Dart's in the Shop and Am Already Thinking of the Next Build

[MuuMuu101]

So, my '68 Dart is currently in the shop receiving a trans and engine swap with a little bit of an interior upgrade. Basically it's going to become an autocross/road course car with some street manners. Anyways, now that it's in the shop, I'm already thinking about getting another car. Luckily, I'll be getting my Dart back in September. One thing I kind of regret about my Dart is not doing ALL of the work myself. I've done about 75% of it and then would have a shop do the rest because I'd get impatient (wanting to drive it) or busy with life. What I hate most about a build is when I'm trying to meet a deadline and something small goes wrong that sets me back or whenever I do something wrong and have to redo it. I tend to beat myself up a lot for it. So, having a project I won't lose too much on and having a car on the side I can already drive and enjoy may make me more tolerable of another build.

Well, once my Dart is done, reliable, and driving I was thinking about working on another car on the side. With all of the modifications done to my Dart, I'll have a crap ton of parts left over to make a decent cruiser. For instance, when the Dart is done, I'll have:

-273 engine (carb to pan) in need of a rebuild (at least heads)
-273 block
-904 transmission
-7 1/4 rear end with open 2.93 gears
-leafs from the Dart
-complete KH disc brake setup with new bearings, rotors, reman calipers, seals, etc.
-14x4.5 sbp steelies with 205/75/14 tires
-0.870" T-bars
-possibly a PS box and pump w/ bracket (may need to rebuild them, but seemed fine in the Dart)
-a drum-to-drum front end from a '71 Demon
-10" bbp drum spindles
-8 3/4 sbp axles, 10" drums, 2.76 gears, and an open diff (need both axle and gear housing)
-'68 Dart buckets and rear seats (with nice upholstery too)

And various other parts. My goal for this new project would be to build an affordable cruiser using as many left over parts and CL/forum finds as I can get to get the most hands-on experience as possible. No big suspension kits or motor hop ups. Just basic and/or cost-effective improvements (like not cheaping out on a suspension rebuild or shocks). Almost make it like a Lemons or Chump car. I'm thinking an early-A convertible... Maybe even a wagon... or a hardtop if I want to make another "cheap" race car. Out of all the A-bodies, Valiants seem to be the cheapest and lightest with early Darts following behind. '63-66 cars. Paint and body work will probably not be touched. Depending on what I can find for a rear end (8.25 or 8.8 ), I may swap the car over to bbp and sell off my KH and drum spindle stuff (I like discs way too much to keep drums). I've got the "How to Rebuild a Small Block" book and was planning on doing a very basic rebuild for the experience and fun of doing it. Nothing really more than a cam, intake, and carb. I don't expect to make huge horsepower, but to get it above 220 would be great. Rebuilding the 904 (with maybe a shift kit).

Since, my Dart will be running and driving, this would be a side project car I wouldn't really care to put an end date on. Just work on it whenever I can. I won't feel obligated to rush the build as I would already have a running car on the side.

What are your thoughts? I'm open to ideas no matter how logical or crazy they may be. As far as now, it's all just speculation. Lol.

 

[autoxcuda]

You still have plenty to work on with the Dart. You will be dickering with it constantly. It's an old car. When Hotchkis is done with there part of it, don't expect all of it (or any of it) to be a new car reliable.

Soak in driving and tuning on the Dart for a year. Then consider something else.

While you have some parts they are sort of incomplete or have issues (except for KH disk setup). So the cost associated with putting them in something is still significant.

 

[MuuMuu101]

You still have plenty to work on with the Dart. You will be dickering with it constantly. It's an old car. When Hotchkis is done with there part of it, don't expect all of it (or any of it) to be a new car reliable.

Soak in driving and tuning on the Dart for a year. Then consider something else.

While you have some parts they are sort of incomplete or have issues (except for KH disk setup). So the cost associated with putting them in something is still significant.

Very true and understandable. I'm just thinking of things to do for my free time to keep me preoccupied. Because sitting at home watching movies after work can get boring. Lol.

 

[Keith Mopar]

Yea what's better than one Mopar project? TWO...

