The engine and trans have been sitting around. They used to be in a Cordoba I had. The Dart originally had a 318. That won't be going back in.

Yesterday my father-in-law and I built a K-member dolly. I used a small wooden cart to install the Challenger engine but it wasn't very stable. The engine wanted to tip side to side. I wanted something that would be solid that I could store an engine/suspension on long term. We started with a crude stand my dad and I had built years ago for the Challenger. The original stand didn't have any wheels on it and used the sway bar mount to attach the K. It did the job but I wanted something nicer this time around.

I used the outer frame mounting holes to attach the K to the dolly so it would be stable. The four arms that support the K are attached to the bottom of the main "T" so they can be unbolted and removed during installation. I didn't want to guess when making the trans support so I'll add that once the engine/trans are on the dolly.

There are better designs out there but this one didn't cost me anything and should do the job.

Last Thursday I went and had a look at the car. So far everything is going good. There aren't any real surprises. How do you like the 4x4 look?


The patch panels go a lot higher then I thought they would.




You can see the pin holes in the trunk drop offs. If the car hadn't sat around with the top down for 10+ years, I'm sure these wouldn't need replacing. Last I knew, they were just going to section in the lower part since everything else is real solid.




Here you can see the previous damage from possibly rubbing a guard rail. The old repair involved drilling a bunch of holes in the quarter panel, pulling out the dent and applying filler. You can see the filler oozing out of all the holes.(just above the initial cut line) The repair patch will cover a lot of this.


That's it for now. Hopefully they will get started on the floor patches this week.

HOw is the area under your sail panel for rust?? After your comment about trunk pinholes and if the top had been up got me thinking.

When I did my car ( in pic) after I had it blasted on a rotisserie and primered, a body man looked at my sail panel and told me to remove it. Got out my torch and removed the lead/spot welds.. I found alot of rust ( surface) issues.. I removed most of the body/convertible pieces under the sail panel, blasted and painted them, then reinstalled..

Just a thought

All that I saw was just light surface rust around where the convertible top attaches. I'll look over the area very closely next time I'm at the shop. Thanks for the heads up.

I don't think the filler panel to quarter seam has been stripped yet. There were no outward signs of rust there...no bubbles exc. The PS quarter was stripped the other day. You can really see the previously drilled holes.






So far, it doesn't look like there is any filler on the DS.

A lot of work has been done in the last three weeks. I bought trunk extensions, both front fenders and a hood at the Nat's. The truck was pretty full on the way back to the hotel.


We spent an hour in the parking lot on Sunday rearranging things so the 10 hour drive home would go smoother. We ended up taking the fenders out of their boxes and laying them flat in the bed. The hood sat on 2x4's above fenders. The top of the hood box was flush with the box sides. We got an extra 1.5mpg on the way home due to the better aerodynamics.

On the way home we dropped everything off at the body shop.


They got right to work on the car Monday morning. The lower trunk extensions had some pin holes but the upper section was still perfect. They replaced the bad lower sections but left the upper pieces intact.










They also welded patches in the rocker panel to quarter area.






One of the nuts in the end of the rocker that holds the splash shield in place pulled out during disassembly. That area was repaired.

The existing quarters were straightened and then the patches fitted and installed.

























The D A R T emblem holes were filled as well as all the holes from previous body work.




The doors were sanded down. Man...this car had a ruff life. The only straight panel on the car is the trunk lid.






The GT emblem holes were filled along with the rear trim panel holes. This car won't be cluttered up with a bunch of emblems.




I worked on the wiring harness tabs last weekend.


I burned off the existing rubber coating that was damaged during blasting and straightened out the tabs.


I put some heat shrink tubing over the ends before dipping them in Plasti-Dip.

I gave them the go ahead to get the seam sealer done, straighten out the doors and start the filler work.



























Once the car was back on my stands, the front end was test fitted. The DS fender needed a little persuasion with a block of wood and some hammer taps at the very front next to the hood. The body lines seemed to line up pretty good with the doors too. Some work will need to be done to get the door, fender and cowl to all line up better.


Some material will have to be added to the door to get the contour to match.


The AMD hoods have an extra line down the center that the stock hoods don't have.






Another Dart was in the shop for some mechanical work so they put the two cars side by side to compare the body lines.




Filler work started. Still a long way to go before it's straight.










The car came home last night. Now I need to test fit the engine/trans/suspension in the car so I can measure for wheels/tires. I also need to see how much hood clearance I have. I've got a cool idea for an air cleaner if I have enough room. Once that stuff is fitted(and once I save up some more money) the car will go back for paint.

