1974 Dart Sport “Desert Rat”

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Windshield done! I guess I always forget how simple these gaskets are to do... took about an hour with my father just kind of supporting the windshield when I needed it. Otherwise I did it all myself.
The last one I did was a 69 dart and I did it 100% on my own. It’s supee nice having a helper though!!!
A great product to use for lubricant is vinyl decal gel. It’s water based so cleans up so easy and won’t hurt paint/plastics or vinyl top. After I was finished we rolled it out in the sun and in about 30 min the residual left in the corners had evaporated with no trace.
So with the windshield back in place, out the door she went and back in cane my FM3 70 Charger. (3 car garage with room for two! Not cool when you have 6 cars that should be inside.)

Got the steering column re-assembled and the new ignition back in, just waiting for the coupler rebuild kit to reinstall.
I blasted the brake/gas/booster brackets painted them and got them back in place. (Worked on everything over the weekend and installed tonight)
Ended up just ordering a new washer bottle from Classic Indistries, couldn’t get a used one cheap enough to make sense going Used. Everyone wanted $35-$50 for a decent but scroungy Used one and after shipping it to me they would have been $60-$70!
So... $65 shipped... New.
I’m still looking for a good radiator overflow tank, I haven’t found them reproduced anywhere.
 
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I’ve been so occupied with tracking down things to get this thing going I haven’t taken time to post anything.
I’ve had a fairly busy month!
 
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And as of tonight... She runs!!!
I only had it running for seconds but it fired off the first touch of the key and sounds fairly healthy.
I’m super stoked right now! My pops B-Day tomorrow so taking the day to hang out with him and do dad/family stuff.
(He, like me would much rather spend his B-day in the garage tuning on a Mopar with me!!!)
Believe me... as soon as we get home he and I will be in the garage for sure!!!

All I’m really missing is a driveshaft! Of all things, I gave three away when I moved from Illinois out here. Just figures. I don’t want to spend the money building one when I’m sure there are SCADS of 904/7.25 combos out there in 2 and 4 door variants!

I may be wrong but I’m assuming a 6/904 will slide right in place correct?

Anyone have one in AZ I’m looking!
 
All of the work you have done is awesome. I love the way you have detailed your motor. Although some may not like it, I much prefer to paint a motor Hemi Orange on a hot rod. If it was a true restoration.....yeah, blue would be better. How did you make the holes in your air cleaner? Hole saw and then hammer and dolly the edges? It looks great! Enjoy your day with your dad. :thumbsup:
 
Wow, looking great so far!

Whoever you got that from wouldn't recognize it as being the same car.
 
mopower76 said:
View attachment 1715330635 And as of tonight... She runs!!!
I only had it running for seconds but it fired off the first touch of the key and sounds fairly healthy.
I’m super stoked right now! My pops B-Day tomorrow so taking the day to hang out with him and do dad/family stuff.
(He, like me would much rather spend his B-day in the garage tuning on a Mopar with me!!!)
Believe me... as soon as we get home he and I will be in the garage for sure!!!

All I’m really missing is a driveshaft! Of all things, I gave three away when I moved from Illinois out here. Just figures. I don’t want to spend the money building one when I’m sure there are SCADS of 904/7.25 combos out there in 2 and 4 door variants!

I may be wrong but I’m assuming a 6/904 will slide right in place correct?

Anyone have one in AZ I’m looking!
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Sorry man I am getting my 904/7.25” driveshaft cut down to fit the 8.75”
 
JDMopar said:
All of the work you have done is awesome. I love the way you have detailed your motor. Although some may not like it, I much prefer to paint a motor Hemi Orange on a hot rod. If it was a true restoration.....yeah, blue would be better. How did you make the holes in your air cleaner? Hole saw and then hammer and dolly the edges? It looks great! Enjoy your day with your dad. :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

It’s a 400 air cleaner from a 74 dodge Motorhome! I knocked the snorkel off and just drilled and cut, then rolled the edges with a hammer and dolly. I cut about 3” of height off to fit a standard 14” Unsilenced filter. I doubt anyone at an open (non-Mopar) show would ever know everything about this car isn’t OE correct! And that’s what I’m going for.
Hot Rod is the key! This is not a stock OE build.
If someone wants to build it from where I will get it to its nothing more than unbolting and replacing!
Had a great day with pops and the fam at McCormick Stillman Railroad Park, then some garage time around the Mopars!
Thanks for lookin out for a driveshaft!
 
