another 68 dart resto project

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CanadianGT

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Well after 5 years finally I'll be starting my restoration of my 68 Dart GT, got it when I was 14 and it's been kicking around ever since. Finally after all tht time It's coming home supposed to be next weekend so I'm really excited. It's a 68 Dart GT, 225 slant six automatic 904 with a 7 1/4 rear and Drums all the way around. green exterior, white interior, bucket seats and console.
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Holy smokes! You have some rust repair ahead of you. Check the frame rails, and cowl areas, the rest you can obviously see. Something to think about, is the repair going to be worth it? some of the parts may not be available, it might be wise to think about another car and using that one as a donor. Don't take me wrong, but I have 2 years into my Dart so far, and it did not have any rust. If you really want to do it, then I wish you luck.
 
I've checked everything over and the only parts of the frame that have rust are the parts I'm replacing. the torsion bar crossmember is being cut out and replaced with a custom built crossmember seeing as I'm putting in coil overs. the car isn't all that bad it does need some critical panels replaced but it's nothing I'm not prepared for. Every car is worth fixing if it means enough to you. I have no plans on selling the car ever so it doesn't matter to me how much time goes into fixing it.
 
CanadianGT said:
I've checked everything over and the only parts of the frame that have rust are the parts I'm replacing. the torsion bar crossmember is being cut out and replaced with a custom built crossmember seeing as I'm putting in coil overs. the car isn't all that bad it does need some critical panels replaced but it's nothing I'm not prepared for. Every car is worth fixing if it means enough to you. I have no plans on selling the car ever so it doesn't matter to me how much time goes into fixing it.
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then that sounds like its a good enough reason, go for it! :toothy10:
 
flyboy01 said:
then that sounds like its a good enough reason, go for it! :toothy10:
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lol well I figure it's going to be unorthodox enough that only someone with a mind like mine would want it and how many people out there are there like me? lol It's going to be a turbo'd slant 6 with a 4 speed followed up with a independent rear suspension out of a 89-97 thunderbird. Shaved door handles, power trunk, full out security, efi, 4 wheel discs, coil over suspension front and rear, aftermarket guages installed in the dash pad, 5 inch tach, A pillar guage triple guage pod. etc. etc. lots of plans that make it unique to me.
 
lol meh. I already have 2 slants, a slant 6 disc brake k member, a slant 6 bellhousing, and I'm looking at getting a slant 6 from a truck( stronger motor with more webbing) lol that and I'm buying an offenhauser intake for my turbo project(with the truck 225)

I'm ditching the plan to use coilovers. I'm going to airbag the car so I can lay frame as the ultimate security device, can't steal the thing if you can't get under it now can you?
 
Going out today to the local pick-u-part to try and get a complete rear independent suspension setup, they have the everything you can carry for 30 bucks.
 
Went out to the pick-u-part and tried pulling a rear independent system and it's fully metric bolts and really big ones to 19mm and up and couldn't get everything off so we decided not to bother, and then we remembered something my dad had stashed away in the weeds for my car a long time ago. So went looking for it and well we found it ;D
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It's a perfect 489 8 3/4 pumpkin. 2.76 gears and an open diff. Best part is they had the all you can carry for 30 bucks today so I grabbed this and tossed it on a seat with an alternator and a voltage regulator(for my truck as well as the seats out of a early 90's eagle talon for the ramcharger) and tossed the second seat up top and off we went across the scales. so essentially I paid 10 bucks for a complete 8 3/4 489 pumpkin doesn't get much better then that.
 
if your going to use coil overs- or air bags than you have to completely replace the front suspension anyways so what does it matter if you have a 6 Kframe? I agree to use a 3.9 rather than the slant. Don't get me wrong the leaning tower of power is awesome- it would save you alot of hair pulling, cussing and headaches to start with something that came with efi than adapting it. just my opinion though
 
The V6 is a great idea, however, I still like the nostalga of the slant 6. A turbo /6 will chew up many V8's. Looks like you have the rust problems well in hand. Good luck. Howard
 
I am a v8 guy myself but a slant with turbos does sound cool. good luck rusty 1/4s aren't much fun.
 
mrspeeddemon said:
if your going to use coil overs- or air bags than you have to completely replace the front suspension anyways
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really? is that so hmm? I believe that above is a picture of coil overs on a stock front suspension. Not to knock you but I know what I'm talking about.

Hey flyboy I bought a cheapy gun today for spraying primer. It was on sale so I picked up up for like 40 bucks. It's a HVLP gun that has a 1.4mm nozzle, operating pressure of 15 to 43 psi, air consumption at 43 psi is 4 cfm average and 12 cfm continuous. It should be good for the little compressor I have here at home.