I worked on a couple things a few days ago. I found a couple nice hinge covers at the Nats. I knew two of mine were completely junk. I thought I could reuse two of them. I was wrong. I still need to find two more.


I picked up some Pearl White interior paint from Herb's. I sprayed it on the new black covers but it didn't cover well at all. It just turned them silver. So, I sprayed them with SEM Super White first....then sprayed the pearl on them followed by a clear. The picture isn't very good but you can kind of see the difference. The pearl is on the left and the SEM paint is on the right.


I also cleaned up the brake distribution block.




After the first cleaning.


I tried getting the brass plug out of the bottom but it didn't want to budge. I ended up just flushing it out and making sure the internal valve still moved freely. After polishing the block with steel wool, I RPMed the bracket and lubed the inside with DOT5 brake fluid. I think it turned out nice.

Bummer it needed front fenders too. I didn't realize the originals were that bad.

The bottom of the fenders needed patches on both sides. The DS was tweaked from a minor accident. The patches themselves are $117 each. Fenders were only $432. With the labor to weld in the patches and to straighten out the dents, I think I probably saved some money this way. I'll see if I can sell the original fenders. Maybe someone that can do their own bodywork will have a use for them.

Great progress. Are you going to use the hood as is? Seems strange that AMD would do that.

I was talking to a guy at the Nats that mentioned that extra crease. The 69 that was in the shop had previous work so who knows what it was like originally. It didn't have a definite line down the center like the AMD hood but it wasn't completely flat either. Maybe some other people with original hoods will shed some more light on the subject. I think some of it can be hidden with bodywork but it won't completely go away.

The fenders also have a couple differences. The main one is that the inner brace that goes from the wheel lip to the inner structure is welded in place on the AMD fender. The factory braces are bolted on. I need to check tire clearance with this brace once I get to that point. The braces might have to be removed and modified.

I haven't posted anything in awhile but I'm still working on some things. I started working on the engine last month. I think I mentioned earlier that the short block is a MP piece I bought back in 2000. The short blocks were made from reconditioned non Magnum roller blocks. It's the 10 to 1 compression version. I believe there was also a 9 to 1 version. The engine has been sitting since 2004 or 2005.


I previously ran a Weiand X-cellerator single plane intake on the engine. Last fall I bought an Edelbrock RPM Air-Gap for it. I pulled the Weiand and started mocking up the intake and carb but ran into an issue. The secondaries on the carb would hit the intake. It looked like the intake was cast wrong. After talking with tech support a few times, they had me send the intake in for them to look at. They ended up sending me a new intake but by that time it was the middle of winter and I had moved on to other things.

Last month I moved the engine over to my place. I pulled the plastic off the engine and found a mouse next in the valley. The nest was made from grass clippings so I knew it hadn't been there long. It wasn't there last fall when I was test fitting the new intake. I vacuumed up the nest and put the engine on the stand. I pulled the heads, water pump and front cover.


I didn't want to spin the engine on the stand incase there was crap in the pan. I pulled the pan with the engine upright and removed the windage tray. Sure enough, there were some grass clippings and mouse foot prints on the tray. There wasn't much of anything in the pan though. I think I got lucky and caught it early.


Other then the nest, the engine looked really good inside. Everything still looked clean without any rust from sitting.






Then came the task of cleaning up the block. There were a couple layers of orange paint and layers of dirt, saw dust and oil to remove. What a nasty, crappy job that was. I think it took at least four cleanings to get everything off. Even after wearing gloves and goggles, some paint stripper would end up on my skin and start burning. I'm glad that job is over!






I installed the timing cover and put a new water pump on. Then I primed the everything. After that I moved on to the oil pan. The pan that was on the engine had seen better days. The sides were heavily pitted and would have taken a lot of work to refinish. A friend of mine had a 360 pan he wasn't using so he donated it to the cause. I saw and old Car Craft article on making a baffle for the stock oil pan. It didn't look too difficult so I thought I'd give it a try. I made a template out of card board and taped it onto the pan. I test fit it a few times onto the engine to make sure it cleared the pickup tube, then I transferred the template to a piece of metal.


I taped the metal baffle to the pan and test fit again. So far so good. I had clearance around the pickup tube and nothing was hitting.


I soaked the baffle in EvapoRust and then added some drain back slots.


Here is the baffle welded in place. It works really good on deceleration but doesn't seem to do much on acceleration. I could have gotten the clearances tighter to the pickup tube if I would have had a bare block to test fit it on. I would have been able to look down through an empty cylinder and see how close it came to hitting. The pan isn't installed yet so I guess I could still add some metal around the back if I found someone local with a bare block I could borrow.


