67 GTS 4-Speed: Daily Summer Driver

-
carfreak6970

carfreak6970

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 25, 2014
Messages
544
Reaction score
195
Location
Pittsburgh
Hello All,

So some background:
I am 25 and have been looking for a project car for almost a year now. Only expanded my search to this site for the past 6 months. I wanted to get a car that I could fix up and be a summer daily driver up here (or "down here" depending on your location). The criteria has always been shifting on what options I wanted for the car. Anything from slant 6, small block V8, Big Block to A/C and other fancy options. But I ended up settling on a 67 Dodge Dart GTS with a 383 and a 4 speed from a member here (Thanks Craig!).

So the car is as stated a 67 GTS 4 speed. It was originally a dark red metallic and a black bucket seat interior. Not many options other than that. It was originally purchased up in New York for Drag racing. Made its way down to Florida with a stop in the Carolina's. At which point it was brought to MA, then to NH (where I bought it) and now its in PA! I am planing on keeping the original color scheme, and drive tran scheme. I will rebuild the 383 engine that my dad pulled from his 70 Polara to street specs to make it reliable and somewhat decent on gas (3.23 suregrip in the rear). My dad claims with a 440 (stock rebuild) Polara, through a 727 auto and a 3.23 suregrip he can get 18 mpg (with the top up). So since I am using a similar size motor, going through a 4 speed instead of an auto and a lighter car I should get around the same, if not better than him. hopefully lol. Maybe one day I would put power steering and brakes in and maybe even aftermarket A/C. I am planing on using the B-body exhaust manifolds so I will try and document as much as everything as I can. But the main goal is to get it on the road as soon as possible.

So my dad and I ended up going to NH to pick this guy up in the sleet and snow back in February, and only now brought it into my dad's garage (Back in Lancaster PA, I am in Pittsburgh). But as of now I am striping out the interior and finishing up the body work in hopes of getting the engine bay, interior, and truck painted by the end of the summer. So here are some pictures of us squeezing it into the back of the garage

View attachment IMG_3274.jpg

View attachment IMG_3277.jpg

View attachment IMG_3278.jpg

A little difficult getting it off the trailer but it is tucked safely in the garage! More pics to come soon!
 
COOL car, and rare!!!! GREAT to see a younger guy getting into the hobby!!! Good luck, keep posting>>>>>>>>>
 
The floor pans look nice in the pics. Looks like a very nice project. I live in Lancaster. Give a holler if you need a hand or tools.
 
FJRdoc said:
The floor pans look nice in the pics. Looks like a very nice project. I live in Lancaster. Give a holler if you need a hand or tools.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the offer! I'll keep that in mind if I run into a time crunch.

So here is what the front of the interior looks like after ripping out the dash, heater box, steering column and pedals

View attachment IMG_3299.jpg
The firewall looks pretty clean, shouldn't take much to get this prepped and painted

View attachment IMG_3296.jpg

View attachment IMG_3297.jpg

I have tried to bag and tag all the fasteners that I have taken off so far. Im a little OCD but hopefully it will help it go back together fairly smoothly. The parts I have taken off I brought out to Pittsburgh to start the prep work. I got all the interior metal trim sanded and ready for paint. Next step is to disassemble the dash board down to the frame so I can get that ready for paint too. Id like to have the interior, engine bay, and truck areas painted by fall, so I can start reassembly during the winter.

View attachment IMG_3295.jpg
 
dodgedifferent2 said:
wait till you start stumbling on the one year only replacement parts *bangs head on table*

but looks like a very good start
Click to expand...

lol, Yea I started to run into that when I started to document what I have and dont have. I found the upper door trim I was missing from a member here, but have yet to find the rocker trim, grill emblem, and deck lid emblem. It also looks like I am going to have to get the rear bumper re-plated instead of buying one re-plated (something like bumperboyz). Which is a ways down the road.

But regardless the items I missing shouldnt keep me from getting it on the road. shouldnt lol
 
So it has been a little bit since I was able to get work done on the car. but I had the friday off before the fourth of July and managed to get some work done.

View attachment IMG_0831.jpg

I managed to get the dash board out of my apartment and stripped and almost finished all the sanding. Still needs a little work but I am going to be spraying it base clear hopefully the end of summer or some time this fall

View attachment IMG_0834.jpg

I also got the wheels pretty much to the same stage of paint prep as well. which is nice only a few other pieces to sand and I should have all the interior pieces that should be painted black ready for paint.

View attachment IMG_0835.jpg

I am not planning on keeping these wheels on there long term, I really havent made up my mind on what I ultimately want on there. It is a toss up between slotted mags, the police wheels, or wider ralley wheels but all of those are big bolt pattern (which my car is not). I know you can get the slotted mags in small bolt but I would like to eventually upgrade to the big bolt so I can get the 73+ disc brake set up on there (has the small bolt discs on there now).
 
