1969 Dart Pro touring daily driver **Crashed**

[purplehazenils]

Just a little bit of progress today. The SPC upper control arms that I wanted only come with a big ball joint so the tapered holes in the spindles need to be enlarged. I bought a 7° reamer and got the job done little by little making sure not to go too far.
The reamer cost the equivalent of 95USD so it was an expensive thing that will only be used once but there was no way around it.

I read that E or B body spindles are the same as big ball joint A body spindles but taller meaning you get more camber gain as the suspension travels, it might be a worthwhile upgrade some day.

 

[rumblefish360]

As far as I remember, the E body sourced its suspension parts, upper control arms and spindles, from the A body bin to keep things cheap. Double check this.

 

[purplehazenils]

I got started on the assembly of the front suspension and ran into one more issue. The passenger lower ball joint was way worse than I thought, it easily pops out of its seat. The plan is to replace both lower ball joints but I have not ordered them yet. In Europe its not as simple in the US, if I ordered these today they would take about 3-4 weeks to arrive.

Luckily some old drum brakes came with the new k member and lower control arms so I could use the lower ball joint from that. Somehow, with a grinder cutting the heads off the bolts and an acetylene torch it took over an hour to free the ball joint and part it comes with. Very rusty stuff.

With this done I then learned that the holes are different sizes.. I guess drum brakes have smaller bolts? So my friend kindly let me borrow a 15mm drill to make it bigger. This is just a temporary solution so that the car can get four wheels on the ground and get to the chassis jig.

With this done it should now just be a matter of putting the parts together and the car will finally be a roller again!

 

[abdywgn]

Oops! glad the ball joint popped out in the garage and not out on the road.

 

[purplehazenils]

Oops! glad the ball joint popped out in the garage and not out on the road.

The old ball joints are just temporary while getting the car straightened.
But it turns out that one was too bad even for just rolling the car up on to a trailer and transporting it to the chassis jig.!

 

[purplehazenils]

The parts are now installed and the car is finally a roller again.
It feels good and is a bit of a milepost after the car has been sitting wrecked for three years!

I have a few more small prep jobs to do, then the car is ready to be transported to the guy who is going to straighten the car.
I will go through the suspension again later on, the k member still needs to be painted and components properly torqued to spec.

 

[72dustervs]

looking good , nice work

 

[abdywgn]

spindle information
Spindle Comparison

 

[purplehazenils]

spindle information
Spindle Comparison

Super information thank you!
Ill start looking into B body brakes. The spindles, brakes and wheels make sense to do at the same time.

 

[Mtrhead]

Nils you're doing a great job man you just need to keep doing your thing!!! Purple Haze forever

 

[purplehazenils]

Just a small bit of work done today.
I welded a temporary piece of metal to the floor under the driveshaft just to stop it from scraping on the ground when being transported.

After sitting for years the car picked up a lot of dust and graffiti so I brought it outside and washed it for the first time in a long time. Good to see it outside again and from behind it almost looks normal (apart from the dangling exhaust).

The guy who will be straightening the car also called me today. He can take the car in a few weeks and can even come and collect it. He does rally/racing, regularly carries out crash reparation's and has three Darts of his own, two 67`s and one 68. In other words the perfect guy to help! Very lucky to have found him when selling some parts last summer.

 

[Mtrhead]

Looking better every time i see it !!

 

[purplehazenils]

Unfortunately at this point the progress will slow down for a while.
I have the car in Sweden but live full time in Ireland which means I have a very limited amount of time to work on it.

Before wrapping up for this summer I received the Borgerson power steering box from Peter Bergman (definitely recommend buying from him) and got some other small prep done. I really look forward to seeing how the car feels with the quick 16:1 steering ratio, this is the same ratio as my modern BMW which feels very different.

As mentioned the car is soon due to be picked up to go to the chassis jig and have everything straightened. The final prep for this was to take out the centre console, carpet and rear seats. I was surprised to find that the carpet seems to have no shape or mounding so it should be easy be replace with something else later on.

A while ago I sourced a new 1968 passenger fender which has been left inside so that the guy with the jig can check fitment.

 

[barracuda-67]

Unfortunately at this point the progress will slow down for a while.
I have the car in Sweden but live full time in Ireland which means I have a very limited amount of time to work on it.

Before wrapping up for this summer I received the Borgerson power steering box from Peter Bergman (definitely recommend buying from him) and got some other small prep done. I really look forward to seeing how the car feels with the quick 16:1 steering ratio, this is the same ratio as my modern BMW which feels very different.

