1974 Dart Swinger

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When we de-coded the numbers, it was listed as "Avacado Gold Poly". This color got quite a few comments at the car show we were at. We plan to take off the trunk lid and hood, scrub them down, and wax / polish their undersides so they look as clean and shiney as the engine bay.

 

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Well it's been a while since we've been on here but both boys are playing summer baseball, (which just ended) and Jeffrey is about to start two-a-days for his H.S. football team. That combined with new dirt bikes and riding them and camping when we do have a free weekend has kept us very busy and has kinda put the Dart on the back-burner.
But we have collected a few parts such as replacement visors and a dash cluster, thanks to some great people on this site.
We do hope to get some under hood rubber pieces soon and will post installment pictures when we get them.
Oh yeah, thats him doing a "no footer" jump off a steep hillside where we ride.

 

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This week, we found a 1973 Dart Custom 4-door just 5 blocks away from our house that had $750 OBO written on the windows. We called the guy Thursday evening and he informed us he was leaving for Germany at 10am Sunday morning, (he's a soldier at Ft. Hood). He also informed me the car stopped running/starting about a week ago, so he was selling it quickly, cheap. I offered him $500 and we towed it away Sunday morning. Well today my son jumped in the car and it fired right up not once, but three times with no issues other than a light lifter tap. We bought the car due to the various parts we planned to take off of it or have as back-ups down the road. The instrument cluster and wood grain look great, the black seat belts all look good and retract well, "new" dual exhaust with twin turbo mufflers will be transplanted, the black grill is better shape, the radiator is larger and the fan has 7 blades rather than 4, brakes are front disk "power assisted", A/C unit with under dash venting, Clarion 50 watt stereo with 4 co-axial speakers, and the front and rear seats are in better shape and style that what the 74 Dart has now.
Our questions for this panel are;
- Can we easily add the power brake system?
- Should the 4 door seats bolt into the 2 door easliy?
- Is A/C conversion simple / possible?

Once we take the parts we want and swap the old parts back into the 4 door Dart, I plan to possibly paint the 4-door to look like a 1970's era Army Staff Car and drive it to work on Ft Hood.
The car is a 318/auto with 114,000 miles.
Any tips or helpful insights from this panel would be greatly appriciated.

 

[7demon2]

that is a great score! there will be a wealth of parts there for you to use. all of the a/c stuff will interchange, but will be a big undertakeing. the a/c may require some help but again can be done. the larger radiator and fan is do to the a/c so that is a plus. even if you don't use the a/c at least transplant the radiator, fan ,and shroud to yours. seats i would think would be the same as a 2 door. power brakes will transplant to yours. you will need all brackets, booster, m/c and pedal rod, portion valve too. the exhaust system may not fit as the wheel base on the 4 door is going to be a bit longer than the 2 door. some slight modifaction will be needed. dash will work but is also a tediouse job. take your time here. looks like you have your work cut out for you now, so get busy!

 

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Well I got home from work this evening and my son was itching to start work transferring parts from one car to the other. Since time was limited, we decided on something easy and it made a big difference, that the pictures don't give justice too. The 4 door had it's grill painted flat black by the previous owner and it was also in much better shape, in that none of the mounting tabs were broken off. The only issue was having to drill small holes in the bottom tabs of the grill to match up and screw on the rubber piece that is between the grill and bumper on the 2 door. I also took some comparison photo's as well. The radiator in the 4 door is about 4 inches wider than the 2 doors opening and there appears to be no easy way to mount the larger radiator. Besides, now that the 4 door runs we don't really want to gut it, but we are going to take all the best pieces for the 2 door, like the dash and seats.

 

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A few more pictures from this evenings grill swap.

 

[bayyum]

nice little car

 

[7demon2]

if you are still going to try to install the a/c from the 4 door to the 2 door you are still going to need to have a larger radiator to support the a/c. the fan and shroud will be a must also for proper cooling. the 2 door should support the larger radiator. is the 4 door a 26" raditor? if so then 26" also could have come in the 2 door as well. the radiator in the 2 door now is an aftermarket, also way small, and has the upper hose on the wrong side. seeing as this is the case look on the core support to see if the original mounting locations were used to mount it. there should be holes there to accomadate the 26" somewhere. the opening looks like a 26" from the picture. have you measured the opening on the 2 door?

 

[7374]

when i changed the front clip on my 74, the rad support must have been from an A/C car because my rad didn't come close the the holes and the opening was a lot bigger. i had to make some brackets out of aluminum angle iron and bolt them in. once that was done i was able to drill holes for the radiator to bolt to.

