Resurrected Junk

[2 Darts]

I am still working on a 72 Demon, but had to take a detour. Someone tried to mount my rice burner daily driver with a jacked up 4x4. Said person was intoxicated at the time and, thankfully, insured. Rather than piss & moan over the death of a 10 month old car, I looked at this as an opportunity to get an old Mopar going for me as a daily driver.
I decided on an A-body /6 4 door as my desired ride. After exhausting craigslist, FABO, and /6, I went to ebay, where one man's trash is another man's treasure. I was surprised to find a 73 /6 Dart Custom 4-door about 40 miles for the Edge of the World. Unfortunately, the auction was going to expire in an hour so it was bid now or lose it. I rolled the dice and won the bid.
Also unfortunately, Another man's description of a little rust does not necessarily equal another man's. The little cancer around the rear wheel wells was not disconcerting. Lifting up a piece of sheet metal on the driver's side and seeing the ground was. I attempted to back out of the deal saying that the seller had misrepresented the car. He threatened to report my welching out to ebay.
After I got home, I decided I had made a bad decision when I found a similar hole concealed by the carpet and insulation on the passenger side. I really regretted it when I found that the roof was a skeleton covered by spray foam insulation concealed by a great headliner.
I'll let the pictures tell this part of the story.

 

[70DartMike]

Mind if I ask how much you paid for it?

 

[2 Darts]

Fortunately, the engine and transmission were in great shape. The brakes could not make the same claim. I rebuilt the brakes and in the process found out that the car had (non-operative) power steering. The pump leaked like a seive, but it did work when topped off. I had a pump from the Demon that I put in to fix that problem. (Power steering has really improved since 1973!). Now, I can drive it with one finger.
I never did body work before and have only painted engine compartments and trunks. I tapped out all of the dings I could find (missed a few) and fashioned partial floor pans to take care of the craters in the floor. I learned to arc weld and how to remove roof skins. I still was insecure about painting a car, so I paid MAACO for a clearcoat finish in the original color.

 

[2 Darts]

$750.00 USD including sales tax - same state.

 

[retsud_043]

Looks like you made the best of a not so good situation....great looking Dart:thumbrig:

 

[2 Darts]

While MAACO was doing its thing, I set about doing interior work. The easiest thing for me to tackle was the instrument panel. I bought a dash cap, fastened it securely to the frame and filled it with spray insulation foam. After it dried, I removed the clamps and reinforcing strip I had used to assist the adhesive that comes with the pad and carved the excess out so it would fit securely on the dash. Trust me on this one. Spraying in the foam and then carving it to allow the frame to fit in is not a good use of time. (Got to do it twice.)
For the plastic trim on the dash, I masked and painted. I used chrome paint for the silver and for the simulated vinyl on the Custom interior, I used black bumper paint. It gave a more realistic finish than semi-flat or satin finish did.
I also had never done upholstery before. Rather than shell out serious shekels for OEM upholstery, I looked for seat covers from an outside source. It was not a difficult decision, I do not like being par broiled on black vinyl in the summer. I found an inexpensive alternative at SeatCovers Unlimited on the web.
The foam in the seats was disintegrating at a rapid rate. My best source for foam turned out to be a fabric store not far from the crib. The stuff is not cheap.
However, being a straight guy in a fabric store has perks. Finding the register to check out was easy. Follow the noise. As I got closer, the noise trailed off.
An older woman said. "You look like your arms are full, go ahead of me, honey."
My arms were full of foam rubber blocks, so I took advantage of the opportunity. The women around the register parted like the Red Sea did for Moses. I paid for my purchase and was off. As I made my way to the door, the cacaphony resumed as the intruder departed from their midst.
You have to be patient and willing to make departures from the instructions when they don't fit the situation quite right. It's not a living room suite by Koehler, but it's very workable and comfortable.

 

[2 Darts]

Putting it back together was the easy part. I did opt to change the radio from the factory AM for an AM/FM/Cassette that has a front port that will let me hook up a CD player or iPod. (More on that later as it is still a work in progress.)

 

[2 Darts]

The car had been off the road for three years, judging by the expired inspection and registration stickers in the windshield. My "Final Exam" as to let the state have a crack at inspecting my work and decide if I had done enough to be deemed good to go on the road. The picture below shows the results.
The car has been named Lucille. It is to recognize her encouragement to my curiousity of how things worked. She died a couple of years ago leaving me the money I used to purchase the car.
As it stands now, I have a little less than $2k in the car. There are several projects I have already planned for Lucille and will continue to document them in this thread.
My hope is that this thread encourages you to go out there and do something with the projects you have in front of you. I know looking at the work of others has been a motivation to me. Thanks FABO readers and contributors.

 

[2 Darts]

Here are some more shots of the audio system. The Dual radio was incredibly cheap, however, it does have the mini-phono plug for CD or iPod and it has a pre-amp out. This latter feature allowed me to mount a 80 watt RMS 4-channel amp in the back. The posts were solid, so I cut a groove in them using a Dremel tool in order to use the factory knobs. The nylon sleeve on the large knobs had to be trimmed flush in the back for them to fit.

The kickpanel speakers are the non-Pioneer speakers that I got from the Paddock. The panel is not as flexible as the factory ones are, but they are well made with even the screw hole lining up.

The rear speakers are Kenwood 6x9s and a 2½ dome tweeter mounted in the rear sail panel. Lighting would not let me get a good shot of the tweeters. There is a choke on each tweeter that keeps everything below 2k hz out.

The defroster came out of a 3rd gen Camaro. I had to go to it as there was not enough room for the Mopar defroster and the amplifier. Unlike the Mopar unit, it does not have a heating element in it.

