My 69 Dart "AKA" The Blue Mutt

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made a small amount of progress but my next round of roadblocks showed up, ran out of threadlocker first right in the middle of the install, then decided to replace the seals on the rotor, then after cleaning the nasty grease off the bearings found one damaged a bit so decided to replace them as well, finally collected all the new parts from this weekends discovery program, also going to need a different rear center brake hose, I want one long enough that it won't bind when the axle is fully supported. All the front suspension except the torsion bars is at least in, steering box and k-member. I am leaving the k-member loose as well as the motor mounts until the headers are in.

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Then the blue mutt reared it's head again, didn't even notice when I was cleaning and painting, my shock mount plates are different I don't have a clue which bracket is correct or even if the orientation is correct, more research and learning and order more parts. I don't really care they look different but it is almost an inch different, at least everything is in, leafs with all new bushings. another mutt thing is these are B-body springs by the description I gave the guy at Manicini, 9 leafs on ds, 8 on ps, I'm curious what my ride is gonna be like without worn out bushings, may not even like it. For some reason when I was headed to Oreilly's I started humming that old Johnny Cash song

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I absolutely can't believe I didn't notice this when I took the rear apart, cleaned and painted them - very noticeable difference. I was able to find a matching set on ebay and got them yesterday as well as installed them. The initial appearance is I will have to get a shim/shims for the pinion angle but until I get the motor in final set and put the car on the ground I wont know for sure, right now it visually looks like the pumpkin is looking up to the sky, maybe its praying I will hurry up and get done. The goal this weekend is to get the car back sitting on the ground on all four wheels, I need to finish putting the motor together and I have the car sitting so high on jackstands I have to be on my mini ladder to get to some things, for the final pieces I rather not be in such awkward position to work, makes the effort much harder.


I have no idea which one of these would be right for the car but I went with a set that has less depth like the one on the right side in the picture, maybe it didn't matter but it bugged the crap out of me.

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Big difference when there up against each other, but things like this happens your thinking ahead while not paying too much attention what’s on hand .
 
it’s just one of those things. At one point these cars were just basic, cheap transportation. With that, the upkeep and maintenance were often just “ get it done” style. However, that’s no the case now. You car is well thought out and has great attention to detail.
 
Nice catch on the shock plates. I'm sure if this was my story, I'd get one of them on upside-down and backwards, and then not be able to figure why the bumper was dragging the ground on one side. :eek:
 
minor progress but accomplished the goal to put the car back on the ground, I'll take the milestone. Spent several hours looking for pieces and parts and trying to figure out how drum brakes go together, drivers rear took about 2+ hours, passenger side about 10 minutes dammit - took an hour to find my damn lugnuts, but after about 5 months it has a suspension and sits on its own feets. I haven't tightened anything yet and until I get ride height set I wont, the rear leaf brackets I got from mancini had two mounting holes for the front, I went in the bottom one to see where it put me, gotta change it, 4 wheeling style out back. I didn't put any load with the adjusters on the torsion bars, wanted to see where it was at 1st, now I know - it is too low, couldn't even get my jack out without another jack.

I bought the full drum brake hardware kit from Dr Diff, one thing to note it didn't come with the skinney spring that goes across the bottom between the two shoes, other than that it was a nice kit, came with the wheel cylinders, same as what I had already bought.
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I got about a 1/2" clearance between the leaf spring and the tire, will see what it looks like when I drop it down a bit more, may need to get a spacer, plenty of room between the fender and tire, these are 15X7 with 4" backspace, might have been better to have 3 3/4" instead but all good. not gonna get a wider tire though for sure.


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still have a ton of work left to do, gonna try and come up with a plan this week, spend next weekend cleaning things and trying to find and organize all the parts I have left to install, hoping with a plan and some organization I can get more done once I get back at it, also got some long overdue yardwork to catch up on, nothing like procrastination to add to the workload.
 
Woohoo! Thanks, Dad, I'm standing on my own four feet!
 
I was getting worried for a bit, drum brakes kicked my but, even with a picture, then lugnuts no where to be found, they were put away 5 moths ago so I wouldn't lose them, I have given up on looking for my memory, it has been missing for quite some time now, not sure I even brought it with me when I moved here
 
I think I have some spare lugnuts squirreled away somewhere, do you need SBP or BBP? If SB are they left and right thread?
 
Thanks, I did find mine, also found some extra new ones fom the last time I lost them - all good for now.
 
not too much progress past couple of weeks, few steps backwards and back on track slowly getting there, everything is done at the rear, will check diff fluid when I level the car back out, moved toward the front checking and rechecking, rear seal changed in trans., trans pan bolts tight, boots and grease done on torsion bars, next up is get the front suspension loaded and tighten everything on it, then headers and exhaust and I can get out from under the car, it aint much but looks pretty good from here

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Like most everybody cabin fever is startin to suck a bit, took my Challenger out for a little drive last weekend, was nice out and had a good drive.

