66 Dart GT HT Whatsitgonnabe?

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Sweden is the land of SAAB. Not too fond of their cars, but when i got involved in aviation i cut my teeth (learned) so to speak on the SAAB 340B airliner. A fantastic robust airframe, very stable flying characteristics, easy to work on.

I think the SAAB JAS Gripen is pretty awesome too.
 
I'm not that into aviation myself, but from what I understand the 340 was a very successful machine that both pilots and service crew liked. The 2000 that came after was discontinued pretty soon because the sales didn't take off. Can't remember what the objections were, maybe it wasn't as efficient?

The Gripen is very impressive in that it was developed in such a small country as Sweden. And as far as I know it was the first sub-sonic instable fighter.
 
Looks like a fuel tank sending unit is $50-$60.

Hey, it could be a lot more. I just bought a xenon light bulb for my Audi. It was $225 ...

edit: Dear God. In Sweden they're $325!
 
360DartGT66 said:
Oh, okay. Well, I'll try and get it running. Thanks.

Man, everybody's so very helpful in this forum. I'm so happy I found you all!
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Well the way i see it, no matter where you live, or what language you speak, we all speak Mopar. As such we all have a vested interest in helping one another out to achieve their goals with these cars.

I mean, look at me , i live in a small dusty west Texas town, messed with these old cars most of my life. I am 46 years old. I have the knowledge to offer another middle aged guy just like me. Who cares if you are all the way in Sweden. You still speak Mopar, and you have a really cool dart GT.

Welcome to the Mopar A body family.

Matt
 
360DartGT66 said:
I'm not that into aviation myself, but from what I understand the 340 was a very successful machine that both pilots and service crew liked. The 2000 that came after was discontinued pretty soon because the sales didn't take off. Can't remember what the objections were, maybe it wasn't as efficient?

The Gripen is very impressive in that it was developed in such a small country as Sweden. And as far as I know it was the first sub-sonic instable fighter.
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The company i work for doing aviation maintenance mechanic work. Specifically aircraft structures and sheetmetal was the largest buyer of the 340A, 340B, and 340B+ variants. They were looking at the 2000 series as a replacement. It had the same short takeoff, climb rate, good fuel economy, and similar cruise speed as a regional jet. Probably thanks to its sycle shaped 6 bladed Dowty propellers. We even had borrowed one fron crossair to test out.

In the end the company went with the Embraer 145 regional jet. I think it was the public perception that prop planes are old, and jets are new. Even though the SAAB 340 used a GE CT-7 turbine engine to drive a gearbox and propeller. SAAB put a lot of money in the 2000 program. I think only 25 of them were sold. The 145 is a nice aircraft, but from a sheetmetal structures repair standpoint its harder to get into places in the fuselage to repair.

We are due to get Embraer 175s soon, and have a bunch of 340s parked that are no longer used. I have fond memories of the 340s as they were the first aircraft i worked on for a living 20 years ago.
 
The world needs more forums like this one. Maybe we'd stop fighting if everyone spoke like you do.

I can imagine that passengers fail to see the benefits from turboprop planes. I spoke to a pilot a few years back. He flew 340:s on a rout that was perhaps 300-400 km. They flew that stretch almost faster than the jets from take-off to landing simply because they reached full speed faster, didn't have to climb as high, could go full speed longer and descend much later.

I've only ever flown in a turboprop once and it wasn't a SAAB. It was a ridiculously short trip, Stuttgart to Frankfurt, I think, but I remember the take-off. The acceleration really is something. And the climb!
 
Dude, i cant wait till we get an IKEA here in my town. Have to go 2.5 hours away to Dallas Ft Worth to go to one. Good furniture you assemble yourself. Had one of these in new jersey where i used to live years ago.

I have a funny for you though. Going back about 12 years ago, I was changing out a seat track beam on a SAAB 340 that was way too corroded, there was a huge oversized Jo bolt in one of the mounting holes, like it was a factory screwup. Original size was supposed to be a machinest size #8 hole, the hole that was drilled was 1/4 inch. In aviation fasteners, thats a BIG hole. The jo bolt was circled and pencilled in were the words Aooooouuuuu Varg Nisse !!!!!

I kept that section of the seat track in my tool box for a number of years with that wording on it. An engineer from SAAB comes to visit our facility, i show him this piece of seat track with these words on it and ask him what it means.

He looked at it and laughed as he remembered when this happened. I believe he said it was his own handwriting. I bet he probably couldent believe it turned up in Abilene Tx years later. He said on the assembly line if somebody messes up everybody would howl like a wolf. Apparently the Aoooouuuuu was The howl, Varg obviously means wolf, and Nisse was the guy who screwed up the hole necessitating a larger jo bolt fastener.
 
I have another project you might want to do to your gages as well. The stock gage cluster oil press gage, water temp, and oil pressure gage (if equipped) all run off of 5 volts. The printed circuit card on the back of the gage cluster should have a small mechanical vibrating points type voltage regulator. On my barracuda it was located inside the gas gage. Anyway the problem with these, is when they fail open the gage needles drop to the low position, when they fail closed the gage needles peg full high position.

