66 dart convertible

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I'm in the middle of the inter fitment. just waiting on the carpet to come in so I can get the console made and fitted to the seats. I'm using the stock shifter and plate but going with a foam/fiberglass style console so that I can get things situated the way I want em too! I'm moving the power top switch, power window switches,trunk release and 2 A/C vents (1 in the front and 1 in the rear of the console)down on the console. that should give me initiative to get cracking on setting up an Digital instrument cluster and bezels cast out of acrylic to smooth out the dash cluster and hide the fact that it is going to be digital until I turn the key on. I've seen a couple of clusters that might fit without being to gaudy and can be hidden behind a dark lexan lense, but will still show the gauges. here's some pic's of the seats in the correct location now and partial covering of the back seat for the convertible well liner setup

I still have to bend the side pieces up and finish the mounting brackets on the sides. but it's solid and the seat belts are mounted AND working.
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testing the electrics for the power windows and the power seat, fixed the bad motor for up and down.
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back seats a little tight using stock side panels I'll have to trim 1/2 inch off the sides to relax the foam so it fit's better and looks better too!

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as you can see the seats are not that much higher than the original ones and should work nicely. plus it's got a nice top finish trim that I'll have to clean up so it looks even better.
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and yeah I'm going to the lower ride height. I'll have the springs reworked to get me to this height after the engine is in.
 
Since december I've been dragging my butt around real slow, and got really smacked down right before christmas. must of had the flu or something. laid me up for a while but now I'm feeling a little better and decided to get some work done.
first order of business was to figure out the rear power windows. (check)
here's the hole I had to cut to get it to work. no going back to manual windows now!
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I needed some of the backing plate to weld to the original regulator
this is the new piece form a 01 dakota. just needed the mounting area
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here's the cutout leftover pieces of the dakota part
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and here's the piece you have to cut off the original regulator.
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I'll probably have to drill a 3rd mounting hole on the regulator. it flexes just a bit at full down and full up position. they are in and they work :cheers:

I have the seats mounted and in so I can test fit and build a custom console for the car. along with the door panels so that I don't put the armrests in a stupid position.
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I figure I'll set it up for all the goodies in the console. cup holders,power distribution a/c ducting to the rear seats, power window ,trunk switches and door lock switch if I ever install em.
 
It will be nice with power windows. Wonder why they didn't have them as option back in the days?
 
65dartcharger said:
It will be nice with power windows. Wonder why they didn't have them as option back in the days?
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I don't know other than they were "econo" boxes , so why waste good stuff on them.

The rear quarter windows on the convertible are TIGHT. there is only 3/4th of an inch clearance when the window moves up and down on the front guide bar. not a whole lot of room. I had to cut the inner panel to get mine to fit. and there was no extra room in the front door jam area. I have less than 1/8 of an inch till I hit the inside of the door jam. I can barely slide a folded up piece of paper in between the motor and the door jam. I'd assume hardtops are the same.

now to adjust the windows to fit the top! that should be fun adjusting the tilt and the height to fit.
 
due to my mistakes I discovered that I needed to do another clear coat layer.
so I sanded down the paint with 1000 grit and reshot the final clear coat. I have a little trash(bug's) in the final coat but nothing bad. whew I'm glad to be done. now comes the really hard part. cuttin n buffin. that I'm not looking forward to.

in the closeup you can see the pearl I put in to make the vanilla pop in the sun. looks pretty good to me.
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darn bug flew right into the clear coat! tweezed most of it out still got legs stuck in there.
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sides look ok
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front fenders pretty good too!
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Hood has 2 bugs (just legs now)legs stuck in there
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yahoo! this was the proble fender, came out great!
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back corner showing the pearl off
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looking down the side
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drivers side looking good now
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I really am glad to be done painting the car. whew was a lot of work but I saved a ton of money doing it myself. then again I said the same thing when I got done with the bodywork. so I'll probably sa that when I get done with un-denting the trim polishing and making missing pieces, wiring and engine work.
 
Colorado said:
Just got my 66.... My dream is to restore it when I purchase a house.... You are living my dream! Awesome!
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thanks.
it's been a long,long journey to get this far and I had to ask about a million questions about stuff I didn't know enough about to do correctly. I just took it one step at a time.(of course I bounced around doing different stuff as money permitted.) now all I have to do is a million little things. instead of 2 million bigger things:toothy5:
 
