1960 Dodge Dart Seneca Project | Page 6 | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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1960 Dodge Dart Seneca Project

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Here is a pic of the dash from the same model:
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The brown car in the attached photo is the actual car I bought. The green car is what they looked like new.

It's a beast that's for sure! I really like the front bumper and the dash on this model. If I decide to keep her my plan is to drop in a ridiculously powerful BB Mopar and have a hell of sleeper on the street:D When I say ridicoulously powerful I'm thinking along the lines of 750 - 1000hp on pump gas:burnout: A turbo motor isn't out of the question.

I'm hoping that buying the car will be more motiviation for me to build a detached garage to store our current rides. I will need the whole attached garage for the restoration on the "new" Dart.
 



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Looks real nice, Rick.

Are you building this to be a show car?
 



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No, just a driver. It would need a full paint job to be a show car. That's may be phase three if I really like the way the car runs with the new drivetrain.
 






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Slowly coming back together...
 












dash3.jpg
Just put the dash together...
 






That is such a great looking dash. Did you have to cut welds to remove it?
 












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Everything is coming together slowly, but surely... So many little projects along the way that eat up tons of time.
 






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Here is one of those time eaters... The little adapter that attaches to the cylinder head took me three tries and hours of time to get to the final product:eek:
 






It's the little things that take the longest time.

Be glad you aren't doing an entire custom installation. I had to fabricate so many pieces on my conversion...

The good news is, now I'm pretty good at fabrication!
 






It is a full custom install. Motor mounts and tranny mount have to be fabricated. The mounts they used back then aren't up to the task. For example... The transmission was resting on a coil spring from the factory. The engine mounts were made of 1/4" x 1.5" bar stock bent into a U shape which turned the bar stock into a spring. The advertising of the day called it "floating power" LOL.
 






My bad - I thought you were doing more of a rebuild than a custom installation.

"Floating power"? I guess they expected/allowed a lot of engine movement. Maybe it was a way to isolate engine vibrations from the chassis.

Either way, it's pretty wild marketing!
 












My bad - I thought you were doing more of a rebuild than a custom installation.

It's definitely a resto-mod. I've been making subtle modifications to many parts that most people will never notice. I boxed the lower control arms and front subframe crossmembers and I will be fabricating subframe connectors as well.
 






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dome_light.JPG
The going is really slow right now. Just getting everything back on the car and wiring everything up. The dome light is out of a 1920s Dodge. It has a stainless steel bezel and a glass lens. Unfortunately the shot didn't come out great as the stainless steel was reflecting the black herculined floor.
 






Milestone day. Mated the engine and transmission for it's insertion into the engine compartment tomorrow morning. Why tomorrow? That's when I could get a friend over to help. The motor mounts need to be custom fabricated and it will be much easier with a helper.

I sure hope we can pull it off in a few hours, at least getting the mounts fully tacked in place since tomorrow is supposed to be 108 degrees and the car has to be pushed outside for this process:eek:
 






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engine_installed.jpg
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The engine is finally in it's new home.
 






Very nice.
 






OD_hole.jpg
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Needed to make room for the OD unit.
 



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carbs.jpg
engine_angle.jpg
engine_right.jpg
dash_in2.jpg
dash_in3.jpg
Engine's all dressed, dash is in and the wiring is well on it's way.
 






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