Brian's 67 dart

The next morning, with coffee cup in hand, I went to get better acquainted with the Mopar erecter kit I had just bought.

The thing that had really sold me on this car, the main body, was as good in the light of day has it had appeared to be a couple of nights before. A couple of slight dings in the quarters with some minor surface rust on the cowl were all I could see that needed any real attention. No rust throughs in the trunk or floors with solid quarters were a welcome sight compared to my last two projects. The coffee was good and the sun was bright but not hot – all was well with the world.

However, things went down hill from there. Both front fenders had been set on the car with a few finger tightened bolts to keep them there. The right hand side was original with one off a white 68 (round marker light hole) residing on the driver’s corner. It was here that I began to reap what a slight nighttime inspection had sown – the fenders that looked solid in the dim light of a flashlight now revealed some rust lurking beneath the paint surface. A little prodding and poking made things go from bad to worse; Swiss cheese in the bottom of the passenger’s and a rotted support brace and a good bit of bondo present in the other.

Hum…Better go look at those doors a little closer. Pulled them out of my small 10 X 10 “shop” and set them on some saw horses. The right side looked ok with just a few parking lots dings in the normal places. No such luck with its partner, a close look at the spider webbed paint around the outer door handle revealed a door with a lot of filler in some bad places.

Ditto for the hood – seems like it was wacked on the driver’s side sometime in its history and the “wack” had involved the hood, fender, and door. The repair had been done with body filler used in some not well straightened dents instead of more time consuming and expensive metal work or replacement. The former owner and would-be restorer must have figured the driver’s fender was beyond repair and the rusted ’68 was the best replacement he had found. One of the problems I had managed to find by flashlight was rust in the rear of the deck lid – it looked no better in the light of day.

I stepped back and surveyed my now tarnished treasure. The body and some of the larger body pieces were setting in the yard and my little workshop was filled with wall to wall pieces, panels, and boxes. The need for a good bit more room to work and some shelter for the car itself was obvious. A quick trip to the local Sam’s Club yielded a large “garage tent” that completely enclosed the car & a trip across the yard to my brother-in-law’s gained permission to use his large and recently emptied storage shed located behind his house. (Lesson 6: Be careful of letting your emotions over rule your brain about how prepared you are for the new addition to the family.) (Lesson 7: Its also best to do this when planning for children – how many of us would be here if our parents had waited “till they were ready” to have us? I would have never showed up on the stage of life if my parents had waited. I wonder if the same is not true with the cars that most are building here on the list. If I waited till I was ready to build another car, I would never experience the joy that doing it brings – so take lesson 6 with a grain of salt.) J

I began to place the many parts and pieces into groups: body pieces, interior, drive train, etc. soon formed little mounds in the front yard. The little mounds were missing a few things: the windshield & gasket (this would prove a major problem on a ’67), the gas tank was absent and only had one gas tank strap was present (little did I know that a ’67 only used one), rear windshield gasket, and just about everything in the power train except the drive shaft and the rear end under the car. (Lesson 8: Don’t assume because you have a good bit of experience on 69’s and 67’s mostly look just like them – they must be the same in the details. The 67 is a one year only in many aspects and the parts are more scarce for it.)

Started making a list and checked it twice – was beginning to wonder if Bobby had been naughty instead of nice.

I carted all the little piles off to the borrowed shed and then erected the tent and pushed the car into it.

The giddy excitement of last night was quickly morphing into a strong dose of reality with a not too little dash of buyer’s remorse mixed in. Convinced I had made a mistake buying the Dart, I took the wife out to the local O’Charlie’s and blunted the edge off my sorrows with a good steak.

Brian