Rosie the ‘65 Dart

[blind bat]

Backstory on the Purchase

I’ve been looking for a 60’s or 70’s family car to use as a daily driver, on and off for a couple years. I wanted something that would pass inspection without a ton of body work and something I could cruise with the kids in the back. Unfortunately, I kept striking out. In the Northeast, right now, people just want crazy money for clapped out cars with lots of bondo, no floors and frame rot. My budget was $5k for the initial purchase.

I saw a Craigslist post for a 1965 four door Dart on Craigslist for $5k but there were only a couple photos which usually means lots of stuff they don’t want you to see and the car was over a two hour drive north in Vermont where the salt flows like wine. Three things I intrigued me about the car: it had a four on the floor, the interior looked mint and the ad said it had been garaged for the last 20+ years. Maybe this was the affordable survivor I had been looking for? A couple weeks later the price on Craigslist dropped to $4k which made the two hour drive an acceptable risk.

I called and talked to the owner, Zach. He told me he bought the car from an estate sale when he was a kid. I asked him point blank, “Is this a bondo box with a 20/20 paint job” and he assured me it was exactly the opposite. The paint was original and there was just one spot of rust on the rear wheel arch but the underside of the car was mint. From what he could tell, the car had been brought up from Florida in the 1980s and spent most of it’s life in a barn or a garage.

I got a good feeling talking with Zach. At this point I was willing to take the risk and told him I’d buy the car provided it was as he described and the underside wasn’t swiss cheese or there was evidence of an accident.

Here’s a teaser of pic of Rosie as I initially saw her:

 

[blind bat]

Day of the Purchase: 10/22/2022

Getting a little personal for a second, I’d been pretty depressed for a couple months between things going on at work, the general Covid malaise and the seasons changing. The idea of a day spent road tripping to rescuing a classic machine completely snapped me out of that funk.

I had a U-Haul car trailer reserved but I’ve also had terrible luck with U-Haul reservations in the past. The morning of purchase, I packed up my beater F150 with Supplies for the rescue: Gas, oil, a fresh battery, tow straps, a come-along etc.

I drove down to U-Haul and miraculously they had a trailer ready for me!!! We hooked up the trailer and even more miraculously the trailer wiring on the truck still worked. I should have bought a stack of lottery tickets at that point.

This, my friends, is what the beginning of a poor financial (read “fun”) decision looks like:


I drove two hours north to Vermont and met up with the owner’s father, Keith. Amazingly, the car seemed to be in really good shape for a 57 year old machine. I look WAY BETTER underneath than the 14 year old truck that was going to haul her back to New Hampshire.

This is my first glimpse of Rosie:

Notice the original dealer sticker from Florida, and what I presume is the original tailpipe. Underneath was a cherry bomb cobbled into the exhaust with bunch of reducers and pipe clamps. I was transported back to my misspent youth in the 1990‘s.

Keith and I pushed the car outside and it looked even better than I had imagined.




The “rotted” quarter panel. I might be able to sweet talk my way into an inspection sticker with that little amount of rust!


The engine seems unmolested:


Keith was nothing less than amazing. This car was loved by his family and he was willing to do anything to make sure she was loaded up safely. Thanks again Keith!

The way back home was uneventful. The little 200HP 4.2l V6 in the truck pulled the but she could have used another 50-100 ponies.

On the way home, I brainstormed how I was going to get Rosie off the trailer, in the middle of the night, without help, without a running engine and without brakes. I figured plan-A would be to try getting her running long enough to back off the trailer. The backup plan was to abuse the starter and hope it had enough oomph to pull itself off the trailer. Worst case scenario, I’d enlist the help of my wife in the morning but I really wanted it unloaded that evening so I could return the trailer in the morning since we had plans in the afternoon.


I stopped by the car was on the way home to give Rosie her first bath in 20+ years. This is the before photo, unfortunately, literally 30 seconds after this photo was taken the lights in the wash bay went out and I used my flashlight for the duration of the wash.


When I got home, around 10pm I cracked open the master cylinder and found nothing but a thin layer of rust at the bottom. I cleaned it out best I could and tried “bleeding“ the breaks by myself, in the dark, on the trailer. Turns out this thing had two 1/4” bleeders, one 5/16“ bleeder and one 7mm bleeder screw?!? Amazingly all of the brake lines were intact. I robbed the fuel tank off my snowblower and was able to get her running long enough to back her off the trailer and into a temporary parking spot.

I washed up and crawled into be a few minutes before midnight. What an fantastic day!

 

[blind bat]

Goal: Drive into the Garage - 10/23 to 11/11/2022

Rosie was last titled in 1980 so all of her mechanicals were suspect. She’d run but only for a few seconds and her master cylinder was completely empty when I found her.

I checked the local parts stores (Advanced, Autozone and Napa) but none had brake or tune up parts in the region so I placed a Rock Auto order for: points, condenser, ignition coil, cap, rotor, wires, carb kit, brake pads, wheel cylinders, master cylinder, hardware kits, seals and brake hoses.

While I waited for the parts to arrive:
- Siphoned 15 gallons of vintage gas out of the tank
- Replaced the battery cables. I couldn’t find a 24“ negative cable with a connector that would fit over a 7/16” bolt so I ended up making one. A Chineesium hydraulic crimper worked awesome.
- Replaced the burnt out bulbs in the cockpit
- Started cleaning and soaking the carb. It wasn’t that bad in side and all the jets came out without a fight:


Drums from Rock Auto were >$80 each and I want to upgrade to discs so I took the drums down to my local machine shop (Sanels in Concord, NH) had them turned and sand blasted.

