68 GT convertible project

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The car is ready for the body shop. I spent the day cleaning up the oil from the engine compartment and floor pans.(leaking top cylinder) I scraped out all the seam sealer from inside the trunk and blew out a lot of dirt from between the rockers and quarter panels.(it was completely filled with dirt in there) Then I power washed the entire car. It took a lot of water to clean out the dirt but the rocker pinch weld drains are now clear.
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The brackets to mount the fender braces are done as well.
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I finally got the seat tracks done. They were very rusty and one of the slider cages was missing. I had to drill out one rivet on each track in order to separate them. Then they were soaked in acid to get rid of the rust. I still had to scrape out all of the factory grease from the contact surfaces.
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I painted each part separately, then lubed and assembled them. I used an allen head bolt to replace the drilled out rivet and found a replacement slider assembly for a member. After letting the paint sit for a couple weeks, I sprayed them again. The semi-gloss I used didn't look very good. I used gloss black the second time. Hopefully it will dull a little bit because it's too glossy now. Some of the heaviest pitting is still visible but it should be hidden once they are installed. To repaint the springs, I stretched them out on some nails I hammered into a piece of wood.
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Darren,
Great job on getting your dart ready for the body shop. Most would not take that much pain. Your attention to detail is superb. Your Vert is going to be awesome!
 
Great job on getting your dart ready for the body shop. Most would not take that much pain.
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Well I figured I could at least scrape out most of the seam sealer and clean out all the dirt down in the lower quarters. I'd be paying the bodyshop to do that otherwise. I doubt blasting would remove all of it.

I'm also working on some suspension pieces. The replacement LCA's were pretty clean but had a layer of rust on them. They were also dipped in acid. They came out looking great. There is really not much pitting to speak of. They are in much better shape then my Challenger LCA's that's for sure.

I'm not sure what I was doing wrong, but I couldn't get the 1 3/8" tap to thread into the outer LCA bushing. It was just too big to thread into it. I ended up having to use my air chisel to split the bushing shell.

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These are from a 72 340 Demon. It looks to me like they were originally dipped in black paint and not in cosmoline. I saw some traces of black paint after pulling them out of the acid. Here is a blue inspection mark that became visible.

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I bought reinforcement plates from Mancini Racing and had a friend install them for me yesterday afternoon. I also had him add welds to the sway bar bracket. We also clamped the torsion bar end together and welded on a small strap to keep the two halves together. Now they will be going to the poweder coater.

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Today I grabbed one of the 20" wheels from my Durango out of the shed and put it under the Dart just to see what it would look like. The width is perfect. It's a 265-50 tire. There is about 5/8" on either side of the wheelwell. The tire is WAY too tall though. The tire is almost hitting wheelwell in the front and back. The backspacing is also way too much. At least it gives me an idea what 20's will look like back there.
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Just found your thread this evening, all I can say is wow!! i will be looking forward to what ever comes next.
 
Make sure your powder coater outgasses those LCAs before they get coated. Welding introduces a lot of air (and sometimes impurities depending on whether it was flux core / gas) which can and will blow out right through the powder.
 
I must admit that your work on the car is amazing. Your attention to details will make this one stand out BIGTIME!" :glasses7:
 
My headlight relay kit arrived yesterday so I thought I'd get it mocked up. I first mounted it to the inner fender below the battery tray.
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I set the tray in place but the relays were too visible. I wanted them to be hidden more. I was thinking of making a cover to hide the area.
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Today I moved the relays and mounted them to the underside of the tray.
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With everything else in the engine compartment, you shouldn't see them at all. I'm also going to mount a bus bar under the tray to pick up power.
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I also mounted the oil vapor separator for the PCV system. I think it will look good. I do have to do something with the wording on the can though.
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I was a little quick to get the K-member powder coated. I need to do some mods to it which will require it to be recoated. The torque strap I bought is supposed to be bolted to the pinch weld lip of the K. The lip on this K isn't wide enough though. There isn't enough meat on the lip to drill the holes. I was going to widen the lip but decided to just have the bracket welded onto the K instead.

I'm also adding a skid plate to the bottom. I made one out of cardboard to see what it would look like first.
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I wasn't sure how to do the curved part. I thought about pie cutting the lip and bending each section down but decided against it. I just cut a strip of metal and bent it into a curve. The strip will be welded on the edge of the plate.
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Wow very nice work! I just picked up a 69 Dart GT Convertible for my kids and I to work on. keep it up!
 
