my 1973 Dart Sport rebuild

[trudysduster]

I guess I am going to start a build thread of the 1973 Dart Sport. A little background here first. I bought this car from a friend of mine who acquired this car in a package deal with a 68 Roadrunner he bought. he told me that he didn't do a bodies. He knew I had a Duster. Told me he would let me have it for what he had in it. $350.00 delivered to my driveway. for that kind of money, he must have not wanted it. This car had been sitting in a field for over 25 years. it had been pretty well stripped. the 318 that was in it was almost gone. the top end was missing and pretty much all that was left was the block. tranny was junk. floors was rotted out. quarters was rotted out. trunk was rotted out. tail panel was caved in.etc. etc. etc. But it was now mine. My son loved it. it had the fold down seat and a few other goodies. in the first set of pics, we had already replaced the door, trunk and left front fender. it was on the way.

 

[trudysduster]

more pics of the beginning

 

[trudysduster]

so the idea here was to take some time and locate all the parts that were missing on this car and get it completely back together and then tear it all back down and start the restoration. we took my Duster to a car show the beginning of last year and my son told me that he wanted to start driving his car a little. I told him that it would cost too much money to build the 340 we had gotten and put the 4 speed in it that he would have to save a lot of money to get this done. nothing doin he wanted to drive this turd. soo..........., I told him we had to get it mechanically safe and I went and found a 360 /727 combo for sale. went and looked at it. took a breaker bar and turned the engine over and made sure it was not locked up. the guy told me it was running when pulled. right. I had not turned it over far enough. it turned over enough that # 7 cylinder was filled with water and it would not turn over anymore. had to tear the motor down.

 

[grassy]

...cool...another father/child rebuild...the best !

suscribed

 

[trudysduster]

yeah Grassy. it has been a blessing. I am in the process of making this thread. stay tuned.

 

[trudysduster]

so once I got into the motor, this is what I found. #7 had water in it. so it had to come down. I went through it and brought it back to life and stuck that beautiful engine in that terrible engine bay just so he could drive it.

 

[trudysduster]

we got the engine and tranny in the car and found out the 727 was no good either. I had a good 904 in the shed so we wound up sticking that in the car. we got the car running and all that. then we went and replaced all the brake lines and fuel lines and I replaced all the front suspension to make sure that he would at least be safe. I would not have driven this piece of crap out of the driveway but he loved it.

 

[trudysduster]

I went in and replaced all the front end parts, ball joints, tie rod ends, brakes, hubs, bearings, rear brake shoes, drums, front upper and lower control arms. just everything and then had it aligned. I then took it down and had a new exhaust system put on it.

 

[trudysduster]

pics of the floor pan installed

 

[trudysduster]

then we rolled a layer of bed liner on it.

 

[trudysduster]

then we did some paint work on the roof where the rust had started from the vinyl top.

 

[Idaho]

Nice work and great to see you workin with your son.

 

[trudysduster]

Thanks

 

[trudysduster]

next step was both side inner and outer rockers.

 

[trudysduster]

then we tackled the trunk area. replaced the trunk pan, had to frbricate both of the rear frame rails. they were gone. replaced the trunk extensions and supports, and left side trunk gutter.

 

[trudysduster]

more pics

 

[trudysduster]

more

 

[trudysduster]

then we started on hanging the quarters on both sides. he had to pull the tail panel that had been crushed in because we could not find a new one.

 

[trudysduster]

car was still an ugly thing to drive around

 

[trudysduster]

then it was time to put the interior back in. I dyed the dash pad black, put in a new headliner. redid the glove box cover, installed new carpeting, dyed the rear seats black and put a cheap set of front seat covers on it. now it could be seen in public.

 

[trudysduster]

we had to do something about the outside before I would let him drive this ugly thing around and if he was going to take it to any shows, it would have to be in primer. so we primered the outside. Finished the inside and primered the engine bay. I did as much to the engine bay as I could and the engine didn't look too bad so it was off to the car shows this summer. He attended every one I did. I pulled 18 trophys this summer and he didn't do too bad either. He received 8 for best unfinished.

 

[trudysduster]

it was getting close to the end of the year for car shows and he wanted to put the hood scoop on I had bought for him for his birthday so we took the hood off and went to work on it. He had also finally decided on what color he was going to paint the car now, Stinger yellow as on the 2012 Challengers I think so while the hood was off, he took it in to work one Sat. and painted the underside of the hood. brought it home and lined it with fat mat for heat and also put the underhood insulation on it.

 

[trudysduster]

now that the end of the year car shows are over, it was time to start the final completion of this car. being that this car was pretty much stripped from sitting in a field for 25 years or so, the idea was to make sure we had found and replaced all the pieces for this car before we really started a lot of the rebuild. that was accomplished. now it is time to tear it all back down and do what e wants done to it. we pulled the engine and tranny out. we are going back with an 833 4 speed. the engine is going to have a much bigger cam put in it (not as big as mine ), maybe. I am going to have the set of x heads done that was on the 69 340 I have and stick on here. the car is going to be stripped down to the shell, everything is going to be sanded painted and what ever else it needs to have done. the 4 speed is going in and the front buckets will be recovered, new carpet, new bumpers and tail light bezels put on. going to change the rearend to a posi. all this will be done by late Spring, if I can make it through another rebuild. here is the start of the project that we did this last week.

 

[Bad Sport]

Amazing transformation there Bill, I gotta tell you though, youz guys are making me look bad.

 

[trudysduster]

thanks Bruce. He just cant wait to get this done and we just started. it will also give me something to do while the snow is coming down this winter.