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A couple of cool shots from Desert Valley Auto salvage yard in Casa Grand AZ. Lots and lots of A Bodies!

This place is amazing, this is the small yard just south of our town. Their main facility is in Phoenix, I have not bam there yet.
Thought I’d find a driveshaft out there for sure but they wanted way too much in my opinion. $175... I could have a stout one built in Illinois for $265!
The cars were cool nonetheless. And as rust free as you could find anywhere!!!
 
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I finished the headliner and got it installed Friday. I think it really turned out great!
I was (and still am) planning on replacing it with a correct molded 1 piece with correct grain in parchment when it gets redone the correct way.
I’m really not thrilled about the late model style material but it really looks nice and was easy to work with.
I used what was left of the original headliner and made a pattern and built it out of 1/8” panel board. ($8 at HD)
It worked great, if I did it again I would use a thin gauge plastic of some sort as the panel board was a little hard to work with during installation.
(Super stiff and just a little too thick)

The whole thing costed under $40! Much better than $350 for correct replacement... Plus shipping!!!
 
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Well, got a lot accomplished yesterday. Detailed the grille and headlight surrounds and installed the front bumper. Cut and buffed the rest of the car so I could install front marker lights and wheel well surround trim. It will get a final polish after the stripe gets put on.
I think I’m just going to paint the stripe on, when the outside of the car gets painted I’ll replace it with a correct tape stripe.
But it’s really starting to look like a car again!
I’m currently going through the brakes and front suspension then move to the rear.
 
dartfreak75 said:
Yes I agree. I would love to do a hood like that for my dart. Do you think it would look right on a beak car tho?
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I have an original AAR hood that is damaged in the front, if yow want to try and graft it on your car.
 
sireland67 said:
I have an original AAR hood that is damaged in the front, if yow want to try and graft it on your car.
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Man! If you have a repairable original AAR hood you should fix it or find someone that’s good with fiberglass and get it to someone with a real AAR that would like to have an original hood.
I guess it depends how bad it really is but I fixed an original T/A hood that was in really bad shape to say it was an original hood and not a reproduction.

Or you can always give it to me! I hate working on fiberglass but it’s easy to fix and I’d hate to see it scrapped for the scoop!
 
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It has brakes! Just finished bleeding and the pedal feels great!
Got all of the brakes rebuilt and went through the front suspension.
I buffed the rest of the body and got the front end back together and on the car along with the wheel opening molding and front marker lights.
I can’t wait to drive it! So close,
Grille turned out really nice although I’d love to have all of the soft aluminum re-plated.
I’m not detailing the 7.25 rear end, it’s only there until an 8.25 or an 8.75 comes along for the right price!
 
mopower76 said:
View attachment 1715334363 View attachment 1715334364 I finished the headliner and got it installed Friday. I think it really turned out great!
I was (and still am) planning on replacing it with a correct molded 1 piece with correct grain in parchment when it gets redone the correct way.
I’m really not thrilled about the late model style material but it really looks nice and was easy to work with.
I used what was left of the original headliner and made a pattern and built it out of 1/8” panel board. ($8 at HD)
It worked great, if I did it again I would use a thin gauge plastic of some sort as the panel board was a little hard to work with during installation.
(Super stiff and just a little too thick)

The whole thing costed under $40! Much better than $350 for correct replacement... Plus shipping!!!
Click to expand...

