1969 Race Dart w/ 426 Hemi- garaged for 45+ years

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Maxcustody said:
After weeks of having the car on the jacks with the tires off, there is progress............................

I am sure it is no big deal to those of you with the experience and knowledge. However, I have never done wheel bearings or drum brakes. I am 52 years old and it was a first for me. Definitely intimidating, when you have no clue where to start. After many weeks of reading, watching videos and a lot of help here from the site, I got it all completed yesterday and I am very proud of my accomplishment. Believe me, there were a lot of times of frustration when things did not make sense or go together correctly. I learned a ton completing these projects. Trial and error got me through it and the satisfaction of completing this on my own. Plus, now I have the experience and understanding of these working parts.

I also learned more about the car. The front drum brakes are Police and Heavy Duty 10" 2.25 brake shoes with manual adjusters. The rears are 10" 2.5 brake shoes and were also manual adjusters. However, with the NOS brake shoes, I had to update the rear to the self adjusters. I also learned a trick of pulling the old parking brakes from the rear drums to replace them.

-removed all the old races, bearings and seals from the front and replaced them.
-all new wheel cylinders
-new front brake shoes and hardware
-new rear brake shoes and hardware
-removed old and installed new parking brake cables in both rear drums.
-finally tires are back on with all new parts!

Hopefully pieces don't start falling off, LOL. I am sure Sean will give the car a good inspection, when we put the engine back in.

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The slots look awesome on there!
 
Outstanding. Well done on the brakes, and thanks for the update.
 
The wheels really brought the looks up another level!

Drum brakes are not fun and I had a crash course in fixing them with @MOPAROFFICIAL when we first met. I daily drove 9” drums on all 4’s in on my 67 Dart GT in so cal traffic. Stops GREAT 1 time, after that….lol
 
MidnightSwinger said:
The wheels really brought the looks up another level!

Drum brakes are not fun and I had a crash course in fixing them with @MOPAROFFICIAL when we first met. I daily drove 9” drums on all 4’s in on my 67 Dart GT in so cal traffic. Stops GREAT 1 time, after that….lol
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So true, I have 9" drums on my Willys, but the shoes are only like 1.5" wide with 33" tires, they work perfect for stock brakes and tires from 1948.
But in a panic stop, I have had to drive on the sidewalk, and off road twice from asses stopping quick in newer cars, mostly teeny bopper girls.
Had one girl, in the local news station car, just stop in the middle of the road, looking for something, on the sidewalk I went, so did the SUV behind me.
If she was looking for a story, for the 11 o'clock news she almost created one, because I had my go pro running and it caught all her stupid **** on camera.
 
MidnightSwinger said:
The wheels really brought the looks up another level!

Drum brakes are not fun and I had a crash course in fixing them with @MOPAROFFICIAL when we first met. I daily drove 9” drums on all 4’s in on my 67 Dart GT in so cal traffic. Stops GREAT 1 time, after that….lol
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Good times.lol
I think most of us have that "one time" with 4 wheel drum brakes...and that immediately decides its disc brake time.
 
@Maxcustody, just finished reading this thread. One of the coolest builds I’ve seen! Keep up the great work. You’ve got an amazing piece of history to learn about and work on. Your FIL would be proud!
Since your car was a drag themed build, you should check out this series that Herb McCandless did with Buddy Martin. It covers Herbs early years, his start in drag racing, the Sox and Martin era and after. Herb talks about his 68 SS hemi Dart as well.
I look forward to future posts on the progress!





 
A Mopar said:
@Maxcustody, just finished reading this thread. One of the coolest builds I’ve seen! Keep up the great work. You’ve got an amazing piece of history to learn about and work on. Your FIL would be proud!
Since your car was a drag themed build, you should check out this series that Herb McCandless did with Buddy Martin. It covers Herbs early years, his start in drag racing, the Sox and Martin era and after. Herb talks about his 68 SS hemi Dart as well.
I look forward to future posts on the progress!





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Thank you! I will definitely check out all of the videos.
 
I have Front disc and the bigger rear drums they offered with power brakes. I had a 73 all drums terrifying LMAO.
MOPAROFFICIAL said:
Good times.lol
I think most of us have that "one time" with 4 wheel drum brakes...and that immediately decides its disc brake time.
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Back in the day all serious racers used 4 wheel drum since there was no induced drag like disk brakes do.
 
I raced with stock drums back in the day. I used to say I could make the first return road once. After that not so much. One day I was in the late rounds , hot lapping, and the brakes had faded so much, I couldn't bring the car up against the converter, it would push the car forward.
 
Got the new rear shocks in place and torqued to spec. I used the original mounting locations. They are the Mopar racing shocks, go them from Mancini.

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Got rid of the old parking brake cables. Surprisingly pretty easy, I figured they would be a pain in the *** to remove being on there so long, but no issues. Pulled the clips and they slid right out.

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