What's your story with your Mopar?
I was well into a restification of my '83 Hurst Olds when I got the urge to recreate my old '69 340 Swinger that I owned a lot of years ago. I sold my Olds to fund the project and then found an unfinished '69 Dart project on eBay.
I bought it sight unseen except for the pics that were posted in the ad...and lucked out because it was 90% what the previous owner said it was. When it arrived off of the transporter from Oregon it had a brand new 380-horse 360 crate motor, a freshly rebuilt 727, a B-body 8.75, junk roller wheels and a couple of boxes full of parts and pieces in the trunk. A new exhaust system was sitting on the back seat and on the floor in the front were a brand new B&M Megashifter still in the box and a full complement of Auto Meter gauges still in their boxes. Based on the value of the new crate motor and all the extra parts and pieces I figured I got the car for free. This was 14 years ago.
In the years since I've changed the build direction numerous times but accumulated almost all of the parts I want for my 'dream build'. I kept the crate motor but swapped the single-plane M1 intake that was on it for a brand new Edelbrock RPM airgap dual plane, sold the Holley 770 Street Avenger carb and now going to use a Quick Fuel 750 with annular boosters. The rebuilt 727 was sold and I had a 200-4R manual-shift, reverse pattern OD trans built with a 2800-stall and lock-up. I've got 4.30 gears for the rearend - the OD 4th gear will give me the equivalent of 2.88 gearing on the SoCal freeways.
The stock front bench seat was sold and now lives in an A-body in New Zealand. New bucket seats are still in their boxes.
The big hangup has been body and paint. The first shop disappeared with my paint just before my Dart was going to go in for work. The second shop moved out of state, again just before my Dart was to go in to start work. Over the past five years it's been in three other shops. I pulled it out of shop #3 after it had been in for over a year and the owner started refusing to give me a completion date. Shop #4 had the car for over an additional year when the owner told me he wasn't going to do any additional work on my Dart because his general collision work was too profitable. It's been in shop #5 for just over a year and it's going to finally be finished in the next couple of weeks. It's been quite a ride getting through 'paint prison'. But it's going to be more than worth all the headaches when it's finally assembled and on the road!
I was well into a restification of my '83 Hurst Olds when I got the urge to recreate my old '69 340 Swinger that I owned a lot of years ago. I sold my Olds to fund the project and then found an unfinished '69 Dart project on eBay.
I bought it sight unseen except for the pics that were posted in the ad...and lucked out because it was 90% what the previous owner said it was. When it arrived off of the transporter from Oregon it had a brand new 380-horse 360 crate motor, a freshly rebuilt 727, a B-body 8.75, junk roller wheels and a couple of boxes full of parts and pieces in the trunk. A new exhaust system was sitting on the back seat and on the floor in the front were a brand new B&M Megashifter still in the box and a full complement of Auto Meter gauges still in their boxes. Based on the value of the new crate motor and all the extra parts and pieces I figured I got the car for free. This was 14 years ago.
In the years since I've changed the build direction numerous times but accumulated almost all of the parts I want for my 'dream build'. I kept the crate motor but swapped the single-plane M1 intake that was on it for a brand new Edelbrock RPM airgap dual plane, sold the Holley 770 Street Avenger carb and now going to use a Quick Fuel 750 with annular boosters. The rebuilt 727 was sold and I had a 200-4R manual-shift, reverse pattern OD trans built with a 2800-stall and lock-up. I've got 4.30 gears for the rearend - the OD 4th gear will give me the equivalent of 2.88 gearing on the SoCal freeways.
The stock front bench seat was sold and now lives in an A-body in New Zealand. New bucket seats are still in their boxes.
The big hangup has been body and paint. The first shop disappeared with my paint just before my Dart was going to go in for work. The second shop moved out of state, again just before my Dart was to go in to start work. Over the past five years it's been in three other shops. I pulled it out of shop #3 after it had been in for over a year and the owner started refusing to give me a completion date. Shop #4 had the car for over an additional year when the owner told me he wasn't going to do any additional work on my Dart because his general collision work was too profitable. It's been in shop #5 for just over a year and it's going to finally be finished in the next couple of weeks. It's been quite a ride getting through 'paint prison'. But it's going to be more than worth all the headaches when it's finally assembled and on the road!
