1972 Canadian H-Code 340 Dart Swinger Special Resto - Finally started!

davescuda said:

Looks awesome!
nice work

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Appreciate that Dave!

VF69HARDTOP said:

Bloody nice work there again mate. I absolutely love seeing your progress updates. It is looking so nice now and you should be very happy with her. I just wish you lived in Australia and had a shop doing this.

I just got shafted with my car to the tune of 6k and had to take it back from the **** painter that was working on it, he was doing such a **** job and cutting corners outside of our agreement and price. It now sits partly in epoxy, in pieces, while I save the cash back up to send it to another painter.
Luckily your build gives me hope for mine.

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Thanks Paul, it takes time to do it right and the deeper you get the pickier you get using the logic that "well i'm this deep I can't leave that". Sorry to hear your another one going thru this trusting someone to do what he promised and you paid for only to get screwed over. I feel for you brother, all I can suggest is you try and do as much yourself as you can, I'd liked to have been able to post even more detail of how this work is done so members would consider trying to do some of this work themselves even if it was just on one panel to see if they have the knack for it. Lots of resources on the web.

Keep your chin up, you'll muscle thru.

Haven't done much in the last couple of weeks but did manage to get out and blast my diff housing, door jam area on the shells and the rad support brace today. That should be the last of the large parts that needed cleaning up the few smaller parts can fit in the cabinet. Fall now and you never know whether you'll be able to do some of this outside stuff so needed to get on it. Got to get a bunch of parts painted before I do some blocking.

Nice shop Dan!

FJRdoc said:

Nice shop Dan!

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Thanks Kevin, it's a humble little shop just big enough to do this job, luckily I've got enough storage that it's not cluttered with the rest of the car which makes the work a lot more enjoyable.

Haven't done much work on the Dart for a number or weeks but did get some parts painted that were sitting around a bit to long in bare metal. Decided to give Eastwood's Ceramic Chassis Black a try on my under car parts that need paint, so two coats of black epoxy and two coats of Eastwood's. Looks pretty good but you need to hustle when spraying this black because it seems to flash pretty fast at least in paint booth environment with lots of airflow.

I used Eastwood's 2K chassis black spray bomb to paint my power steering box after it was rebuilt. It was convenient for me. Only time will tell how durable it its.

FJRdoc said:

I used Eastwood's 2K chassis black spray bomb to paint my power steering box after it was rebuilt. It was convenient for me. Only time will tell how durable it its.

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Originally I was going to powder coat the K and diff Kevin but decided that's probably over kill, this car will live a pretty charmed life when done and there are other areas the money could be better spent. I suspect this will hold up pretty well, a hell of a lot more protection then the factory ever put on them!

Dropped the Dart off the rotisserie with the generous help of scatpacker a couple of weeks ago and put her back on the dollies. Hunting season again right now so out most weekends with the pups chasing birds around the bush so not much work getting done on the car but I can enjoy progress other members are making on here with their projects until I get back on her.

This is a great thread with a lot of useful information. very helpful for a rookie like me. After reading through the whole thing twice, I started tackling my quarter replacement on my 1973 Dart. I have all the old quarter removed, but I have a question on test fitting the new AMD quarter. What is the trick to getting the quarter installed under the roof skin? with the tab on the front part, and trying to get it up over the window channel, while getting the ends in the correct place, it's becoming quite frustrating.

Any pointers to make this less stressful?
Thanks.

Let see if I can help you out Red383 all thou at first glance looking at your picture I may have let you down and didn't address the sail panel seam in the kind of detail the the area deserves. Ive been going thru my pictures trying to find some that might help you out the most, there are some in the thread but not detailed enough. I knew I would have to be able to slip the quarter on and off many times in order to deal with issues of fitment and undercoating and seam prep for welding and others reasons and believe me it was on and off many times but with the hinderences removed it popped on and off easily.

The first two issues to address that make a huge pain is the TAB and the reinforcing bracket in the quarter window jam. The Tab just cut it off flush with the rest of the seam, it doesn't serve much of a purpose and really gets in the way.

The bracket in the jam needs to come off while you install the quarter since you cannot lift the quarter over it for test fitting. Then tucked back inside the quarter and jam and welded back in place after the quarter is installed, this bracket prevents your quarter from cracking in that corner so its important to reinstall.



Now unfortunatley it appears from your picture you drilled and removed the portion or lip of the quarter that goes under the roof. If one was to try and slip the quarter under the roof the way the factory built the car it would be very difficult to get it underneath and if you managed it you wouldn't want to ever try to pull it back out. So the method I used which is also the same way the AMD installation centre does it is to cut the quarter off a bit below the seam leaving a small lip from the portion of the quarter that slides up under the roof. This provides a solid bit of backing for you to weld into when you weld the quarter back on but more importantly for fitting now when you slide the quarter on and off it just sits up against this up against this bit of steel level with the roof panel flange.




You need to grind the edge of the flange on your AMD panel or a bit of the roof edge so you have a decent gap so your weld will penetrate into that piece of flange the quarter is sitting against. This is a very strong area with backing so you can see I was able to dial up the welder a bit and make inch long welds cooling with air as I went and penetrating welds so this is stronger then the factory joint.








By removing the tab and bracket the quarter should slip on easily by first bringing it down over the window channel corner first, so from above and behind, then pulling the door jam and the back taillight panel in line should the need it to slide the quarter on.