 

[Button]

The radiator in the 4 door is a 26in. From bolt hole to bolt hole measures roughly 28.5in, and there are no holes on my radiator support mount in those measurements. The current rad in the 2-door looks to have come from a 225 slant six car and I agree it is small, but so far has seemed to work well.

 

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Does anyone have any pictures of an "A Body" 4 door, that was a police car. I think doing the 4 door as a police cruiser would be cool for car shows. One Dart pulling over another. I'd appriciate any cop car pics if they exist of Darts.

 

[7demon2]

ask and you shall recieve....look here;

http://www.allpar.com/squads/police-cars/valiant.html

 

[SwingerDeluxe]

Not the best place for your tach. Looking down is never good when driving.
Your tach is designed to go around the steering column with a big hose clamp.
But with the column shifter that can be a problem.

Here is a idea for you I came up with. Take the second screw out of the instrument cluster,and save it.

You will need to find a bigger screw of the same diameter. Screw it in and your done. Actually works really well here. In perfect sight, without covering all your gauges. 8)

Johnny Dart & Button: what are the diameters of your tachs? I like the location you put your tach JohnnyDart and I'm looking for that size of tach. Is it 3 3/4" or 2 5/8"? Thanks for any info! Bill

 

[Johnny Dart]

Johnny Dart & Button: what are the diameters of your tachs? I like the location you put your tach JohnnyDart and I'm looking for that size of tach. Is it 3 3/4" or 2 5/8"? Thanks for any info! Bill

Mine is 2 5/8"
Auto Meter Sport Comp PT# 3708
If I had it to do over I probably would have gone with the 3 3/4" PT# 3780

 

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Our Tach is a Sun Pro, Mini Tach. The face is 2in wide, the body about 2.5in. I would prefer a bigger tach but it serves the purpose and I plan to move it's location up the dash area eventually.
I pulled the plugs and cleaned them on the 4 door Dart. That was a serious pain in the butt getting around all the hoses and wires compared to the two doors engine, (both are 318 ). They were Autolites and looked pretty crusty and probably need replaced but I cleaned them up pretty good and the car instantly had a smoother idle. The one vale cover is missing an upper bolt and the other cover has a possibly stripped bolt hole, but both are holding oil OK for now. Other than a complete tune up, we don't plan to do much with the engine bay/motor on the 4 door. All it's good parts will go to the Swinger with the old part going back to the 4 door. Our ultimate plan for the 4 door is to tint it's windows nearly black to hind the interior, paint it black and white to resemble a police cruiser, find and era correct police light bar, and show it in shows behind the 2 door as if it pulled the 2 door over for speeding. At least thats the plan for now.

 

[C39]

GO BUCKS!

North Coast Muscle Car near Cleveland sells leaf springs pairs for under 2 bills. Nice folks.

 

[Button]

C39,
I take it you are from Ohio?!?! Where at in the state? Most all of my family is in Delaware, about 20 minutes north of Columbus.

 

[Dart Shawn]

pull the mount off, put your foot up against the back of it then hammer the arched area flat, I have the same tach in my dart and bolted mine to my AC vents in the same area you did yours, its mounted flush!

Just a little tip 8)

Shawn

Hello all,
It's been a while since we've posted since Spring football, baseball season, and soccer have occupied so much of our time. Not to mention going camping and off-road riding on our dirt bikes and ATV's. We did wash up the Dart this past weekend and then installed a Tachometer we picked up on Craigslist for $15. A Sun-Pro, mini-tach that works just fine. I'd like to get a better mount for under the dash but it is OK for now.
My thanks to Joe, (you know who you are) for the fine visors he sent us. They are almost like new and it really makes me feel fortunate to be a member of this forum due to the outstanding help and advise we have recieved. I tell people al the time about this site!!!

 

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Well over the last two days we pulled off the rear bumper on the 4 door and stripped off the gray primer that had been applied. We did the same with the front fender turn signal indicators. We used an aresol can of "Tuff Strip" which is made by Crown and we picked up at Lowes for around $6.50 for the can. There was more than enough to do the bumper and we still have some left. It only took 5-10 minutes for it to lift the paint and it peeled right off. After we removed the paint, we washed the bumper with dish soap and then polished it out with Kit Scratch Remover.
Since we want to make this car a police car clone, I wanted the bumper back to it's regular look. While not perfect chrome by any means, It is fine by me and I'll post some pictures once it's mounted back on the car.
I also polished out the front bumper and plan to get the driver door mirror polished up this next weekend.
It will probably be this upcoming spring before we start transferring the dash and interior to the 2 door.