I'll agree with autoxcuda you will be tinkering on the Dart for a while but you will run out of work to do on it so another project is the way to go especially if you enjoy working on old cars. If you don't like to waste time watching TV and relaxing to you is to work in the garage I'd go for it.

 

[autoxcuda]

Very true and understandable. I'm just thinking of things to do for my free time to keep me preoccupied. Because sitting at home watching movies after work can get boring. Lol.

That's because you are paying Hotchkis to work on it and it's at their shop.

There's a lot of little projects you could be doing to the car. For instance, taking the bumpers off one at a time, cleaning/steel wool/sanding/ the bumper brackets, painting them with industrial Krylon semi gloss and re-installing them.

Lots of fine cleaning the details of the car. Remove rear quarter panel drain plugs, coat hanger from inside quarter panel trunk, push and vacuum out 40 years of gunk. Same for cowl vents.

Cleaning and scrubbing the underside of the car. 3 cans of engine greaser, go to pressurized hand car wash, pre treat underside and let in soak in for 10-15 min, bring jack and jack stands, blast every inch of underside of car. Bring towels to put over your seats because you should get pretty soaked and dirty in the process. Or wear overalls to change out of.

Taking cleaning up and just hand polishing the stainless trims. 000 fine steel wool to clean the paint overspray off the stainless and stains, then Wenol polish the trim.

Since your car is at a shop right now, clean up and organize your extra parts you listed above. Wipe of the grease and heavy dirt so that every time you move them you don't get filthy. Bag stuff so you don't get dirty brushing up against them. Could box with ID some so they stack and take less room. Also will help if you ever decide to sell them. Take digital pictures of them and keep them in a file of extra parts so you know exactly what you have at your fingertips.

It's all project management skills. Break down the big project into little ones. Knock off one at a time.

 

[MuuMuu101]

The main reason the car is in the shop is because I had been too preoccupied and stressed with work and school the past 5 years that I never really got to enjoy the car (or any hobby) like I wanted to. I worked my butt off, saved all the money I could, got my degree and a good job, and frankly I want a bad @$$ car to drive around in as a graduation present to myself.

Although, I do realize, that since I sent the Dart to a shop, there are some things I probably won't do to it. For instance, odds are I won't remove the engine, tear it apart, and rebuild it. Why? because 1) removing the engine means the Dart won't be driveable anymore. 2) I've never rebuilt the engine before and therefore there are a lot of ways I can mess things up. 3) If I mess it up, there goes that engine and all the money I wasted on it which will piss me off because I generally don't like to do the same job twice. Another example would be rebuilding a transmission. From what I understand, it's very affordable and doable to rebuild a 904, so why not? If these are all going into a project I put no deadlines on and have low expectations for, instead of my prized dream car, the build would be a lot less stressful on me and building the car would be more enjoyable.

As far as project management and cleaning goes, I'd definitely say I need to improve those as they are my weakest points. I tend to focus on the end goal over what I can accomplish now. For the latest upgrades I did to the Dart, it helped I was making a list that I kept on refrigerator and marking things off one step at a time. It really got me through the suspension and brake mods. The shop was only supposed to fix a couple things originally (like an alignment, electrical issues, and steering column problems), but a couple days I made the call, a new engine came into the picture and sort of blew the build out of proportion to where it's at now.

Anyways, right now this is just me talking and speculating what I'd like for the future. Odds are I'm not going to be putting down cash for a car tomorrow morning, or even within the next year. But at least it's nice to imagine what I'd like to do and get ideas from others on what they would do. I'd see my next project as an educational/skill improvement exercise more than "I want to build another cool car."

I know I'm going to be tinkering quite a bit with the Dart once I get it back. I'm going to find some things I like and don't like, some weak points and strong points, and I'm going to slowly tune it to get it to where I'd like it to be.

 

[autoxcuda]

The main reason the car is in the shop is because I had been too preoccupied and stressed with work and school the past 5 years that I never really got to enjoy the car (or any hobby) like I wanted to. I worked my butt off, saved all the money I could, got my degree and a good job, and frankly I want a bad @$$ car to drive around in as a graduation present to myself.

Nothing wrong with that. But there's still a lot left you can do on the Dart that will still take time. There's a ton of projects still left in that car.