Any chance that car is from Northern California? I owned one exactly like it!

It was from Nevada. The story was that is sat under a lean-to for 20 years. I think that's a bit of a stretch but it is in really good shape.

Funny thing was I had a GTS hood bolted on mine as well, the car looked to be in nearly the same shape as well (back around 1989)

The inside of this car is just covered in a thick layer of surface rust. I cleaned up the bracketry under the dash tonight. It's pitted but you'll never see it. A few things need to get zinc plated so they will be set aside. The brake pedal needs to dry before I RPM the pivot end.

What's the original finish on the front parking light housings? Are they galvanised? They aren't' cleaning up very nice. They have a dark gray look to them. A few spots under the mounting flange are shiny. What should I do with these?

The insides are sprayed with a reflective paint. What should the back sides look like?

I have an old registration from the original owner. The car was from Nevada. I believe I'm the 4th owner. Jeff bought it from the guy who bought it from the original owner.

I just saw that Classic Industries sells new housings. It looks like theirs are zinc plated. Is it possible to remove the sockets without damaging them...and then reinstall them after the housings are replated? Probably not.

I've been cleaning up all the zinc plated fasteners, getting them ready for a replate. I think I've perfected my method. These are completely clean and will stay this way for at least a month without flash rusting.(probably longer, but I had the Challenger fasteners sitting inside for a month before I had a chance to get them to the plater)


I also cleaned up the throttle pedal assembly. The end of the rod was rubber dipped so I reapplied it.

I picked up the zinc fasteners yesterday and I'm not happy. When I picked them up, the guy said "These are going to have a little yellowish look to them because our solution is stronger. It resists a 100 hour salt spray vs the normal 40 hour spray."

When I got home, I remembered that I had gotten a call that morning confirming I wanted everything yellow zinc plated. I said NO, I want them silver zinc plated. They said "OK, no problem, I thought you wanted them yellow." I think everything was already in the other tank when he called. He probably pulled them out right way after talking to me but the color had already started to change.

Some things will be OK. I'm not going back stock with this thing anyway...but some things in the engine comp are going to look like crap next to other things I have planned. I sorted everything out today so I didn't forget where anything goes and I'll deal with the engine comp stuff later.

I don't think they were in the yellow tank long but you can really tell the difference when you hold a silver zinc part up to them.

Here are some more parts I've been working on...

I put together the kickdown linkage today. I'm going to try and make it work on a 4-barrel. If not, no big deal. I just threw the rods in with the rest of the fastners so it didn't cost me anything.






Parking light housings before EvapoRust soak.


After EvapoRust soak. The sockets looked really bad so I just hit them with the buffing wheel to polish them up a little.


shifter before


shifter after




DS fresh air door before






Even after spraying the door with multiple coats of high build primer and sanding it out, it still looked like crap. So...I sprayed it with wrinkle paint. I don't think it look bad at all.


E-brake mechanism before


The bracket on the right wasn't originally plated. I didn't have a way to easily install a new rivet so it got left together and was plated. I still need to get a different handle.

I bought some Wood Bleach to try. I was curious what it would do to aluminum so I did a test. I took some old spring spacers I had and put one in the Wood Bleach. I put about a tablespoon full in a half gallon of boiling water. This is after a three hour soak with only a few scrubbings with a tooth brush.


I thought I'd try it on the wiper pivots today.

Here are a few parts that showed up this week. It's just a prevew of what the engine will look like.

Here's the engine that's going in the Dart. As you can tell, it has been sitting for awhile. I think I pulled it out of my Cordoba in 06. It's a 360 MP short block(roller block)...the 10-1 compression version. It has home ported 360 heads with 1.88in 1.60ex valves. My Cordoba ran 12.70's with this engine. It's going to come apart for all new gaskets and to make sure everything still looks OK. It has very few miles on it so I hope it only needs gaskets.

The trans is a 904 that I built in 98. It has a 10" 3500 stall convertor and a TransGo TF-2 shift kit.

I started to mock up the new parts. I'm going to get everything fitting before I tear the engine apart. It looks like if I run a thermoquad, I'm going to have to make some kickdown linkage extensions and extend the throttle bracket. If I run a square bore carb, that will get rid the the adapter and lower things a little. There are already two valve cover gaskets on each side and covers are still very close to the intake. I think I'm going to look into those spacers I saw advertised on here. I don't want to grind on the valve covers or the intake.



The pulleys are an underdrive version. I plan on running relays under the battery tray for the headlights and make sure the cooling system is designed properly.

Looking good Darren. Evaporust is a wonderful thing.

I ran a 380 crate 360 with a 904 in my Dart convertible, it really scooted! The new owner finally put an 8-3/4 in it with 3.55 gears, I bet it was MUCH faster than the 274 geared 7-1/4!

Still working on small parts.

I got done rebuilding one of the horns yesterday. Only one of them worked when I tested them. I used Mike Ross' post on how to rebuild a Prestolite horn for reference. It was basically the same procedure rebuilding(just cleaning really)my Sparton horn.

First I drilled the heads off of all six rivets and separated the two halves.


Once they were apart I drilled and tapped the rivets for 8-32 allen head screws. This wasn't fun because the rivets wanted to spin inside the cone housing. I had to remove them and glue them in the housing.


I made two new gaskets from a Christmas box my wife had been saving....don't tell her. I used some C-clamps to hold the horn together while testing. Just like Mike said, all that was needed to get it working again was to sand the contacts.


Once it was screwed back together I tested it again just to make sure the center piece hadn't shifted. It still worked so it was ready for paint. Since I'm not going back stock with the car I didn't bother sanding on the allen screws to make them look more like rivets. I'm going to use allen head fasteners on the engine so it will all tie together.




This picture was taken right after I sprayed it. It dried slightly less glossy then what it looks like in this picture.


I also cleaned up the shifter pivot bracket that bolts to the trans. It cleaned up nicely.


I still have to buy a new bushing...the original was in two pieces.

I got the heater box done today. It didn't go too bad. It helped that I'd already done one before this. A good cleaning in the bath tub and a coat of semi-gloss clear got the box looking good again. I bought a new heater core since it was only $35 but of course it didn't fit well at all. It took some grinding and trimming to get it to work. The metal blower motor plate had a really bad rust spot on it. I put some filler on the bad spot and painted it black.

I've turned my attention to the dash assembly. A couple weeks ago I went over to my father-in-laws house and he machined me some switch bezel removal tools. A couple of them wouldn't budge by hand...they came loose right away with the correct tools.

I bought a dual speaker bracket and some 4" speakers to replace the rotten original one. It turned out nice. At the beginning of the year I plan on sending the original AM radio to BigMoneyLewis for an FM conversion.