 

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Well tonight we got the rear bumper put back on the 4-door custom. Last night I thought I had it all together and then when I walked around to the back and tried attaching the red lenses, I noticed they fit funny. What I'd done was put the tail lights on the wrong side of the bumper! So tonight we took the bumper back off and apart and changed the tail-lights. Below are the results of the bumper with the primer paint removed and re-installed on the car. While not perfect chrome, I prefer it to the primer. I hope to get some turn down chrome exhaust tips this week-end. Does anyone have "dog-dish" hubcaps they would like to trade for the ones in the pictures?

 

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Today was polish and wax day for not just the Dart, but for my truck as well. We plan to take them to a car show 19 September and enter the Dart in a MOPAR class as well as an "under-construction" class. The truck will be in a "lifted truck" catagory just for fun, since I'm taking it there anyways.
The passenger side of the Dart had yet to be polished out and waxed in the 11 months we've had it, and it showed. We did everything by hand and the polishing pads quickly became "caked" with grime and crap from the old paint, but the over all result of alot of elbow grease was quite satisfying.
Soon we hope to start transferring parts from the 4-door to the 2-door.

 

[Joe Mc]

Hey Guys - the car (and truck!) looks great!!! Have fun at the car show. Sept 19th . . . you've got 3 weeks left. As a suggestion, to help do better at the show and preserve the roof, I think (MHO) if you were able to spray bomb the roof a satin or flat black (possibly Hot Rod Black = it's more of a flat than satin) it would present the Dart better, and help fight off the rust monster.

What a great find this car has been for you guys, it truly has come a long way and looks so period correct with the S/S Cragers and BFGs, I'm really diggin` it. By the way, Dad, the Ram isn't too shabby either! Of course I'm partial to the 2nd generation Rams (note my daily driver). I'm guessing the truck is a 98 or lower? due to the chrome mirrors and no back doors, in 98.5 they went black plastic and intro'ed the quad cab. Nice pair of vehicles!

Enjoy.

 

[Button]

Joe Mc,
What brand of black satin do you suggest? I believe this Friday, I will paint the roof will the boy is in school, (I have a four day weekend compliments of the Army). I always LOVED Cragar S/S rims. I had a set of Cragar SuperTricks back in the 80's, but never S/S's. I've always told my son, tires and rims can drastically improve a cars looks.
The truck is a 1997 with a 5 inch "Superlift" suspension lift and a 3 inch body lift. Tires are 37X12.50-15 Super Swamper SSR's. The 5.9L and auto trans are original and have over 165,000 miles on them. She's my baby and best part is that she's paid-off! I have a 10inch drop Aluma-Stinger drop hitch, (not mounted in this pic) for towing our ATV/dirtbikes. The mirrors are how I tell the different years at a glance as well.
Take care.

 

[Joe Mc]

Any Enamel spray would do, Rust-oleum is pretty common and a good product. If you want to get fancy you could scuff pad what's there now, use some high build spray bomb primer (Pep Boys or the like) sand smooth (600 or 1000 grit) then apply the flat or satin black. You can also pick up some sheet plastic at Lowe's or the like and cover the whole car, then cut out the roof and tape the plastic to the edges. This way no over spray gets on the rest of the car.

I remember my aunt had a Toyota Corolla when they first came to the states like in the mid - late 60s and she took it somewhere to have a simulated vinyl roof sprayed on. You could just do the roof with a bed liner textured material, but then when it comes time to strip it off it could be a pain? Not sure how difficult it is to get that stuff off? Probably best to just stick with an enamel paint to spruce it up and give the roof some more protection.

Do share pictures when you get done. I agree the Crager S/S are sweet, on my duster I had the 3-spoke Crager S/S center caps as a unique touch = nobody else had even seen them before so it was unique looking.

Have fun, I'm sure your son will be most pleased to see black on the roof - it'll definitely set the car off.

 

[Button]

Well today I tackled re-painting the grey primer roof with Satin black paint while my son was in school. The grey primer was starting to have rust bleed through and was starting to chaulk some. We hope to have the roof professionaly repainted this spring as well as new window seals installed front and rear.
The black goes well with the blacked-out grill treatment and ceratinly looks better than the tired looking grey.