Took possession of that red '71 Dart 4-door today. Got a whole shload of extras: FSM, complete detailed handwritten records with many receipts for every bit of work done on the car since its purchase brand new, a car cover, some tune-up parts, the original painted gas cap (it's got a locking one now), and—since the previous owner is moving out of province—an excellent lettuce spinner, a hand blender, a cool old porcelain-over-steel-and-stainless kitchen scale and assorted knicknacks.
The car failed this morning's provincial safety inspection; four of the eight brake shoes (the primaries) are deemed too thin. I could maybe quibble that point a little, but not too much, they're pretty thin. The lower ball joints (or maybe it was the uppers?) are deemed to have too much play. And the left rear wheel cylinder's got a small leak. I face an immediate decision whether to refurbish the 4-wheel 9" drum brakes, or upgrade now to something better. The former option would be fastest. The latter option would cost a great deal more and take a lot of hurry-up shipping (no junkyards here have any A-body parts), unless someone reading this has brake upgrade parts for me, ready to go right this minute
but would wind me up with better brakes. I'm thinking the less-costly path to acceptable results will probably win out this time over the more-costly path to better results, thus buying me plenty of time to figure out the brakes I want to wind up with eventually and collect parts more slowly and economically.Outside of the safety failures, there are some things that need addressing soon. The exhaust pipework is tired front to back, though not leaking yet.
The Holley 1920 carburetor is original at 142k miles and is showing some operational symptoms that could probably be mostly adjusted out, but I think I will just replace it.
The car has coilover shocks at all four corners. Mmmm...that might not be a right-now fix, but those'll go away. I will probably wind up buying new leaf springs for the car; I'm guessing the coilovers were to compensate for the rear sag that is typical of '70s A-bodies with some years on 'em.
That's about all the "right now or real soon" stuff. There's an endless amount of "would be nice" upgrade-y type stuff, of course, that'll get addressed gradually as long as I own the car.
Oh, and the garage called me to take a look underneath while they had it up in the air. They and I concur: Minimal surface rust only and even the floor looks solid. Sometime in the recent past (must look in the logbook!), most of the steel fuel line from tank to pump was replaced with rubber fuel line hose neatly tie-wrapped at intervals to the tank vent line and to the unibody rails. I'm still trying to decide whether I approve, disapprove or am indifferent on this.
Pics of the car are Here.
