Pro Touring 68 Dart convertible

[moparcar]

@Burdar  Any updates on your cool dart PT project?

Wes

[Chryco Psycho]

That is a nice starting point the body looks really solid , so what ya been doing ?

[nsmall]

It's almost been a year, come on, show us something.   

[Burdar]

Not much to report.  I haven't done anything on the car since last fall.  It pretty much still looks like this.  Most everything at this point requires a lot of money to finish.  I talked to the body shop in August and they could get the car in for paint next fall.  I just have to figure out the money situation.  I got a raise at work but my wife is now struggling to get 20 hours a week.  She makes a great hourly wage but the healthcare field had really changed lately.  She used to have lots of overtime.  Now she doesn't have any hours.


The brakes are Mustang Cobra from Dr Diff.  I had a C-body 8 3/4 shortened locally and bought axles from Dr Diff as well.  It looks like the pinion angle is going to be way off.  I'll most likely have to have new perches welded on once the car is on the ground/assembled and a final ride height determined.




Last fall I started making frame connectors like the ones Brad made for his car.  I got the holes drilled in the tubing and the round stock cut that gets welded inside.  I also got the torsion bar x-member and rear frame rail cut and the connectors slid inside for test fitting.  Nothing is welded yet.

[Burdar]

I started working on the Dart again.  I'm trying to get all the small stuff done before the car goes to the body shop for paint.

I bought a headlight relay kit from member @crackedback a few years ago.  I just purchased a convertible top relay kit from him as well.  I wasn't completely happy with how I had the relays mounted under the battery tray before so I redid it and added the convertible top fuse holder under there as well.  I just made up a bracket out of 20 gauge sheet metal.  I dimple died a few holes in the middle to add strength and to loose a little weight.  Then I added some rivnuts for attachment and painted it with a textured paint.


The finished product is pretty well hidden under the tray.


I mounted the convertible top relays on the back crossmember by the pump.  They should stay dry here.

[Burdar]

The rear interior panels are pretty rough.  Layson's makes replacements for $700.  I was going to try and fix mine but I think I'll just bite the bullet and buy new.  There is a chrome trim piece in the panels as well.  The reproductions aren't very nice(per Layson's own description) and they are an extra $100.  They didn't look that complicated so I made my own replacements.

I started out by using a ball mill to make some concave grooves in a piece of aluminum.  With the grooves machined, I cut the piece into strips and started sanding.  Once polished they look very close to the originals.  The only difference is these new pieces are about twice the thickness of the originals.  I need that thickness so I can drill/tap and install some mounting studs to the back side.  The grooves in the interior panels are deep so the extra thickness isn't really noticeable.  I think they turned out really nice.

[Burdar]

My most recent project was dealing with the alternator pulley.  I'm going to be running a 65 amp Denso off of a Toyota.  All of my other pulleys are aluminum but no one makes an aluminum pulley with a cover for the Denso.  The stock pulley with exposed attaching nut was very ugly compared to the others.


The pulley came with three shallow holes in the front face.  I'm not sure what they are for...maybe some type of spanner wrench to hold the pulley while the nut is tightened?  Anyway, those holes looked like the perfect place to attach a cover to.  I drilled the holes deeper and tapped them for 1/4x20 allen head bolts.  Then I picked up a 1" thick piece of 3" diameter aluminum at the local metal yard.


I made a pencil rubbing of the pulley so I could locate the three holes I drilled.  I center punched/drilled and counter sunk the holes for the allen bolts and installed the aluminum slug onto the pulley.


After the outer diameter was made completely round relative to the pulley, I flipped it around to machine the recess for the alternator shaft/nut.


I also made an 1/8" deep lip so the aluminum fit into the recess of the pulley to keep it centered.


With that out of the way, I flipped it back around and mounted it to the pulley again and started machining the outer angles.






After sanding and polishing, the finished product turned out really nice.  Now the alternator matches the rest of the pulleys.

