MuuMuu101's 68 Dart, A Learning Process...

goldduster318 said
Its good to see your enthusiasm. Being 27 (almost 28) now, I had a tough time working on anything on my car when I was in engineering school. My car was even in a different state. The car and engineering school both are the same in the way that they are both tough, but the juice is worth the squeeze.

The Hotchkis TVS would work well if you were needing to replace all the parts at once (springs, etc), however, without wider tires, its not going to be close to its full potential. The borgeson box does rock...highly recommended.

I would try to find a used welder with a gas bottle. I have a Clarke 130EN and you can do nice welds on thin-ish metal with that. 220V are always better.

The paint on my car is probably a lot worse than yours is lol

It's definitely difficult to work on the car. But recently I've obtained a new internship (still haven't started, waiting on paperwork) and I took a break from my club as it was just becoming too much on me. I went from interning at the utility not doing much in the marketing department to now interning at a pretty big aerospace company designing winches so we'll see where this goes. I'm excited for the change.

The entire suspension under the Dart is warn out. The bushings are pretty much shot. The springs sag. The only thing new in the Suspension is the Bilstein shocks that I put in there over a year ago. I know the 205/75/14 tires are my largest limiting factor but it's what I've got right now. I won't be able to swap to bbp for another year or so and when I do I'm going to go with Dr Diff's 13" front brembo kit with his 11.7" rears. On top of that I'd like to go with 2-piece 18" wheels. I've got a buddy who can get them to my custom bs I need for a decent price.

I've heard gas welders are much better than flux as they are able to reduce the splatter; however, this welder is pretty cheap at $100. But I'll keep my eyes out on CL. There seems to be a lot of welders out there that have only been used once.

And the paint on the Dart is pretty bad. It seems to be a cheap $500 job. There are plenty of bubbles on the bottom quarter panels as well as signs of bondo wrapped around the wheel tubs. There are also various cracks and such where you can see bare metal rusting out. It's going to need some work in the next 3 years or so. I figure once I get all the mechanicals sorted through and I start working in industry, I'll send it to a mopar shop and have them fix and paint all the body and reassemble it.