jarvitron
Well-Known Member
Hello, I guess I never introduced myself, I just started posting, it's just too tempting when you find a forum full of knowledgeable, friendly folks to jump straight in and start mining brainpower before something terrible happens and the forum turns to crud.
I'm 33, always been into cars. First car I ever wrenched on was helping Dad with the Honda Accord's brain-frying vacumodulated desmogeretor, and when I turned 18 I got my first "my car", a 79 Lincoln Continental (with a digital "miles left" meter that was... sorta accurate). I had no place to work on it, and, as old cars do, it let me know that time had not been kind by exploding a transmission. The shop turned a "free evaluation" into some $750 of "storage" and "tow" fees, and a half dozen calls to the owner of the shop basically made me realize he had me over a barrel, my beloved mobility half dismantled and blocked in by cars forklifted in to prevent me getting it back without handing over more money than I'd ever seen in one place. From that moment forward, I started to learn how to work on my own cars.
Over the years, I've owned and wrenched on a lot of cars. Owned an Opel GT (ohhh man I want one of these again so bad it hurts), a 67 Mercedes 190, a Ford Econoline workvan, a Triumph TR6, a 73 Plymouth Satellite Sebring, a 63 Corvair Greenbrier, a 62 Corvair Monza, an 86 Pontiac 6000, which I was given for free because it never ran right, a 68 Datsun 520 (which is my parts hauler/dump crawler).
Of all of them, the Plymouth was "the one that got away". Ridiculous fat rubber in the back, 360/904, black perforated vinyl on black carpet all painted up with some dark grey metallic paint. I was in Arizona at the time so the cabin temps were brutal but man howdy that car was fun to drive. Fat in the hips and narrow at the lips, it was actually a second choice car, I was looking for a Javelin at the time, but the fat blat of the dual exhausts sold me. I drove it for a magic summer, again, without a proper place to work on it, but I got it running pretty good for parking lot fixes... then I moved to California.
The car mouldered and then sat, when I came back to visit and see what time had done to her, I had two gears in the transmission, reverse and a shuddering, clacking "drive". I towed it between some friends yards over the next few months and finally gave her up for dead. The critters had moved in, a window had been broken, the paint on the top and the black vinyl eradicated by dust storms and the brutal sun.
Fast forward 14 years. Lots of cars have come and gone. I loved Corvairs, I'd do one of those again if I found it in good shape. I covet another GT. But one day I was staring out at my generic, bought-for-economy, silver people mover, thinking about how nice it would be to have a car I gave a crap about... and this Dart came up on my craigslist. I've always kept up with Mopar forums, even though I haven't owned one in more than a decade. I was reading about 302 head swaps and magnum swaps and superstock springs, just like I was waiting for this to arrive. It's a 73, original 318/907/7.25 car. As far as I can tell, somebody bought it, drove it very very lightly (pulling apart the engine recently, combined with a few other very original parts, I think the 85k on the odometer is accurate), then willed it to a grandkid. The grandkid didn't know what to do with it other than this.
As you might imagine, the time and effort put into the apparent authenticity and naturalness of the animal print pattern is inversely proportional to the amount of time and money spent purchasing the paint, so it's basically a coat of indoor/outdoor glidden over a completely unknown quality repaint. It was originally white, according to the fender tag.
But I see some blue (same as the blue inside the door) under the paint on the outer door shell where the house paint has come off. There was also a pretty 90'sy cloth redo on the interior over a factory blue vinyl interior. No carpet, and came with four different overlapping installers worth of stereo cabling into a hide-a-head-unit under the dash.
Frankly, I'm excited. I've done the head gaskets and timing cover, cleaned up a bunch on the top of the greaseball motor. I drilled out the idle tubes on the carter, painted the vcs, intake, and timing cover, and I'm about to do the oil pan gasket adn clean the pan out. Derusted and painted the exhaust manifolds and heat riser shields, and most importantly, picked up a 96 5.9 Magnum to go in after it gets gone through. Replaced the motor mounts and transmission mount. Installed some 17" steelies, and picked up all the door seals and window channel felts/runs from Restoration Specialties. I'm going to get it up to dd status, get it running right, then start on the body work, which is mostly dings and dents and surprisingly little rust. I'm going to pop the dents out of the doors and re-coat the insides with sound deadening and rust-preventative. If/when the 7.25 comes out, I plan on doing an 8.8 swap with info gleaned from this forum. Honestly, I don't feel that there has ever been a better time to be a gearhead, the ability to connect with people of substance and passion who you would otherwise NEVER get a chance to meet and exchange ideas with is tremendous.
