1970 "DUPED" Dart Swinger

Hey all. This one will be a bit long winded but interesting to say the least.

About this time last year I posted a "wanted" advertisement for another car. I currently have two major project cars... 1967 Dart GT and a 1971 Demon 340. I placed the ad on here as well as the B body site. Not long after I placed the ad I was contacted by a member here and on the B body site. The person told me they had a very nice 1970 Swinger for sale and wondered if perhaps I'd be interested. At first I wasn't too interested as the car was in Florida and I am in Wisconsin. After speaking to the member back and forth I thought the car was pretty nice and looked like it would serve well as my "driver" while I restored my other two cars. I am a body/paint man by trade and do not claim to be a mechanic. I know enough to get the job done and believe that my experience as a "perfectionist" painter helps me with making things right.

The next part of this is where I decided to purchase this car from a member here and what has "transpired" since.

Once I decided to buy this car I thought maybe it would be fun to fly to Florida, look the car over and if I liked it... drive it home... I'm glad I didn't... but wish I would have made the trip. I ended up contracting a shipper that was recommended by the seller and other than a lot of delays that portion of this transaction went well.

I will now say that the car was described to me as really needing "nothing" or not much. The paint was needing a guy like me to sand it, polish it and make it look better. The car arrived and the paint is clearly done in a very cheap product line, but overall looked decent. It was shrunk, and you could see some sand scratches in the metallic of the paint... basically the primer shrunk or they sprayed the color over too course of a sand scratch. The seller described the paint as having a few imperfections and for the most part that was true.

The deck lid did not want to close very well... and after inspecting it you could see the latch was moved all the way up.. and during the course of them slamming the **** out of it... the striker support was literally bent down and buckled from the constant slamming of the deck lid....

Just before I purchased the car the seller told me that the a/c wasn't working and he would investigate it for me. Magically a few days later the a/c was working again and he stated his gauges were wrong.... When I received the car.. the a/c does not blow cold... You can see the compressor is leaking... and the previous owner had injected die into the system to trace the leak... I assume once he found the compressor to be bad (or needing a seal kit) he just slammed as much refrigerant into the system hoping it would blow cold when I got it...

I checked the blower fan for the heater... and none of that is operational either.

Also when the a/c is turned on the car would just die... I had plans to install an idle up solenoid to help with this issue.

I was also told that the car didn't have a fan shroud.. and didn't need one.. it stayed cool "even in Florida"..... No matter where I drove the car it was over 200 degrees...

I ended up robbing the fan shroud off of my 71 Demon 340 to test it.. and magically the car never goes over 190....

Last summer I didn't drive the car much and just messed around with a few things... like the carb that ran so rich it would burn your eyes while driving it. The carb was a Demon carb and I ended up throwing a Holley Avenger on the car that I had from you guessed it.. My Demon... Car ran much better after that.

As far as the drive-ability of the car it seemed smooth.. brakes are very soft and take a pump before they really start to work... ( I have not investigated this yet)

The seller also stated to me that the power steering pump started leaking... and he would replace that "because he hates leaks of any kind and just can't stand them"... Funny.

I noticed also that the torsion bars were turned down so low... that the headers would slam the ground.... obviously we wanted to have that "look" so we drop the bars and make it look jacked up in the back... easy fix...

While I am under the car I notice some "creative" bolt arrangements in the sway bar... as well as a sway bar insulator that is completely missing....

And... lots of oil leaks under the car... hmmmmm... weird that it just started leaking when I bought it...

WINTER!!

I threw the car in my shop for winter and just sort of left it there... I did test the anti-freeze and it was good to -15 or so... sounds like it needs some new coolant mixed..

Fast forward to "after Christmas"... and I notice a nice green trail of coolant going down my floor drain in the shop...

I pressure tested the system and noticed a small leak coming from the timing cover area.... ok, needs a gasket I guess..... I will address it this spring...

SPRING!!

I have my front half of the engine apart to fix this small leak... and I say "Man, I really hate all the different colors under this engine bay" Aluminum intake, red distributor cap, red plug wire separators, blue plug wires, cast intake with blue bolt heads.... and all this OIL leaking everywhere!

I tell my boys 13 year old twins... "Let's yank that engine and throw some gaskets in it, clean it up nice and paint it" A nice spring project so we can enjoy the car this summer.

After a few weeks of working in the garage in our spare time we got the engine out last weekend.... to find... oil pan completely beat to ****, pan seal crushed and leaking, valve cover gaskets leaking, timing cover leaking, and a TON of oil around the intake manifold....

Now mind you, this car was sold and described that it had NO KNOWN ISSUES, NO OIL LEAKS and so on.... It really sucks to be DUPED by another Mopar guy... especially one from this site.... but I fully understand it was my responsibility as a buyer to check these things in person... but come on man...

Tonight I had the engine on the stand and started investigating the engine oil leaking near the manifold.. I found 1/4 inch beads of silicon on the front and rear of the manifold... and as you can see they did not stick nor were they even TOUCHING the block or the intake manifold.

I cleaned the **** globs off the intake and placed it back on the engine to see how it fits and notice it rocks back and forth.... I grab an air gap for my 340 and the same thing.... Then I see it... four tabs from the head gaskets still sticking straight up in the air.... the intake could NEVER have been seated on those tabs... and the seller literally GOBBED silicon on the front and rear of the intake to try to fill this gap....

I wonder what else I will find???

I have plans to remedy all of these issues with the help of a friend who has built many engines.. and my good buddy here Rusty Rob ( who I've never met once, but has ALWAYS lent his time to me for YEARS online, messenger, or the phone asking NOTHING in return" Thanks Rob.

I think this really goes to show that you just never know what you're buying... and trusting people will get you nowhere. I bet if the seller see's this.. he will claim "his engine builder did it" or some other bullshit excuse.

I do find it somewhat comical though... Some of the people who claim to have all of this knowledge, or do things themselves always tell you how good everything was done.. and in the end a stupid body man figured it out.

@RustyRatRod