1970 /6 Dart

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Oh and I forgot to mention last summer I grabbed an 8.8 out of a junk yard my buddy took me to. 3.23 limited slip and disks!

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So I finally made it back up to my sister's last weekend, I went ahead and pulled that cheesy chrome valve cover off and installed one that rob gave me which I had previously cleaned up. Got the motor painted, now I'm just waiting on an order of gaskets and odds and ends from Rock Auto.

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Looks good Matt! Good to see you back posting again. Hope yall are doing well.
 
Alright, so it's been awhile and I've been taking some time with some other projects and just driving the car for now while collecting parts.

Sometime back in the spring I went to a Junkyard nearby and pulled two seats out of an '05 Chrysler Sebring Convertible. Over the course of about a month I got the seat tracks fabricated for the driver's side and I modified the floorplan to accept the seat. I got the seat installed and wired up, I also dyed the seat black so that it at least kinda matches the interior until I can afford to have all the seats recovered.

I'm not particularly pleased with the position of the seat, I accidentally placed it about an inch or so too close to the door in a misguided attempt to allow myself more room for the floor shifter and eventually some sort of console. Because of this I decided to wait on doing the work for the passenger seat until I get the 4 speed swap finished so that I can get the drivers side seat perfect.

No pictures, the interior needs a DEEP clean. Lol
 
At the same time that I was junkyard hopping for the intrepid seats I also was hunting for a 2 barrel air cleaner to replace the cheesey Mr. gasket piece I've been running ever since I did my super six swap. Now mind you, most every 318 air cleaner I came across was way overpriced and unfortunately I couldn't find anything in the junkyard that would work. But I did find a 1973 Plymouth Fury III with a 360 2 barrel. So I robbed the air cleaner for $5 and upon bringing it home and realizing the carb opening was too big I decided to make it work anyway by making a piece of sheetmetal to make the air cleaner opening smaller. I couldn't find the proper sized hole saw I needed so instead I used a compass to draw some circles on a piece of sheetmetal and i cut the circles out with tin snips. After hammering the piece flat I cleaned up the holes I cut with a die grinder and welded the piece to the bottom of the air cleaner. After dressing the welds with a grinder I applied some bondo to fill any holes and smooth things out. I still need to finish stripping paint and get the base welded, I also need to decide if I'm going to modify the snorkel. But here it is:

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I know it's not pretty but it gets the job done for now and nobody will ever see the bottom of the air cleaner.

Now for the fun part...

My wife and I have a tradition of going down to McDonough, Ga every new years to visit some good friends we have. They have a side business doing screen printing and vinyl decals so I sent her some drawings and measurements and had her make me some custom air cleaner decals. Here it is on the freshly painted lid. I still need to set the decal with a heat gun and clear coat it.

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Here's the link to their business if anyone is interested

Miller Designs and More
 
And now for the best part.

While down in Ga, I swung down south about an hour and met up with @SGBARRACUDA to pick up some parts for my 4 speed swap. Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to stay and chat longer with Roy cause he seems like a really cool dude.

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I'll have to do some modifications to make things work, as these came from a 1972 Duster 340 but it should get the job done.
 
Today I found a break in the rain just long enough to pull my 4 speed and tranny jack out of storage and mock up the shifter and linkages to see what needs to be done.

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First off, It appears that the 3/4 shift rod needs to be lengthened by about an inch so I can flip the shifter lever upside down (this is an O.D. tranny) and get the shifter gates to line up. No biggie so far.

Also, I need to take the shifter mechanism apart and grease everything up as well as replace spring that centers the shifter.

I need to figure out how to modify the z bar to work for my car, shouldn't be too hard I hope.

And I also need to repair a bit of rust on the 4speed hump.

So I think the game plan is going to be:

  1. Get the 4 speed prepped and ready to swap in
  2. Swap the engine and tranny together
  3. Drive it
  4. Rework the drivers side seat
  5. Drive it some more
  6. Install passenger seat
  7. Narrow and rebuild 8.8 with 3.73 gears and ranger axles
  8. Redrill front hubs for bbp and convert front drums to scarebird discs
  9. Take a break and drive it!
  10. Get the flywheel redrilled to accept the 10" ford clutch
  11. Upgrade to HEI with a pertronix ECU with built in rev limiter
  12. Swap on my head that I've ported and milled off .080"
  13. Drive it some more!
 
