1973 Dart Sport

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Deceus

Deceus

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Been lurking for a bit and got a lot of good information scavenging through some of the information on this board. Figured it was time to make a post. I bought a 1973 Dart Sport when I was 16 (10 years ago).

These were taken shortly after I got it home





The 225 gave out the following summer. A cylinder was knocking really bad so I got to do my first rebuild sooner than I probably would have liked, hah.





 
"I bought a 1973 Dart Sport when I was 16 (10 years ago). "

Welcome to the board....

I bought a 1973 Dart 340 Sport when I was 14 (30 years ago) Still have it....pic in my avatar

well it is sold now.... 2018
 
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I came back from basic with a few grand to spare so I promptly got rid of the terrible brown and sent it to the paint shop.

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Didn't really do much with it through college as I was hardly driving and had very limited funds. A power steering line decided to leak on me when I drove it down to the Outer Banks for my college graduation. What followed could be described as a calamity, this is a (long) story for another time. Once i got it towed back it just sat for 2 years, until now that is...

Here was the damage:

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I picked up a 74 Dart as a donor car last month and I've been busy ever since. The plan is to rebuild the front end and swap over the disk brakes. Once that's done I'll be rebuilding the 318 from the donor (hopefully) and dropping it in.

Here's the progress so far
Donor:
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Weekend 1-2:

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Week 3-4:










And that's were I stopped last weekend. My dad and I could not get that upper control arm separated to save our lives but the torsion bar somehow came free during the struggle. We're in over our heads just a bit with this front end rebuild considering we haven't done anything like this before so any input is more than welcomed haha.

I think I'm going with the Polygraphite Performance Super Front End Kit from PST once we get to the point where we're putting everything back together. Probably going to go cheap with the rotors and calipers since I'm mainly building this car as a weekend cruiser.
 
Good looking Sport there.
What do you mean by unable to separate the upper control arm? Ball joint from the spindle, ball joint from the UCA, or the cam bolts and UCA bushings?
Do you have a FSM? If not, do a search as there are links to a couple free download copies on the site here.
Good luck with it!
C

Oh, and welcome aboard by the way!
 
clhyer said:
Good looking Sport there.
What do you mean by unable to separate the upper control arm? Ball joint from the spindle, ball joint from the UCA, or the cam bolts and UCA bushings?
Do you have a FSM? If not, do a search as there are links to a couple free download copies on the site here.
Good luck with it!
C

Oh, and welcome aboard by the way!
Click to expand...

I'm guessing ball joint from the spindle. In the last picture you can see a pickle fork buried where I'm talking about. I think we've got it worked out, going to try again this coming weekend.
 
You might drop by your local auto supply and "rent" their front end kit. It will have a ball joint tool in there to make the job go a lot easier. If it will fit in the given space that is...
C
 
Good to see another Sport getting revived. I'll follow along here. I have got to get busy on mine.:coffee2:
 
Week 5:
Got the front end off the donor this weekend. Just took some heat from a propane torch and a little motivation from the BFH. Got the drum brakes off the Sport before calling it quits. Not too far off from pulling both engines finally.

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Got the 318 out of the 74 this past weekend. All that's left is pulling the 225 and frontend off the Sport and the reconstruction can start.

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JDMopar said:
You will need to swap the k frames also. Looks like you're doing a great job so far!:prayer:
Click to expand...

Yup that's the plan, forgot to mention that part. I'm hoping to get the 225 out this coming weekend. I can start sandblasting everything and get the front end put back together after it's all nice and painted. Going to be a while before the 318 is running again. Going to do a rebuild on it and throw on some 302 heads, KB167 pistons and XE-262. Money is going to be the main choke-point on that.
 
Got the 225 out finally. Now it's just a matter of rebuilding once the K-members are swapped.

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Looks like it will go together fast.
I love these type of builds, keep up the good work!
 
Been a while since I've had a good weekend to put in some work. Got the upper control arms switched over to the donor car and got the K-member and lower control arms most of the way off the Sport before running out of day light. The torsion bars were being a pain as expected but they shouldn't be a problem once I get the K-member fully disconnected from everything.

Sport:

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The donor:

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Got the K-members out. With that, I'm pretty much done with the disassembly. I got everything soaking in degreaser and I'm looking forward to painting soon.

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I'm hoping to just slide in the torsion bars and bolt the Sport K-member on to the Donor without much trouble. Hopefully that's not just wishful thinking.
 
Got the 318 K-member sandblasted and ready to paint only to find out it's going to need some welding. Not a big deal, my dad said he'll be able to fix it at his shop. I took some time to sort through the front end kit I got from PST. Once I have the socket for the upper control arm I can get started sandblasting that and getting everything ready for paint and reassembly.

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Also cleaned up the engine a bit since it was raining all Christmas Eve and I needed an excuse to get away from screaming kids.

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