1972 Canadian H-Code 340 Dart Swinger Special Resto - Finally started!

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H22A4 said:
That’s neat update! How old is Bob? If he was sales manager for Crosstown in the early 70’s, he must be over 90 years old now.
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I just stumbled on this, thus the late posting. Bob's only in his mid-70s. He started at Crosstown as a very young man, and worked his way up to the GSM, but left in November 1977, as he was getting tired of the daily grind of the car biz.
 
Just got these marker light welts that my car came with that my bud Joel ( j061093409 ) had reproduced by someone he knows with a 3D printer. My originals were cracked and weathered too much for me to re-use them so it was great to have Joel, who's car was built 2 cars down the assembly line from mine, put the bit in his teeth and found someone who could make some for us.
My original one and the new ones,
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And the new ones installed, nice job Joel,

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Were never quite done these cars!
 
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Swinger340Canuc said:
Just got these marker light welts that my car came with that my bud Joel ( j061093409 ) had reproduced by someone he knows with a 3D printer. My originals were cracked and weathered too much for me to re-use them so it was great to have Joel, who's car was built 2 cars down the assembly line from mine, put the bit in his teeth and find someone who could make some for us.
My original one and the new ones,
View attachment 1715456024

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And the new ones installed, nice job Joel,

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Were never quite done these cars!
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And the beat goes on
 
Swinger340Canuc said:
Just got these marker light welts that my car came with that my bud Joel ( j061093409 ) had reproduced by someone he knows with a 3D printer. My originals were cracked and weathered too much for me to re-use them so it was great to have Joel, who's car was built 2 cars down the assembly line from mine, put the bit in his teeth and find someone who could make some for us.
My original one and the new ones,
View attachment 1715456024

View attachment 1715456020

View attachment 1715456021

And the new ones installed, nice job Joel,

View attachment 1715456023

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Were never quite done these cars!
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It's nice to have folks that want to help get our cars done right
 
VERY well written. Cool stuff!
Swinger340Canuc said:
We are always looking for anymore Swinger 340 Special survivors so thought I might post the website here again for new members since I first posted it, the more eyes and ears that know what to watch for the better so here is where to go for that information,

https://www.swinger340specials.ca
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Were those marker light welts only on the 72 marker lights or did they continue on thru ‘76 (and later since they were used on the RAM pickups until the early ‘90’s?

Did you use a thin layer of caulk around it so no water leaks into the trunk?
 
H22A4 said:
Were those marker light welts only on the 72 marker lights or did they continue on thru ‘76 (and later since they were used on the RAM pickups until the early ‘90’s?

Did you use a thin layer of caulk around it so no water leaks into the trunk?
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On the subject of which years they were used maybe Joel ( j061093409 ) will chime in he’s a lot more knowledgeable then me and has parts books that might answer that question. These fit nice and tight to the fender but what does the actual sealing from water getting past is the small foam gaskets that come with these lenses, unfortunately my pictures didn’t show that.
 
The actual lense has a foam gasket attached to prevent water in trunk. No caulk used. The only 1972 cars in the parts books are “L” & “V” models. I do not have any Parts books past 1972 but I checked a lot of shows last year and only saw the 72 cars had them.
 
I never really gave this any thought until the other day it dawned on me this car was the last one built that we know of from the only five 340 Dart Swingers built in June of 1972, which would make it the very last 340 Swinger ever made. Yikes, I’m afraid to leave my garage, LOL!
 
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Swinger340Canuc said:
I never really gave this any thought until the other day it dawned on me this car was the last one built that we know of from the only five 340 Dart Swingers built in June of 1972, which would make it the very last 340 Swinger ever made. Yikes, I’m afraid to leave my garage, LOL!
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This is precisely why I would drive it as often as I could, the smiles per gallon would be awesome!
But not in the winter of course............
 
Dartnut said:
This is precisely why I would drive it as often as I could, the smiles per gallon would be awesome!
But not in the winter of course............
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That’s the plan Tom, admittedly I’m a bit of a slave to the weather but I love driving it and take it out every chance I can. And to give you an example of the power of going for a drive in one of these cars last summer I took young Randy “Hemiorangeswinger” out for a cruise to a car gathering and the experience rejuvenated his passion and his stalled restoration came back to life and he’s going hard on it now, that wasn’t me that was the car. By the way he’s been posting his progress on Facebook not so much on here.
 
