Resurrection of the (72) Demon

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2 Darts

2 Darts

A-body Addicted
Joined
Mar 28, 2008
Messages
3,428
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278
Location
Usually in a house
I've been working on this thing for a little over a year.
Since I had done a pair of 66 Darts, I both like the A-body and felt comfortable working on it. Here some of the original photos made at the time I bought the car.

In 1972 I had one of these. It was barebones. 225/904, tape stripes, ww tires and rallye wheels were the only options. My plan is to turn this into something that resembles the car I used to have. Planned improvements are power steering, disk brakes, & air conditioning. Due to funds contraints, I making an exception on the wheels, though I will install LBP 15x7 rims I have on hand.

Glad to find FABO. When I did the 66s nothing like this existed. Most of what I've learned, I've learned the hard way. Hope that trend changes.

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Since my original Demon had manual steering, I knew what a pain it would be to park with bigger rubber under it. If I were staying manual, I'd put MPs 20:1 steering set in the box. It speeds things up at the expense of even more need of upper body strength.
I've swapped the K-frame and control arms out for a set from a '75 Valiant. I got a factory sway bar and LBP disks out of the deal. I am also able to install a cop car power steering box (firm feel). These things are great! Still more numb than manual steering,
 
My original plan was to do the interior on the cheap. Thanks to a really generous Christmas bonus, I had funds to put the same upholstery into this Demon that I had in my car in 72. When Legendary offered a sale discount, I made my move. They provided the front seats and carpet for the 66 GT. Great customer service. Though I'm waiting to really finish the interior until after it returns from the paint booth, I couldnt' wait to see how it would turn out.

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Someone asked me off-line how I got the K-frame & V-8 swap accomplished. I had seen pictures in magazines of cars on lifts with the engine, transmission, steering, & K-frame all assembled waiting for the body to be lowered on to it. Since it's impossible to paint the engine compartment with the engine installed, this was a big deal. I had horsed LA V-8s with the oil filter adapter out of the top before. They always scraped the passenger side splash shield. Assembly from below made the best sense.
Well, I didn't have a lift for the body, so I used a field expedient. I had a free rolling platform on which the K-frame et al was assembled. I had two jack stands and an engine hoist. Unfortunately I did not take pictures. The car was supported on the rear axle by the jack stands. I rigged the engine hoist to lift the car at the vertical strut that is under the hood latch. Then it was a matter of disconnecting front brake lines, top shock mounts, steering column, upper control arms, and of course the 4 bolts on the K-frame. The car tilted up the the old stuff fell out.
Since there was no engine in the car when I got it, it had to be raised further. The engine hoist had plenty of lift height. I slid the assembly under the car and slowly began to lower. The dipstick from the 904 was going to try to hang up the operation, so I removed it. Other than that it was smooth going. I lowered until I got the body about 1/4 inch from the K-frame. I put two bolts (left front & right rear) through the K-frame to the body using this process sliding the dolly around until both lined up, to get the K-frame properly aligned with the body. Once I had the two bolts lined up, the others were no problem. I let the tension out of the lift and bolted the K-frame onto the body.
Once everything was disconnected, the actual time of lifting and bolt twisting on the K-frames was a one man job that took only twenty minutes. I felt it was safer than having a motor swinging around three feet in the air. Also I did not need to take the hood off.

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Well, I got the accessories on the engine, radiator installed, plumbing and wiring all done (or so I think). But the #%@* car won't start. :snakeman:

I can jump the relay and spin the motor, but no fire. Have replaced SP wires, coil, dist cap, points, rotor, engine harness, When I turn key, no starter but do get low oil pressure light. Lights & horn work. I have checked ignition circuits, all ring out properly. Will replace ballast & ignition switch this weekend. Any suggestions?

Got a photo of the mostly completed engine compartment.

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Yippee!!! Swapped the relay and the ballast resistor. As a result, not sure which was bad.
The engine coughed and sputter a bit at first. Just have open exhaust manifolds on it. The dwell tach I used to check the points only goes to 2500 rpm. It seemed to cough at 2000 rpm, and sounded very sweet from there on. Didn't take it past 2500 since it was the first start since re-assembly. Cam is NIB Crane, 276/286, .441 lift.
 
72 great job at doing the swap. i plan to rebuild the front and get the car back on the ground. then later rebuild the motor, which is out of the car now. when time calls for it i will remove the k-member and do as you did. i have a hoist in the garage to lift the car. Question i have is how high did you have to lift the car? how low to the floor was your motor/k-member?
 
The dolly for the K-frame put it about 8 inches off the floor. The rear jackstands were extended to about 18 inches and positioned on the axle. When I lifted the front end, the car rotated on the axle supported by the jackstand. The engine hoist rolled towards the car as I lifted. To keep the overall height of the assembly as low as possible, I did not install the carburetor or A/C compressor until later.

