Well, here is the latest on Aaron's Dart Sport project. I took a day from work a few weeks ago to paint the engine bay as a surprise for Aaron. He needed to see some major progress to keep his spirits up. You know how agonizingly slow it seems to get anything done when you are 15 years old and wanting to start driving your "new" car?

The frame and radiator supports are painted black. The engine bay is the "Viper Race Yellow" he chose for his car color. The shop lighting is not very conducive for pictures that do the bright yellow justice.
We'll get better pics when we have a chance to get it outside on a sunny day. Here it is so far.






Everything has been sandblasted. The outside of the inner fenders was coated with "Rustbullet", primed with epoxy primer, and painted with two coats single-stage urethane. Eventually, that and the backside of the fenders will get undercoating.

The engine bay got two coats of epoxy primer (first coat was on too long - three months - and needed to be scuffed up) then two coats of urethane. This puppy isn't going to rust in Aaron's lifetime.

K-frame got "Rustbullet" tonight. If the weather holds out this week, we'll prime and paint it black. Then the fun begins... clean, sandblast, and paint everything necessary before re-installing back into engine bay.

You know what that means:
Wiper motor
A/C compressor
Steering gearbox
Power steering pump
Alternator
Radiator
Starter
etc.,etc.,etc.

Jerry

_________________
There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity.
Ignorance is not knowing any better.
Stupidity is knowing, yet doing it anyway.

Very clean! I bet your son is estatic. This is by far my favorite stage in a project. The days prior to paint are grulling and even those who have been through this level of restoration feel a sence of relief and new found enthusiasm when they reach this stage. As you say, there is still a fair amount of cleaning, painting ect but with this level of completion, it's easier for the new enthusiasts to see the goal. When I was in high school, there were two kinds of car enthusiests, those who drove new cars bought by providing parents and those who restored older cars with their family and friends. Folks like you and your son are carrying on a charactor and knowledge building tradition with style. Looking forward to updates. -shane

NIIICE!! Say, you wanna come paint my engine bay? Looks really sharp!

Reed

Thanks for the offer, Reed, but I'll have my hands full with this project for quite some time. I can't believe we're about to start putting things back on, instead of taking them off.

_________________
There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity.
Ignorance is not knowing any better.
Stupidity is knowing, yet doing it anyway.

WOW, that is sweet! Let your son know he has a cool dad. I have to work on my car all alone... -zorg

_________________

Here's an update. I'll add pics when they are available.

With my long holiday weekend from work and Aaron out of school since Wednesday, we finally got quite a few things done on his "Dartster" project. Several things have been sandblasted, primed, and painted:

K-frame, transmission cross brace, steering gearbox, center link, tie rod sleeves, upper and lower control arms, drag strut rods, spindles, caliper adapters, and calipers.

Pretty much everything else was replaced under the front end:

Monroe Heavy Duty gas charged shocks, inner and outer tie rod ends, upper ball joints, steering arm knuckles (lower ball joints), upper control arm bushings, lower control arm pivot shaft bushings, drag strut rod bushings, brake caliper seals, and brake pads.

We're now on the hunt for a new master cylinder and front brake lines for the disk brake conversion we did from the Duster (its MC and hoses were shot). With those and some new wheel bearings, we'll be done with the front end.

Next, we move into the interior, looking for any rust-through in the floor. I saw a few pin holes from underneath. We'll take care of that with a couple coats of "Rust Bullet". We also need to locate some firewall insulation padding. We'll strip the interior of all its trim and put it into storage for a while so that we can concentrate on painting the inside and pulling and re-sealing all the glass.

Once we clean and paint all the little "stuff", we'll be ready to install the slant six and everything else in the engine bay (already have the new firewall gaskets and seals kit from Schumacher).

At least that's our plan, and we're trying to stick with it. That's all for now. More to follow soon.

Jerry

_________________
There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity.
Ignorance is not knowing any better.
Stupidity is knowing, yet doing it anyway.