Hey Matt.....long time-no see! I'll dig around in the trunk of my Duster and see if the Z bar that came in it from the factory is laying around somewhere. It was a factory /6 car, 3 on the tree......so maybe that would work if it's there. Seems like I remember seeing one in a box in the trunk. If I've got it, you're welcome to it if it will save you from having to fab one.
 
JDMopar said:
Hey Matt.....long time-no see! I'll dig around in the trunk of my Duster and see if the Z bar that came in it from the factory is laying around somewhere. It was a factory /6 car, 3 on the tree......so maybe that would work if it's there. Seems like I remember seeing one in a box in the trunk. If I've got it, you're welcome to it if it will save you from having to fab one.
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If you got it I'd be happy to trade you! I dont really need this V8 piece. If I'm not mistaken the slant six bar should be 8 inches long.
 
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Bout time you updated this. peckerwood. lol Hope yall are all doin good. Good to see you're still moving forward.
 
RustyRatRod said:
Bout time you updated this. peckerwood. lol Hope yall are all doin good. Good to see you're still moving forward.
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I know I know, I've been bogged down by work and the neverending honeydo list lol. I'm hoping to make a really good push to try to get the expensive stuff out of the way before kids come into the picture. I hope you and kitty are doing ok, next time I'm down you're way I'd love to see yall.
 
Matt....looks like I probably spoke too soon. I checked every box and cubby hole in the Duster a while ago, and the Z bar is nowhere to be found. :( I bet it got tossed with the rest of the slant 6 stuff when the previous owner started working on the car. All I've got left of the straight drive stuff is the pedals, and the 3 on the tree column. You might try Ivester to see if he has any of that stuff laying around, or still in the car.
 
I'm glad you've been bogged down at work! That's fantastic! I remember a time when you were having trouble there. I am really glad you got things goin the other way now. Take it from somebody who knows. It's a *****. lol I love what you had done with the air cleaner. That's super cool!
 
JDMopar said:
Matt....looks like I probably spoke too soon. I checked every box and cubby hole in the Duster a while ago, and the Z bar is nowhere to be found. :( I bet it got tossed with the rest of the slant 6 stuff when the previous owner started working on the car. All I've got left of the straight drive stuff is the pedals, and the 3 on the tree column. You might try Ivester to see if he has any of that stuff laying around, or still in the car.
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that's alright Jackie, I appreciate you looking for me. I'll try hitting up Ivester and maybe put up a parts wanted add. I haven't measured the shaft diameter of the z bar yet, but I'm thinking if it's a common size then I can cut it in half and use short section of black iron pipe as a couple to weld it back together. Seems like if my pipe is about 2" long I could insert the 2 z bar pieces in about 1/2" on each side and that would give me the extra 1" in length I need.

RustyRatRod said:
I'm glad you've been bogged down at work! That's fantastic! I remember a time when you were having trouble there. I am really glad you got things goin the other way now. Take it from somebody who knows. It's a *****. lol I love what you had done with the air cleaner. That's super cool!
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yeah buddy! There for awhile things were getting really bad when I took my sabbatical from FABO, I was starting to think that was just how life was going to be. But I've been greatly fortunate to be able to work full time and even overtime, I bought a house and got married and I've even managed to start some savings! Iim trying very hard to safeguard myself from ever ending up there again.

I appreciate the kind words on the air cleaner! If you ever need decals, check out my friends! They do all custom stuff and they are VERY competitive on pricing. She still has the file saved for my air cleaner too, just send her your dimensions.
 
So just a little update, I tracked down the correct z bar for my setup and I didn't get much done until today because my powerstroke was down for about 2 months while I learned how to work on diesels. With short daylight hours. And rain. And more rain.....

But today I finally got the truck back together and running like a champ on Thursday so I decided, f%$k it let's work on the Dart this weekend while the weather is nice.

So I went to my sisters house and loaded up my engine from @Rick Wellman and brought it back home. It's been painted and I went ahead a few weeks ago and pulled the pan to inspect the bottom end. Its dirty but looks great from a wear standpoint. So without further ado, here's motor swap Saturday with the Mrs.

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And we finished up the evening with a Digiorno date.

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Tomorrow my goal is to get the other engine set down in the car and the 4 speed temporarily bolted up so I can put the hood back on the car. I miss having a garage!
 
Looking good Matt. You got a lot of work done and it's good to have great helper!!! I wish I could drag mine out to help on the car.
 
Sounds like y'all had a good day Matt. Just scrolling thru your pics, it looks like you bought a pretty nice place. I know you want a garage to work in, but do some checking before you throw one up. I know some people who live in Lincoln County, and they said that county has some :realcrazy: rules as to what you can and can't build. Thumbs up to Mrs. Matt for piling in there to help you....and still have a big smile at the end of the day! :thumbsup: :D
 
Get r done boy! What's the story on the Falcon?
 