As mentioned the car is soon due to be picked up to go to the chassis jig and have everything straightened. The final prep for this was to take out the centre console, carpet and rear seats. I was surprised to find that the carpet seems to have no shape or mounding so it should be easy be replace with something else later on.

A while ago I sourced a new 1968 passenger fender which has been left inside so that the guy with the jig can check fitment.

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Very nice!

Wow. I thought I had it difficult when I had to travel 30 minutes to go work on my Barracuda. You're far away from your car.

Which steering wheel do you have? I like the look of it.

 

[purplehazenils]

Very nice!

Wow. I thought I had it difficult when I had to travel 30 minutes to go work on my Barracuda. You're far away from your car.

Which steering wheel do you have? I like the look of it.

It does make progress very slow. When its running I hope to bring it to Ireland where it might become the only Dodge Dart in the country, there are almost no American classics here.

Thanks! The steering wheel is a Grant challenger 860.

 

[moparmat2000]

Nice build. I will be doing the same with my K frame and LCAs. Sucks about the wreck. Still lots of parts out there for darts. 73-76 front fenders will fit a 69. Same outer sheetmetal stamping except for the parking light. I think you have to use the 69 headlight bucket/inner fender mount on the 73-76 fender, and of course swap the parking light sheetmetal for the 69 reflector setup. This should help you a bit more. Also the front bumper and bumper mounts should be the same from 67-69.

 

[purplehazenils]

Nice build. I will be doing the same with my K frame and LCAs. Sucks about the wreck. Still lots of parts out there for darts. 73-76 front fenders will fit a 69. Same outer sheetmetal stamping except for the parking light. I think you have to use the 69 headlight bucket/inner fender mount on the 73-76 fender, and of course swap the parking light sheetmetal for the 69 reflector setup. This should help you a bit more. Also the front bumper and bumper mounts should be the same from 67-69.

Thank you. No matter what the car is for the k member and LCA welding is a great mod, almost no cost and makes a big difference. That's good to know about the sheetmetal, so far I have a 68 passenger side fender and hope to reuse the drivers side, for the bumper we will have to see, there are parts in Sweden but they rarely come up for sale.

 

[purplehazenils]

The straightening of the car has begun!

The car was transported to the guy who is doing the job a couple of weeks ago and he has made some progress which is very exciting to see.
So far the dent on the left frame rail has been fixed, next up is the right side where most of the damage is. When it comes to the chassis jig where the car is pulled back into shape, I assume this comes after the major dents are removed.

As mentioned I lucked out and met the guy when selling headers, he regularly carries out crash repair, does rally and has three Darts, it could not be more perfect.

If you look at the last two photos you can see how crushed the passenger side footwell became from the wheel moving back during the crash.

 

[missing linc]

It has always amazed me how much secondary damage will almost disappear after the frame is trued and squared up.

 

[purplehazenils]

A little more progress on the repair. When I was in Sweden over Christmas I went to visit the guy who was straightening the car, luckily this was only 1.5 hours away.

Both frame rails needed some repair from the wheels moving back but most damage was on the passenger side, as you can see the footwell had to be cut it out before being rebuilt. The inner fender was also damaged and needed to be re attached to the fire wall but its not that visible in the photos.

The car was actually not that crooked, only a couple of millimeters out of tolerance. After all, it did go over curbs in the crash as opposed to into a wall.

He also remarked on just how much work had been done on the car over the years, patches and bits have been changed on all over. The car is almost totally rust free today but I suspect it might not always have been like this. The car was sold new in Sweden so it may well have spent many early winters of its life on salted roads.

 

[340sFastback]

Great seeing that car getting fixed. Gonna feel so good once done and driving again.

 

[purplehazenils]

Shortly after visiting the guy doing the repair the car was done!
It is now no longer a crashed car which is exciting, its "just" missing some parts.

I think he did a fantastic job, the new blue 68 fender fits like a glove and it looks more or less original with the rolled sheetmetal the behind the wheel.

I really expected this to be an expensive job but when I asked the guy he wanted 10,000SEK which is 960USD today.
I couldn't believe my luck, I had a much higher figure in mind for the job. Maybe he felt sorry for me or it had to do with his affinity for Darts considering he has multiple, but I was in any case extremely thankful.

 

[abdywgn]

Fabulous to see it straight and rolling again. Maybe the price was a late Christmas gift? Glad you didn't give up on it.

 

[340sFastback]

Wow awesome to see all that bent mangled metal all straightened out. Car looks great!

 

[72dustervs]

Very good work , looks great