[anlauto]

That's really excellent work, very cool

[crackedback]

Nice work on the under tray panel.    Well done.

[YellowThumper]

Awsome to see another that steps into machining what they need/want.
Nice work there.
Thanks for posting it up over here.

[jimynick]

That's nice work, well done. If you end up with time on your hands, I'm sure there'd be a market for stuff like you just did. May aid with the money situation you mentioned before. Good job! 

[nsmall]

As always, looking awesome brother!!!

[Brads70]

Nice work! Looks fantastic! 

[Burdar]

I set the engine wiring harness in place so I can get a feel for how everything is going to be routed.  I need to make some small brackets to hold the wiring as it runs across the passengers side valve cover.  My valve covers are fabricated aluminum and don't have any tabs to hold the wiring. The attaching bolts are 4 or 5" long and go in from the top so I can't attach anything to those.  I'm thinking about using a couple of the intake attaching bolts but I haven't figured that out yet.  I'd entertain some pictures of custom brackets that anyone has made to get some ideas.

I started wiring up the Denso alternator.  I bought the correct plug for the back of it so the wiring will look stock(ish).  It looks like I have plenty of wire and can actually remove one of the wiring tabs on the firewall. Right now it sits above the PS valve cover and doesn't really make sense where it is.  That will clean up the PS firewall a little bit.

The DS firewall is a little cluttered.  The voltage regulator and ballast resistor are next to the master cylinder and pretty visible.  I was initially going to put them back on even though I don't need them.  The Denso alternator is internally regulated and the Pertronix coil doesn't need a ballast.  I made a hidden jumper wire for the back of the voltage regulator to bypass it and was going to do the same for the ballast but now I'm second guessing that.  Now that I have the wiring harness in, I think I might just do away with them and clean up the firewall some more.

Is there any reason why I can't just connect the two ballast wires together with a jumper and hide that in some harness wrap?(I'm going to wrap the harness anyway)  I'd do the same with the VR wiring.  Is there a cleaner way of doing it?  I'm not sure I want to start cutting and modifying a brand new harness but I might.
 

[YellowThumper]

I set the engine wiring harness in place so I can get a feel for how everything is going to be routed.  I need to make some small brackets to hold the wiring as it runs across the passengers side valve cover.  My valve covers are fabricated aluminum and don't have any tabs to hold the wiring. The attaching bolts are 4 or 5" long and go in from the top so I can't attach anything to those.  I'm thinking about using a couple of the intake attaching bolts but I haven't figured that out yet.  I'd entertain some pictures of custom brackets that anyone has made to get some ideas.

I started wiring up the Denso alternator.  I bought the correct plug for the back of it so the wiring will look stock(ish).  It looks like I have plenty of wire and can actually remove one of the wiring tabs on the firewall. Right now it sits above the PS valve cover and doesn't really make sense where it is.  That will clean up the PS firewall a little bit.

The DS firewall is a little cluttered.  The voltage regulator and ballast resistor are next to the master cylinder and pretty visible.  I was initially going to put them back on even though I don't need them.  The Denso alternator is internally regulated and the Pertronix coil doesn't need a ballast.  I made a hidden jumper wire for the back of the voltage regulator to bypass it and was going to do the same for the ballast but now I'm second guessing that.  Now that I have the wiring harness in, I think I might just do away with them and clean up the firewall some more.

Is there any reason why I can't just connect the two ballast wires together with a jumper and hide that in some harness wrap?(I'm going to wrap the harness anyway)  I'd do the same with the VR wiring.  Is there a cleaner way of doing it?  I'm not sure I want to start cutting and modifying a brand new harness but I might.

Yes for hiding it in the wrap. Cannot answer about connecting the ballast wires. If hiding in wrap will not fit, then you can only expose a short piece of that wire and connector. To minimize bulk on a couple of mine I removed the plastic outer to connector and then used shrink wrap over it. Some were with double wrap.

Mike.