I forgot to mention the for speed is kinda in. Its bolted to block but I wasnt able to get the mount bolted in. I left the adapter plate for the shifter on the tail housing thinking that it would clear the tunnel but surprise, it didnt. I'll have to drop the back of the tranny down some and get that off so I can bolt in the mount and start determining where to place the 4 speed hump. But all in all the hood is back on the car and everything is under cover!
 
JDMopar said:
Sounds like y'all had a good day Matt. Just scrolling thru your pics, it looks like you bought a pretty nice place. I know you want a garage to work in, but do some checking before you throw one up. I know some people who live in Lincoln County, and they said that county has some :realcrazy: rules as to what you can and can't build. Thumbs up to Mrs. Matt for piling in there to help you....and still have a big smile at the end of the day! :thumbsup: :D
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We had a great weekend all in all Jackie and it was a fun way to kinda reconnect together. This is the first big project shes ever been a part of without any outside help from anyone else. She did freaking awesome!

We lucked out on the house. It's a 4 bd 2 ba doublewide, about 2,200 sq ft on 1.25 acres. We are at the end of a road in the culdesac and the two lots across from us are woods that will never be developed because its junk land. We are like right outside city limits so we are less than 5 minutes from everything but also far enough out that we have farms and such around us. I haven't looked back since we moved here. Unfortunately I do have to put a roof on the house very soon so the garage will be a few years out.

RustyRatRod said:
Get r done boy! What's the story on the Falcon?
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That Falcon is actually the other car I grew up with. Dad bought it in '99 with 43k miles on the clock and drove it till about 2010. The floors and roof skin are roached. It's a 65 coupe with 54k miles, 170 3 on the tree and power nothing. I have striped out the interior and cut out the rot and hit the floor boards with sealer primer to preserve what's left, same for the roof.

Unfortunately dad is disabled now so he doesn't have the budget to do anything with it and he's really not in good enough health to work on it or drive it. He's talking about signing it over to me soon. Whether he does or not I plan on starting to get it running and driving again after I get my head swapped on the Dart.

I'm thinking mild 302 3 on the tree and 3.23 gear 8.8 when I get to it.
 
/6 Matt said:
We had a great weekend all in all Jackie and it was a fun way to kinda reconnect together. This is the first big project shes ever been a part of without any outside help from anyone else. She did freaking awesome!

We lucked out on the house. It's a 4 bd 2 ba doublewide, about 2,200 sq ft on 1.25 acres. We are at the end of a road in the culdesac and the two lots across from us are woods that will never be developed because its junk land. We are like right outside city limits so we are less than 5 minutes from everything but also far enough out that we have farms and such around us. I haven't looked back since we moved here. Unfortunately I do have to put a roof on the house very soon so the garage will be a few years out.

That Falcon is actually the other car I grew up with. Dad bought it in '99 with 43k miles on the clock and drove it till about 2010. The floors and roof skin are roached. It's a 65 coupe with 54k miles, 170 3 on the tree and power nothing. I have striped out the interior and cut out the rot and hit the floor boards with sealer primer to preserve what's left, same for the roof.

Unfortunately dad is disabled now so he doesn't have the budget to do anything with it and he's really not in good enough health to work on it or drive it. He's talking about signing it over to me soon. Whether he does or not I plan on starting to get it running and driving again after I get my head swapped on the Dart.

I'm thinking mild 302 3 on the tree and 3.23 gear 8.8 when I get to it.
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Cool. I was recently given a 61 Falcon 4 door. The engine, transmission and brakes have all been rebuilt. It runs and drives, but needs tome loose ends tightened up. I thought it would be more economical than driving my truck everyday and also give me a chance to continue working on the Valiant.
 
RustyRatRod said:
Cool. I was recently given a 61 Falcon 4 door. The engine, transmission and brakes have all been rebuilt. It runs and drives, but needs tome loose ends tightened up. I thought it would be more economical than driving my truck everyday and also give me a chance to continue working on the Valiant.
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Hell yeah that's really cool! You gonna start a thread when you start tying up loose ends and cruising it? I know some others here got a soft spot for Falcons too.

Funny enough, that '65 is what spurred my love for old music. We drove that thing everywhere back in the day and it still has the original AM radio, well back in '99 Lenior only had 1 AM station and it was 60's-70's.
 
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