The part of the front panel that goes below the radiator was about 3½ feet in the air. The car was slightly more elevated in the front than the rear. It was more than necessary, but I wanted to make sure I had plenty of wiggle room. I couldn't come straight in because the legs of the hoist wouldn't let it. I slid it in from the side and then rolled forward to come between the legs of the hoist. I lowered in slow increments making sure that nothing interferred. The tranny dipstick got tangled in part of the A/C harness at one point, so I pulled the dipstick and plugged the tube. The car rested on the front of the k-frame first. The angle was so slight that I could get a rear bolt in diagonally opposite the driver's side front without any jostling around.

Once all the bolts were settled in, I slowly lowered the hoist until it supported no load. Then I shortend the arm on the hoist and attached the hook as close as possible to the arm. I brought the hoist back to the car and hooked it to a lifting plate on the intake and jacked it up enough to get some jackstands under the front end. At that point, I could slide the dolly out since the car was supported completely by jackstands.
 
You asked what could be done with an 01 Caravan. Mopar made an adaptor that would let you convert a G-body (Daytona & Laser) to rear wheel drive. There will definitely need to be a lot of hacking on this, but convert the Caravan to RWD and install a crate motor. Then you can astonish the Altimas with big resonators by trouncing them in a stoplight GP with a mini-van. It would be an unforgettable experience.
 
72 Demon I am still trying to get my car together let along mess with the caravan.
 
Looks good! Nice to see another 72 Demon owner on here. :)

Your blue interior was neat but I prefer black too myself. My car came green but with only 18,000 miles on the clock, I couldn't swap it out... it was too mint!

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Yeah Dave, that's a great interior. Interesting it's got the deluxe wheel but not the deluxe dash panel pieces. Maybe those only came with the extra cost interiors or in the "high line" cars. Fabulous dash pad.
 
I will admit to changing the steering wheel. It originally had the base wheel that had started to darken with age. The deluxe wheel was a cheap eBay score. :)
 
Finally got all the chassis bits where I wanted them and the engine tuned. Got sidetracked when my daily driver Honda got jumped on by a 4x4. Reworking a /6 on the cheap and will finish it this weekend.

Here's where we are going into the paint shop. The roof is a real mess, so I had to find one. Understandably, people aren't real happy about cutting up sound bodies. That means I had to find one that had been really pounded without damaging the roof. A 72 Duster donated its lid for my car. There was another guy who needed the rear quarters, so a nice deal was made for the car. Then we broke out the sawzall. The yard operator got the rear glass and the remnants of the shell. (Everything had already been stripped.) Hauled it over to the paint shop so that can be figured in. It's going slow, but it's going the right direction.

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Great job bringing that old demon back to life! Keep the pics comming if you can.

Good luck!
 
I am keeping the cop car wheels for the time being. Really want to see what the car looks like with paint and stripes before I commit. It I don't like the cop car wheels on this one, I have a 73 /6 that would benefit.

OK big Mac. While there may have been a delay on the car itself, there have been other things that I can attend to. A plain black a-body dash in a black interior looks kind of murky to me. The instrument cluster had no "wood grain" color on it. I have liked the deluxe dashboard, but again, the wood wouldn't brighten the interior.
Then I ran across a Bentley Continental GT Speed. The instrument panel had an engine turned aluminum fascia in place of "owner's choice of wood". I ran a test with some Trim Brite tape and really liked it. So, I located better material and have completed the instrument cluster. The rest of the instrument panel will be completed like the test when all the painting is done.

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That looks alot like the dash from my 78 Cherokee S. Where did you find the raw material? I see a future upgrade for the 73 Valiant that I am rebuilding for my oldest son...
 
Did I say the roof was really rough? You may notice that the vinyl on the top is more ragged going into the paint shop than when I originally picked the car up.

When I began my search, I was really trying to avoid a rust bucket. I checked the floors very carefully and found only a couple of pinholes on the driver side floor, front and rear. For a car that had carpet laid over rubber floor mats, it was remarkable.

The underside of the roof had an orange patina to it, but looked and felt ok except where the vinyl top had been ripped. That looked like an easy patch to me. The car passed my rust test.

I put the car on a tow dolly to move it from CA to the Edge of the World. At the first bump on the freeway, I looked in the rearview mirror to see how it was riding. To my surprise, and horror, I saw a brief puff of orange smoke coming from the roof of the Demon. Many more tatters appeared in the vinyl. The more I thought about it, the sicker I got. By the time I made my first stop, I was very apprehensive about what I had gotten myself into. I shouldn't have looked. I cranked up the tunes loud to forget about it, and to stay awake.

By the time I reached the Edge of the World, the roof looked like a spaghetti strainer. I could not bring myself to take a picture of it. Here are pictures of the seams. There are a couple of holes visible just above the A pillar. It gets worse from there. Thankfully, my painter just added the cost of replacing the roof, provided I could come up with the metal, to the job without a lot of extra comments.

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Here's what the roof looks like from the top. Ugh! This is before we remove the cross brace from the middle. The cross brace from the old roof will be welded in ahead of the cross brace in the new roof so that I can mount mechanical remote control for the rear windows. Top bent inward as we lifted it off of the car.

Just for grins, I'm attaching a photo of a 1 of 1 72 Demon roadster. Too bad convertibles were gone from Mopar in 72. I think this one would have been a great one. :read2:

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boy I am glad your doing that and not me...

cant wait to see the finished.


-RPM
 
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