Hey I do Paint and body work for a living. I got turned onto this wax a few years ago for fresh Paint. Stuff works great. I keep a gallon On hand. Did a black 55 ford crown vic that after I scuffed and buffed it applied it on the finish. Takes swirl marks out and comes off with ease.

https://www.amazon.com/Presta-32OZ-COMPL-Fast-PST-134132/dp/B00AZAESRG

Been busy working on my house all summer so the Dart has just been sitting. I just started working on it again so I thought I'd post a small update. I finally got the wiper motor back. I didn't think the factory yellow/gold zinc would look right in the engine compartment with the other custom stuff I'm doing so I had the barrel plated in black zinc. Black sealer was used on the wiring as well instead of the factory red/orange sealant. I like the look.


After that was installed I got all the linkage under the dash hooked up. Then I installed the front brake lines and distribution block. The master cylinder is in place for test fitment. I wasn't sure if the factory lines were going to work on the newer master but they will. It's a 15/16" bore unit from Dr Diff. The heater box was next. I remember fighting my Challenger box but this once slipped right in without a fuss.








Saturday night the dash went in. It's been 9 years since the dash was in the car. Next project is the engine compartment wiring harness...then work on getting the glass in the doors.

Nice work!

I totally agree with your color choices on the wiper motor. It provides nice visual continuity with the blower motor and master cylinder.

Agreed & that dash looks great!

The mirrors, door handles and locks are in. Dad came over and gave me a hand putting the vent window/side windows in the doors last week. I was not looking forward to that but it actually went pretty quickly/easily. This past spring I sent the vent window pivots off for re-chroming. I got an estimate back from the platers that it was going to cost $700. That wasn't going to happen so I started looking for some really nice factory replacements. A few people online said they had some but pictures that were sent were hard to tell their true condition. I've been burned in the past when 1 person says a part is nice...then I receive said part and it's anything but nice. In the end I sanded down the chrome on my original pivots and had them powder coated semi-gloss black. I think they will look OK since the vent window rubber seal is black. I see a lot of A-bodies with badly pitted chrome pivots at shows. This will at least look better then that.


Saturday morning I installed the inner fender splash shields. I had to take the 2 studs/nuts loose at the bottom of the fenders to get them slid into place. I also found that they were easier to install without the upper rubber seal in place. Once everything was adjusted and bolted in place, I re-installed the upper rubber seal.


Then I started masking the car in preparation for spraying the undercoating. This was my first attempt at spraying undercoating and it was interesting to say the least. I should have masked off the UCA/upper shock mount area but I didn't. I thought I'd be able to direct the spray around the area. Needless to say, I got some overspray around that area but it is what it is I guess. The undercoating gun didn't come with a cup so I bought a bottle of 3M body schutz and used that as a base. Then I poured RestoRick's undercoating into that bottle and sprayed it over the top. 1 bottle of the 3M body schutz did a medium coat on 3 wheel wells. I used around 35 psi for the 3m product. That was way too high of a pressure for the RestoRick undercoating. My first pass with that stuff just flew out of the gun and layed out completely smooth. After lowering the psi to 20-25, it started spraying out like undercoating should look. The rear wheel wells look good. The back of the front wheel wells look good. I'm a little thin on the front sections behind the headlight and down the fender in-front of the tire. I might go back and spray another coat in those areas.

Looks good.

I installed the leaf springs and rear axle assembly at the beginning of November. Storing it in the basement wasn't one of my best ideas. With a 2-wheeled dolly and my wife's help, we managed to get it up the stairs. I was actually able to get a 15" wheel to clear the 11.7" Dr Diff brakes with about 1/2" worth of washers on the outside of the rotors. That will work nicely to be able to push the car around the garage. Otherwise it would be stuck on jack stands. Still need to figure something out for front rollers.




Then a few weeks ago I had some buddies over and we got the engine/trans installed. Before the engine went it though we swapped out the 3500 stall converter for something a little more street friendly and primed the engine.




Once the engine was in I measured my pinion angle. It looked like the pinion was WAY too high. I was afraid the spring pads had been welded on wrong. We jacked up the back of the car(under the rear end) until an angle gauge on the trans output shaft read 0*. Then I put the angle gauge on the rear end yoke. Surprisingly it also read 0*. A small 2* shim is all I'll need to get the pinion angle to -2*. Once that was done I measured for my driveshaft length. I previously cleaned up a C-body shaft that I was going to have cut down to size. After calling a local driveline company for a quote, and realizing how much that has gone up in price, I started looking at other options. I ended up finding a place that made me a brand new shaft(balanced with new joints) for only $60 more than cutting an old shaft down.




I'm not sure why I keep having issues with E-brake cables but I do. IIRC to get my Challenger E-brake hooked up it took a combination of stock, Finelines and Inline Tube parts. The Dart rear cables are from Dr Diff. Looking back at pictures before disassembly, the rear cables seem to be in the correct spot. The front cable however is way too long. I fabbed up a spacer in order to get it working. I'm not really interested in buying a new cable unless it's the only option.

