‘A’ Family Affair: 67 Dart and 68 Valiant restorations

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I prefer the look of single stage on solid colors (non metallic) and it’s easy to repair if there is damage. Also, I hate dealing with clear coat issues as the paint ages (peeling, blisters, etc).
 
The bumpers were rusty and dented. 67 rear bumpers are impossible to find. We got them straight (with some persuasion from fire!). Dart bumpers have lots of weird angles contours. Sanded them well and sprayed epoxy. Will paint a metallic silver or charcoal.
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Moving on to our other project, the 68 Valiant! I really thought it was going to be sold out from under us but persistence paid off. Here’s the story:
About 12 years ago I picked up a decent 69 Valiant 2 door, it sat in our driveway while I worked on my 68 Barracuda and remodeled our previous house. Eventually I decided to sell it and had a hard time finding a buyer (how crazy is that!). It finally sold and I regretted it soon after. Off and on I would look for another but nothing close turned up or they were out of my price range. Finally I found this 68 listed down in Oregon! I responded 45 minutes after it was posted just by chance.

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I had talked to the seller and even did a video call. It was an estate sale so car had sat in a barn next to house for 20 years (yes a real barn find). We made a plan to meet, yes! I was finally getting another Valiant. But then the next day I was texted that another family member had others buyers that were looking at it and they would get back to me! Ugh not another one lost...

So...
I got news that the other buyers weren’t interested (ha, fools) and we would meet the upcoming weekend. Then the bad September wildfires closed the roads and we had to postpone. Ok whatever, if it works out great but if not that’s ok was my feelings now. I kept in contact and made sure that we were going to meet.
We watched and as soon as the roads opened I headed down with my youngest son. The skies and ash were so bad, the pictures show the color. It was eerie.
But we got it and towed it home! What a great feeling to finally resolve this search, and on the drive home we talked about what we would do first to the car.
 
So usually the first thing we do to a project car around here is pressure wash and degrease. This thing was filthy...
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Now that the car is white again we thought ‘hey let’s see if it will start’
It only sat for 27 years (previous post said 20 but I was guessing, last tabs are from 93).
Hooked up a temporary gas tank, got some oil flowing and got some good backfires! It was trying but needs a tune up badly.
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Checked compression and a few cylinders were hardly reading, dang!
Pulled valve cover and some of the valves were stuck open and the pushrods were a nice ‘S’ shape. So lesson learned, I should have pulled cover prior to cranking and oiled everything up and checked for stuck valves, I was too anxious to see if it would actually run, rookie mistake.
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So we pulled the rocker shaft off and cleaned it up, cleaned the oil passage that flows up from the rear most rocker bolt (it was sludged up) and put some straight pushrods in. And guess what? The compression is around 150 on all cylinders. Gave it a tune up and runs good!
 
Stay tuned, it’s about to get more interesting, and this time it’s not my fault... it’s Fe2O3.
 
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