my 69 Dart resto

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Dart_Guy

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Ok, so I have gotten much enjoyment over the two years of reading poeples restorations threads so I decided to share mine.

This is my 3rd Dart that I had for about a year now. My first car was a 75 custom that I feel in love with in 1990.

I bought my 69 last year and it was modified from it's original condition a good bit. It still had a 340 but it was from a 69 barricuda. The seats are buckets from a 67 barricuda and the carpet inside was house carpet nailed to the floor.
The 4 speed was replaced with a 727 (for sale) And the blue paint was covered with an attempt at white paint. From 30+ feet it looks great...

The 340 was rebuilt and has about 500 miles on it when I bought it. Runs and sounds good. Then the man who did all the work passed away. His wife, finally had the heart to sell it. (I think some folks on here even looked at it).

But she was unaware of anything he did during the engine rebuild as far as any upgrades or anything. And no original parts such as the 4-speed or bench seats where around.

Overall I though I may have paid to much but, when I started tearing it down I quickly realized that I think I got a pretty good on price. There is only 1 sopt of rust on the entire car and it is the typical rear quarter where the drain plug is. It got plugged up on the passenger side. The driver side is still rust free too.

MY plans are to redo the body and paint it, either the original color (B7) or black. I got a 4 speed, still need a bell housing. And steel rims with dog dish. Keep the buckets, but may consider trade to get a bench seat back. Other then that not much else.

Anyway, enough of that, here is the good stuff. I know I posted these in the post, but this my resto thread and I welcome any critisism or advice. I am kind of new to most of this, but learned a lot from my 2nd Dart and this site.

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That last pic was from a thread on here where I was looking for some trim pieces... I didn't notice the red text when I posted it... oh well.

Also, the build may slow a bit since i will be a Dad this August.

But I already did a bunch of work to it.
 
interior tear down... The last owner painted the interior red. It was spray bomb and had many chunks in it.

If you look closely you can see the nails in the 4-speed hump

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solid floors. The paint was bubbled up due a trainy leak seeping up through some wholes (nails wholes). But it cam right off and any rust was a very minor surface rust and came right up.
 
and lastly, shots of the front tear down. I also got a lot of the paint down to bear metal on the driver side and no rust or bondo showed up.

there are dings and dents that will require some filler though. And the front passenger fender is from antoher car as you can see by the colors. there was also molding holes that were badly bondoed on the replacement fender so that was a tell tale sign it was not a 340 dart swinger fender.

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I also took off the splash gaurds and there was a wee bit of surface rust but it will wire brush off. Some of it came off just by brushing it with my hand...

I am anxious to get some work done this summer, but need to wait until finals are over. I work full time and go to school part time. So after May 12th I will get back into it.

This summer I hope to finish the body work and have the underbody cleaned up. I also want to redo the front suspension and clean up the rear axle. If I have time...
 
Yeah, the lack of rust is pretty exciting. My 71 had some serious rust in a few spots and I thought it was a pretty good start. This car is going to make the body work very easy for a beginner...
 
Car looks really good. You got more done to your car than I did in three years. It's nice to see you guys coming right along with your restos. I don't seem to have the time to get at mine nearly as much as I like. I guess all good things come in time. Keep up the good work.
 
It has been quite awhile since I posted on my Darts Progress, got side tracked by life... A daughter, now almost 1 year old and reloacted to Houston for work.

Anyway, here are some pics of the little process on the tear down and the last pic is it loaded and ready to hit the highway.

Found a few new freinds in TX already that are going to help wiht body and paint, so with any luck proress will really pick up...

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You are doing a great job on the car. I guess when you set the goal in time for the restoration there always seems to come something between. But if you have a goal to work for it is easier. Keep up the good work!
 
The Dart was sent out for Body work and paint. Will post pics of progress as I get them. I would like to do the work myself, but i just do not have the time or the talent...

I am going to paint it black... I struggled with the decision of going with the original color or black. Decided on black out of personal preference.
 
Some more progress is being made... They shouold be wrapping up the paint in the next two weeks or so. the guy working on it got a full time job, so progress slowed. Glad he got a job and I am in no hurry.

They did an awesome job on the body work and found far more damage to the sheet metal than I realized.

The passenger side towards the back was pretty rough, a crease just below the body line in the middle pretty much removed all the natural lines, but they got it back.

If anyone needs paint done in the Houston area, I would refer these guys.
 
Progress... Putting the final touches on the paint job. Not a show quality paint jpb, but it is a lot better then I expected for the price. Anyone need paint work done in the Houston area, I would recommend these guys.

They are hoping to finish next weekend, so I get to start putting her back together.
 

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