yehaw! I was just talking with a guy at the sumter swap meet today and he just happened to have Mis-ordered a set to top rail weather strip for a 63-66 a-body convertible. Who's a thunk I would have found it at a predominately chevy swap meet. got it for 40 bucks too, so I saved a little on it also. made my day. I am doing the fiddly stuff now to finish up the dart. Right now I'm banging out the dent's in every piece of trim and test fitting the front grill and bezels after I straightened them up. I still have to soak em to remove the anodizing so I can finish up sanding them,sot them to 320 so far and a ways to go to make em look good!
but they fint the body lines a lot better than they did before. and the body has been sanded to 2000 so far. whew tired of sanding.
looks a lot better than the smashed in bottom. the shapes a little off but I'll reshape it when I put on the steel bottom piece on with rivets.
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a better view of the bottom piece that I worked on in the grill area and both bezels. the hood piece needs MAJOR work to straighten out and reweld some split seams on the ends.
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showing some glitter now that I have it sanded to 2000.
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got some dent's to work out don't I?
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got most of em and just tried those Aluminium low Temperature rods to get that deep gouge out on the edge. We'll see how it polishes up when I get to that stage.
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thanks
scottyjack bout the paint I like it.
any way here's how it turned out on the bezels. I still have more finish work to do on both bezels and darned if I didn't dent one of the bezels when the wheel grabed it harder than I could hold it. plus there is a bunch more trim to un dent and polish out

yep dented the passengers side bezel by not watching what I was doing.
but it didn't fling it across the room like the transition molding.(still haven't found that piece yet but it's gotta be under the heaviest work table.
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here is both polished up (still have to fix the pass side)
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drivers side came out pretty good. I still have some 400 scratches I have to work out and smooth over.
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some of the trim I've been working on. I did have 1 piece of trim that did not need anything except polishing. all the rest need major work.
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its a very popular color in new autos, happy to see it being used on vintage rides...
 
scottylack said:
its a very popular color in new autos, happy to see it being used on vintage rides...
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yeah I saw the "cool vanilla" color on a friends 300 and loved it. I did the dart in that color and added 2 coats of gold pearl to give it some "sun bling" it's so light that you can only see it in direct sunlight. looks good to me with all the trim being put back on. nice contrast to me.
 
Just sat here for the past few hours and looked over your thread. I must say you have done a very very good job with all the patch work. I just picked up a 66 Dart GT convertible with a 273 all original numbers matching with only 63,*** miles 3 days ago. I will be getting hot and heavy into the resto in a few weeks. I have a few questions though. You didnt use the stock seats I noticed. But did you replace the factory rear seat mounts? I know there is one for the air cylinder and another one right next to it that goes toward the front of the car. Do you know what that is used for? Mine didn't come with from seats, but it did come with the rear lower but not the upper. I have been trying to find a replacement panel from the rear section after the seam for the front floor pans but cant seem to find one. At least not for a 66. If you did re use the factory brackets, the air cylinder and the other bracket right next to it, or did you. Just trying to get as much info as possible before I start taring into this thing.
 
66Dart273 said:
Just sat here for the past few hours and looked over your thread. I must say you have done a very very good job with all the patch work. I just picked up a 66 Dart GT convertible with a 273 all original numbers matching with only 63,*** miles 3 days ago. I will be getting hot and heavy into the resto in a few weeks. I have a few questions though. You didnt use the stock seats I noticed. But did you replace the factory rear seat mounts? I know there is one for the air cylinder and another one right next to it that goes toward the front of the car. Do you know what that is used for? Mine didn't come with from seats, but it did come with the rear lower but not the upper. I have been trying to find a replacement panel from the rear section after the seam for the front floor pans but cant seem to find one. At least not for a 66. If you did re use the factory brackets, the air cylinder and the other bracket right next to it, or did you. Just trying to get as much info as possible before I start taring into this thing.
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lets see if I can answer at least some of your questions.
no I didn't use stock seats (and I left the stock hookup in it too lazy to grind em off) the newer style seats were made for a front wheel drive and I had to build a panel to raise the floor pan to fit correctly.
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the bracket for the lift cylinder I did use but welded it in the wrong spot.. it goes to the very end of the panel to get full retract position. I'm doing that this week.

I used the rear floor pan section from a 73 dart it fit the sides of the car perfectly but didn't have the exact shape for stock carpet or sub-frame connectors. you can use (dart) 63-73 floor sections but from 67-73 the shape will be wrong for factory stock and the seat and seat belt holes are in the wrong spot. plus the seat height was incorrect for the 66 (I welded the holes up and redid it to fit mine)
I cut a rectangle out of the seat pan location and added in flat metal to lay on the seat mounting brackets that were welded to the frame. you cansee the holes that I cut out to flatten the shape to fit stock 66 seat locations. THEN I didn't use the 66 seats.

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this is the panel that was added and it hides the stock seat bracket so I left the bracket in it.
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here is the locator diagram.(note I have to move the convertible top lift brackets to the front edge of the panel instead of 2 inches back)
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the top part of the rear seat is hooked into the power top motor brace it slides UP-wards into the 2 slots in that piece and bolts into the over the axle pan to hold it in place. they look like a box welded onto the rear panel. with 1 screw hole in it , you can see it in the last pic right above the "side panel mount caption. and you can see the slots I'm taking about right above that on the cross bar that holds the power top motor.