After the parts arrived I went through the front brakes, wire wheeled and painted things as they came off and cleaned up literally inches of grease off of all of the suspension components. This car was owned by a farmer and it showed. Not only did it seem like this car was greased up before ever use but there were some “interesting“ brake line repairs.

Boring photo of the new front brakes and hoses:


I tried blowing out the gas line but it was completely blocked. I shoved a long piece welding wire through the fuel line but couldn’t find the blockage so the problem was likely with a clocked fuel pickup and it turns out the tank was completely junk:


Luckily, repop fuel tanks are readily available and cheap.

I reinstalled the rebuilt carter carburetor and hooked up the gas tank from my snow blower to the fuel pump. She fired up and just purred!

While the fuel tank was out, I changed the diff lube. Looks like the Pinion seal on the diff and the output seal on the transmission have been leaking for a long time. Luckily, there was still at least a pint of some goo That identified as gear lube. Looks like I’ve got 3.23 gears:


There is a lot of slop in spider gears but as much as I hate doing a job twice that will have to wait until a later date.

Removing the diff cover disturbed a piece of structural rust on the brake line resulting in a nice leak. I was able to get the line off without breaking it (this is definitely not a NH/VT car) and the garage down the street bent me up a piece of nicopp brake line.

 

[blind bat]

Rosie is Legal! - 11/9/2022

New Hampshire has a cool law that allows for the use of vintage NH “Year of Manufacture” plates. I wanted to find a decent set of 1965 NH plates that started with “M” signifying that they were originally issued by Merrimack county, where I live.

I searched a local flea market and a couple antique shops. I looked on EBay and even tried contacting a couple antique plate sellers but kept coming up short. I figured this scavenger hunt was going to take a year or more but thanks to insomnia and the internet, I found a set of plates in a country store in West Virginia for $26 which was way less than what they were going for on EBay. The only issue with the plates is that someone drilled two extra holes in one of the plates, but in my mind that’s just a little wear-and-tear that adds to the authenticity.

It took a couple trips to my local town hall and the Concord, NH DMV but Rosie now has plates. Even better, the registration only cost me $25 for 2 years!



Yes, I am aware my plates say “MF”.

 

[blind bat]

Rosie’s first ride! - 11/11/2022

I had the day off from work and it was a nice fall Friday. I got the new fuel tank installed and she fired right up.

I let her idle for about 15 minutes to get up to operating temp so I could dump the vintage oil.

I used a piece of wood and an ammo can wedged up against the front seat to depress the brake pedal so I could attempt to bleed the brakes.

I grabbed a fire extinguisher and some tools (just in case) and went for a ride. The brakes were still SUPER sketchy. I hadn’t checked or adjusted the rear brakes yet and hadn’t pinpointed why the master cylinder was initially empty.

The clutch grabbed alllllllllll the way at the top of its travel abut didn’t appear to be slipping.

The steering is SLOPPY even by 1960’s standards. Like a quarter turn before the wheels move. ….but she’s moving under her own power.

We took a trip to the gas station, the car wash (once in the manual bay and once through the automatic stall to get the underside washed) and finally picked up a pizza And headed home.


it was a great Dart day!

 

[blind bat]

Trip to the Doctor’s Office - 11/16/2022

I took Rosie to the shop up the street where the owner, Larry, is a big Mopar fan. He’s also the guy who’s not afraid to fix rusty old cars. I asked Larry to put Rosie up on the lift and do a mock inspection so I could prioritize a list of what needs to be fixed over the winter.

The list was incredibly minimal considering the age of the car:
Front upper and lower ball joints
Left rear parking brake cable
Right rear adjuster cable
Fix the rusted out, right rear wheel arch (no jagged metal allowed)

I was hoping Larry would let me slide on the rust repair. I asked him if I could just trim and sand away the jagged metal because I didn’t want the paint on the rear quarter to look different from the rest of the car until I could get the money together for a full and proper respray.

Larry assured me that if I could get some decent patch panels we can fix the rear quarter and blend the paint at the a body line and make it so no one would notice the repair.

And there goes another stack of Benjamin’s to Rock Auto….

 

[toolmanmike]

Trip to the Doctor’s Office - 11/16/2022

I took Rosie to the shop up the street where the owner, Larry, is a big Mopar fan. He’s also the guy who’s not afraid to fix rusty old cars. I asked Larry to put Rosie up on the lift and do a mock inspection so I could prioritize a list of what needs to be fixed over the winter.

The list was incredibly minimal considering the age of the car:
Front upper and lower ball joints
Left rear parking brake cable
Right rear adjuster cable
Fix the rusted out, right rear wheel arch (no jagged metal allowed)

I was hoping Larry would let me slide on the rust repair. I asked him if I could just trim and sand away the jagged metal because I didn’t want the paint on the rear quarter to look different from the rest of the car until I could get the money together for a full and proper respray.

Larry assured me that if I could get some decent patch panels we can fix the rear quarter and blend the paint at the a body line and make it so no one would notice the repair.

And there goes another stack of Benjamin’s to Rock Auto….

Layson's and Autobody Specialties has some patch panels for early A's.

 

[65 Dartman]

Nice story!

 

[halfafish]

Great story so far. That 4-speed has to be a hoot.

 

[Dartsun]

Awesome story,love the car. Funny my 65 Dart I named Rosie in 2002 and now in 2022 I’m dating a lady named Rosie. Dustin