Then this past week I got the center console and steering column installed. I started with the console carpet by gluing it in place. That didn't work out the best so I ended up peeling it back off. I read that some people have had better luck using Velcro so I gave that a try. It actually worked a lot easier then the glue for me and you can't even tell.

I was worried at first that I wasn't going to be able to get the console in with the added tach and aftermarket shifter. Every time it had been test fit previously, the dash wasn't installed so I could just set it down in place. Now that the dash is in it wasn't so easy. In order to get it in I had to remove the ash tray from the dash, remove the lockout lever from the shifter, have the shift handle in a certain position and finally, shove the tach under the dash sideways with the tail end way in the air. Then rotate it into place. It's very tight but it fits. Luckily the steering column basically just fell into place.






I had to shove a battery in it just to see if the dash lighting all worked. It did NOT. There was an issue with the map light and the shift indicator light. After probing some connections with a test light and trying incandescent bulbs in place of the LEDs I found the issue. The factory Mopar wiring has the + wire on the side of the bulb(the bulb body) and the - wire on the bottom "pin" of the bulb. This works fine for an incandescent but not for an LED. The map light was an easy fix. I just pulled the wires out of the "T" connector and swapped them. Now the + is going to the bottom "pin" on the bulb and the - is on the side body of the bulb. The shift indicator bulb wasn't as easy. The bulb socket doesn't have terminal ends that can be removed. The easiest solution was to cut the 2 wires under the console and splice them back together reversed.

Good looking car.
years ago I had B5 with white 1969 Dart GT conv.

simple 318 car . But I liked it. A LOT.

Midwest rust took its toll on it though.
I ended up parting it out and sent the shell to the crusher

Nice work burdar!

Your description of lugging that axle up the stairs made my back hurt!

Built a 2-stall garage addition off the back of my existing garage. With a safe place to store and work on the cars, progress on the Dart can resume.

Wow! That looks great Darren! How does the stock radio mount in there? I am having a couple of problems getting that and the ash tray in. Shoot me a pm! Ted

Been working on installing some trim pieces before I finish up the engine compartment and install the exhaust. I got the front hood trim on. It fits pretty good. I'm pretty sure I bought it from Van's Auto. I did have to grind the side wall of a cheap 1/4" socket to make it thinner in order to tighten up the nuts. There isn't much room between the nut and the inner hood lip and a standard socket was too thick. I also installed the hood louvers. I ended up going with reproduction louvers and wasn't able to test fit them before paint. I had to open up all the holes in the hood due to paint buildup and had to file a couple holes a little larger to align the louver pins so they would go through the hood. I also got the antenna mounted on the fender and the cable routed over to the radio. I'm searching for a stubby antenna that looks good instead of using the long stock one. With the antenna mounted and cable routed, I was able to install the kick panels.


Next I installed the trunk weather stripping. I put adhesive on both the body and the seal and let it tack up before installing it. I went a couple feet at a time to make it easier to handle. I didn't want to put adhesive down the entire length of the seal all at once because I knew that would turn into a huge mess. It turned out pretty good...with no glue pushing out the sides. I also installed the rear side marker lights. The gaskets that come with the lights aren't very good. I swapped those out for new gaskets from DMT. They fit much better and will do a better job of sealing.

Over the weekend I worked on installing the stainless trim pieces around the back of the interior opening.(below the convertible roof) After fixing some trim clips that didn't want to install easily, the trim went on fairly smoothly. I also installed the door window fuzzies. I tried snapping them into place with the glass rolled down but there was just no room to safely do it. I ended up taking the three bolts out of the regulators so I could lower the glass all the way down inside the door. Then I had enough room to work. Once those were on, I installed the stainless on top of the doors.




Then last night I installed the butyl and seals around the convertible opening and loosely installed the tack strips.(just to get them out of the way) I took lots of pictures of the convertible opening and all the seals that were there when I took the car apart. There were some seams where the factory put butyl sealer. It looks like it was to insure that no water would leak from the rain gutter into the interior/trunk. The factory put three layers of sealant on those seams. The first layer was the butyl, second layer was a piece of tape accross the seam...ontop of the butyl and finally the foam seals ontop of that. I'm not sure if the tape is really needed or not. If it is I'm not sure what kind of tape to use. I didn't put any weather strip adhesive on the very ends of the foam seals so they can be pulled back and tape installed once I figure out what to use there. Sometime this weekend I hope to get the convertible frame up from the basement and install that too. My wife wants her basement back. I'm slowly working on it.

The radiator/shroud/overflow tank and all the hoses are installed. I painted the front of the radiator black so it wouldn't be visible through the grill. I also got the trans cooler lines made with AN fittings that connect the hard line to the radiator and external cooler. I routed the trans fluid to the external cooler first and then through the radiator.






