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

[Swinger340Canuc]

Had to do a bit of painting to repair the area on the tub where I had to bring the lip down to meet the tub so that spot-in needed to be done first,

A problem that gave me a headache for quite some time was my trunk gap at the corners was tight and there was no way to move the quarters ahead anymore and even if I could it would mess up the alignment at the back. All the gaps are good except at this point and the fact that the quarters are an 1/8th inch short might have something to do with it but I wasted enough time puzzling over this and decided the best solution was to shave the corners of the trunk lid and weld them up and think it looks fine.

Sound deadener from Rick's Restoration needs to go on next then I can get some paint on the inside,

Next is to get all the holes where i'm going to plug weld drilled and all the surfaces taken down to bare metal and the matching surfaces on the car itself as well and weld thru primer applied.

All ready to go for welding in place just need to get some more panel bonding adhesive for the small area were the rear cowl and corner of the window channel and quarter come together, a near impossible spot to get at to weld so this works great and assures a water tight joint.

 

[Swinger340Canuc]

Finally the odyssey getting these quarter panels to fit and welded on is over,

Don't want to forget this reinforcement bracket from the quarter to the sail panel,

Removed all the dried out asphalt type seam sealer from the passenger compartment floor pan, will replace it with modern synthetic seam sealer after I painted on some POR 15 on the seams until it dripped out the bottom of the seams. Oddly but thankfully Chryco used a much better tougher seam sealer, close to the stuff we use today, in the trunk area so I can just leave it alone,

 

[Swinger340Canuc]

Took a stab at upholstery quite awhile ago, going with buckets for my day to day driving but also got the proper spit bench, to replace the perfect one I thru out in 1979. Going to recover all the seats but decided to go with the set of 75-76 buckets that I picked up a long time ago that I thought looked the best and to have them match the back seat closer so I had Legendary Interiors make the set with the matching Coachman and Elk grain vinyl material.

It's been a while, can I remember how I did it, LOL.

 

[Dartnut]

Great work and detailed pics of your progress Dan, i can't wait to see more!

 

[Swinger340Canuc]

Great work and detailed pics of your progress Dan, i can't wait to see more!

Got to keep my nose to the grindstone Tom, glad your enjoying the thread.

 

[MOPARMITCH]

Wow Dan !! You really got some metal fab skills there ! I only hope to do so well when I get to the rear of my car.
Lookin Great !!

 

[Swinger340Canuc]

Wow Dan !! You really got some metal fab skills there ! I only hope to do so well when I get to the rear of my car.
Lookin Great !!

Appreciate the compliment Mitch, from the looks of your other skills I'm sure it'll turn out great.



Spent most of my time this weekend taking the last few things like fuel and brake lines off and prepping most of the inside before I get it up on the rotisserie. Lots of extra holes to weld up on the floor and some on the firewall once I get the bottom blasted, geez wonder where those came from, oh yeh it was the 70's/80's, lol!

 

[Swinger340Canuc]

Spent some time Friday evening and today removing the undercoating in the front wheel wells so those areas will be ready to sandblast. Today spent most of my time sanding my engine compartment. Don't plan on sandblasting it since you might be able to tell where most of the bare metal is visible you don't see any orange just the green primer. Way back when I changed it to black I sandblasted the engine compartment, except where you see the orange areas where I didn't remove those parts, and used a PolyUrethane paint and primer sealer. This product was tough as hell and chemical resistant to pretty near anything and will make a perfectly good base for the epoxy and paint I'm going to use, no real benefit to blasting it all over again. Still some more work in there to do and a few holes to weld up. Grunt work but keeping at it. Next weekend "scatpacker" is going to help me put it on the rotisserie then I can start cleaning the bottom.

 

[Haffnez72Scamp]

Awesome Post! Very impressive.

 

[Swinger340Canuc]

Awesome Post! Very impressive.

Thanks for the nice comment Haffnez72Scamp.

My good pal scatpacker came in and gave me a lot of help getting her up on the rotisserie that he and raredart lent me, now I can turn my attention to cleaning up the bottom. Where would some of us be if not for our FABO family, thanks again Kev and Dan.

 

[scatpacker]

Hey, you are welcome Dan. Now on with the next phase.