Well I think most of us have a bit of a fantasy of our car making it into one of the major car magazine's and after doing the photo shoot with my buddy Cliff and his Crosstown Special and waiting several months for our article to debut in MUSCLE CAR REVIEW we found out that a bunch of magazines were being shut down and we weren't sure if we would make it into the last couple of issues and as it turns out my crappy luck prevailed, lol, and it's not to be. Fortunately I can offer that the article is still on the HOT ROD website if any of you would like to take a look, might be as close as I get but even this is pretty cool.

https://www.hotrod.com/articles/under-the-radar-1972-dodge-dart-swinger-340s-really-do-exist/


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Lots of time on my hands these days so I need to start addressing some of the small issues on the Dart before spring actually arrives and the one that bugs me the most and its every time I open the hood. After seeing a number of survivor 72 A-bodies that had black blower motors I figured mine must have been changed since it was metal finished and my heater box was messed up so it should be black.
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Well the black might be correct for many cars but I came to the conclusion mine like the other 340 Specials and many other A-bodies came with the metal finish blower motor. I have couple of heater boxes for parts and this one was the same and the motor works fine just need to remove the paint and get the best metal finish I can and protect it. Pull the box out and do the swap and reinstall,

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Took a number of hours but I've got lots of those and pretty happy with how it turned out and I can open the hood now and not always look right at that.
 
Swinger340Canuc said:
Lots of time on my hands these days so I need to start addressing some of the small issues on the Dart before spring actually arrives and the one that bugs me the most and its every time I open the hood. After seeing a number of survivor 72 A-bodies that had black blower motors I figured mine must have been changed since it was metal finished and my heater box was messed up so it should be black.
View attachment 1715504932

Well the black might be correct for many cars but I came to the conclusion mine like the other 340 Specials and many other A-bodies came with the metal finish blower motor. I have couple of heater boxes for parts and this one was the same and the motor works fine just need to remove the paint and get the best metal finish I can and protect it. Pull the box out and do the swap and reinstall,

View attachment 1715504943 View attachment 1715504944 View attachment 1715504945 View attachment 1715504946 View attachment 1715504947

Took a number of hours but I've got lots of those and pretty happy with how it turned out and I can open the hood now and not always look right at that.
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This is an untouched 1972 engine bay of a Swiss export model:

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I think that like a lot of things Mopar, you will find varying opinions about the "correct" blower motor color. I have seen original survivors with both black and silver blower motors. Maybe it was a vendor issue? Unless you had the car since new or happen to have original pics it's hard to say. Sometimes it just comes down to what makes you happy. Looks great!
 
FJRdoc said:
I think that like a lot of things Mopar, you will find varying opinions about the "correct" blower motor color. I have seen original survivors with both black and silver blower motors. Maybe it was a vendor issue? Unless you had the car since new or happen to have original pics it's hard to say. Sometimes it just comes down to what makes you happy. Looks great!
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The same goes for the blower motor backing plate position. Some say that the sectioned piece was at 3 o'clock position while this one (72 export shown above)is at the 6 o'clock position. Sometime in the 70's my car was quickly painted but they just painted over the original plate which has the sectioned part at the 3 o'clock position. Funny thing is, you can hear from 10 people who worked the line and you'll get 10 different reasons why things were done that way.

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When I bought this car in 1979 it only had 49,000 miles on it and although someone broke the heater box cover, I assume to change the heater core, it wouldn't be likely that the blower motor needed changing so I have to guess the blower that you see in the teardown pictures would have been original to the car,
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This even lower mileage 72 that dmoore posted has the same blower as mine but I think the plate is clocked wrong on mine I think it needs to be at the 3 O'clock position.

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When I reassembled my '70, I had no idea which way the plate should be clocked, it had been apart for a couple years by then, so I just positioned it at 6 o'clock. A few people told me it should have been at 3 o'clock, but it was never that important to me. I agree with A56, 10 people, 10 different answers.
 
Well I wasn't happy with the cracking sound when I was tightening up the rod that pulls the box seal to the cowl inlet and it still wasn't sealed tight so out it came again,

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I have some 1 inch flat steel kicking around so I made up a support bracket that spreads out the pressure when tightening up this rod,

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Now it sucks the box up tight with no nasty cracking sounds and clocked the plate to 3 O'clock.

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I think I'm happy with it now, lol.
 
Swinger340Canuc said:
Well I wasn't happy with the cracking sound when I was tightening up the rod that pulls the box seal to the cowl inlet and it still wasn't sealed tight so out it came again,

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I have some 1 inch flat steel kicking around so I made up a support bracket that spreads out the pressure when tightening up this rod,

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Now it sucks the box up tight with no nasty cracking sounds and clocked the plate to 3 O'clock.

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I think I'm happy with it now, lol.
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Lol, That looks marvelous!!! -Billy Crystal
 
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