So I managed to take an extra day off from work before Chryslers at Carlisle this year and got some work done on the car itself. Had a late start to the day but I managed to finish up welding the driver's side quarter (not to sure how to up right pictures on here yet)

View attachment IMG_0839.jpg

The quarters were tacked on when I got the car and the individual did a nice job (better than I could of done) so I am happen with the results. Definitely not a show car kind of job but good for a decent driver.

I was in my buddies wedding this year so I couldnt go both Friday and Saturday like my dad and I normally do. My dad tried to get me to buy a Ram 150 (1979 I think?) that needed work but had a 440, 6 inch lift and full time 4x4. It was a beast to say the least :burnout: lol. But seeing how it needed work and only got 5 mpg, I figured I should get this GTS done before I get something like that. Didnt get much, just a heater box rebuild kit and a firewall gasket kit. Also found the grille center GT emblem which is good, but I am still in need of a radio, a non A/C radio/heater bezel, rocker moldings (may of found a guy who has them, fingers crossed!!), and the deck lid GT emblem. So the search continues lol
 
So I got a little more done on the GTS this past weekend. Not as much as I would like but every little bit of progress is progress:

I wanted to get the column apart since this is one of the last things that would need to be painted black (besides the steering wheel, which I need to get to by the way). I was able to get the turn signal switch out, which I am going to need to get another one since the spring on the horn contact was broke off, but ran into a snag when I needed to get the snap ring off of the steering shaft. So I wasted about an hour before I said F*** it and when and got a snap ring tool, then it was off in 2 minutes, go figure lol. Once the shaft was out I checked the bearings. The upper bearing was fine but the lower bearing was shot. Worst part about it is that the lower bearing is different between the 67 columns and 68 columns (I have spare 68 steering columns). The bushing and bearing are a two piece assembly where as on the 68 it is one complete unit. So hopefully I can find someone who makes the bearing, find one in another column or try and modify the 67 column to accept the 68 bearing. I dont know what I am going to do yet since I was told that if you run the B-body exhaust manifolds you have to shave down that section of the column that houses the lower bearing for exhaust clearance. So we will see.

So I didnt get the column completely sanded, needed to let the primer dry before sanding so I went on to clean the interior panels. For a car getting close to 50 the interior components weren't to bad at all

View attachment IMG_0840.jpg
the sun visors came out great!! will need those little tips but otherwise they are great for a driver car

View attachment IMG_0841.jpg
The door panels also came out pretty good. A little wavy but the vinyl looks great! again it is good enough for a driver. I really dont know what I cleaned more off of, mildew or remnants of tobacco lol
 
So this weekend I got a little more done. I started to work on the steering wheel that has a few cracks and missing some sections

View attachment IMG_0897.jpg

The cracks ranged from not to bad...

View attachment IMG_0898.jpg

to pretty bad lol

View attachment IMG_0899.jpg

So besides those I found a few more cracks. So i took my little Dremel and opened then up a bit to see how far the crack went. I ended up using something called PC-7 (looked older than I am lol). I used this stuff on steering wheels before and it worked out great. So after I opened up the areas I sanded those areas down and cleaned them out. Then applied the stuff.

View attachment IMG_0903.jpg

View attachment IMG_0904.jpg

It was like working with peanut butter, but stiffer. Took the photos while I was in a rush to get to work this morning (I apologize for the quality). But there is a lot of sanding that needs to be done

I managed to clean up the horn ring as well.

View attachment IMG_0900.jpg

Its pretty pitted but still shines nice. I also got the column ready for paint as well.

View attachment IMG_0901.jpg

View attachment IMG_0902.jpg

Still lots more left to do. My Dad and I are going to nationals in Columbus this weekend. Hoping to see what parts we can find!
 
So I took some time off work this past week to get some work done on the GTS. I managed to strip the plastic off the right quarter and got that completely welded and ready for finishing work.

View attachment IMG_0906.jpg
(still havent figured out how to rotate photos yet)

With the welding out back done it was on to stripping the front of the car to get the engine bay ready for paint. The grille is actually in really nice shape, so all that would need would be polishing and painting

View attachment IMG_0907.jpg

It was kinda sad to see it go from looking like a car to just some structure on wheels

View attachment IMG_0908.jpg

View attachment IMG_0911.jpg

I also got the fenders stripped and it appears the driver side was NOS. The back side wasnt under coated and still had the part number painted on it. It also appears that I am going to need to find other front bumper brackets since mine are rusted into being something questionable

View attachment IMG_0909.jpg

In stripping down the fenders I found two different style clips to hold on the belt line molding. I am going to need new clips but I have a feeling the plastic ones would be easier to install since two of the mounting holes are behind the support brace for the fender. Which would also be the case for the molding that runs down the quarter.