I used some aluminum hose spacers on the heater hoses to keep them cleanly routed. I still need to install the fender to cowl braces but the brackets I made to install them are in place.





It's the slow season at work so I had one of the shop guys make me some wooden cribs out of scrap 2x4s. I've had a vehicle tip off jack stands on me before. Luckily it wasn't very high off the ground and the wheels were still on it. I don't really feel that comfortable around them any more. The cribs are super solid and I don't have to worry about the car going anywhere. Last weekend a couple old friends stopped by and gave me a hand installing the exhaust. Now it just needs fluids and it's ready to start. That will wait until spring when I can open up the garage doors and not lose all my heat.







I'm still waiting on Digi-Tails to get done with my LED tail lights. I sent them a tail light housing many years ago and still don't have anything in hand. Early last year they sent me a picture of the prototype so I didn't think it would be much longer...but here we are...another year has gone by.

The last few month have been "1 step forward and 2 steps back". I filled the radiator with water in preparation to start the engine. Almost as soon as I started pouring the water in, it started leaking out. I messed up when I cut the lower rad hose to fit and it was leaking at the water pump. Also, the "new" 10 year old, but never run, water pump was leaking out the weep hole. So, I got to tear the front of the engine apart to replace that. Then, the engine paint I used has gone through a reformulation and is a completely different color now. Luckily I had a little bit of old paint left and was able to mist the old color over the new color so the water pump still matches the rest of the engine. Once I got it all back together I filled the trans with fluid, filled the carb bowls with gas and started the engine. It started right up which is good but both exhaust studs on the drivers side started leaking. I swear I sealed those up but I guess not. I drained the coolant down again, pulled the studs out and put sealer on them. After all that I needed a break.

I recently started researching wheels again.  I looked up the wheels I'd found awhile ago and priced them out.  The price for those wheels has gone up considerably.  They were going to cost me about $1200 each for the fronts and around $1400 each for the rears.  I couldn't bring myself to spend that much since my enthusiasm for this project isn't what it used to be.  I started looking at other options and found something I liked for quite a bit less.  The design isn't what I had originally planned but I think it still looks good.  After measuring my clearances again I placed the order.

While those were being built, I had a friend come over and help me with a couple things.  The back of the car seems to be sitting really high.  I assumed the 0 arch MP Oval Track springs that I bought would sit flat and lower the rear end...I guess not.  We pulled the rear end and springs out from under the car and moved the front spring eye to the upper hole in the Dr Diff hangers.  That change lowered the rear by 1".  Once that was done we assembled the front brakes, installed the master cylinder and blead the system.  I've never had a car with manual brakes before.  I'm not sure how they are supposed to feel.  They feel strange so I'm not sure if there is an issue yet or not.

The wheels were supposed to take 4-6 weeks to be built but they were done in 3.  The wheels I went with are a Shelby Cobra replica wheel with 18x7 in the front and 20x9 in the rear.  I left the 2" drop spindles on the front which limited my wheel width to 7".  I wanted a 5" backspacing but the maximum backspacing for this wheel is 4.75".  They are very close to the fender lip so I will need to find a little bit of extra room there.  I have a couple ideas on how I can do that.





The 7" wide wheel really limited my tire choices and I was worried the front would look really narrow.  Now that the tires are on it's not bad at all.  I'm not going to autocross this car so I don't need something super wide up front.  I'm actually happy with how wide the fronts look.  After the car was sitting on all 4s, it was apparent that the rear end is still up too high.(at least 1" maybe 2")  Hotchkis sells lowering springs but they are over $500.  I put 4 old wheels/tires in the trunk to try and lower the back to get a feel for how low it should be.  That weight only lowered it a 1/2" so I'm still not sure how low it needs to go yet.  I measured from the rocker to the ground at the front and at the rear.  The rear is sitting up 2" higher than the front still.  I'd be OK with a slight rake but 2" is too much.


Yesterday I unboxed the new grill and headlight bezels.  The new parts aren't painted correctly for a GT or GTS.  Those models have some extra blackout done that the lower trim level cars don't have.  I get why the reproduction parts were done that way.  They only have to stock 1 part instead of 2.  It still sucks that I had to paint brand new parts.  Oh well.  It turned out ok and the grill fits pretty good.  The front end is starting to take shape.







Next will be installing the front bumper and tightening the front suspension components at the ride height I want.  Then I need to figure out what to do with the rear end.  It needs to come down some, but the rear end is really close to the gas tank and the snubber is fairly close to the floor pan already.  I need to double check the pinion angle.  If that is off(from the spring eye change) the snubber may need to be rotated down.  That's all for now.

That's coming along nicely Darren! Nice work!!

Front bumper and spoiler mounted...