Its a simple device you can make with an NTE960 semiconductor, and a small microfarad capacitor. I cant remember the number i used. However one leg on the semiconductor is ground, one leg is 5V output, the other leg is your input from the 12V feed to the instrument cluster. This replaces the mechanical points regulator.

I used ring terminals and piggy backed mine off the studs on the circuit board since mine was originally inside the fuel gage. If yours uses spades pushed into a dedicated spot on your circuit board id recommend tapping the solid state one right back into the board. I have seen it where guys mod the original points regulator housing and fit the solid state semiconductor inside.

As an electronics engineer this should be a piece of cake for you to do.
 
Heres pix. Of course this is on a 1967 rallye instrument cluster. Yours will be different looking.
 

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He he, Funny to hear that even aircraft are built by people. At least they were twenty or so years ago.

Varg, btw, means scrap in this context. When you "köra varg", run wolfe, what you produce is scrapped. In some places the scrap bin is called the wolfe bin.

I've actually considered replacing the voltage regulator with something more modern. I'm not sure how much current it needs to be able to deliver. But the sending units are 20 Ohms or more, right? Three in parallell would mean no less than 7 Ohms or so. 1 A should be enough.

I've never heard of a vibrating points regulator. I think I'm going to have to google that. I'm fascinated by old-school solutions.
 
Nice. My kind has the tabs that are pushed through the PCB. Easier for me, I think.
 
Great explanation on vibrating points regulator:
[ame]https://youtu.be/c9eMUegg5QM[/ame]

Apparently an aerospace thing back in the days. I need to open mine and take a look! I bet no-one at work ever saw one. :D
 
The vibrating points regulator was a cheap solution to a problem. The gages deflect slowly so as the regulator opens and closes to drop 12V to 5V the needles wont bounce or vibrate. You have to remember in 1966 semiconductors were expensive. Now an NTE960 semiconductor can take up to 35V input, and produce a constant smooth 5V output, and do this for about $1.00 wow how times have changed.
 
moparmat2000 said:
The vibrating points regulator was a cheap solution to a problem. The gages deflect slowly so the open close to drop 12v to 5 wont make the needles bounce or vibrate. You have to remember in 1966 semiconductors were expensive. Now an NTE960 semiconductor can take up to 35V input, and produce a constant smooth 5V output, and do this for about $1.00 wow how times have changed.
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It wasn't just cheap. It was genious!

I think my regulator is ok, the PO didn't mention anything about meter problems (apart from the non-existing temp gauge).

But yeah, things have changed. My dad was an exchange student in Philadelphia when he attended university around 1965-66. That's when the µ741 first came out. I sometimes compare the 741 you can buy today with modern OP-amps. It's nerdy but fun.
 
Whats your dad think of your dart?

BTW what time is it currently in sweden. Its 3:45pm here now.
 
Its 11:07 PM right now. And it's the same in Amsterdam.

Dad thinks it's super cool. He towed it home for me. I needed him to since he's got the special license you need to tow heavy over here.
 
You guys must be in different time zones. Or are you not still on daylight savings time?
 
Things haven't been going too well the last few days. Started working more monday and that lead to fatigue. Now I work 8-12 and yesterday I slept for three hours when I came home.

Don't have a depression.

Anyway, I painted my water pump pulley matte black the other day but it didn't come out too well. Sprayed it some more this afternoon. We'll see what happens.

Also, I took apart my fuel sender and cleaned off some oxide. Now it works! 10-65 Ohms, roughly. Saved me a few bucks. Now all I need to do is wire brush the mounting base to ensure connectivity with the rest of the chassis. Or sort that out with a proper ground wire.
 

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Heads up!

I might have an opportunity to buy a set of J heads for $250 here in Sweden. I don't know more than this (actual casting number or valve size, ported or not).

Is it a good deal? Not sure what to do with them, though. I haven't run my engine yet. :D
 
360DartGT66 said:
Heads up!

I might have an opportunity to buy a set of J heads for $250 here in Sweden. I don't know more than this (actual casting number or valve size, ported or not).

Is it a good deal? Not sure what to do with them, though. I haven't run my engine yet. :D
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Until you know all the particulars you mentioned, hard to say how good a deal they will be. Have they been magged for cracks? Do they need to be rebuilt? J heads might be a hard to find item in Sweden so they could be a good deal but not be any better than what you already have on your 360 - valve size, already ported, etc. Have you checked to see what you actually already have?
 
Don,

The heads I have are mid-70:s standard heads, casting # 3769974. They don't look ported on the exhaust side so I doubt they are ported on the intake.

I know I'm being a bit silly looking at parts to tune my 360 more before I've even started it. But a guy can dream, right? :D

The guy said he will look at the casting number and check valve diameter when he comes home saturday. I'll ask him some more when I hear from him.

But assuming the heads are ok, is $250 a decent price?
 
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