A Teenager and His Swinger

-
Nice car! The only one you have to make happy is yourself...so do with it what you like! My sister in laws dad wanted carpet in the kitchen and she talked him out of it...he was a carpet salesman for 50+ years...she said it would make it harder to sell when he passed...now that's not looking after what "daddy" wants. He still complains of the tile.

I like the name "little blue bruiser"...
Goes with the black and blue theme....not sayin the white's not cool!
 
Nothing going on at the moment with the Dart, but here's a video of a 1969 Dart convertible I made to keep everyone interested. If you like this one, I can post some more.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XKVgPCWGik"]Today I Drive: 1969 Dodge Dart Convertible [Episode 4] - YouTube[/ame]
 
The past two days have been very productive.

The left rear tire was rubbing the leaf springs but the right side wasn't, so I picked up 5 new studs and a spacer to fix that.

4 Monroe shocks were also put on which means I can now drive :headbang::headbang:

I decided to repaint the grille black to see how it would look. Unfortunately I didn't notice that the passenger headlight bezel had a crack on the top the whole length of it until it snapped into two pieces. No biggie. A little JB weld and 24 hours later, good as new!

I added in a before and after so you guys can see how much better it looks. I love it. The lighting isn't very good but you get the idea.

I also picked up a non A/C heater box out of a '73 Duster. The problem is that my firewall is for an A/C heater box and I don't have one at my disposal. Will it work? Is there any adapter or anything I can pick up to make it work? I can make something, but I didn't want to put a ton of effort into something that won't work or that I can buy online for cheap (if it's even cheap. Is anything Mopar cheap?).

After adjusting the kick down linkage, I got to put a couple of miles on the Swinger. The carburetor sputters and everything rattles, but that's all fun for me. I have a mess of parts and what not scattered all in the car, but I say a mess is progress.

P.S. Thought you guys might like the December 1984 issue of Cartoons. I absolutely love reading these. My dad managed to keep most of his issues.

More to come!
 

Attachments

  • photo (38).jpg
    62.4 KB · Views: 598
  • photo (37).jpg
    95.1 KB · Views: 575
  • photo (36).jpg
    72.3 KB · Views: 601
  • photo (33).jpg
    64.8 KB · Views: 585
  • photo (35).jpg
    50 KB · Views: 605
I need a woodgrain dash panel for the radio and heater controls for a 1972 Swinger. I have 1974 panels, but they obviously won't work.

Anyone here have one they would sell?
 
So we jumped head first into tackling the wiring. It's only been a day and it's already the most complicated thing we've gone through. When the car was painted by the previous owner, most of the plug ins and wires were cut off, smashed, or mangled. Luckily I'll be able to replace most of it with new or better wires.

I painted and installed the gauge cluster and heater controls panel along with a brand new radio. The wipers, heater, and a few guages work right now, so hopefully we'll be able to fix it all soon.

Also I took the Dart for another quick drive. This time I was actually able to stretch the legs of the 360 after a good cleaning of the carburetor. This car will suck you back in the seats from a dead stop. 70 MPH cruising is as easy as could be. I can't afford to use the 8 3/4 with 3:23's just yet, but I can't imagine how it would run with better gears.

Burnouts are fun too.
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    69.6 KB · Views: 499
Wiring is a pain. No updates here recently. Once this is done I won't have much left.
 
Well the Sport is off to a new home in Indiana, which leaves me some spending money for the Swinger. My goal is to be street legal and road worthy by the end of this month. Let's hope I can make this happen.
 

Attachments

  • photo (43).jpg
    102.7 KB · Views: 461
I ordered some brand new pretty side marker lights, all new bulbs, a headlight switch, and an engine wiring harness for the Dart. I'm incredibly happy with how easy it was to directly plug in the new engine harness. I'd much rather have this than the crusty original harness. So everything is going smoothly now. I installed a radio and speakers. I just have to run some speaker wire. Once that's done I'll move to tackling all the lights and such. Hopefully it'll go without much complication (which I doubt). Then I should be able to put her back together.