 

[cliff guinand]

Look at you guys!!! Good stuff, great to see 'er up on the rotisserie.

 

[340duster]

Danny

Are you planning to go to the Capital Area swap meet on the 23rd?

 

[Swinger340Canuc]

Hey, you are welcome Dan. Now on with the next phase.

Thanks again Kev, now phase 3 is it, or 4, lost count!

Look at you guys!!! Good stuff, great to see 'er up on the rotisserie.

Day later I'm a day older Cliff, running out of DAYS! Keep plugging away. I'm still waiting for your 340 Special resto thread Cliff!

Danny

Are you planning to go to the Capital Area swap meet on the 23rd?

Planning on going Rod, want to get there early for the hunt. I believe Kev "scatpacker" is going to have a table full of his treasure.

 

[340duster]

That's good, I will see you there. I will have to get in line ahead of you, in case there are any good deals, lol.

 

[Swinger340Canuc]

Finally found some time to get after the not so enjoyable job of blasting the bottom of the old girl. Cleaned up pretty nicely but I think I'll take the torque boxes off since the welds are so bad and hardly holding them on and clean up inside and it would be easier to straighten a few dents in them while their off and weld them on properly. Still have to blast the back panel and aprons and rad support. Small but dirty progress!

 

[Swinger340Canuc]

After sandblasting and taking a good look and seeing the really poor welds, the ones that were actually holding anything, I decided to just take my torque boxes off. Apparently owner no. 3 had a penchant for running over large things and dented and creased the boxes and other spots on my rails. Its easier to take them off then I can blast behind them and the back sides and repair the dents properly and paint inside and weld them back on properly.

Its much easier to fold these lips back to their proper position by putting a bit of heat to them. I had to make a large square flat dolly from some pieces of 1/4 plate that I could mount in my vise and just cold hammered out the dents on the flat areas.

 

[Swinger340Canuc]

Then I decided to get a bit anal and rebuild the edges of the boxes that had holes blown thru by the factory boys and there hot welders. I didn’t have a large flat copper welding plate so I took some 3/4 inch copper pipe and flattened and folded it over my dolly and used that to backup my mig weld filling of the holes and areas that were missing.

Quite a bit of work but it turned out pretty good and they should be pretty close to when they were first installed and I’ll spend a bit more time then the mopar guys had to weld them in.

 

[360DartGT66]

Wow. Those were factory welds? My 4yo could do that better. Heck, even I could!
I didn't know there were factory torque boxes. Great to finally get good close-ups of how they're made and attached. Thanks!

 

[Dartnut]

Great work again, it's surprising that those factory welds would have passed Q.C., but then again, the k-member welds are typically that crappy too.........

 

[evil 340]

You obviously are anal but you are good! Good job. Great progress.

 

[Swinger340Canuc]

Wow. Those were factory welds? My 4yo could do that better. Heck, even I could!
I didn't know there were factory torque boxes. Great to finally get good close-ups of how they're made and attached. Thanks!

Glad you got some insight from the post Anders, some cars got none, some got all four and I believe some got just front or back. Plan on welding them back in this weekend.

 

[Swinger340Canuc]

Great work again, it's surprising that those factory welds would have passed Q.C., but then again, the k-member welds are typically that crappy too.........

They were pretty lame Tom and when your this deep in might as well make it right. I blasted my K-member last weekend and luckily most of those welds are decent, probably clean up a few and re-weld but over all a lot better then many that we've seen.

 

[Swinger340Canuc]

You obviously are anal but you are good! Good job. Great progress.

Thanks evil 340, I think LOL! I can't help it, I only want to do a car this way once and then enjoy it!

 

[Swinger340Canuc]

Finished up installing the torque boxes today, blasted the inside area and the backside of the boxes and epoxied them and sprayed some black in there since I'm likely to be doing the bottom of the car the way the factory did with black and then the Hemi orange overspray.

Had to do a bit more fitting with a hammer and dolly to get all the edges as tight to the pan as possible, these things aren't exactly precision fit and need some finessing so you can get nice welds.

Now those are back in I can move on to welding up a number of non factory holes, admittadly I'm the dummy that made most of them, and tidy up some dents in the rails, pan and seat brackets.