Reviving the Big Block Dart

The car has been languishing in the yard for a while in need of body work and some minor mechanical tweaks. I'm not very experienced at body work, so I may ask lots of questions. The whole album is here.

I'm in.

72 swinger?

bodywork? it needs chemotherapy.

You had me at dart.

And it's just weight reduction. Factory equipment on mopars of this era.

I've never seen a non-rusty original mopar.

Looks like a cool project. I had a 70' with a 400 big block I swapped into it. That looks like an RB though, 440 I'm guessing? Also are those ford pony rims, is it running an 8.8 rear?

moparman76_69 wrote: 72 swinger?

Close, it's a '71.

In reply to Jayisacarguy:

It's a 383, forged crank, polished rods, ARP bolts and lightweight flat-top pistons that was all balanced. I think the heads were 516 closed chamber castings. There was a lot of porting done to the heads. There's some full length headers on it that were a pain to massage to fit. We've got the cheapest ebay roller tipped rockers on it right now and have had 2 of them give us problems, so they'll probably be upgraded soon.

The 8.8 is out of a 2000 explorer, currently running 3.55 gears with a limited slip. 4 wheel discs are much better than the stock four wheel drums the slant six car came with.

I had a '71 that I drove for years. Loved that car.

Where in MD are you?

In reply to patgizz:

All old cars parked outside eventually rust there, trunk seals leak and water pools, plus you get stone chips on the outside.

In reply to psychic_mechanic:

I can't imagine getting full length headers to fit, you must really be good at modifying things. My mid length headers were a big enough struggle for me, haha. I ran with the drum brakes, no doubt the discs add some nice stopping power. Engine sounds like a nice build, my buddy runs a 383 with 516 heads in a duster, great running car! Looking forward to watching your dart progress!

Cool. My grandfather had a '72 in that color.

Pat wrote: I had a '71 that I drove for years. Loved that car. Where in MD are you?

Southern MD, a stone's throw from Solomon's Island.

We're trying to do an hour or two to the car every day, so this huge project makes steady progress. I forgot to take pictures today when the sun was up but the yellow paint has been stripped from the roof and inside the trunk opening.

That's a good looking Dart considering the surroundings.

Are those wheels also from an Explorer (or SN95 Mustang?) They look 90s domestic OEM as can be.

Looking forward to seeing how you sort out the rusty bits.

Oh boy. I've always had a soft spot in my heart for these.

ssswitch wrote: That's a good looking Dart considering the surroundings. Are those wheels also from an Explorer (or SN95 Mustang?) They look 90s domestic OEM as can be.

SN95 Mustang, we're probably going to swap them out for some newer more angular ones when the bodywork is done to match the body lines of a dart better.

The good news is that the fender stripped pretty easy since at some point it was repainted without any primer at some point. All of this just scraped off with a wood chisel that was nearby.

So it didn't take too long to get to this point, there's some ripples in the top of the fender we never noticed before, but nothing major.

Most of the car isn't being stripped to bare metal, just to solid paint. All of the yellow house paint has to go. On a side note, the $49 we spent on a canopy today really helped turn a unbearably hot day in the sun in a slightly warm day in the shade.

The weather hasn't been cooperating much lately, but we did get some more done today. Cleaning all of the paint out of drip rails is a royal pain. A really small wire wheel is the best tool I've tried so far.

I pulled the bumper and the front pan off so we can get behind and between the panels. The suprising thing was how straight everything was, nothing sprung back after being unbolted.

Most of the yellow and black paint is stripped off, pretty soon the real bodywork begins.

Mustang bullet wheels.

And white with a red interior.

Thats where my head goes for thiscar.

Dusterbd13 wrote: Mustang bullet wheels. And white with a red interior. Thats where my head goes for thiscar.

It's got a nearly flawless green and black interior so we're probably going to carry those colors over to the exterior. We're going to stay with 16" wheels, probably a set of late V6 SN95 rims like these:

We got the driver side rocker stripped today and made good progress in the door jamb before the clouds rolled in. Most of the dirty mop-applied yellow paint has been stripped from the hood. The grille and fender extensions came off. The car had one pot metal and one composite fender extension, I don't think it came from the factory that way.

I'm going to at least upgrade these sealed beams to halogens. I may try to scavenge or adapt some round HIDs to fit in these housings, I've really been spoiled by modern lighting.

There is nothing not cool about a Big Block Dart

In reply to psychic_mechanic:

IMHO, go with 17" wheels. While I agree 16" wheels may look a bit better, finding tires is becoming a pain. Many more options in 17" and in an age of everyone stuffing 18-20" wheels under old cars (and are OEM on so many new cars), 17" wheels don't seem to look as big as they once did.

I would love a big block dart sometime down the road. In the meantime looking at this one makes me very happy.