The Death Mobile!

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DragginMAster

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I don't quite remember qhy I dubbed my ride the death mobile, perhaps because it used to have a bad habit of dying at odd moments, like at stop lights. or... backing up.

but never the less that is the name that she has been given.

I do not have any decent pictures of her at the time of purchase, this is a pic of her a couple weeks after I got her, hiding her truly mangled side after her love affair with a pine tree.

68dartleftprofileandjerss0.jpg


and here we have a photo of her receiving parts from the angry bumble bee dart. So named because with the slant six and her single exhaust glass pack she sounded like a pissed off bumble bee.

The car still retains the 67 grill that came with the car.

68dartbluefendernobump1kx5.jpg


after getting a new bumper as well as a new and more importantly year correct grill and headlight bezel set I got the front of the car all fixed up better than when i got it, except for the fact that the head light bezel would not fit on the passenger side due to front end differences between 68 and 69 model years.

68dartnewgrillbumper2bu7.jpg



So, after disassembling the front end again and doing quite a bit of dremel and drill work I took the head light buckets from the original fenders and put them on the 69 dart fenders. With the addition of the front liscense plate from my favorite big brothers charger to hide a blemishing dent in the bumper we get this:

68dartfrontliscenseiy8.jpg


and after a year or so of motoring around with that look I finally saved the pennies for a new hood and some hood hinges and we managed to get the front end ALMOST back to 100%

newhoodstraightonki1.png


ahhh. memories.

here is may latest little bit of work. Did 4 doors ever come with a console? Probably not but I don't see why they couldnt have. they do today right?

Got a console of ebay, the nasty wood grain sticker was in nasty shape so off it came and we decided to give it a nicer looking finish.

consolemainplatena6.gif


still got quite a bit more work to do to it all but it should turn out nicely.
 
The engine pretty much as she came, by this point I think I have taken the offending holley carb and the hig wire some brainiac placed directly underneath.

sold the car cuz he couldn't get it tuned. I wonder why...
68dartenginebayny7.jpg



Done all sorts of changes since then. replaced the intake with an edelbrock performer, hooked the heater hoses back up to the heater core, painted the valve covers, replaced the radiator and water pump with the newer style, used a high performance water pump.

The engine has a tendecy to run hot for some reason.
engine32407ct7.gif


aslo switched from points to electronic ignition.
 
have begun the painless wiring harness installation today. took some pics but left the camera at the brothers house... so will have to wait till tomorrow, nothing real exciting to look at, mostly a mess of wires.

managed to get the front and back done and some of the middle, the car will start up, but no guages, or switches (aside from ignition switch and dimmer switch) hooked up yet.
 
Wow she is really coming together!! :thumbup:

she sure is liking the work you have dun to her :salute:

Congratulations :thumbup: you have allot behind you DraginMAster
 
thanks guys :) moral support is always welcome.

and now for some more pics, they are thumbnails, click on them to make them bigger


All the original wiring removed:


runnin' the wires to where they need ta be:


the patch for the firewall replacing the big plastic block of doom:


the engine bay sans the wired mess of a hacked up factory wiring harness that had been burned a few to many times.



also got a present delivered by UPS, unfortunately the driver was no where near as attractive as the driver in that "one" thread. My patch panel for the driver side quarter, much bigger than I expected it to be.

 
Some real nice work you are doing there. Keep up the good work... I also like your brothers 68 Charger. Reminds me of the one I had oh so many years ago.
 
Yeah, my brothers charger is awesome. Scares the living **** out of me though. And every time I tell him this, he confides in me that he is just as scared of it as I am. ;-) Someday I am going to drive it. He owes me as he kind of backed into someone with my dart. but that is another story ;-)

more pictures

purchased a console to put in the car, i know floor shift auto in a 4 door, blaspehmy but ya know, they do it all the time now, and I aint exactly going for a stock resto anyway. gotta be unique

found this console on ebay and picked it up:


by the time it got home to me it was damaged by our good friends at the United States Postal Service:



With time, patience, diligence and copious amounts of JB Weld and sand paper I managed to fix some of the worst damage:

 
Ok, why would you be scared of it. They are fun cars, and more fun if you are going fast in them. I had 7 great years of racing and doing donunts in mine. I would have to say it was the funest car I have ever owned.
 
its the meanest sounds, most powerful car I have ever had the priviledge of riding in. If the word fear is wrong, let me rephrase, I greatly respect its power and ability and honor the fact that it is much more powerful than my suped up granny mobile, and am hesitant to undertake its fishtail inducing shifting patterns and uber powers of muscle.
 
I can understand that. Mine had a 44 w/4speed and Dana posi with 3:54 gears. I loved gettin on it off the line and having it start going sidways. I will have to find a pic of it that I think your bother might like. It is sitting between 2 other 68 Chargers.
 