I'm sticking with the slant because It's an awesome engine. And besides why buy a V6 when I can post an add on any sale site and have a half dozen slants basically given to me. unlike magnum engines my slant has a forged crank and rods and an optimal 8:1 compression ratio, forged pistons are only 360 bucks for the slant compared to things available for the magnum. I can build a more powerful motor for cheaper with hardly any fabrication.
 
Just make sure to practice spraying with it before anything goes on the car. I had a gun that was junk, when I started spraying with it, it gave me a bad finish, a lot of orange peel. I eventually figured out what was wrong with it, just poor manufacturing. I just drilled the tip out to 1.8mm and made it a high fill primer gun, since that stuff has to be sanded anyway. I ended up buying a 1.4mm Astro Evo LVLP gun. It uses much less air and lays on more paint, and it was only $85.

Here is test for you gun and compressor. Hook up the gun set the air pressure at the gun (the recommended pressure for your gun), and pull the trigger, let the air out untill the compressor starts to run. stop. Let it charge up until it stops, then as soon as it does, pull the trigger on the gun while timing it with a stop watch until the compressor starts to run, make note of the time, but keep timing it and keep the trigger pulled, now time how long before the pressure starts to drop at the gun (more than 2 psi than previous). If your compressor charges up and stops while you have to trigger pulled, then you can stop the test, its more than big enough. If it never stops, then keep timing it until the pressure drops, make note of that time. stop pulling the trigger, But keep timing, now time how long before the compressor charges up and stops running.

Here are my results:
Trigger pulled, before compressor starts: 4 minutes
Trigger pulled, pressure drop at gun: +7 minutes
Recharge time, trigger released: +3 minutes

What this tells you... I can continuously paint for 11 minutes before my spray pattern changes, I can rest for 3 minutes, then start again. Realistically, you don't keep the trigger pulled continuously while painting, when I sprayed primer, I could have sprayed for about 25 minutes before I stopped, but I was burning through a cup full of 18oz of primer in about 10 minutes. I could spray the whole body in about 15 minutes, so for me, my compressor is plenty enough for my spray job. Another test you can do simultaneously, while doing the above test, fill the paint cup to within 1/2 of the top with DISTILLED water and time how long it takes to empty the cup, if the cup empties before the test is up, then you have noting really to worry about, because you will have to stop and refill the spraycup anyway.
 
thanks for the tips flyboy. I'll probably use this gun to spray primer and duplicolor paintshop paint on my ramcharger on the cheap. So that will be a nice test and I'll also go and do your suggestions before that.
 
tomorrows the day it comes home. I'll be having a ball ripping into it and removing things. I have to go get a new toolset(I pretty much lost all of mine because of my little brother) so I found a nice set on sale at Can tire with lifetime warrenty and I'll go pick it up because it'll replace the majority of my tools that I lost. I decided that getting stock replacement floor pans and a trans tunnel is way to much money. I'm looking into replacing my plans on using a 4 speed transmission with a T-56 Viper 6 speed behind an eventually twin turbo'd slant six.

Seeing as I'm going to build the car to sit on the frame(as an antitheft device first, and then every other reason for it) I'm going to run a custom built air bag suspension system built on tubular upper control arms up front using a stock front suspension k member and a custom built ford thunderbird independent rear suspension system. With the car sitting low I have to build new engine mounts so that my engine/bellhousing/trans sit up above the bottom of the frame. I'm thinking it may be a good idea to make some sort of skidplate/sheeting on the bottom of the frame to smooth everything out and protect the important pieces of the car like the engine and trans from debris, etc. because of the likely low ground clearence(5-6" min hopefully)
 
It's home now in the garage. tomorrow morning fenders, doors, hood and trunk lid come off so I can get a better look at everything. I've already decided I'll be making a custom rad support(mines not rusted away to baly but it's rusted in the spots where the metal has a rounded groove so I'll be replacing them and the inner fenders with custom made pieces. the front floor pans are rusted out just in front of the seat holes. so that will get replaced with flat steel(1/8 inch thick maybe for all the custom pieces) the fenders are going in the garbage and getting replaced with fiberglass pieces. The hood and trunk lid are great. The trunk pan is getting chopped out and replaced with flat steel and a 20 gallon fuel cell. the quarters need to be replaced and thats as far as I can see the jist of the sheetmetal. The transmission crossmember will be boxed in and replaced(for the T-56 tremec Viper 6 speed) then the conventional frame connectors and an "X" connector will be installed for extra strength. A bigger trans tunnel will be fabbed up to accomodate the exhaust piping because I'm running independent rear suspension I can do it that way. The bigger trans tunnel will also help with the bigger T-56 because I have to chop the factory trans opening for the small block bellhousing I will have to order(I can adapt a small block bellhousing to work on the slant and the one I need is only 450 and it's sfi approved) Pictures to follow tomorrow.
 
