Here we go a bit of an update on project Orange in the UK.
As some of you know I sold my barracuda after owning it for fourteen years in February this year and purchased my next project a 1968 dodge dart 2 door sedan as a rolling shell, the idea was just to fix the steering ( the box was missing) and put an engine and box in it with the cash that was left over for the sale of the Cuda and use it. Well!!
The first problem was the car didn’t fit in my garage it was just a couple of inches too long so off came the boot lid front and rear bumper but it still was just a bit too long so I had to remove the rear light lenses and then modify the garage door lock, success it fits just.
When I bought the car I knew that I was going to have to replace the roll cage at some stage. But I had planned to do that after I got the car running, it wasn’t until the Dart had been dropped off at mine that I sat in the car for the first time and realized that when I adjusted the seat to my liking my head was touching the main hoop, not a problem move my seat forward I thought, no as I leant forward my head pumped into the front hoop and my legs were now hard against the brace under the dash. So the cage was going to have to be removed before the car hit the street among a lot of other things. So I rang Hauser’s to provisionally book the car in for a new cage to be fitted and was told it would be at least a couple of months and that it would be a lot cheaper to remove the old cage myself, made sense. So that weekend I went into the garage to start chopping the old one out, but first I had to rip out some of the paneling that was in way easier said than done, when the previous owner had put it in he didn’t intend it to be removed, well I had a big hammer and it came out. After four days and very sore knees the paneling and cage was out. It was then I started to look at the rest of what was left of the interior mmm it didn’t look good so many different colours, I may as well paint that while I am waiting for the cage to be done.
It’s not the prettiest of jobs I know but I never intended this to be a show car it just had to look reasonable from 20 feet. I have not painted the inside of the doors yet as they are coming off as the hinge pins are shot on both sides.
It was about this time I spoke to Blue about the cage and he suggested that I would be better off removing the dash and getting the cage as close to the screen as possible, this would also give little old me more room to get in and out of the car. Good idea I thought so but to get the dash out on an A body you have to remove the front screen and that had not been out since it was fitted in 1968. the screen rubber had gone brittle in fact so had the screen as a friend and me found out as we tried to remove it, as piece of glass started to flake off. We managed to get it out in one piece but it is scrap as the bottom of the glass has delaminated very badly. The dash has now been removed along with the very heavy heater thingy that Blue dislikes
This is when I found out that the front glass is different on a 2 door sedan to a hardtop so the search was on to find a new screen when Blue suggested that it may be the same as a Australian four door valiant and that Kev may have a spare, he had so job a good un. I also managed to find a screen rubber on ebag. Unfortunately as the rubber was removed from the hole it pulled all the paint off, so I have had to rub it down and prepare the area for paint. As with the rest of the car I found zero rust in this area.
Not too bad a job even for me and under the florescent lights in the garage I cant see the join although it may look bad in the photo.
The next job was to tackle the damaged door striker this had been damaged due to the hinge pins having nearly worn through
A repair plate was made and welded into place a bit of snot a it looks as good as new
Even the door lines up with the hinge pins fitted
New lightweight dash from DRE(uk) had it trial fitting
I also took the opportunity to clean up the bulk head as all the paint had started to flake of in places due to the fenderwell headers; I used a twisted wire brush on the angle grinder to get back to bare metal and welded up the hole for the old bulkhead connector then repainted in heat proof paint. I not to sure on the colour though. I may go back and weld up some of the unused holes and repaint again?
Its was at this stage things started to go wrong for me, firstly the money I was going to use to get the cage done and finish the car is tied up in shares with the company I work for, well the company is American and the shares plummeted and I lost a under a couple of thousand pounds before the company froze them to protect us. :-( So I have had to put the cage on hold until a lot later in the year if not next.
The next thing was I collapsed at work with some severe chest pains and pins and needles up the left arm, at first I thought that I had had a heart attack but it was diagnosed as Pericarditis an infection in the muscle group around the heart and that group had gone into spasm and smacked my heart. It gives the same symptoms as an attack but you recover very quickly, but this meant I was not allowed to do any work or anything for a while not even drive. Many thanks to Dave and Helen of
www.quartermilehigh.com/ for dropping a load of DVD’s to help pass the many hours of boredom. When I got the all clear to go back to work I was well chuffed.
I was back for three day when I got a letter calling me back into hospital this time for my knee operation, I shouldn’t complain I have only been waiting for nearly four years. That was five weeks ago and I am still hobbling about although it much easier now. I might even get some work done on the car before I have to go back to work although being on half pay is really starting to hurt.
I will post some more as and when I do anymore
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