Ron's 70 Dart Swinger

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D3A6R0T

Active Member
Joined
Mar 10, 2005
Messages
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Location
San Diego, Ca
My Dart and I go way back. I rescued it from a wrecking yard when I was 19 years old (my first car) and drove it daily for about 9 years, doing little projects as time and money allowed. Since then, I got married, moved across the state, bought a house (with a garage finally) and recently added a son to the family. So, for the last 3 years the Dart has been tucked away in the garage waiting for some love. Now that I have some spare time and a little spare money, I’ve started some more serious work.

Specs:
1970 Dart Swinger FY1 Yellow with Black vinyl top
Originally a 318 2bbl, now a 360 4bbl
904 trans
8 ¾ rearend
I have a build sheet from under the seat. Not a rare car but definitely special to me. It did have Rallyes originally but those are long gone. I will probably buy a new set for it someday.

What’s been done so far:
Rebuilt 360 installed (Holley 4bbl, edelbrock intake, spitfire headers)
Rebuilt tranny with shift kit and new converter
Front suspension powdercoated and new Poly bushings installed throughout
HD Torsion bars
Wilwood disc brakes on front (big bolt pattern), B-body drums on the rear (new big bolt pattern axles)
HD Leaf springs
New bucket seats installed
There are a bunch of other things but that’s the major stuff.

Future Plans:
Straighten body, fill trim holes, strip and repaint FY1 (going to delete the vinyl top and add a butt stripe)
Pull Dash, repaint and add my RMD Dash with autometer phantom gauges, new stereo & speakers
Replace carpet, headliner, re-cover back seat to match buckets, etc
Rebuild another 360 or 340 & tranny (I was on a tight budget on the 1st ones)
New wider rallye wheels
And about a million other things….

I figured if I started a thread, I’d be more motivated to keep working on it so feel free to bug me for updates if I don’t post any. I’ll probably have plenty of questions to ask to and I know this is the place to find the answers.

I have a ton of old pictures i will have to scan since they aren't digital but here’s a shot of my Dart when I first put it in the garage. I’ll add some pics of the work I’ve done in the last few weeks soon.

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Nice, Glad to hear your keeping the origional color, :evil5: keep the vinyl top!!
 
I just love the 70 & 71 's darts seeing mine is a 71 . still very cool.
 
Thanks everyone, Bruce i enjoyed reading your thread.

So as i said my first priority is getting the body straight and painted since everything else has to be done after so that's where i'll start. I plan on doing most if not all the body work myself. There is a lot of it so hopefully i will be pretty good at it by the time i'm done. I' have a nice set of hammers and dollies on the way, got a stud gun and plenty of tools to strip the paint. I found an article a long time ago in Car Craft http://www.carcraft.com/howto/3065/index.html that showed how to fill trim holes with lead so i've been practicing that on my drivers door which i will be replacing anyway. I sprayed a little primer on when i was done to protect it and so i could see any imperfections. The first one came out pretty good but the second one was better. I can still see a very faint outline of the hole but i'm probably just being anal. The last picture is of the backside showing what happens if you don't have the right aluminum tape to back up the lead. Foil and regular tape don't work as you can see in the one further away. I found the right tape at Home Depot near the ducting.

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Thanks everyone!

When i found the car, most of the vinyl top was gone so i pulled the rest and sprayed some flat black as a temporary fix. Like i said, i want to paint the top body color so i started the process on fixing those nasty sail panel seams. After picking away most of the factory filler by hand, i took a stripping wheel to it. I got it fairly clean but i can't get the rust that's deep in the seams. Since i don't have a welder i was thinking i'd try leading the seams since i already have all the supplies. This was how the factory did it right? Any suggestions on how to deal with the rust i can't get to? I was thinking of putting some POR-15 on it but wasn't sure if i could lead over that? I want to do this right and not have to worry about it later.

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yep body work is always fun. its very easy. i do all my own work not a trained body man jusy known what i wanted a did it .yes i messeed up a
time or to.
 
Nice I to love the 70 Swingers. My son and i are building one on the budget of a 16 year old. Even with the body damage its a better starting point than the one we have.

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Yeah i am fortunate to not have any major rust, good luck with your resto!

Been kinda busy this week but i got a lot of the trim off. I picked up a tool for removing the windshield molding so as soon as i figure out how to use it i should have the glass out.
 
Got a little update, not much but i thought it was worth posting.

I pulled the rear glass tonight (didn't break it!). After that i started cleaning up the channels. You east coast guys will probably be jealous...almost no rust at all, just a little pitting. Also started cleaning up the rear glass, got some stubborn water spots to get rid of. I picked up some 0000 steel wool but it isn't getting it all, any suggestions? Also i finally got my body tool set so i started marking all the little dings i need to bump out. I threw in a pic of my RMD cluster and a couple of my gauges since this other stuff is pretty boring so far. I'm not sure yet if i want to finish it in gunmetal or black....

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