Well work began at 9 am this morning and by 1 pm I had both fenders off, both doors off and the hood off with the help of my dad, That and a bunch of little things(pulling seat belts, vacuuming, removing chrome trim and labeling zip loc bags accordingly this is basically the jist of the hidden rot. It's actually nice seeing how solid it really is compared to how I thought It would be.
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maybe this is why it had no brakes last time we moved it. The rear brakes has none and the fronts is low.
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heres what we used to pull the car home. a GRIP adjustable towbar. good thing we only went like 2 or 3 kilometers. (it's not supposed to be bent.
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more pictures later on.
 
love your plans and enthusiasm.
Those ideas you have for the car sound really unique, which is not an easy feet now that just about everything has been done.
I've been investigating putting IRS into my VG hardtop, (same as the 68 Dart from "A" pillar back) so I'm keen to see your rear end set up as it comes together.
 
linkstar69 said:
love your plans and enthusiasm.
Those ideas you have for the car sound really unique, which is not an easy feet now that just about everything has been done.
I've been investigating putting IRS into my VG hardtop, (same as the 68 Dart from "A" pillar back) so I'm keen to see your rear end set up as it comes together.
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thanks for the compliment. My IRS will be modeled after a Moparts members IRS in his 64 dart
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Great pics, I've added them to my folder full of various IRS pics.

You're spot on about the coilover front end, as long as the upper mount is sufficiently re-enforced there's no reason you can't go air or coilovers, lets face it the mini-truck guys have been converting torsion bar set ups for years.

Just as a matter of interest, considering you're looking at going for a turbo set up down the track, have you thought about EFI'ing the slant? its the kind of thing you can attempt without necessarily going to expensive aftermarket gear.
I'm in the final stages of my LA 360 (408) EFI build and have mainly used common oem parts to do it. I could add yet another point of diference to your ride and add nice tuning potential when you apply boost down the track.

Keep up the good work.
 
linkstar69 said:
Great pics, I've added them to my folder full of various IRS pics.

You're spot on about the coilover front end, as long as the upper mount is sufficiently re-enforced there's no reason you can't go air or coilovers, lets face it the mini-truck guys have been converting torsion bar set ups for years.

Just as a matter of interest, considering you're looking at going for a turbo set up down the track, have you thought about EFI'ing the slant? its the kind of thing you can attempt without necessarily going to expensive aftermarket gear.
I'm in the final stages of my LA 360 (408) EFI build and have mainly used common oem parts to do it. I could add yet another point of diference to your ride and add nice tuning potential when you apply boost down the track.

Keep up the good work.
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Yep she's definitly going efi. Megasquirt will be on my ramcharger and my dart. It's going to be an awesome car.

I just found out my work has a sandblasting kit that would be perfect for the dart so I'll probably load the car up on a trailer and bring it down to work and sandblast the hell out of it.(just the underside/floorpans, and the engine compartment I won't be touching the body)
 
The dart got some work done today. I pulled the brake master cylinder and the booster and the bracket, the wiring in the engine compartment and pulled horns, the hood latch, and a few other things out. It's a slow process especially with working late in the day and being up late at night after work just leaves me with hardly any time to do necessary work. Sunday the oil, trans fluid, and the antifreeze will all be drained and I'll pull the engine and transmission out of the car to pull the smaller pieces out of the engine compartment. I'll be cutting out the brake lines and fuel lines and once thats all done I'll focus on the back half of the car. In a couple weeks I'll send the car to get the floors and the firewall sandblasted to be cleaned and then I'll start on the chassis work.


EDIT: btw I'm keeping track of how many hours I have in this car by the end and I'll total it all together by what a fab shop would charge. I'm assuming something like 60 bucks an hour is average? so far I have 7 hours into the car not including gathering parts etc.
 
Not alot going on, pulling the dash apart mostly, pulled the steering column and the heater box, eventually I'll have to pull the glass but I'm going to try and gut out everything I can and leave the glass in the car as I'm worried it will get smashed before it goes back in. I picked up a 89 Mustang T-5 5 speed to put behind the slant just have to buy an SFI approved bellhousing, I'm looking at a Quicktime bellhousing for a small block that I can adapt to my slant and then I can mock up the drivetrain for the trans tunnel and how much I have to lift them up so they clear the ground when the car is dropped down onto the frame.
 
I'm pulling and poking at it slowly, I'm really not wanting to pull the glass out so I'm slowly working my way to getting the parts in the dash taken apart and get it all apart, I need to get it car media blasted although I really don't think the cost is worth it. I'd do it myself but I don't have the equipment of a place to do it. put in another 3 hours today so I'm up to about 13 hours total. Would have cost me 780 bucks buy now if I was paying a shop to do this.
 
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