That is great! I hated that liner in the '72 when we took it out and also looked at the reproductions. The research I did was they use plastic and they have an issue with delaminating after a few years. Yours will likely never delaminate. We ended up with a retro kit to make it a bow type since they still had the alligator teeth in the body in '72. Trust me once you start driving you will realize you NEVER look at the headliner and what you have will work forever.
 
mopower76 said:
Man! If you have a repairable original AAR hood you should fix it or find someone that’s good with fiberglass and get it to someone with a real AAR that would like to have an original hood.
I guess it depends how bad it really is but I fixed an original T/A hood that was in really bad shape to say it was an original hood and not a reproduction.

Or you can always give it to me! I hate working on fiberglass but it’s easy to fix and I’d hate to see it scrapped for the scoop!
Click to expand...

It has a corner missing out of it, and spider cracked everywhere. It was on a car that was in an accident when it was almost new.
 
sireland67 said:
It has a corner missing out of it, and spider cracked everywhere. It was on a car that was in an accident when it was almost new.
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I’ll take it! The TA hood was on a rollover and was ripped from the hinges. Thanks to new (at the time!)bonding agents and a lot of fiberglass and resin you couldn’t tell it was destroyed at one time.
Don’t cut it up! It’s not worth much how it is but to someone desperate for an original.... it could be a holy grail and a saving grace!
There are very few original T/A-AAR hoods left floating around out there.
 
Jim Kueneman said:
That is great! I hated that liner in the '72 when we took it out and also looked at the reproductions. The research I did was they use plastic and they have an issue with delaminating after a few years. Yours will likely never delaminate. We ended up with a retro kit to make it a bow type since they still had the alligator teeth in the body in '72. Trust me once you start driving you will realize you NEVER look at the headliner and what you have will work forever.
Click to expand...

I’m super happy with how it came out. It was really sketchy installing it by myself but I finally got it. I was on the verge of putting a 5 bow type in it... if I would have had to pull it back out and re-build it I was going with bows. I have an extra set from a 70 I parted out years ago.

It’s sad, my father and I parted out my Uncles 73 Gold Duster slant with a perfect black interior that my drunk teenage cousin (at the time, he’s 50 now!) drove into a tree.
It’s headliner was in the rafters of a basement we rented for parts storage a few houses down from us. (I think we had the majority of 3 dusters/Darts and at least 8 1968-1970 Chargers down there!) We cleaned out the basement when he moved and the perfect headliner was left behind.
 
Seats are re-covered! Even though the interior is originally parchment and taupe it’s now black and taupe.
The only correct sets in the original parchment are NOS and Legendary gets (or at lease wants) about $2k for the front and rear covers alone! I understand they are NOS but...
Eventually, I’d like to re do the interior to correct but for now it is really shaping up to be super sanitary and looks a little bit like it could have been a factory offering.
The seat covers are a Legendary set for a 1971 Swinger. I like the pattern better than the wide pleats.
I decided to go with light taupe carpet to tie in the dash and i think it really brightens up the interior and looks great with the wood accents in the door panels.
It isn’t correct but I’d bet 98% of people out there won’t know the difference, and I like it.
I also painted the wheels/center caps and got bulbs everywhere.
I’m listing for FREE in interior parts for sale the original tan (Gold?) (not parchment) rear seat covers from the seats I bought for the car. The rear covers were in exceptional condition and I carefully removed them.
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(Rear Seat Covers Only!)
 
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I actually drove the Dart Sport for the very first time today!
I took it down the street and back into the garage.
It really is a great feeling when you get to the point you can finally drive what you have spent so much time on.
It fires every time at the turn of the key, steers nice and tight, tranny feels amazing in D and R.
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I lowered the front torsion bars down to where I like it and with the freshly painted wheels and center caps I think it has all kinds of attitude to go along with the rowdy Bullet Racing cam! And that’s what I like!

I’m hoping to paint the stripe tomorrow or Tuesday and then it goes to the exhaust shop Wednesday.
I can’t wait to actually drive it!
 
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