I realize its a bit of work but I would be probably replace with a strip of steel that was the quarter panel flange that went under your roof skin and weld it back thru the holes that you drilled and just fill any other holes with mig wire. It doesn't have to be pretty but it would provide you with the lip for you quarter to sit against and to weld into. You can get away with quite a bit in this area since it will need a decent amount of filler or lead to fill the depression that this area always has.

If I can help with any other questions feel free to ask,

Dan

What a great response Swinger340Canuc, you are top noch!

While I was waiting on your response, I was looking through your pictures and Hemiorangeswinger's resto thread, and figured out what you guys did at that roof seem. I think I will do as you suggested and recreate that lip. At least I will know better when I do the other quarter.

I was going to cut off that tab in the window channel, but I wanted to ask first. I had already removed the bracket from that area, realizing there was no way around that.

Sorry I hijacked you thread, but I think your answer will help many other folks trying to do this themselves.

Thanks again for the info.
Aaron

Your not hijacking Aaron, I'm glad you asked, this is precisely why I posted all that I have to try and help out other members. There's plenty of details that I haven't included and I meant to tell you to check out Randy's (hemiorangeswinger) resto thread because he's posted lots of information on a much bigger build and would likely have stuff I didn't include in mine.

Have you started a build thread? We'd love to watch your progress.

Dan

I thought about starting a resto thread, but my progress is so slow it would be like watching paint dry.

Edit: after doing some measuring I have come to the conclusion that the new AMD quarter is 1/4" shorter than the factory quarter. That makes for a really big door gap.

Red383 said:

I thought about starting a resto thread, but my progress is so slow it would be like watching paint dry.

Edit: after doing some measuring I have come to the conclusion that the new AMD quarter is 1/4" shorter than the factory quarter. That makes for a really big door gap.

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It's a problem Aaron and if you try to move it forward too much, if you can at all, you lose the length at the back and the trunk lid hangs out past the quarter and if you try and move the trunk lid back you lose the gap between it and the rear cowl. Probably the most sensible and easiest solution is the one Randy (hemiorangeswinger) used was to simply add to or lengthen the back door edge by welding an 1/8 steel welding rod on and messaging that if you need to and recover the gap. If you take your time and keep it cool the edge of the door is pretty strong so should warp very little. I spent a ton of time, too much, on this problem of these quarters being short.

Thanks, I was able to move the door back a little more and it still seems to line up with the fender. So I'll continue on and may have to modify the door edge like you said.

Finally getting back to work on the Dart today, did some cabinet blasting lots of small stuff that needs to be cleaned up still including my original valve covers that I dug out of a box they've been hiding in for 35 years. Cleaned them up first by taking the paint off with some walnut shell in the cabinet then a soak in Evaporust for a couple of hours and they are nice and clean ready for a bit of primer and painting.







I've been wanting to get to work on my front and rear valances so got a start today. These things are pretty beat up, it looks like the front one ran into the rear one so its going to take 2 or 3 hours of metal massaging per valance to get them looking nice but thats a lot less then the three hundred plus each for new ones.





Start of with some hammer and dolly work then some pick and file to flatten out the previous repairs that were mostly filled with mud.



Helps to clamp or strap it down while working out the damage,











Came out a bit easier then I thought it would, with no structure impeding you on the backside its relatively easy work, still will need a skim of filler to make it nice but a lot less then came out.
Unfortunately the front one lost a few battles with pretty much everything it hit, onward and upward, but not tonight.

Very nice work! Glad yer back at it.

Danny, those parts are looking good!

Boy, must have been awhile since I posted something here on FABO, just put up a blank there...
I was going to say that doing a valance can just about take as long as a fender - so they say. Good work there Danny, as usual. Going to try and get back in front of me with our restos, eh? Just kidding bud. C

Danny - if you need any factory correct/specific engine bolts brackets etc (ie valve cover bolts) I have a couple bins of engine bolts and brackets I have saved over the years.

4spdragtop said:

Very nice work! Glad yer back at it.

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Thanks 4spdragtop, I don't want to take another break that long, its to hard getting going again, lol!

340duster said:

Danny, those parts are looking good!

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Rod good hearing from you, thanks, nothing a little effort can't fix, those valances looked like they were used as battering rams.

cliff guinand said:

Boy, must have been awhile since I posted something here on FABO, just put up a blank there...
I was going to say that doing a valance can just about take as long as a fender - so they say. Good work there Danny, as usual. Going to try and get back in front of me with our restos, eh? Just kidding bud. C

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Brother Cliff I'm not even going to try and catch up to that freight train, that things going to be parading all the car shows this spring at the rate its progressing. Joel's going to have to pick up the pace on his Special or you going to blow by him too, Joel,Joel, hello Joel! LOL!

Thanks Rod, I might take you up on that, I don't think I have the valve cover bolts those likely got pitched out when the M/T went on.

Lol yeah the whole momentum inertia thing lol

Swinger340Canuc said:

Thanks 4spdragtop, I don't want to take another break that long, its to hard getting going again, lol!

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Hey Danny, here's your incentive... wipe that smile off my face. Haha. No, it's no competition because I have Kevin and Mark over in Evan's shop doing it all. Hey, keep up the great work.