74DartCustom
Member
- Joined
- May 11, 2010
- Messages
- 13
- Reaction score
- 0
Good mornin'!
I've been browsing for a little bit here, since a friend of mine purchased a '66 Cuda 273. He is a member here, but I don't know his handle.
My wife's 4runner suffered a catastrophic failure last week, and left me in the market for an affordable car. I have become somewhat disenchanted with computerized cars that I can't work on, so when I found a '74 dart with a 225 /six on craigslist, it was enough to pique my interest. The original add was for $3,000. It was soon followed by an add for the same car for $2,000. I met the 17 year old owner and test drove the car. Initial observations were that I would want to put a carpet kit and headliner in, and that there appeared to be an oil leak from the valve cover gasket. The seats will need to be recovered.
The owner agreed to take the car to a shop for an inspection / oil change on my dime. I was surprised that he wanted to take it to my shop, which is about an hour drive from his house, but met him there yesterday.
The car is relatively rust-free (less a small bit in the spare tire well and on the passenger floor pan), has a pretty recent paint job and new tires, as well as working A/C.
The problems we located while the car was on the rack included a bad idler arm and BAD brakes. The right side was at 50% pad, and the left was metal to metal. The rotor didn't appear to have been severely damaged, but it certainly needed immediate attention! I felt bad for the P/O, and actually backed off the pressure a little bit, especially when he asked for a quote to do the work and realized that he didn't have the money to fix it. I realized how glad I was that I learned through the Volkswagen baptism of fire how to work on cars when I was in high school!
I ended up paying $1600 for the car, and will do the brakes, idler arm and valve cover gasket myself.
I'll get pics up soon.
I've been browsing for a little bit here, since a friend of mine purchased a '66 Cuda 273. He is a member here, but I don't know his handle.
My wife's 4runner suffered a catastrophic failure last week, and left me in the market for an affordable car. I have become somewhat disenchanted with computerized cars that I can't work on, so when I found a '74 dart with a 225 /six on craigslist, it was enough to pique my interest. The original add was for $3,000. It was soon followed by an add for the same car for $2,000. I met the 17 year old owner and test drove the car. Initial observations were that I would want to put a carpet kit and headliner in, and that there appeared to be an oil leak from the valve cover gasket. The seats will need to be recovered.
The owner agreed to take the car to a shop for an inspection / oil change on my dime. I was surprised that he wanted to take it to my shop, which is about an hour drive from his house, but met him there yesterday.
The car is relatively rust-free (less a small bit in the spare tire well and on the passenger floor pan), has a pretty recent paint job and new tires, as well as working A/C.
The problems we located while the car was on the rack included a bad idler arm and BAD brakes. The right side was at 50% pad, and the left was metal to metal. The rotor didn't appear to have been severely damaged, but it certainly needed immediate attention! I felt bad for the P/O, and actually backed off the pressure a little bit, especially when he asked for a quote to do the work and realized that he didn't have the money to fix it. I realized how glad I was that I learned through the Volkswagen baptism of fire how to work on cars when I was in high school!
I ended up paying $1600 for the car, and will do the brakes, idler arm and valve cover gasket myself.
I'll get pics up soon.
