Gunmetal 72 Dart - Cool cruiser build (no... refurb!)

[72Dodge]

PRE-PURCHASE:

I've had this 72 Dart for about a year and I've been picking at it as time and money allow, but now that I'm getting deeper into it, I think it's about time to start a "build" thread. Though, it's really turned into more like a "refurbish" and less like a "build", which I'll explain in one of the next posts.

But to start off, here are the pre-purchase pics, where the car sat since about 1999. The car was listed on ebay and CraigsList with a ridiculous price, but I got it for about a third of what he was asking.

The car was registered in North Carolina for most of its life (until 1994), though I uncovered the original Florida dealer sticker on the trunk lid.

In hibernation for nearly 15 years, waiting for me to get my hands on it... then loading it onto the trailer last year:

 

[72Dodge]

Arriving at new adoptive home.

 

[72Dodge]

Stop smirking at me, Dart!

Probably can't see it in the small picture, but 1994 NC inspection sticker in the window.

In the next posts I will bring this to present-day. It looks a lot different now.

 

[66340SEDAN]

Very cool car!!!!

 

[Princess Valiant]

my favorite car of all time ....a 72 swinger. I have one too that I daily drove for three years with a cast crank 440/ 4 speed.

I love the grille for 72 and the interiors were tasteful for 72 ......you have the deluxe interior but even the standard interior for 72 was awesome. I have the standard one and I love the bench seat that was new for 72. LOL

72 was innovative year that a lot of new things showed up on all Chrysler products ....plus I love the old ads for 72.

"this is the kind of car America wants.....I think so"

 

[72Dodge]

I love the 72 also.

My original plan for this car was to put on a '70-'71 grille and rear bumper, put in a small block/727/8.75"... you know, the usual tear the guts out. But after living with the car for awhile, I really like it for what it is, so I'm keeping it as a /6 car. At least for now. I'm sure eventually I'll stick a V8 in it, I have almost everything to do that. But the car drives amazingly well.

So, to that end, I've replaced a lot of the usual wear/tune-up items and got it running pretty good. It has HORRIBLE blow-by, but once I get a couple other things worked out, I'm going to get it out on the road and see if the rings will re-seat, and probably replace the valve stem seals to try to make this 127,000 mile /6 last a bit longer. Worst case, I picked up a low-mile 225 from Keith's dad (FishyPete) that has a good bit of carbon in the cylinders, but should clean up fine, turns over smooth.

Over the past year, I've rebuilt the brakes (will convert to Scarebird in front, should have done that right away in hindsight), converted to electronic ignition (Mopar), new tires, and cleaned the whole thing up pretty good.

Now that a lot of the preliminary details are worked out, I've started the heavier lifting.

So this car... yep... Deluxe interior in amazing condition. Just needs a few details (rechrome sticker the stripes on the door panels, I have a new carpet for it, and I already installed some good arm rests. Headliner is perfect, seats are tear-free and cleaned up nice, dash is near perfect except someone drilled a hole in the glovebox door for an extra knob. Otherwise, the interior looks like it's only a few years old.

Underbody/floors are perfectly solid and clean. Trunk has some rust, but not bad, and I have to patch the quarters and a couple other spots, but otherwise, the car is very solid.

This is the main reason I decided to not tear the car apart. Other than having burned off paint, it is very clean, solid, and in great shape. It's in a lot better condition that a lot of the cars you'd see on a used car lot today, and it has been messed with only very minimally.

A keeper for sure. And... "let the car just be itself!".

So that's all of the history, next I'll start on the updates, and what I'm doing to the car now, and as I go.

Thanks for checking out my project! I have a lot of motivation already, but I thought this thread might help with some of those most frustrating moments that always happen too!

EDIT: Oh yeah, and the a/c works. Needs a re-charge, but... it still blows slightly cold air Another reason to keep it as-is!

 

[72Dodge]

The car today (since these pics, I've put new arm rests on the front).

Most of the spray-can primer applied by a previous owner has been removed, and it's all cleaned up, with new Rallyes and tires:

I love the patina of the original paint (front clip was badly repainted at some point, but back 2/3 is original), but I love GA4 Light Gunmetal Metallic also, so at some point I will repaint.

The car is clean clean clean and mostly unmolested. These pics don't at all do this interior justice. It's one of the nicest and cleanest survivor interiors I've ever seen.

Look at that dash pad! Seats are perfect, I just put the towel on there to keep them clean because I was working on it.

 

[72Dodge]

I'm currently working on repairing the rust on the car. Just the bottoms of the quarters, some inside the trunk, then a couple other small areas, that's it (as far as what's visible without stripping the paint, but I'm pretty confident there isn't too much, it's an extremely solid car).

I've done some autobody before, but I've never welded quarter patches, so this will be the first time. I was going to do it today, but the kid got sick last night so I'm home with him all day. But I will get to it soon.

Here are some pics of what I'm contending with. I'll strip it more later to see how bad it really is, but here is the main area. Pass side obviously needs inner and outer, driver's side not sure yet. Biggest challenge on driver's side is actually the dents that you can see above and behind the rust.

Trunk I already stripped down pretty good after this pic was taken, and it's not too horrible. I think to be really right the well should be replaced, just due to all the pitting, but for now I'm just going to clean it up good and protect it from more rust. Pretty unintrusive to do this later. Other than the well, the trunk, extensions etc are in great shape. The rust outside the well is just very light surface, almost like a dusting of rust, no pitting at all. I'll spray all this with color later when I do the outside of the car probably next summer.