 

[waggin]

now that's what I call a motivational thread! good job,and sure beats car payments!and the tag is awesome too,florida has uglee collector car tags

 

[cuda65vpt]

good job! It looks great.

 

[alleyoopmgv]

Great job! looks good!

 

[Josecuda]

Now that interior sure looks nice! These are the kind of things that make me wanna think twice before buying a car on ebay. Lots of hidden things at times! Congratulations, you've got yourself a good looking Dart!

 

[OldVart]

Well, you definitely made a silk purse out of what sounded like a sow's ear. Great job you've done on that car.

 

[gts340]

Very nice. It gives me hope that you can actually recycle one of those 4 doors into something useful. I'd rather drive that year around than most of the 4 banger crap that's available. Around here though, the starting $$ just to get a four door in decent enough shape to use would take $2k.

 

[2 Darts]

Now that interior sure looks nice! These are the kind of things that make me wanna think twice before buying a car on ebay. Lots of hidden things at times! Congratulations, you've got yourself a good looking Dart!

Thanks. My recommendation to anyone about buying off of ebay would be to inspect the car if it's near. If not get a bud, whose judgement you trust, to look at it. I might even be tempted to ask a FABO member to look at it and pass along pix and text observation.

I was a bit short on time to land this one. There were some fairly disappointing discoveries, some the seller had to know about, others who would have known. It's responding nicely to TLC and is not a huge money pit. There's more work I want to do on it, but no more HAS to be done at this time.

 

[2 Darts]

Be suspicious of any car that even looks like it had a vinyl top on it. The first (Tiny) pic is the only indication I had that something was amiss with the roof. This experience is what convinced me not to put a vinyl top cover back on the car.

 

[BlkArrow]

That paint came out looking great, and you had it done at MAACO? I was thinking of getting a quick paint from there when the time comes...might I ask how much you paid for the paint? The car looks great overall.

 

[crashcaptn]

what a great thread!! go you!

 

[2 Darts]

That paint came out looking great, and you had it done at MAACO? I was thinking of getting a quick paint from there when the time comes...might I ask how much you paid for the paint? The car looks great overall.

MAACO has four levels of total repaints. I used the Supreme service which is a one-stage polyurethane and clearcoat. They charged me $499.99 less tax and environmental fee. That included a full shot of primer, but no body work other than a light sanding. There are some runs in the paint towards the lower part of the driver's side doors near the column. Otherwise, I am pleased with the service I got.

Since the guys at the shop are interested to see what it looks like fully assembled, I'll see what I can do to get this problem spot improved.

 

[2 Darts]

I had someone PM me with a request for how I re-skinned the roof. The basic answer is that I used the cutting tools at my disposal and tried my best to follow the seams as the roof was originally assembled. I did not document the process, as there are tech articles in the fan mags that do a better job than I could. I do have some shots of the seams I located as I sanded down the top with a wire wheel brush. The front and rear glass does have to come out.

 

[sublimeswinger]

Dam, thats a great job, i to am interested in more info on the paint. maybe some more and closer pics? $500, cant go wrong.

 

[BlkArrow]

Alright, thanks. All I am looking for is a decent paint job that is pretty cheap for the time being. Seeing how I want to drive mine to school, the store, I want to drive it anywhere without being afraid to drive it. That price seems pretty reasonable.

 

[2 Darts]

At some point I knew I had to say I was "done". We all know better because there's always something we could do a little better or improvement we could make. On the other hand, being able to say done means I can celebrate my accomplishment. It means that I can show my work off. That's what I did yesterday.

The MAACO guy I had worked with said when I was done, I should bring it by for him to see. He was curious. That's what I did. I also showed him a problem area with the paint job. Besides being impressed with the car, he agreed to fix the problem area for free. I like people who stand behind their work and make good on defects.

I've avoided pictures of the rear of the car for two reasons. 1. The bumper photographed better than it really was (no chrome around the tail light openings). 2. I had a plan to make an improvement.

I always thought the six tail lights on some Vette's, 61 & 62 Plymouths were cool. It was the sort of thing the manufacturers avoided because it cost more. With the tail lights on the Dart mounted in the bumper and the width of the light, there was no way I could go for six. But I could go for four.

In doing this, I cut up two sets of Dart tail light housings. The reason for it is that the backup light mounts from the side and the tail light mounts at the bottom. Mounting a two filament socket in the backup light housing illuminates differently than the tail light housing. BTW: Each light and lens is unique. Left and right sides do not interchange.

My sockets were all fouled up, so I got new ones meant for GM cars from Auto Zone. I trimmed the round sides off so they would fit in the tail light housing trough and enlarged the hole so the socket would fit. I made new tail light wiring harnesses using the existing Dart connectors and new wire to handle the new function.

Since most backup lamps are kind of wimpy, I mounted a pair of 55 watt driving lamps on the rear valence. The wires just barely connect on the passenger side. On a dark night, they light things up nicely.

There are some other projects like disk brakes, /6 power upgrades, suspension upgrade, and an interior makeover that remain. The car is driveable. On a trip last weekend, the old girl hummed along at 80-85 mph and turned in 22 mpg over the 200 miles one way. Slowing down on the way back ran things up to 26 mpg @ 70 mph.

Enough talk. Here are the pix.

 

[pettybludart]

72Demon,I can tell you have a nack with tinkering with cars!You done a fine job on the D/Driver.It sure beats running around in a Hyundai don,t it?I also got myself into another project(66 Dart)I,m enjoying doing swaps on the brakes(disc.) and rear (8 3/4),I was just layed off for 5 weeks(went back Monday)for 2 weeks,then off again for 2.Auto industry,2 on 2 off til May anyway.I,m just glad I have something to work on!!You are an insperation for the younger guys starting out!Great job!!:cheers: