Pro Touring 68 Dart convertible

[Burdar]

They did an initial blast of the interior, trunk and problem areas just to see how solid the car was and to see what panels needed to be ordered.  Nothing surprising showed up so that's good.  The spare tire well was even solid.





















Someone hacked a hole in the firewall above the bulkhead connector.  The bodyshop owner had an A-body parts car and cut out a patch to fix the area.




Both door strikers were broken.  Those areas were fixed and braces were installed to support the body when it went on the rotisserie.

[1 Wild R/T]

Keeps getting better & better.....  Gonna be a sweet convertible when your done...

[RUNCHARGER]

That's a clean convertible.

[anlauto]

Are you going to remove the leftover undercoat at some point ?

[HP_Cuda]

Wow Darren great job at bringing all those pieces back to life.

One thing on the oil catch is that it would be cool to sit a sight window near the top to know when to drain the oil. Otherwise you can just check it periodically.

[1 Wild R/T]

Wow Darren great job at bringing all those pieces back to life.

One thing on the oil catch is that it would be cool to sit a sight window near the top to know when to drain the oil. Otherwise you can just check it periodically.

Take another look... He's way ahead of ya...

[Dakota]

Darren - really nice work on the Dart.   You and @brads70 have this great knack for fabricating whatever you need or want for an upgrade. Your explanations are consistently thorough. 

At an earlier time in life, I'd probably have to admit to myself that I was jealous of your skills... now I can say I'm impressed.   

Thanks for sharing so much.

[HP_Cuda]

Nice missed that.

[7212Mopar]

Darren, the body looks great after sand blasting. Your original pictures suggested rust might have been a bigger problem. Glad that it turned out good.

I am running oil catch cans in my cars too and I am using the one made by Mr. Gasket for my 73. Both of my oil catch cans have the SS mesh and divider at the upper 1/3 of the can only. The bottom 2/3 part of the can is just open oil collecting space and can be threaded off to empty the oil or drained by opening a valve at the bottom. Looking at your pictures, I am not sure how far the SS mesh is into the can but I do see a solid divider to near the tank bottom. I am just thinking air from the inlet side can go to the outlet side with the slightly elevated perforated bottom plate. However, when oil starts collecting and goes above the perforated plate, the catch can would be oil logged and stop the air from passing from one side to the other? May be shorten the divider and elevated the perforated bottom plate higher and drain oil before oil level is up to the bottom plate?

[Slotts]

Very nice work Darren.
I would have expected nothing less from you.

Jim

[Burdar]

Looking at your pictures, I am not sure how far the SS mesh is into the can but I do see a solid divider to near the tank bottom.

The picture is a little deceiving. The canister is pretty tall and the mesh extends up into the cap as well.  There is a lot of room below the mesh.  It's been awhile since I made it so I don't remember exactly how far down the mesh is into the canister but I don't think it's even 1/3 of the way.  I had the same thought as you.  As soon as the oil gets up close to the mesh, the system will stop flowing very well.  Hopefully I notice the oil level and get it drained way before it gets close.

Darren, the body looks great after sand blasting. Your original pictures suggested rust might have been a bigger problem. Glad that it turned out good.

I was worried too.  The only place where there was a hole in the floor was the front passengers side.  It was only about 1/4" wide by 1" long.  The floor was covered in surface rust from the top being down for years.  However, under the sill plates was bare, clean, rust free metal.  It was weird.  The thin metal wiring covers on either side of the rockers are all rusted out.  Replacements are super expensive for what they are.  I'll probably just make something myself.

You and @brads70 have this great knack for fabricating whatever you need or want for an upgrade. Your explanations are consistently thorough. 

At an earlier time in life, I'd probably have to admit to myself that I was jealous of your skills... now I can say I'm impressed.

Brad's on a whole other level.  I'm just lucky to have talented people on here to bounce ideas off of and a father-in-law that has a lathe and a mill.

Are you going to remove the leftover undercoat at some point ?

Not sure about that.  The shop said it was super thick and it was just eating up a lot of sand so they stopped.  The wheel wells are the only areas where they left any.  The entire underside was stripped.  The wheel wells will get undercoated again so I'm not sure it's really necessary.  The jury is still out on that.  Before it goes back to the body shop for final paint, I might just get the heat gun out and scrape it off.

[Burdar]

Now we're getting into the metal replacement.  I'm not a body man so I don't know the best way to do these things.  Every shop has their way of doing something so left it up to them to do what they were comfortable with.  The trunk extensions weren't horrible but they did have some pinholes in them. 




Instead of replacing the entire piece, they just replaced the lower half.








Outer rocker sections were patched.






The threaded insert at the front of the rocker on the passengers side pulled out during disassembly.  A patch was welded in there.




The shop had used 1/4 skins in the past but weren't impressed so they didn't want to go that route.  Since this is a convertible, they didn't know how many differences there would be in a set of full hard top 1/4s so we didn't do that either.  AMD used to make a lower 1/4 patch but it was discontinued.  Stephens still had a pair in stock so that's what we used.






In hindsight, maybe we should have done something else but at this point it is what it is.  Both 1/4s and doors were pretty wavy from previous damage.  Lots of dents and creases needed to be pulled out.  All GT trim holes were also welded shut since that trim won't be going back on.








The dog leg sections of both front fenders were rotten and the drivers side had some accident damage.  Patches were available at the time but full fenders were super cheap.  The decision was easy to make.  I'd be money ahead by just replacing them.  The replacement GTS hood I got with the car had some damage in the front as well.  I bought a new hood for the same reason I replaced the fenders.









Before the body came home, they seam sealed it and sprayed some primer.

[Burdar]

I'm going to run a Champion cc526 radiator.  It's not the usual one that I've seen people run.  The one I've seen used most has an upper tank that is angled on each side.  I don't think that design looks very good.  This rad has a nice gentle curve on the ends of the tank.  Originally the upper and lower hoses were on the drivers side.  I'm running the newer style water pump that has the lower hose on the passengers side.


The stock radiator had a nice looking upper tank that sat tight to the rad support.  The new rad sat pretty far away from the rad support and showed a big gap in between.


I didn't like how that looked so I made a filler piece out of a strip of aluminum.  I put a bunch of 1/2" dimple died holes in it for strength and looks.  It turned out pretty nice I think.  It looks a lot nicer then a big gap there.







I decided to add a remote trans cooler.  I've got a 3500 stall converter in the car right now.  That might change before the car is on the road but I'm still adding one.  I think I'll run the hot side through the remote cooler first before running it through the rad cooler.  I want to keep as much heat out of the rad as possible.  I made a bracket to mount the cooler in front of the rad.




Dimple died the holes for strength...and it looks cool.




I initially ran the cooler lines to each side of the car and utilized some existing holes in the rad support.  I installed some bulkhead fittings into the support instead of running lines through the metal.


After that was done, I read a post that said a remote cooler needs to have the fittings pointing UP and not DOWN.  With the fittings pointing down, there will be an air bubble in the top of the cooler and reduce it's cooling capacity.  Not to mention the fact that the cooler will drain every time the car is shut off.  After reading that I decided to change how I had it mounted.  I flipped it upside down so the fittings were pointing UP and ran the lines to the drivers side.  I ended up drilling one extra hole into the rad support for the second bulkhead fitting.  The cooler is now behind the bumper instead of in the grill opening but I think it will still get some air flow.  I'm going to run a front spoiler so that should push up some air into it.

[HP_Cuda]

Looking good Burdar, keep em coming.

I love my Champion rad, sucker never gets hot. I cannot get it over 185 degrees even on a hot day!

[YellowThumper]

Very nice bracketry!