Reignited love affair with a swinger

[sliffner]

New to the forum**

BACKSTORY: In high school(1998ish) my first car was a 72 dodge dart /6 4door gold paint with a **** brown vinyl top. I paid 300 for it, and it was ugly as hell but it was mine. I loved that 4 door turd but eventually I blew the /6 and ended up giving it away when I left for the army.
Since then i kicked around the idea of buying another..etc etc life fam and work came first though.


Fast forward many yrs and many projects later, i started skimming ads again and tossing around the idea of picking one up. But apparently since moving to so. cal the price of the dart seemed to double over night. A car I could get for $1000 a year ago, are going for 5-$8000 now.

Late last year, I got home after working a 17 hr shift dump myself into bed and the next thing I know the wife's waking me up With WAY too much enthusiasm. Her brother has been a mechanic for a long time happened across a guy that was broke down(grenaded ring and pinion) and moving out of state soon and didnt want to hassle with trying to repair the car amidst his moving plans. He called my wife as soon as he saw it..

A 74' dart swinger 2door (318ci very very healthy to say the least)


The guy says he wants 1500$. My brother in law hands him the cash right there
THEN calls my wife to tell her about my new car
Apparently this was his way of repaying me for a truck that I bought him a few yrs back.

Pics at the time of pick up: its been about 1yr since this were taken but i figured id start with the back story. I didn't see the actual car in person untill 6 months after it was bought, and FINALLY got it back home last week in So. Cal

more to follow.. thanks

 

[sliffner]

Made the 7hr drive back to NorCal in December to visit some family, and grab a couple more shots,
Sorry about the low quality pics




Same brother found a 72 parts car with a spare 904 and a 440 block and heads, driver door and rear quarter are dinged, but the from clip, glass and seats are in great shape and it only set me back $100 + the tow


It immediately went in the lift to drop the trans and donate the r/p


(Apparently my brother in law decided he need to photobomb the rest of the pics)






And last week when I loaded her up to make the trip home from red bluff ca to tehachapi ca

 

[barbee6043]

sounds like a pretty good relative!!! looks like pretty decent car and great potential.
cool lookin cars!!!! why is it todays cars look like cra-!????????
keep us posted on the progress.....

 

[Cal_gecko]

Whoa - that's great! So did you get the big block and k-frame and stuff out of the parts car too? congrats!!

 

[sliffner]

Whoa - that's great! So did you get the big block and k-frame and stuff out of the parts car too? congrats!!

I got the block and extra trans at his shop, the bb never actually made it into the dart, it was in his shop and he asked if I wanted it with the parts car. Right now the car is in a storage unit waiting for me to get back up there and strip it down.

 

[jalake]

Nice score! Good luck in your adventure.

 

[sliffner]

Finally got a little time to get the ball rolling on this project. Out comes the motor/trans and front suspension. Trans needs a rebuild and kit, will also be redoing all bushing and such in the front end, motor mounts and shocks. As well as painting the engine bay.

 

[sliffner]

Well the updates are going to be slow. But I finally got the motor on a stand and started cleaning it up for a respray. I also started disassembly the front end to replace all the rubber, ball joints etc.
I shopped around for awhile, and was ready to just by the full kit from PST, when I came across this for $230 shipped t my front door. Seemed like a helluva decent price and all parts are Moog except the strut bar bushings, those are Prothane.

https://www.performanceonline.com/1...uspension-Rebuild-Kit-Deluxe-Rubber-Bushings/

I also found a great little homemade tools someone posted with $12 worth of stuff from Home Depot, had all 4 UCA bushing out in about 30 mins with the impact.

 

[sliffner]

Well I'm a little late with the updates, works crazy. So I'm chipping away with this thing whenever I can.
Got the motor cleaned up and resprayed.



Had my little mopar freak toss on the new motor mounts, as well as tossing on the freshly sprayed headers. I used the VHT 2000* ceramic based paint for them, I'm still skeptical but what the hell.





Few days later the fresh smallblock 727 was finished, new 2000ish converter, and stage 2 shift kit.
Headers back off, since the Dolly's were hitting them



And finally after putting it in and pulling it out(forgot headers first time)
I got her squeezed in there and the k member bolted up along with trans mount.
Won't be long now till it's back under its own power(sorry, had to use a shop light for pic)