Restoring 1969 dodge dart GTS after 24 years

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mrdrmr

mrdrmr

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Well after 24 yr's. of owning my 69 GTS its time to get going on this. You will see in the pictures I have started on it. Now I am running into some questions that I am looking for help. First question is about the trim strip that I am seeing on other cars on the bottom of the car from the bottom of the fender and goes back to the bottom of the qtr. panel. Should my car have it or not? My car has the original paint and the fenders has a what looks like an 1/8" hole about 3" from the bottom of the fender but no other holes are in the rocker or bottom of the qtr. pnl?? Does anybody know what code I should be looking for and where do I find it???
Next question is on the build sheet the number for the engine is what i think is 027 I can't find anywhere what does that mean??
Thanks in advance.

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the VIN decode tell you a lot about the car. there is a lot of info on the web for decoding your tags, type in mopar vin decoding and you can print out the info...My mopar site also has a lot on decoding as well as in the front of the year one book...keep in mind as I found out, your GTS is an A body and a dart...the tag is not as informative as you would think... they referenced packages for that model as opposed to listing every item... it was very helpful to look at other dart tags in google images to get some ideas of what to expect.
 
I am also restoring my 69 383 GTS that my dad has owned for 46yrs, ours is/was/will be light green,came with the rocker moldings.The moldings have 2 screw holes on each end.One in the fender and one in rear quarter.They use a plastic clip along the rocker that go into several perfect round holes. These are the clips R/T Specialties - Mopar Fasteners, Clips & Hardware
I hope this helps as I can not help w/vin or build sheet decoding sorry.
 
The pieces of your Broadcast Sheet that you show in the picture has multi colors which means that it most likely from a 1970 or later car. The 1969 sheets were mono tone. Printed in blue only.
The 1969 Dart GTS came with the rocker molding "spear" as part of the GTS package.
The 1/8" hole 3" up from the bottom of the passenger fender is probably the hole for the Pentastar.
 
Well I have attached a picture of the fenders with some notes to show what holes are on them and what I think they are. Being the fenders were sand blasted 24 yr's ago (i had somebody do it) and the rest of the car still has the original paint I will take some pics of the rockers and lower qtr. pnl. tonight and repost. I will also take pics of the holes themselves if I remember they go in at an angle??

In regards to the build sheet I found it in pc's falling out of the headliner when we started taking the interior out to start this project. I have most all of it just in pc's (talk about a puzzle) Can this be a early 1970 build? that is why the build sheet is multi colored?
Thanks for the feedback

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Some more on the story of this car. This dart has been in my small town from around 1973 or 1974 or so. It came from the Phoenix area (I found a phoenix dragway entry stub stuck in the visor). I spoke to the gentleman years ago about the car that he brought back to Ohio then sold it to somebody that my older brother new. I was in junior high at the time (wow do I feel old know) and the guy lived 3 houses up from me. So I would see the car and hear it when he drove by. When I had the chance to buy it I did. I have had other cars and I still have the Cuda in my profile, but I have 2 boys that are just as much of a nut about these cars as I am, so it was time to get moving on this restoration to pass it on to one of them when I am really old. They both are helping on the resto.
 
An early 70 built car might have had a 69 sheet used. I have found that you can never rule out anything. Do you still have the fender tag? If you do then you can post it here for some decoding.
I'm also working on a 69 GTS that has been sitting for 42 years. It has only 10,000 miles on the odometer. I bought it from a friend's estate 2 years ago.
When I went looking for the broadcast sheet I only found a partial sheet behind the top of the back seat. Mice has eaten the lower 1/3 of it. They also chewed a few holes in the head liner above the sun visors. There I found small pieces of the broadcast sheet sticking out of the holes.
Go under the dash and check the back side of the glove box liner. I found a second broadcast sheet taped to the back of the cardboard liner. It was in perfect condition. This is a common location to find then in A-bodies.

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Here is the fender tag and the trunk ledge and the radiator support number as well and the dash vin.
For the fender tag it says E55 which is a 340 but I also included the K frame member that it shows it had a 383 which is what the hood inserts have (I removed it from the body for the first time) . Going back to my previous post the guy that brought the car back from Arizona also said it was an original 383 4 spd. car, I have the exhaust manifolds as well. That is why I am looking for what the "027" engine order code stands for??
Does anybody know how to search for an original owner in another state (Arizona).