View attachment IMG_0912.jpg
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0910.jpg
    38.2 KB · Views: 1,238
During this time off I also got some painting done. Just got the wheels, interior trim, and ash tray door painted. Here is during final prep work

View attachment IMG_0913.jpg

I think they turned out really well.

View attachment IMG_0915.jpg

View attachment IMG_0916.jpg

I used base clear for this by PPG. I used this type of paint on previous projects and it seems to hold up very well. But I decided on the shade of red I want to paint the car in. So I started looking through the old data books using the paint chips and the transparent dart to lay over the color to get an idea of what it looks like. Kinda funny how all this is done by computer now. But It will be the original color of dark red metallic. and it looks like it should show very well

View attachment IMG_0914.jpg

The glare kind of makes it look brown-ish purple. but It is indeed dark red metallic lol
 
So it has been a little bit since I have posted. I have been making some progress here and there but with summer it was kinda hard to find time to keep working on the GTS and still do all the other things I wanted to do. But this past weekend I was able to finish sanding down the steering wheel, apply a little filler and sand that down. I managed to get the rest of the steering wheel sanded so that in the next few months I can get the steering wheel, steering column, and dash board painted.

View attachment IMG_0935.jpg

View attachment IMG_0936.jpg

I dont think it turned out too bad. I also got the fender mounted turn signals polished up and the head light buckets, ash tray, glove box hinges, and steering column bracket painted.

View attachment IMG_0933.jpg

View attachment IMG_0934.jpg

I think this stuff came out pretty well, so I am happy. The next order of business as stated above is to get those few interior components painted. I would also like to have the engine bay, interior and truck painted come end of fall. So that over the winter I can get the front suspension removed, rebuilt, painted and back in by spring so hopefully we can the drop the engine and have it running by summer (fingers crossed!). But we all know how time tables change on these projects.
 
So I managed to get a little more done to the GTS this past weekend. I was going through the parts that I had laying around and found a few things that could be cleaned and polished. At the Mopar Nats I was able to pick up a used antenna and decided I should polish it up a bit and get it packaged until its time to install it. I think it turned out nice for what it is

View attachment IMG_0937.jpg

I also got the rear view mirror cleaned up. The center post is pitted pretty bad but still has some shine left to it

View attachment IMG_0938.jpg

I also got the gas pedal disassembled and painted the bell crank

View attachment IMG_0939.jpg

It was actually kind of interesting when I took off the plastic pedal and started to clean that. There was all sorts of dirt and stones compressed into the vertical grip lines in the pedal, only towards the center of it though. If you would look at it from the side you could see there was a little curve in the pedal, which just shows this pedal was hammered on for full throttle rides down a strip. Kind of interesting
 
So I didnt get to much done to this GTS this past week. Just took the gas pedal parts I painted last week and assembled those. Managed to get the fender splash shields stripped of the under coating so I can paint them with POR15 when I get the paint

View attachment IMG_0940.jpg

I am taking some time off this week to go home to get some sanding and painting done to the body. I hope to get the engine bay and trunk painted, maybe the interior, but we will see how it goes. Putting off painting the exterior until I can move it under its own power, that way I can sand it outside with a DA. plus being in a cramped garage would only give it more of a chance to get dinged and scratched while working on this and other projects.
 
Looks like you're making some good progress on the Dart. It's fun making old parts look nice and new.
 
FJRdoc said:
Looks like you're making some good progress on the Dart. It's fun making old parts look nice and new.
Click to expand...

It is fun resurrecting something that has been forgotten about. I am trying to keep this thing moving. I have no idea what the future holds so I am trying to get this road worthy in as little time as possible.

I did manage to get some painting done! so this past weekend I went home to do some final prep work on the engine bay, interior and trunk. The trunk and interior wasnt to bad. Just messy sanding everything down and sealing it up. Managed to pull a good amount of rats nest out of the frame rails above the wheel arches

View attachment IMG_0943.jpg

View attachment IMG_0944.jpg

View attachment IMG_0945.jpg

ran into a little issue with the passenger apron and the firewall. It looked like someone shot a hole through the firewall from the interior (second 4 speed car I saw this in) and then I had to smooth out a previous repair on the apron. You can see the general location by the smoothed out plastic

View attachment IMG_0941.jpg

I think the paint turned out well. I wasnt too sure about the color choice the night I sprayed it, but it grew on me quickly.

View attachment IMG_0946.jpg

View attachment IMG_0947.jpg

View attachment IMG_0948.jpg

I am heading back there this weekend in hopes of finishing up with painting parts I have prepped. Mainly the steering column and the dash board.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Back
Top