Thanks everyone for following this thread. I'm one step closer to the first real drive.
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    63.2 KB · Views: 434
I went to a local swap meet today and picked up this chin spoiler that was laying in a pile of Mopar parts for $8. The guy said he didn't know what it was for. Is this one of the Direct Connection chin spoilers? It's got the same shape as some of the chin spoilers on here so it made sense.
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    19.9 KB · Views: 390
Sorry for no new updates everyone. I've had the car street legal and I've just been enjoying driving it. I got all the lights to work except for one tail light. It seems that it may have a bad socket or the actual harness is bad. I reused the old headlight harness and all the lights work, but when you hit the brakes, the parking lights come on. It doesn't bother me, but is there anything to check to see why it does this? Also the turn signals aren't working, but I have an idea why it doesn't. I think the turn signal switch is bad because you can hear the clicking sound in the dash even though they aren't on. I've managed to diagnose most of the leaks. I'm still leaking transmission fluid so that's a fix I don't look forward to. I've just really been enjoying taking it places and showing it off. Now I'm just waiting for car show season. This thread isn't over yet. I still have plenty of things left to do.

Thanks for checking out the thread and expect more to come.

Here's my favorite senior picture with the car. I got to take it prom too and cause a scene. I don't think the average person knows how to handle a Mopar.
 

Attachments

  • photo (56).JPG
    120.7 KB · Views: 374
Taillight issue could be because of an improper tag light if you have the taglight running in series using the two wires instead of power going in one wire and the other acting as a ground. That was the one I ran into.
 
The backseat and bumper have been pulled to check all the wiring to the tail lights. As far as we can tell, the problem is somewhere in the dash. Since I can't drive it for now I went to the local junk yard and picked up some air horns for $5 to make me feel better. I'm ready to scare some old people now.
 

Attachments

  • photo (57).jpg
    54.2 KB · Views: 373
Use an ohm meter and check resistance from the taillight assembly to ground, then put the bulb socket in the taillight assembly and check resistance from the socket to ground and see if the two reading are the same.

I believe the light problem might be that one of the taillight sockets is not getting a good ground & feeding back thru the park lights when you hit the brakes.
 
Thanks everyone for your help with suggestions of what could be wrong with the light. It turns out that the bulb socket was bad and it was sending power back to the turn signals. Since I can't afford/wait for a new tail light assembly because the socket can't be removed, I pulled out the old one and cut a socket out of a parking light from a later model Dodge truck. Then I screwed in the new socket into the tail light housing. Simple and free.

After this was resolved, the turn signals followed, and I now have everything working.
 

Attachments

  • photo 1.jpg
    36 KB · Views: 316
  • photo 2.jpg
    45.9 KB · Views: 289
Alright here is the rest of the pictures. This blue looks incredible to me.

Also here are some better pictures of the inside. The guy told me that the bucket seats came out of an early A body, but he wasn't sure what. Any ideas? They look like a '66 Barracuda seat to me, but I'm not sure.

The door panels are in a lot better shape than most of the door panels that I already have. Since the seats that I'm using are black, I'm probably going to invest in a few cans of vinyl paint to change everything else to black.

67 barracuda buckets. the dash in the car looks like 70 up
 
I pulled out the rear end from the Swinger and my Dart Sport. The Sport has a 7.25 that I'm using temporarily since I had already put all new brakes and brake lines on it AND it's big bolt pattern. The Swinger has a 8.75 rear with 3.23 posi gears that I'm definitely using. The only thing is that it's small bolt. I'm going to put this one aside and wait until I can afford to rebuild the brakes and order some big bolt axles for it.


i had a 7&1/4 BBP axle in a 74 dart V8 4 door i stripped for parts. i used the complete drum brake setup from it backing plates and all on my 67 8&3/4 rear. its a bolt up. all i had to do was get BBP A body axles. i have since gotten a set of finned kelsey hayes rear drums off a chrysler fifth ave to run instead of the smooth dart drums.
More to come tomorrow. Thanks for looking![/QUOTE]
 
-
Back
Top