how many sacrificed

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el5dart

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i was thinking of how many cars gave up their parts for my restoration. i have counted 16 different cars my car has parts on it from. thats a lot of cars taken off the road to make one mopar continue on. if thats the case for everyones resto there cant be many A bodies left in the world.

how many parts from different cars does your A body have in it??
 
You may have parts from 16 cars. But, who else has different parts from those same 16 cars? Only one car can save many. No matter how small a part. It all counts.
 
Yes and I see so many cars that aren't worth saving/restoring but still have usable parts for some other car. That's a good thing.
 
I get a lot of my parts from the salvage yard. These are vehicles that are never going back on the road, and have an eventual date with the shredder I bought a stripped 69 barracuda coupe back half of a shell for some needed structural parts for my restoration. Drilled it apart carefully and sold off what I didnt need. Only a handful on non useable metal went to scrap. Useable stuff I didnt need went to many different people for many different cars. I also bought a 71 plymouth scamp back half of a car from my local wrecking yard and went in halves with another fabo member. He needed the outer body sheetmetal. I needed structural sheetmetal. We saved everything that was savable. Drilled that one apart too. Whatever was left that neither one of us needed, we sold.

Heres pix of the 69 notch *** end as I got it, and how i carefully dismantled it to sell everything i didnt need. If you know how to cleanly seperate spot welds without destroying either piece, and take your time you can dissassemble it like I did. Took me 3 weekends of Saturdays and sundays to get it down to seperate framerails. Kept what I needed, most of the rest has been sold. Last 3 pix are what I kept to repair what I have. My car was hack mini tubbed. Reversing it back. What I drilled apart was an *** end and obviously was only useable for parts. Lots of FMJ bodies in my local yard but those are starting to dwindle. Very few A Bodies left. I get stuff out of vans and pickups at my local wrecking yard too

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Wow, nice work! I know how much work that is to salvage parts like that. 65'
 
Wow, nice work! I know how much work that is to salvage parts like that. 65'
Some Mopars die, so others will live. If they go to the crusher, everything is gone forever. More so, with 60-66 cars, as there is not much in the way
of reproduction parts. Old Fords are in the same boat. They ain't Chevrolets.
 
Yes and I see so many cars that aren't worth saving/restoring but still have usable parts for some other car. That's a good thing.
I agree but I also disagree with gutting a fixable car and making it a parts car. I see so many solid cars get chopped up and dismantled that could have easily been saved. I see alot of it on the Facebook groups some guys buy perfectly running driving cars just ro gut them for profit because there worth more in parts than whole I don't agree with that. Once these cars are gone they are gone forever they aren't made everyday anymore.
 
Hate to say it, but every car that gets parted out or crushed just makes yours more valuable.

Someday, the "parts" cars will be gone and drivers will be the only ones left. Until someone has a wreck, I guess.
 
I'm up to 42 cars. A part here a part there. Throw in a Truck Motor. I quit counting.
 
I quit counting at around 250, mostly Darts and Barracudas. I have 5 parts cars right now, maybe 6...LOL
 
Thanks. My hands hated me though. I wore gloves but still got cuts, and metal shavings embedded in my hands.

Also one has to realize the sheer production of A bodies in the USA between Los Angeles Ca, and Hamtramck Mich. I believe approx 275,000 dodge darts of all type made in just 1969 in these 2 assembly plants. This is hardtop coupes, 2 door sedans, 4 door sedans and convertibles. Then theres 69 valiants in 2 door sedan, 4 door sedan, 69 barracuda coupe, fastback and convertible. This is just one year, then factor in the assembly plant in Ontario Canada, and numbers for just this 1 year are huge. A lot of pieces interchange including a lot of sheetmetal. The last gen iteration of A body shared the same track width and 2 different wheelbases from 67-76 a lot of cars made that's for certain. Sure the oldest of the last gen are pushing 53 years old, but they still pop up.

Now cutting up restorable vehicles is stupid. Some people's idea of rusted out is quarter sized holes in the bottoms of the fenders. If a solid frame but rotted trunk floor and main floor pan makes you think its junk, then sell it to somebody who can actually repair it. I have seen people cut up restorable cars because maybe they cant weld, or just lack sheetmetal repair/replacement skills.

Car pix below are of the 69 notchback my son and I are redoing. Not valuable in the grand scheme of things. Was originally 318, auto on the floor, manual steering, manual drum brake, no A/C, light package equipped car. But being it's not a 340-S or something similar I can mod it and not worry about future value. I have a resto thread here on it. Poor thing was hack minitubbed, and by most average people's skillset would be junk. Framerails are repaired, and I am reskinning this thing. Have to work from the inside out replacing the quarter outer skins last. Using the factory installed skins as a jig of sorts to make sure all the internal piece mating flanges fit against them correctly.

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I parted cars that would be easy resto's today, not 35 years ago. One was a 69 GTS 340 automatic convertible, 68 GTS 383 4-speed, plenty of slant and 318 convertibles, lots of 340 Swingers and GTS's, and a 69 Hemi Roadrunner just for kicks. The one that I sold every part off of was a 74 quadruple black 360 4-speed Cuda! I found out years later how rare that was...
 
To get here...6 cars. 10 if you include small part donations to the cause. I have a bumper sticker from my youth in the 80’s in my tool box- “anyone can restore them.... it takes a real man to cut one up.” Lol!
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I bet your kicking yourself now for cutting up some of that stuff.

Some of them yes. I cut up a 69 GTS 340 automatic car with a torch. A week later I decided to look at the broadcast sheet and it was a W23 recall wheel car!
 
I almost went to New Mexico to get a solid 70 four door dart completely stripped out shell that was rust free. Seller kept everything off it that would fit a 2 door. I was going to use the transition pan, trunk floor, and inner wheel houses off it for my sons 69 barracuda. I would have drilled the rest of it apart to sell as I didnt need it. Came across the 71 scamp deal at my local boneyard, and now Texas will NOT allow you to buy complete cars out of the junkyard, only a half a car max, so we picked just the back half since we both needed pieces from it. The sad part is the front framerails, inner fenders, radiator support, torsion bar crossmember, inner and outer cowl etc is all still good. That's the other half of the car the state wont let us get.
 
meh, so there are part from 16 different cars on your 1...but how many others did those 16 cars keep rolling?
 
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