Well, it's at the body shop. We will see what it looks like after blasting. Hopefully I'll know what I need to buy before Carlisle.
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If you're going to be redoing that k-member from bare metal again, have your coater leave a bare spot for your ground this time. :-D
 
Huh? Why does the K need to have a ground? I don't understand what you mean.
 
I bought a set of slightly used Magnumforce 2" drop spindles from a member here. I cleaned them up in the parts washer, then gave them a quick bath in EvapoRust to clean a little bit of rust off of them. Today I coated them in RPM and installed the LBJ's. The LBJ's were also coated in RPM.

I also gathered up all of the zinc plated fasteners again. I'm taking them back to the platers tomorrow. I called them and told them they needed to be redone. I think they were mistakingly put in the yellow zinc tank by accident for a short time. They diffinately have a yellow tint to them. We will see what they say tomorrow.
 
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Great work!! Nice attention to detail. This is going to be a real nice vert.
AlV
 
Damn nice work! I have a '68 vert myself. You are on your way to a very nice car when you're finished. What are you dipping the parts in to strip them?
 
Damn nice work! I have a '68 vert myself. You are on your way to a very nice car when you're finished.
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Thank you!

What are you dipping the parts in to strip them?
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EvapoRust works really well at removing light to moderate rust and it doesn't do anything to the good metal. The problems with it are that it's expensive and it loses its strength quickly.

Here is the driveshaft from my 73 Challenger. I had previously wire wheeled it and then painted it with POR-15. I sanded off the POR but as you can see, there was a lot of rust underneath that the wire wheel didn't clean off.
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Next I put the driveshaft in a 5' length of PVC with a cap on one end. I filled it with EvapoRust and set it sit over night. This is what it looked like after the EvapoRust soak.
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I blasted the ends to clean off the remaining POR. Then I dipped the ends in a black oxide solution from Caswell Plating. That darkened the cast ends. I added heat marks on the welds and finally, RPMed everything to keep it from rusting again.
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Here you can see what the EvapoRust did to the rear end center section. I could see that there was probably some paint markings under all the rust but I couldn't make out what they were. I had some used up EvapoRust that I was going to dump but decided to see if it had anything left in it. I let the center section soak overnight.
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For cleaning up the fasteners, I use muriatic acid. It's sold as a pool cleaner at my local Ace Hardware. For $8 a gallon it's a lot less expensive than EvapoRust. It is more harmful to the parts though. It not only attacks the rust...it also attacks the good metal.(it attacks the rust much faster then the good metal though) The good thing about the acid is that it doesn't lose its strength and it will remove old zinc plating.

All these pieces were old and nasty looking. Some were rusted...others had nasty old zinc on them. A bath in the acid cleaned them right up. No need to blast every little fastener to get them ready for replating.
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Just be aware that you need to be careful around it. Don't use it inside the garage. Use it outside. Where goggles and gloves. You also need to neutralize the acid or the parts will continue to rust and corrode. I neutralize my fasteners in baking soda water. I've also found that if you dip the parts in EvapoRust after the acid, they will stay rust free for a long time. The parts will start flash rusting immediately after they come out of the acid. These parts sat on my kitchen counter for over two weeks and never rusted.
 
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The car got blasted yesterday. It doesn't look like the front end or underside got touched yet though. Just enough was blasted so I can see what panels I need to replace. I'm going over there tomorrow morning to check it out and discuss things. From what I can see, there isn't anything that I didn't know about.
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Darren,
Your right on, it is pretty much the norm condition for a vert. The floor pans look really good though, I had to replace the driver pan and a small patch on the passenger pan. Chances are the trunk pan to quarter sections will need replacing also, all norm...
 
Went and checked out the car this morning. The floor has a few pin holes but we aren't going to put a whole floor in. The pin holes will be patched. I do need to find some replacement wiring covers. They are available new but they are priced ridiculously high for what they are. Hopefully I can find some nice ones from a parts car.

The quarters are also going to be patched. The area behind the wheels is the only rusty spot. The wheel arches and even the trunk drop-offs are good. I'll pic up some repair patches at Carlisle. The center of the PS quarter will need a lot of work but it isn't rusty so we are keeping it.

The trunk is mint. Not even any pin holes in the spare tire well.
 
Great! maybe I missed it but did you decide on a plan? I would go a mix of both with fat and tall 15s to fill those wheel wells ,
 
Pro Touring with this one. A lot of people won't like it but that's the route I want to go. I won't be doing anything drastic that can't be easily returned stock. Except for the wheels, brakes and a few other little things, it will basically look stock.
 
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