I've been watching the Kevin Tetz and a bunch of other videos on doing the quarter patches, so I'm studied up, but now is where the rubber meets the road!

Wish me luck!

 

[Princess Valiant]

I love the 72 also.

My original plan for this car was to put on a '70-'71 grille and rear bumper

either grille looks great ....but I sure love the 72 grille ....it makes the car look mean.

 

[72Dodge]

I never really thought about it before, I've always thought of the '70 and especially the '71 grille as looking much more "aggressive", but I see what you mean about the '72 grille. I really like that tan one on the trailer.

I'm a Dart fan first, and a Mopar fan second, definitely. I would take ANY year or style Dart.

 

[Princess Valiant]

that tan car again ...that's my sleeper ...it has a 440 in it but with skinny tires and unchanged exterior nobody ever sees it coming with this car LOL

this pic is from when I was putting the engine in........nothing special ...it was just a good running 440 out of a C-barge .....not the highest horsepower engine but has some mega "OOOOOOMPH" over the original 318

 

[72Dodge]

Love it! Inspiring like always!

 

[SD_R/T]

What a great looking Dart. You weren't kidding about the interior!

I also like your progression from 'rebuild' to 'refurbish'. Don't get me wrong: I truly admire the hard work and skill put into a lot of the complete tear-downs on this site, but sometimes it's fun to just get in the seat and drive these things for what they are: fun old cars

 

[72Dodge]

OK, so since life happened and I didn't get around to fixing the quarters (I did pretty much finish the trunk though), and I was tired of not being able to drive the Dart, I put the new fuel tank & sending unit in today and messed with the carb a little. Runs fantastic! I'm sure I can get it to run better, but the gas tank was definitely an issue. The old sending unit was pretty much rotted away, I couldn't believe it. Inside of the tank crusty and horrible.

Of course the blowby is an issue still. I dumped a can of Engine Restore in her to see what it would do. But of course, I have a much better long-term solution for that problem. ;)

Drove it around quite a bit this afternoon and just ran up to the grocery store in it to pick up some Schlitz to celebrate

By the way, thanks to the knowledgeable members of FABO, I knew to use the old original sending unit lock ring instead of the crappy new ones that are only half as thick. Tank is close to full, no leaks so far!

 

[72Dodge]

A great development... been driving around the Dart a lot after putting the "Engine Restorer" can in with the oil.... the blowby is DRAMATICALLY reduced. Almost gone. It was puffing like a steam engine out the oil filler cap before... now, hardly anything.

It's no longer embarrassing to drive in public!

So far, it seems that after all the hard work I put in on this, it's a pretty reliable car. This weekend, I plan on going on a much longer trip, really test out the cooling system better along with some more sustained high speeds. Put her through the paces.

Darts just fit like a glove. Feels just great driving it.

 

[Dartn440]

Love the 72. Can't wait to get mine on the road. Good luck and enjoy.

 

[72Dodge]

Looks like I might need to install the refreshed engine a little sooner than planned!

 

[Captainkirk]

I was expecting to see a chalk outline......but the blood trail is a pretty good indication.

 

[72Dodge]

I was expecting to see a chalk outline......but the blood trail is a pretty good indication.

LOL.... yeah. It's still drivable, nothing "happened" per se, it's just the pan gasket has given way, so it has developed the automatic oil-changing feature. I'm going to drive it a little today, then prepare its storage spot. Not sure if I'll get it out to drive again this year or not, depends on the weather. It might be mothballed for the winter as of this afternoon.

This summer I did take this car from a car that sat for 14 or so years without being started or touched to a nicely running, driving, and stopping car though. Very happy with the progress I made in the little spare time I have, and that was with a new baby in the house! So, not a bad year. Pretty soon he'll be able to help daddy out, then it will all be twice as much fun!

 

[jaws]

If it's just the pan gasket, replace it and drive somemore.

 

[72Dodge]

If it's just the pan gasket, replace it and drive somemore.

No, it's not just the pan gasket, it's severe blow by* and poor and uneven compression. Drivable as-is (and still drives great, considering), but that was the reason for the swap... this is just another reason added to the pile. Since it needs the new engine eventually, I don't see any reason to go through the trouble of changing the pan gasket without just doing the whole thing at once.

And I'm not stopping driving it because of the pan gasket, I'm stopping driving it because winter is coming! I need to move to someplace warmer.

* The "Engine Restorer" did reduce this quite a bit for awhile, but a lot of it came back before too long.

 

[ply30]

Nice dart! I was going to buy a 72 swinger last Saturday then I found my 71 about 6 hours closer to the house lol!
Good luck on your build and I will watch it!!

 

[Haney]

Great little Swinger there!!!! Are you still going to replace the /6 with /6?

I am working on a 72 swinger myself. Love driving these cars.....

 

[moparlover]

is that gunmetal or light blue metallic? can you post a pic of the fender tag or the codes?

 

[72Dodge]

Yes, I'm keeping this car a /6.

I can post a pic later of the tag if anyone is interested, but it's GA4, Light Gunmetal Metallic. The inside of the trunk lid for example still shows the original color very well, the rest looks more like dark grey primer at this point.