I'm not sure what panel you talking about? you have the front floor pans. the seat mounting section, the rear floor pans ,then you have the extension pan that the top cylinder lift brackets and the seat brackets weld on to. sort of an upside down L shape and then you have the over the axle pan .

I'm assuming your looking for the upside down L shaped piece and you can get it from almost any of the darts. 2 door,4 door, hardtop, sedan or convertible. from 63 to 73 for sure. remember 67-73 has the plugs and seat belt holes in a different location but it will fit.
if I'm wrong in assuming the panel you want then grab one of my pic's and edit it to show me what one your looking for.

front and rear floor pans are available. (autobody specialties has the fronts for sure) so the only pieces you'll have to get used is the seat pan section under the front seats 6-8 inches or so. darn pan is just a little short. and the upside down L piece. that's why I used the 73 piece( cheaper than the 66 original piece) and I wasn't worried about going to a "numbers,factory,show car"
I knew I wanted
1 A/C
2 power seats
3 cup holders
4 power windows
5 power trunk lock
6 other things that make my driving pleasure "BETTER or more comfortable in my opinion" your (opinion) may vary on the pleasure scale but it's going to be my daily driver.


hope I've helped out a little.
have fun with your resto!
 
Ah now it all makes sense. I should would have been nice if I have seats and some if the interior in place when I picked the car up. The bracket that holds the side panel in was messing me up. I was wondering what that was and now it makes sense. Both the side panel mount bracket, the air cylinder mounts, and the rear seat brackets are there. Just the sheet metal around it is rusted. I'm gonna have to put new pans in the whole car. Nothing I can't do, I've had to do it before. Did your bracing work as far as the body not twisting? And thanks again for the info you have given me.
 
66Dart273 said:
Ah now it all makes sense. I should would have been nice if I have seats and some if the interior in place when I picked the car up. The bracket that holds the side panel in was messing me up. I was wondering what that was and now it makes sense. Both the side panel mount bracket, the air cylinder mounts, and the rear seat brackets are there. Just the sheet metal around it is rusted. I'm gonna have to put new pans in the whole car. Nothing I can't do, I've had to do it before. Did your bracing work as far as the body not twisting? And thanks again for the info you have given me.
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yeah the bracing worked ok but if I was to do it again(which I am )in addition to the existing bracing I will go from the bottom of the brace on the drivers side to the front(bottom) of the passengers side then cross it in an X pattern to make sure it doesn't shift. bottom of passengers side to the front (bottom) of the drivers side and bolt it or tack it in the center of the X just to make sure I don't twist it. I had great rocker panel rigidity they were perfect. can't say that about the rest of the car but the rockers were great. here's a pic of the internal bracing in the rockers from a cut up car I got for metal from "Waggin" to help me put it back together.
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as you can see there's a LOT of metal in there stiffening up the rocker panels. if that's good then you won't get a lot of twist or movement BUT you will get some . that why you brace it as good as you can. I measured 1/4 movement without the braces in there and none after the braces. and yes the were bolted in the door jam side then tacked just to stop movement and tack welded on the A-pillar (windshield post) when I put in the sub frame connectors I noticed a lot stiffer feel in lifting the body. then I had a heck of a time adjusting the doors because I lifted the connectors in place with a floor jack and it changed the door opening size. when I do the other dart I'll have it on jack stands with the doors on and adjusted before I do the sub frame connectors (way before paint this time)


post some pic's of your car (do it to remember how to put it together again too!)
 
I'm in the process of trying to fix my trim, darn near EVERY piece of it has a darn dent or scrape on it, except the spears on the front fenders. I think the original owner used the car chasing critters in the field or something. anyway I'm moving forward slowly. I have got the bezels straighter than they were. not perfect mind you but pretty straight. the stainless trim on the back of the car is almost done also, 3 more nicks to push out. whew what a mess. the grill was trashed since he hit a square object with the bumper and it pushed it into the grill too! I've gotten most of the dent's out and started to level and fl atten the parts that need to be flattened. I got tired of working on the grill and switched over to the hood nose piece since it was bent all to heck. I did get it straight but still have to get rid of the 180 grit scratches. but it's looking better every piece I get to work on.

bent bezels getting straightened
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much better
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checking fit
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hood trim piece straight again
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scratches scratches who's got scratches.. ME that who. dang got to work some more on getting this out now that most of the dents are gone. it's sanded to 600 but it seems I missed some scratches on the way.. back to work sanding.