And all I can say about getting greasy again is... man, oh man, did I miss working on mopars.
I'm 33, always been into cars. First car I ever wrenched on was helping Dad with the Honda Accord's brain-frying vacumodulated desmogeretor, and when I turned 18 I got my first "my car", a 79 Lincoln Continental (with a digital "miles left" meter that was... sorta accurate). I had no place to work on it, and, as old cars do, it let me know that time had not been kind by exploding a transmission. The shop turned a "free evaluation" into some $750 of "storage" and "tow" fees, and a half dozen calls to the owner of the shop basically made me realize he had me over a barrel, my beloved mobility half dismantled and blocked in by cars forklifted in to prevent me getting it back without handing over more money than I'd ever seen in one place. From that moment forward, I started to learn how to work on my own cars.
Over the years, I've owned and wrenched on a lot of cars. Owned an Opel GT (ohhh man I want one of these again so bad it hurts), a 67 Mercedes 190, a Ford Econoline workvan, a Triumph TR6, a 73 Plymouth Satellite Sebring, a 63 Corvair Greenbrier, a 62 Corvair Monza, an 86 Pontiac 6000, which I was given for free because it never ran right, a 68 Datsun 520 (which is my parts hauler/dump crawler).
Of all of them, the Plymouth was "the one that got away". Ridiculous fat rubber in the back, 360/904, black perforated vinyl on black carpet all painted up with some dark grey metallic paint. I was in Arizona at the time so the cabin temps were brutal but man howdy that car was fun to drive. Fat in the hips and narrow at the lips, it was actually a second choice car, I was looking for a Javelin at the time, but the fat blat of the dual exhausts sold me. I drove it for a magic summer, again, without a proper place to work on it, but I got it running pretty good for parking lot fixes... then I moved to California.
The car mouldered and then sat, when I came back to visit and see what time had done to her, I had two gears in the transmission, reverse and a shuddering, clacking "drive". I towed it between some friends yards over the next few months and finally gave her up for dead. The critters had moved in, a window had been broken, the paint on the top and the black vinyl eradicated by dust storms and the brutal sun.
Fast forward 14 years. Lots of cars have come and gone. I loved Corvairs, I'd do one of those again if I found it in good shape. I covet another GT. But one day I was staring out at my generic, bought-for-economy, silver people mover, thinking about how nice it would be to have a car I gave a crap about... and this Dart came up on my craigslist. I've always kept up with Mopar forums, even though I haven't owned one in more than a decade. I was reading about 302 head swaps and magnum swaps and superstock springs, just like I was waiting for this to arrive. It's a 73, original 318/907/7.25 car. As far as I can tell, somebody bought it, drove it very very lightly (pulling apart the engine recently, combined with a few other very original parts, I think the 85k on the odometer is accurate), then willed it to a grandkid. The grandkid didn't know what to do with it other than this.
As you might imagine, the time and effort put into the apparent authenticity and naturalness of the animal print pattern is inversely proportional to the amount of time and money spent purchasing the paint, so it's basically a coat of indoor/outdoor glidden over a completely unknown quality repaint. It was originally white, according to the fender tag.
But I see some blue (same as the blue inside the door) under the paint on the outer door shell where the house paint has come off. There was also a pretty 90'sy cloth redo on the interior over a factory blue vinyl interior. No carpet, and came with four different overlapping installers worth of stereo cabling into a hide-a-head-unit under the dash.
Frankly, I'm excited. I've done the head gaskets and timing cover, cleaned up a bunch on the top of the greaseball motor. I drilled out the idle tubes on the carter, painted the vcs, intake, and timing cover, and I'm about to do the oil pan gasket adn clean the pan out. Derusted and painted the exhaust manifolds and heat riser shields, and most importantly, picked up a 96 5.9 Magnum to go in after it gets gone through. Replaced the motor mounts and transmission mount. Installed some 17" steelies, and picked up all the door seals and window channel felts/runs from Restoration Specialties. I'm going to get it up to dd status, get it running right, then start on the body work, which is mostly dings and dents and surprisingly little rust. I'm going to pop the dents out of the doors and re-coat the insides with sound deadening and rust-preventative. If/when the 7.25 comes out, I plan on doing an 8.8 swap with info gleaned from this forum. Honestly, I don't feel that there has ever been a better time to be a gearhead, the ability to connect with people of substance and passion who you would otherwise NEVER get a chance to meet and exchange ideas with is tremendous.
And all I can say about getting greasy again is... man, oh man, did I miss working on mopars.
Good luck with getting it to how YOU want it to look and run.