Ooooh I am sure he will like that.

big brothers has a 383, 750 cfm edelbrock and a 727, 3 inch pipes, not sure what gears are i nthe rear. it's a meanie.
 
more stuff done this weekend. Got the correct steering wheel adapter for the car and got it installed looks so much better when you have the right parts, and it is also nice to have the turn signal stop on its own and not have to undo the lever after every application... however, a couple years of putting that change off has led me to signal a left turn after every right turn is made and vice versa.

old habits die hard right?



it is nice however to have a working horn button. I like making the lil roadrunner horn beep... though... now I get to make the darn thing go off all the time while working in and around the interior of the car.

also managed to get the floor shifter installed (as seen in photo above). Though I could not get the lower shift rod to go in due to clearance issues with the "transmission cooling lines". I envy everyone of you guys who are not restoring something that was assembled by a redneck mechanic.

I tried to bend the tranny cooling line down to create some clearance when the dirty wench decided to just start puking over the driveway.

The fortunate part of this is that I had been planning to change the lines out for some time, I had the new lines in the trunk, so the shifter install led to installing one of the lines (can't get a wrench on the other one without dropping the transmission some, that will come soon) the lines that were on it were simple copper tubing, the ones I am /did put(ting) on were obtained from The Paddock, and were not made for my car, but they are damn near perfect, went right around my headers.

anyway, got the lower shift arm put on today, do not think it is the right one though, does not rightly allow shifting into all the gear locations.

laid one of the console plates on top to see how the shifter lines up with the lil letters. There should be a book on console installations, the service manual is not that helpful.



as always the thumbnails are clickable for larger versions.
 
You have been staying busy man. And I like the idea of a floor shift 4 door.
You are doing great keep it up. I understand about brothers car.
It must feel like a monster,


dartcuda :thumbup: Charger.
 
decided to take the tail lights and freshen them up. Removed them and disassembled to all seprate components then gave everything a bath in the kitchen sink. Hot soapy water.

Then I let everything dry and took paper towels to anything that refused to come off. Masked the gaskets on the housing and spray painted the inside with a really nice metallic silver paint made by rustoleum.

I masked the bezels off, primed and sprayed with a glossy black made by rustoleum.

and boom, i have pretty bezels.

(and hopefully brighter shining lights)

[thumbnail images, click for larger image]



 
dartcuda said:
Ok, I found the pic. It is not the best. And you can tell how long ago it was taken. Mine is the one in the middle
Click to expand...


Looks like that picture was taken up in my neck of the woods! Very cool.
 


i took this pic because I sat the console in the car, but the console came out blurry, but it does do a good job of showing off my repainted dash bezels :D

I like em alot.


Went for a cruise i nthe brothers 68 charger today, first tiem she been out of the garage for serious driving in... months. if not over a year. She been gettin work done to her.

Cruised down to alma on old scenic US 71, nice drive, some steep curvy grades. Alma is about an hour from whence the journey began, got down there, did a tidbit of sporting goods shopping and went to the gas station to use the restroom and get some DiHydrogen Monoxide (H2O... aqua... water) for the return trip. On the way the nice nylon tubing for the Oil pressure guage springs a leak under the dash and causes a wiring short on one of the wires heading to a flasher relay.

instead of walkign to the nearest autoparts store half a mile away we hop in the car and sally forth, with me trying to keep the mess to a minimum holding the line with some towels...

that shtuff is hot.

fun times.

got there, got it fixed, made it home. and now we have a story to share.

Gas, $32. Gun cases $16, Refreshments $8, Emergency autoparts, $20. A restorative cruise in a classic peice of american muscle with your older brother, priceless.
 
I got my back seat back fro mthe upholstery shop today, I am in love wit hit, it is beautiful. Now i just need to get the front seats to match, got the fabric to do so, will find a shop to do the work out in PA after I move there in 7 weeks.

will post pics tomorrow.
 
Well at least you got the sport seat dun first. :downtown:
 


i dont have a puic of the original condition of the seat, it was terrible, the upper fabric was shredded and the foam was falling apart...

that being said it was in better shape than the front bench in my 69 Dart. That one shows the springs.

I love the workmanship in this upholstery job.
 

(pics are thumbnails, click for larger version)


well boys and girls, I got some more work done. some much needed work. I finally did the 73 dart disc brake upgrade. With only a few snafus and a few well learned lessons.

I have been collecting parts for the job for as long as I have had the car. My brother gave me some spindles, rotors bearings that he had bought to convert his car but did not use cuz he ended up gettin a wilwood conversion kit on the cheap.

took lots of time.

bought calipers awhile back now, only ever opened one of the boxes.... different numbers on the boxes, but same part. Bought several tie rod ends to, some sat for a long time ... i have completed the project now and have 3 extra outer tie rod ends.

also got two rally wheels put on since I had to upgrade to a larger bolt pattern wheel and I want the rallys. got the center caps, just no screws to attach them til tomorrow when i can get them from work as they jsut arrived from canada today.

took two day to swap out the brakes in my brothers driveway and another hour and 3 quarters at the alignment shop

drives like a dream. Quiet. SO DAMN Quiet.

I have no process pics of the job as I forgot the camera 2 days straight. but thats me. scatterbrained.
 
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