19 60 5 5 5 Dart

[68 A]

Hey everyone, I found this car on this site posted by Justin Hughes and decided to buy it. Most of my peers are getting married and/or pregnant, so I might as well buy another car. Justin saved it from getting scrapped by an owner who left it under a tree for 10 years. It was last registered in 1999, and has the original owners manual in great shape. Justin also found both build sheets under the seats!

It's a '65 Dart 270 with a 273 and torqueflite, 7 1/4 rear. The body is pretty solid, needs front floors, rear quarters, and the bottom of the passenger door needs to be fixed, with a few other small spots. This will be a learning project for me as I have not done any body work before. I have done almost all the mechanical work on my '70 Swinger, and will have to do alot on the 270 too.

You might notice that all of the trim is on the car, and is in great shape! it looks like there are hardly any dents and just needs to be polished! Now I need to figure out how to take if off without harming it.

The 273 Does turn over, and my first mission is to try to get it to run, for fun, and also to see if there are any issues (water pump, radiator, see if the transmission works). I will probably end up taking it apart (teardowns are fun!) but would like to see if i can get it to run first.

This thread might be kind of slow as I have a few other small projects to finish before i get too deep into this.

Enough of my talking, time to let the pictures do it!

 

[68 A]

It seems as there was not enough room for all the pictures...

 

[justin hughes]

you know that im subscribed to this thread! your other car looks really cool.

 

[68 A]

I finally got around to working on the Dart a bit. Last winter I took the carb off to rebuild. Got it cleaned up and rebuilt, however I lost a bushing (#24 in the diagram) for the pump spring.

The carburetor is a 2 bbl Carter 0-1612

Anyone got one kicking around?

Some Pictures:

 

[68 A]

Also got some cleaning on the engine done. Removed the rockers and pushrods to get them cleaned up and need to replace two valve adjusters that were broken.

Used some engine brite on the intake manifold and rinsed it off with some carb cleaner, and took some paint with it.

 

[chryslerfat]

The intake cleaned up pretty nice.

 

[mwls73duster360]

Nice car nice start!

 

[65dartcharger]

Great project! The body was solid, at least outside. The floor panels can easily be found.

What is the plan with it?

 

[68 A]

Great project! The body was solid, at least outside. The floor panels can easily be found.

What is the plan with it?

I have a 70 Swinger that was not original and did some modification to that, and this '65 is really complete. I would like to keep it original with the exception of tires. I was gonna see if I can get it to run, and take care of anything else mechanical, replace the floor pans, fix the seat and just drive it for a while. Really don't want to spend alot of money on it restoring it, and it is fairly solid, so i think it would be fun to keep it like that for a while. I think its the original paint, there are a few spots that someone had used a spray can on some rust.

 

[68 A]

Got some more work done.

Finished cleaning the top of the engine up, new valve cover gaskets, new fuel pump, fuel filter, coil, cap, points, condenser, ballast resistor, wires, spark plugs, and finished rebuilding the carb.

Got it back together, put the battery from the boat in, hooked it up and turned the key to "on". After about 15 seconds I had some smoke coming up the firewall. Took the new ballast resistor off, and it is burnt. Checked the resistance on it and it is now 0, it did test 1 ohm before i put it on.

I checked a wiring diagram to make sure that I had everything that I took apart wired back correctly and it is.

Does anyone know where I should start to look for an issue? The wiring does not appear to be hacked at all. There is some electrical tape on the wires from the alternator to the ballast resistor and over to the voltage regulator. I guess that would be a good place to start.

 

[volitech]

Thats a great start! Good to see another 65 dart being saved....

 

[68 A]

Its been a while since I have updated, however there hasn't been alot of progress. It is running now, but haven't driven it yet. Purchased new brake master cylinder, lines, hoses and wheel cylinders. Also have new floor pans to put in and was going to start that project a couple weeks ago. However, had a starter relay problem, took the starter off and discovered that the front driver frame rail is rotted pretty bad. Got a safe-t-cap to put on, yearone said they were 28 1/2' long, but its only 24". So it will be returned, and ordered a full length repair which I will cut down to the length I need. Also realized to order it from the manufacturer and cut out the extra cost that yearone adds for drop shipping.

If anyone has done this before and has some tips for a first timer I would appreciate it!

So hopefully in a couple weeks I will have some pictures of progress up instead of these:

 

[68 A]

Here it is:

 

[68 A]

Finally got to working on the floor pans and frame rails. Passenger side floor is fixed, driver side front frame rail was welded in today. Need to finish driver front floor pan and a small hole in the firewall. That will be all the body work for now. Plan is to get the engine back in, replace brake lines, master cylinder, new fuel tank and fuel lines, new carpet and drive it this summer.