1969 Dart Street/Strip (Re)Build

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clinteg

clinteg

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Bought her back in November. Mostly a complete car, but I knew certain things needs to be upgraded and completed when I bought it. Little did I know I was going to start digging and find a sink hole! Here's how she started.

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Then when I went to go and upgrade the fuel system with an electric fuel pump and 20 gallon cell is when I really found things I didn't like. Rust! My arch nemesis! I sold my last car because of too much rust and now here I am again. At least I feel like this car is worth putting the money, time and effort into unlike the last one.

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Just to see what the new fuel cell looked like in there.

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So I go ahead and take the interior out. Front floor pans replaced. But there was more that was covered up with epoxy and rtv sealant!

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The previous owner paid for the body shop to fix this stuff and look what he got. I removed all that epoxy and discovered significant size holes underneath.

So I went to the back and continued cutting rust out. Ordered some safe-t-cap frame rails and the damn things would not fit. They sent me 2 sets and one was too wide and the other was too narrow. What really sucks is I ended up paying for a bunch of shipping on those stupid things and they wouldn't even work. Thanks a lot rust technicians for NOTHING but a waste of money. I got what I paid back but I didn't get the $50 in shipping they ripped me off for back! :wack: So I decided I would just make my own caps because I didn't need the shackle mounts anyway.

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Cutting out the inner quarter skins. All kinds of crap behind there and nothing was treated. All rusty. That body guy needs a kick in the face.

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Started the mini tub....

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Comparing the old 235/50/15 to the 325/50/15.

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Comparing the old weld wheels to the new billet specialties performer. There are only slight differences but there's just enough to say that they aren't the same.

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And that's where I'm at so far. 4 link should be coming soon and in June I'll be sending her to the local shop to get a 6 point cage with swing outs installed. Should be good down to 10.00 with that. More to come later.....
 
hope you got a good deal! was this car on ebay? Good luck
 
2darts said:
hope you got a good deal! was this car on ebay? Good luck
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Yes I believe the previous owner said that it was on Ebay at one point. It had been for sale for a long time from what I recall and it was within driving distance for me. I think a big part of the reason it wouldn't sell was because it will only run race fuel. For me, an E85 conversion was the way around that so I jumped on it. For some reason it seemed really hard for me to find a car that wasn't on the east or west coast or way out somewhere that would take a whole day to drive to and have most of the things already done that I didn't want to do. I found it through craigslist. Whether I really got a good deal is debatable. I don't feel I got a smoking deal, but I don't feel ripped off either. I pretty much just paid the PO for what he had in the motor and he threw in some extra parts with it. We still keep in touch and I update him on what I'm doing with the car. He's pretty disgusted with the paint guy too after I told him what I've been finding. But he's happy to hear that the car went to someone who is going to take car of it and make it right. The car wasn't able to be completely finished because of the arthritis in the PO's back and he was no longer working (the guy was 70!). So he was selling all his toys, which this car was his pride and joy that he didn't get to truly enjoy. So he's more than excited to know what this will run at the track when it's done, as am I!
 
................Nice car, except for the rust issues, but u have that taken care of, good work and good luck the reat of the way......kim.....
 
Well I got one tub mostly welded up. I went to the front of the tub to finish welding the inside where the tub meets the floor pan. Apparently I did not look at this area very well when I tacked it up. The tub sticks out WAY further forward than the other original side! Fearing the worst I throw the back seat in and sure enough, I've mislocated the tub so much that the seat frame hits it and is holding the seat out! I can't believe I've done this. I'm usually so anal about making things look right and fit right. This is a nightmare for me and I'm almost too ashamed to even post this, but I'm hoping at least one other person here has done the same thing. Anyone else pull one of these bonehead moves? I'm thinking I may be able to bend the seat frame in enough to make it work. I'll have to look at it more tomorrow. What's weird is that it looks right at the back, but it's definitely off at the front. Thoughts?
 
Looks like you are doing some good rust repair/removal. Sorry bout the tub, I cant help you there, maybe post the question in the body forum, someone will chime in for sure. Good luck
 
Well May seems to be the busy season for the social life. I haven't worked on the car in days. Always seems we're going here and then there. But I got a little time in this evening and did the back seat mod. Super easy, real quick, and it worked! After getting that done, I don't think that I had actually mislocated the tub as bad as I thought I had. Maybe a little, but not that much. Regardless, forward progress has resumed at least.

That magnet is the strongest dang magnet I have ever laid my hands on. I absolutlely cannot pull it from a flat plate of sheet metal. Always have to kick it off the edge or something. Says it holds 250 lbs!

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Dreading what is behind this...

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And what I feared...

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Cleaned out all the dirt and loose rust to prep for the Eastwood internal frame coating...

