least a pint of some goo That identified as gear lube. Looks like I’ve got 3.23 gears:
There is a lot of slop in spider gears but as much as I hate doing a job twice that will have to wait until a later date.
Removing the diff cover disturbed a piece of structural rust on the brake line resulting in a nice leak. I was able to get the line off without breaking it (this is definitely not a NH/VT car) and the garage down the street bent me up a piece of nicopp brake line.
Goal: Drive into the Garage - 10/23 to 11/11/2022
Rosie was last titled in 1980 so all of her mechanicals were suspect. She’d run but only for a few seconds and her master cylinder was completely empty when I found her.
I checked the local parts stores (Advanced, Autozone and Napa) but none had brake or tune up parts in the region so I placed a Rock Auto order for: points, condenser, ignition coil, cap, rotor, wires, carb kit, brake pads, wheel cylinders, master cylinder, hardware kits, seals and brake hoses.
While I waited for the parts to arrive:
- Siphoned 15 gallons of vintage gas out of the tank
- Replaced the battery cables. I couldn’t find a 24“ negative cable with a connector that would fit over a 7/16” bolt so I ended up making one. A Chineesium hydraulic crimper worked awesome.
- Replaced the burnt out bulbs in the cockpit
- Started cleaning and soaking the carb. It wasn’t that bad in side and all the jets came out without a fight:
Drums from Rock Auto were >$80 each and I want to upgrade to discs so I took the drums down to my local machine shop (Sanels in Concord, NH) had them turned and sand blasted.
After the parts arrived I went through the front brakes, wire wheeled and painted things as they came off and cleaned up literally inches of grease off of all of the suspension components. This car was owned by a farmer and it showed. Not only did it seem like this car was greased up before ever use but there were some “interesting“ brake line repairs.
Boring photo of the new front brakes and hoses:
I tried blowing out the gas line but it was completely blocked. I shoved a long piece welding wire through the fuel line but couldn’t find the blockage so the problem was likely with a clocked fuel pickup and it turns out the tank was completely junk:
Luckily, repop fuel tanks are readily available and cheap.
I reinstalled the rebuilt carter carburetor and hooked up the gas tank from my snow blower to the fuel pump. She fired up and just purred!
While the fuel tank was out, I changed the diff lube. Looks like the Pinion seal on the diff and the output seal on the transmission have been leaking for a long time. Luckily, there was still at least a pint of some goo That identified as gear lube. Looks like I’ve got 3.23 gears:
There is a lot of slop in spider gears but as much as I hate doing a job twice that will have to wait until a later date.
Removing the diff cover disturbed a piece of structural rust on the brake line resulting in a nice leak. I was able to get the line off without breaking it (this is definitely not a NH/VT car) and the garage down the street bent me up a piece of nicopp brake line.