1970 Dart Restoration

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B-radley

Active Member
Joined
Dec 21, 2018
Messages
29
Reaction score
69
Location
Hamilton, Ontario
Hi Everyone,

This is a first time for me posting on a website. I have enjoyed looking at other peoples project for a while now and thought I would share my newest project.

Background:
This is a 1970 Dart that was purchased from Arizona and brought up to Southern Ontario, Canada. My dad fell in love with the car as it had zero body rust. It was metallic green with no drive-line. The interior was baked.

He had a body-man strip down the car and weld up side molding trim holes. The car was primed, a 318 and 727 auto trans was rebuilt and installed. New Brakes, exhaust and tires then it sat for 8 to 10 years. He picked up another project and this one took a back seat for a while. Unfortunately, due to a lack of space the past few years the Dart was stored outside under a trap. Some surface rust was starting on the body edges and the car really needed to be finished and driven.

I have taken the project over and have a new body-man to give it the paint job it deserves. The goal is to get the car on the road with help from my Dad and my son. My Dad has always helped me with my cars. When I was 18, I bought a 1967 Firebird and we completely overhauled the car(three years to get on the road). I had it for 20 years and let it go as we needed a family vehicle.

I always liked the 1970 Dart. When I was in high school, there was a guy how had a blue dart he built up as a drag car with a street look. Blue with White interior and white vinyl top and rear stripe. I'm thinking about a blue for this project but a more street perforamce package under the hood.

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Pulling the engine and stripping down the Dart

I want the engine compartment painted the same as the body colour. We decided to pull the engine for detailing and give the bodyman the room to work and clean up the engine compartment.



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Welcome from a fellow Canuck! I've also helped my son work on his 70 dart. (He's 17) It's a great on going experience for both of us! Looks like yours is nice and solid, be sure to post some picts as you go !!
 
Welcome looks like there is another 70 year model car in red in the garage behind the dart in the first post. Have fun.
 
Back from Media Blasting

Got the car back form media blasting and I knew it was pretty clean but very surprised at how clean this car really is. One rust spot that was less than the size of a dime for the entire car.

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Here is the car in primer. We brought over the original steel wheels so the rallies don't get over-spray on them. They are likely the original tires that came with the car, bias ply tires that are so weather checked they no longer hold air. My dad fitted them with some inner-tubes so they would hold air for moving the car around. I think it looks pretty cool with the old-school look.

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Welcome..
Very clean car
You got there..
 
Well it pretty much looks the same as a month ago but the car is moving closer to getting a splash of paint on it. It has been a tough choice to pick a colour as there are so many good options out there.
It was going to be lime green, go mango, a cool green yellow then finally landed on a version of B5 blue.

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Checked on the Body and paint progress. It’s been block sanded and the car looks straighter than it would have come out of the factory.
Started stripping down the engine for detailing. Got the water pump pull in primer and a bunch of other parts to blast and paint.
Have some work in front of me to repair the grill. Does anyone have suggestions on repainting it? Masking it off is going to be a challenge.
Another question I have is are the innner fenders and bumper bracket black or body colour?

Thanks

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Thanks. Started with a very clean original car. I'm the 2nd owner
 
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