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Tacked the tub

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New strip

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Here's how my seat problem started

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Following 72BBSwinger's instructions

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Cut, swap, and reweld

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Now, fits like a glove!

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Started the other side. Instead of drill out the spot welds from the floor pan to the wheel tub, I cut around them and ground down the welds. Althought this proved to be WAY fastener AND easier than drilling them all out with a drill bit and rewelding the holes back. Although a spot weld cutter would have been a much better choice from the start, I didn't initially think that I would need one when I started all this. Boy was I WRONG! I am now about 3 times ahead of where I was at on the right tub with the same amount of time spent. Learning the first time around does wonders.

My work attire. Breathing mask, safety goggles, safety shield, and a shirt on top to keep those sparks out of my scalp. I may look an idiot to the neighbors but I'm keeping the crap out of my face and lungs.

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Cutting around the spot welds.

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This is the area at the top back side of the inner well where there is an indention from the factory. I cut through the center of it and with some heat, I hammered it out to allow for more tire clearance. Then just welded up the seam and ground smooth.

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And here's the good stuff that will be getting installed next....

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Wheel tubs finally done now along with some other patch work around the base of the tubs where metal was rotted away. This was way more work than what I thought it would be but I'm glad it's done!

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And by the way, watch those wire bristles on the high speed wire wheels! Them little suckers will fling off and embed themselves into your body pretty good . See this one in my arm. It took some wiggling back and forth to get that jagged thing back out.

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Moving forward to the installation of the RMS relocation boxes, I had to drop the exhaust out of the car (oh darn! :toothy8:) I couldn't just take the exhaust off and not start the car! I was like a kid in a candy store. My neighbors probably like me a little less than before, but wow the sound was intoxicating :happy2:. Removing this exhaust and probably won't put it back on. I really think this car would benefit from a madrel 3" system so I think I'll go that route with an X or H pipe.

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Before the cutting.

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After cutting the inside section of the frame and leaving the outside flange. Found more loose debris inside the frames. Surprise surprise. But overall, I'm actually quite glad that I cut the frames open. Now I know that I will get the insides cleaned out well and get all rust coated and treated.

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Relocation boxes mocked up into place.

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Then testing the fit of the 4 link bars.

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Looks like the fitment is good so far. All I need to do now to fully weld the boxes in and locate and weld in the upper crossbar to the frames and the rear end should be ready to bolt in. This part of the build is going a lot better and is a whole lot less work than those wheel tubs! I honestly don't want to do another set of those again!
 
mopardude318 said:
hey man looks real good! ull love that rms rear suspension system!
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It's actually a Mad Dart special! Lol. Just as good if not even better IMO. Louis has gone above and beyond helping me out with some things, even with his own big project going. So a BIG thanks to the guy for that.
 
Over friday evening, a friend and I swapped over the 489 into the new housing. The old U bolts and nuts were giving us fits to remove so I just cut them off. We removed all the axles and swapped over the lug studs. It looked like rear end carnage in the garage.

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You can see the difference in the stock A body axle lengths on the Yukons versus the shortened B body axles. There's about a 2 1/2" difference.

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I was told that the rear gear in this car was a 3.70 ratio. I looked for that to verify but I didn't find anything that said 370. I only found this. It looked like a hand engraved "388" with some mfg part numbers across the teeth. Does 3.88 sound right to anyone? I can't say I've ever heard of that ratio before.

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After getting the 489 in.

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Test fitting a wheel, I ran into a problem. The studs I swapped into these axles did not fit so well. One stud spun on me! It did that with only a speed wrench. I really freaked out about it and had a sickening feeling for about an hour. What happened was the lug nut bottomed out on the stud JUST before it snugged the wheel against the drum. So I took it in to the shop and we LUCKILY got it off with an impact and applying pressure to the wheel against the lug nut. After comparing to two sets of studs, the shorter ones I had installed had a really long tall blunt shoulder which stuck past the hub further than what I thought it would have. The other longer studs had a shorter tapered off shoulder and did not stick out so far which is all I needed to not bottom out. So what I'm doing now is taking the advice from the shop and getting the heads of the studs tack welded into place (TIG welded by them). I cut down the longer studs so that they will be long enough to pass tech at the track. I will put those back in and take them in for tacking into place tomorrow so I won't have to worry about it in the future. Again, this is my first time doing any of this stuff so I'm learning as I go. Sometimes the hard way. :violent1:

I think that I am really going to like the look of these Billet Specialties Performer wheels though. I like the look of them better than the weld wheels that were on it. They just seem to have a cleaner look to them.

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Here's the difference in the two studs. You can see how much shorter the shoulder is on the stud on the right. I had never noticed it before. I guess I assumed they would all be the same. WRONG! The stud on the right is actually about 1/4" longer than the one on the left too so it actually goes almost all the way to the end of the lug nut.

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