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made a bit more progress, assembly is a bit systematic for now and slow, some things need completed before installing the next thing - all the front suspension is tight and finished except for greasing, lost a couple of the zirc fittings so once I get those it will be complete except for steering linkage. I got the hood latch and other front pieces back on, mounted the new trans cooler, I installed the headers after taking out the starter and trans lines, so took them out and back in, done with the exception of hooking up the lines to the radiator. Headers were not to bad of an install, of course my level of difficulty was compared to installing long tubes on a 351w in a 66 mustang, car was not designed to have that motor. I got started with the exhaust but came to a stop fairly quick, I had bought a universal X pipe kit some time ago for my Mustang, it just wont work on the dart without some major effort, ordered an H pipe kit to take its place. The car came with a Summit exhaust kit installed but it was sort of sloppy and had some crappy welds, I cut everything back apart and laid it out, from what I can tell it is really not too good of a kit, it would work but it would never really look very good but it is cheap. One thing I found out is that the standard thin biscuit mounts don't seem right for the car, the headers hit the torsion bars and it appears the engine sits a little low, from what I can tell it about an inch too low, I ordered the later mounts that I found mentioned somewhere on here and hope that does it, if not I will have to shim the motor. I check my measurements from what TTi has on their website, my side to side is close but centerline to K member is off. I adjusted my timeline again on when I will be done and giving up on setting another one, guess I will be done when I am done. Now that headers are on I can install the oil filter adapter, fill with oil and prime things, then I can install the intake, distributer, etc and really get going.

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Bill you have come along way with this . Your ride is looking good mate ,it won’t be long .
 
billsdartgt said:
Figured I would start a thread with some details about the 69 Dart I picked up a few months back, since I have had the car I decided to give it the title of The Blue Mutt, from the outside it looks like most any other 69 Dart GT less badging and trim but it is far from original or stock. Today I finally got to do a little shakedown run, went ok after backing off the timing and giving in to the dying, screaming, rattling valves. I have some more picts I have taken but need to get them in one place, todays shot is the local police dept/city hall in my little city I live in, makes for a peaceful shot. Will add some more notes and info in some future posts, heres a couple of shots from today.

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Nice!
 
after a reasonnable time evaluating and a few hammer adjustments headers are in and motor and tranny are locked down for good, took care of a few misc things, grease fittings in and everything greased for suspension, its all tight, need to put in a few more cotter pins and that will be it until the steering linkage goes back in. got started on the exhaust - between the original chop of the summit kit by the PO and the overall crappiness of the Summit kit it took a lot to get things going, got things fitted up to the mufflers, realized one more cut for the connection from the H pipe to the muffler on the passenger side and it will be ready to weld together. probably just going to do some downturns after the mufflers if it is going to take as much time tweaking the over axle pipes since I want to get this thing fired back up and there is still plenty to do once Im out from under the car for a while. Looking at this summit kit I am quite sure it was designed originally by Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder was his assistant, you could use as is but it is some of the most misaligned bunch of anything I have ever seen, unless you want to completely rework the pipes I would not recommend. One other comparison I did was the Summit H-pipe kit to the Jegs X pipe Kit - Summit wins on that one. I dropped the driveshaft off Friday to get stretched and didn't want to weld or lock anything down until it was back in the car to make sure I get the clearance and alignment I want, should have it back Thursday so the saga will continue - luckily its been mostly sunny and nice here - a lot more light when the garage door is open. One thing I can tell is the motor is aligned better and is lower on the nose, before I started jacking things around the valve cover on the DS was almost against the wiring block, plenty of clearance now.


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after a few weekends getting my *** kicked by the funky leftover Summit exhaust I threw in the towel and put the cover on, decided to reclaim my garage that started to look like a hoarders house with a little pig path through it, with the constant rain every weekend my yard also started closing in on my house trying to put a little pressure on me to do something. Ive been able to get the two extra tables taken down that I was using because I was out of flat surfaces to put anything anywhere, finally seeing the top of my work bench again is pretty nice. I got most of the remaining parts found and sorted so when I get back to it maybe things will flow a little better. I have kept trying to make the pieces of exhaust work as they are but just not gonna happen, when I get back started I will just go back to some basics on a few angle cuts for the pipe and a little extra welding should finish the exhaust. This has definitely turned into a painful and long lasting effort, all started with going to replace some bad strut bushings and a few leaking freeze plus. Hopefully can at least get back going next weekend with the extra day off. Damn.

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billsdartgt said:
finally seeing the top of my work bench again is pretty nice
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Boy Howdy, this is me! Every horizontal surface in my shop is covered in crap. I clean some of it off and when I turn my back it's full of crap again. I have one workbench top I haven't seen in almost 15 years.

However, your engine and bay look great!
 
need to come up with some kind of sensor for the workbench, when it gets covered that it just dumps **** in the floor so you have to deal with it LOL
 
finally got back to the car, was a slow start but at least back on track, figured would share a few shots of the other chores I was busy with

heavy snow last year crushed a few trees and branches, plus this years trimmings, gonna have to haul it off one bed full at a time, tried to get someone to just come get it but too cheap to pay 6-7 hundred to do so,
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I've had a few projects besides the Dart, been stockpiling old parts plus the shipping and other misc trash created a pretty good load, generally I can take all my cardboard to the recycle center but they were closed for the covid program until this week

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So I have reclaimed my garage - easier to get around and have some flat surface on my workbench

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Dug the cool tool out I bought some time ago, my car is low on the front

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