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mrdrmr said:
Well I have attached a picture of the fenders with some notes to show what holes are on them and what I think they are. Being the fenders were sand blasted 24 yr's ago (i had somebody do it) and the rest of the car still has the original paint I will take some pics of the rockers and lower qtr. pnl. tonight and repost. I will also take pics of the holes themselves if I remember they go in at an angle??

In regards to the build sheet I found it in pc's falling out of the headliner when we started taking the interior out to start this project. I have most all of it just in pc's (talk about a puzzle) Can this be a early 1970 build? that is why the build sheet is multi colored?
Thanks for the feedback

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mrdrmr said:
Here is the fender tag and the trunk ledge and the radiator support number as well and the dash vin.
For the fender tag it says E55 which is a 340 but I also included the K frame member that it shows it had a 383 which is what the hood inserts have (I removed it from the body for the first time) . Going back to my previous post the guy that brought the car back from Arizona also said it was an original 383 4 spd. car, I have the exhaust manifolds as well. That is why I am looking for what the "027" engine order code stands for??
Does anybody know how to search for an original owner in another state (Arizona).

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mrdrmr said:
Here is the fender tag and the trunk ledge and the radiator support number as well and the dash vin.
For the fender tag it says E55 which is a 340 but I also included the K frame member that it shows it had a 383 which is what the hood inserts have (I removed it from the body for the first time) . Going back to my previous post the guy that brought the car back from Arizona also said it was an original 383 4 spd. car, I have the exhaust manifolds as well. That is why I am looking for what the "027" engine order code stands for??
Does anybody know how to search for an original owner in another state (Arizona).

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That VIN looks an awful lot like a '69 Swinger VIN - LM23P9Bxxxxxx. I always thought GTS VINs began with LS23.....

Richard
 
What you have is a Swinger 340 and not a GTS. The Swingers did not come standard with wheel well molding or the rocker molding. Your fender tags shows a 4 speed transmission and a black bench seat. 3 speed wiper motor a AM radio and a black bumble bee stripe. One other thing, 1969 GTS's that had rear bumble bee stripes did not get the GTS emblems on the front fenders. Only the stripe delete V88 coded GTS's had them. If you check out the picture of my car which is a stripe delete car you will see the front fender GTS emblem.
 
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So was the wheel opening trim an option? Because my car has all wheel well opening trim holes and I took the molding off myself during disassembly. In regards to the stripe I have seen an original 383 car with both (see pic). That had both the black stripe and the GTS emblems on the fenders and hood like mine. I am going to try to put the build sheet together in a way to possibly answer these questions.

3rdLM23P( I will try to get those measurements.

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It is not uncommon to see 69 GTS's with both the fender emblems and rear stripes, but having both though is not correct . It is just someone adding them to their car. Today so many see the need to add stripes or emblems to their car that were not factory. It seem like an epidemic. Let me say that I own or have owned three stripe delete cars and there is no way that I was ever going to slap a stripe on them, but that is just my opinion on that subject.
The link below shows that the sill and wheel lip moldings were optional on the Swinger 340

http://www.hamtramck-historical.com/images/dealerships/DealershipDataBook/1969/69_Dart0008.jpg
 
I'm reading a lot of good stuff here, kind of goes with the inconsistences at the factory's... depend who you talk to or what you read... yes the second build sheet on the glove box is true, spend enough time researching the GTS you can prove or deny almost every trim combinations and special order combination there is after all they would build what the customer wanted... the second letter being an m does show it a swinger 340..
 
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If I personally didn't know the car from my jr high days until know I would be very cautious. I have looked for any other build sheet and no luck. Like I said I am going to have to piece together the build sheet. I am taking many pictures of the restoration before I do the repaint. I am learning a ton and more curious then ever.

3rdLM23P see if these help if not I can try again.

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I am looking for the drivers side brace shown in the picture below. I have the left but need the drivers side.

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