That's all the progress I have on the engine right now. I need to take the heads in and have them looked at. They only have a few hundred miles on them but I did the valve job and guides when I was in school. I want someone to double check my work so I don't have any issues down the road. I also need to get the intake surface of the heads milled down a little so the intake sits a little lower on the engine. I could barely get the intake bolts started when I was test fitting things.

I've also been working on a bracket to mount a trans cooler in front of the radiator. I picked up a scrap piece of 1/8" aluminum and started cutting. I was surprised how nicely aluminum cuts on a table saw.


I bolted two vertical pieces to the rad support on either side of the hood latch bracket. After temporarily attaching the cooler, I tried to come up with an optimal location to mount the cooler bracket. I had planned on mounting it a lot lower but that wasn't going to work very well. The Dart has a tall bumper and no front valance. If I mounted the cooler towards the bottom of the opening, it wouldn't have received any air flow. The bumper would have blocked all of the air. I set the grill in place and decided to put the cooler up high so it would get direct air flow. The hood latch blocks a little bit of airflow but I didn't have much space to work with.




After I had the location figured out, I drilled three 1.25" holes through the bracket on either side of the cooler. These holes are so I didn't block air flow to the radiator.


I tried finding someone local who had some dimple dies so I could flare the holes. I wasn't able to find anyone though. I ended up buying a 1.25" dimple die and flared the holes myself.




I slightly polished the bracket with some steel wool and wadding cloth. I'm not sure what finish I want on it yet. I might polish it or I might paint it black. I think it turned out nice.


As far as hooking up the cooler lines, I didn't really want to drill extra holes through the rad support. Directly below the frame rails, there were some existing square holes I decided to use. I drilled out those holes a little larger and installed some 6AN bulkhead fittings. Now I can hook everything up with AN fittings for a clean look. Once I buy a radiator, I can work on hooking up the other side.


I also started making an aluminum gas pedal cover. I'm probably about half way done with that. Then I can start making a brake pedal cover.


About half done...

Nice work!

I don't know if anyone is following this or not but here's a small update. After waiting more than three months, the fasteners finally came back from the platers. I had then done at a local shop but the color turned out wrong. They came through with a yellow tint. I sent them to another place to get coated the correct silver color. This past week I dropped off the cylinder heads at the machine shop to be checked over. I'm also having some material removed from the intake surface of the head because I could barely get the intake bolts started. The intake needs to sit down a little bit lower.

Since the fasteners came back, I was able to mount the LCA/strut rods to the K-member. I also temporarily put the 2" drop spindles in place.




I got some work done on the aluminum pedal covers. I did some sanding on the gas pedal cover and mounted it to the original pedal to see what it would look like. Right now you can see the plastic gas pedal through the holes in the cover. I'm going to paint a thin piece of aluminum and put it between the pedal and the cover so it doesn't look cheap.

I also got the brake pedal cover made. I was able to put a curve in the aluminum so it matched the curve in the brake pedal arm. I think there needs to be some more grip on the pedal so my foot doesn't slide while applying the brakes. My plan is to put some 1/2" rubber pieces in the holes. The rubber will stick up maybe 1/8" from the surface of the cover. That should give me the grip I need and not change the look of the cover. I think they are turning out good so far. The best part is I only have a few dollars in the attaching screws. The rest was free.

If only I had half the skills and attention to detail as you have. Keep up the good work.

Thanks but...no real "skills" here. Just cleaning up components and bolting them back together. I've learned more by screwing up than anything else. When something goes wrong, fix it and try not to make the same mistake again.

I didn't do much work on the car over the winter. Now that the weather is warming up, I've gotten some things done.

If you remember, I'm adding engine compartment braces to the Dart. I made some aluminum brackets in order to attach the braces to the factory pinch weld.



I sprayed the brackets with a matte clear but wasn't happy with them. I stripped the clear coat and decided to polish them instead.


I test fit them with some nuts on the bottom side of the pinch weld. The nuts were more visible then I thought they'd be and they looked cheap. I ended up making another bracket to go on the bottom side. The lower brackets are threaded. Basically, the pinch weld will be sandwiched between the two aluminum brackets. I think this looks much nicer. I'm going to use some polished button head bolts to attach them to the car.


I liked how the gas/brake pedals turned out but I wanted something that would give me some traction. Plain aluminum might get slick in certain conditions and not be the safest on the street.


My father-in-law cuts up old tires and uses them for traction around the yard during the winter. That gave me an idea. I used an old socket(with the edge ground to a sharp point)to punch holes in an old tire sidewall. The rubber plugs it created will go inside the holes of the pedals.(rubber will stick up higher then the aluminum)