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it's all coming together but there a whole lot of final work
 
I have been sort of slacking off (not enough money sucks!) and a couple of other projects jumped up and got in the way(making parts for the dart to be vacu-formed) . But now I'm able to get a little work done. I found a local (hey 50 miles is local ain't it) guy that does the spray chrome thingy. well I'm cleaning up a couple of pieces and gonna have him shoot them for me to see how things look. I'll do the silver and black, I just want him to spray chrome on the bezels for me.
here is a working on cleaning them up progress.

he said I'm about a week down in the waiting list . so we'll see what the 1st piece looks like before I commit to the rest, I still have to fix the speedo bezel. both mine are damaged. I really want to do a custom bezel by taking the radio delete one and graft it to the A/C one and poke a hole for the convertible top switch. , but that's later for right now I want to see how the spray on chrome works out.


BTW
what color silver is the 66 dart GT dash bezels? different than the 270? and does anyone know if the black on the bezels is gloss black or satin black? I looked and thought they were satin black but a guy I met at the swap meet said they were glossy. now I'm confused and don't have a sample to look at since I started cleaning mine up.ic;s look satin but you know how picture lie!



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Your work is awesome. I was looking at your radio bezels, I'm going to have my dash refinished and my bezel has been gnawed on to fit an afte market radio. I'm looking for one but I have a square hole in the top left corner and see that yours don't? Any idea what that's for? I got the car as a basket case and don't have any before pictures. By the way, great information in this thread. Thank you!
 

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pyrojim said:
Your work is awesome. I was looking at your radio bezels, I'm going to have my dash refinished and my bezel has been gnawed on to fit an afte market radio. I'm looking for one but I have a square hole in the top left corner and see that yours don't? Any idea what that's for? I got the car as a basket case and don't have any before pictures. By the way, great information in this thread. Thank you!
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you have an original convertible bezel. mine was done the same way.
That is the opening for the convertible top switch, don't get rid of that bezel just yet. when you get another bezel take the lighter socket off, there's a bezel on it you'll want to transfer over to your new bezel. you can use a hardtop GT bezel and cut that opening n drill the holes. there is a plastic piece that fit's into it , the 2 holes also are there to locate the plastic piece . I'll see if I can find mine and post a picture of it.

found it my piece has one of the pins broke off but you get the picture on how it goes.
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65dartcharger said:
What a great job you have done! That will turn out great when done!
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Thanks 65Dartcharger;
It's getting there, I'm slowly moving forward now that I'm into the putting it back together stage" the little things a re killing me. like the top switch bezel hard to find and EXPENSIVE if you do. mine's broke and I have all the pieces so I'll just fix it sand it down and re shoot it. another thing or 2 is no one makes some of the plastic parts (convertible side panel covers and dash bezels made the way I want then to be!) I need and I'm having to make a machine or molds to get those parts made. time consuming to say the least.

I know I'm slow at getting things done but dang some of these professional people I'm paying to do some stuff I can't do is stupid slow! example of one is I have some kick panel molds made up and it took a month to get me one side test piece made up. I had to adjust it slightly to help the DS fresh air Vent door open up more than an inch (cost me 50.00 to make that change) and it's been another month with no sign of the part yet.... ahh well when it get done I'll look back on it and laugh but it sure is slow going! I want to drive this car so bad it's driving me crazy!
 
I saw a gorgeous one painted bright yellow at the Rockingham show on the 6th. You have to be really careful with the floorpans on convertibles, it is all that holds the car together....
 
Palmetto said:
I saw a gorgeous one painted bright yellow at the Rockingham show on the 6th. You have to be really careful with the floorpans on convertibles, it is all that holds the car together....
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have you ever looked at the rockers on a convertible? those thing make the hard tops look wimpy. plus the convertible (at least mine did)have front and rear torque boxes even with a /6 installed

here's a cut away view of the 1/2 of a 64 valiant convertible I got from Waggin for parts to fix mine. plus after I got the floor pans welded in I added the sub frame connectors. I made the mistake of having the front wheels off the ground and when I tried to put the doors on the alignment was off a little I noticed it but most wouldn't have bothered with it, easy fix, but it shows how jacking it up changed the door alignment.

cut away view of rocker
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a "cut" cut away view from the side
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front torque boxes
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and rear torque boxes
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I braced my doors and windshield pillar post when I started cutting and pasting the floor pan back together but I had minimal flex with the floor pan out. I was ":glasses7:floored" seeing how well the convertible stayed straight with no floor pans from the firewall to the tail light trunk panel. nope, none,no floor at all. the hardest time I had WAS trying to deform it to get the rear right outer tail light mounting piece undrilled and put into alignment with the trunk panel. all the 66 darts I've seen have had the right outer tail lamp stick out the tiniest bit and I wanted to fix that, Dang that was harder than I expected trying to move it in 1/8 of an inch. 84 spotwelds and a 3 inch snatch strap let me move it into position. (I won't do that on the wife car) it's too much trouble for 1/8 an inch.
 
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