1963 Dodge 330 Resto AutoHD : 1967 Dart GT
What this all about?
I don't know if it would be accurate to describe what is being done with these old cars to be true restorations. Restoration means "to bring back to original condition", and I don't have the time or money to undertake such a process. A popular buzz word these days is /Restification/, which would be a blend of restoration and modification. I don't really like for this term much as it doesn't really mean anything, except to say, "its not a restoration to the current exacting original standards". A better term for what I do would be Resuscitation, (i.e. "bring back from the dead"). This is more fitting as many of my project cars start out at what most would consider the end of an automobile's life. They were either in the junkyard or on their way to the junkyard. These pages exist to demonstrate to some of my friends that don't happen to live near me that I am actually fixing some of the rust heaps that I've accumulated. (Here is the proof!)
If you don't want to wade through a bunch of pictures here a quick set of images that provides a before and current presentation.
This Wagon left the factory as a low optioned base model six passenger wagon. It came with the standard no-cost color combination of WW1 white with a red interior, A-903 three speed, and a 225cid slant six. The original window sticker was in the glovebox and showed only four options: heater, electric rear window, antifreeze, and expidite. The wagon didn't have a roof rack, rear bumper foot pads, or the D-pillar chrome handles. It was a bare bones 330 wagon. No radio, no outside rear view mirror. This wagon was a very similar starting point to the 1963 Ramcharger 330 wagon which was a WW1/PP1 car as well, but unlike this stripper wagon, the Ramcharger wagon was optioned with a roof rack.
In the late 1990's, a good friend made me aware of a local artist that said he had a 1962 Dodge station wagon parked in a barn about 20 miles outside of town. When I arrived at the old farm house, it was indeed a station wagon and it was indeed in a barn, but it was actually a 1963 model.
The initial survey of its condition revealed some significant problems. the driver's side of the lower cowl was completely rusted away and the upper cowl from one side to the other was terrible as well. water that leaked through the cowl must have trapped between the rubber mats and the floor pans and caused all of the floorpans to completely rust away. Six passenger wagons have a large spare tire well in the trunk and this was completely rusted out as well. Further body damage was found in the lower rocker and front fender. Evidently this car was involved in an accident in this area and a rather poor job was done repairing the bent inner rocker, fender, and outer rocker. the door was replaced with a 1965 Plymouth door, which fits, but is not an exact interchange.
Pictures of Before-Shots and what the wagon looked like when I got it.
While I like the uniqueness of a six cylinder wagon, this car is going in the direction of a little more brute strength under the hood. Since an RB-block four speed requires some fairly unique components, I spent several years collecting the right parts, such as a 1964-65 A-833 four speed, the correct driveshaft, crossmember and bellhousing, and of course, the right clutch linkage. As much as possible, OEM components will be used. This not so much a factor of maintaining some degree of originality as it is a budget-minded, simplistic approach to the project. While I collected the parts, I bolted them up to a drivetrain mockup in the wagon.
Pictures of the drivetrain mockup.
The A-833 four speed was not available until 1963, however as far as all the aspects of a transmission swap are concerned, the B-body changed very little between 1963 and 1964, making this swap very easy using facotry parts. For more information about the A-833, see AutoHD's A-833 Article.
The cowl on 1962-1965 B-bodies was a terrible design. It traps leaves, pine needs, and debris in several places, and eventually rots out the lower cowl. It is extremely hard to access the inside of this cavity for cleaning. In the case of this station wagon, there was excessive rot and large holes in the lower cowl above the driver's feet, rusted holes down the middle of the cowl above the heater core assembly, and several more rusted holes around the vent on the passenger side.
Budget and time being what there were, a complete cowl replacement and window removal will have to wait until the exterior of the car is to be painted. In the meantime, I sectioned part of the upper cowl out of the car, which was easy due to all the rust damage, and repaired the cowl from above. Long-hair fibreglass was used to seal the welded edges in addition to some seam-sealer.
As stated earlier, the floor pans were simply destroyed. I replaced them with some good quality replacements available through Kramer's. On the negative side, the rear replacements did not go all the way up to the rocker ledge as did the front pans, however both front and rear pans had all the beads and depressions in the right places, and overall, I am extremely happy with them.
In addition to repairing the floorpans, the rear tire well was also
completely rusted away. Finding an exact replacement pan just wasn't
happening, so I decided to adapt an excellent truck pan I cut out of
this 1966 Coronet parts car.
After doing all this floorpan replacement, and having the complete drivetrain removed from the car, I certainly wasn't going to settle for some rattle-can paint to seal it all up. With help and advice from my good friend Kurt, and the local PPG paint supplier, I tried auto paint for the first time.
Initially, SEM metal etching primer and Mar-Hyde Rust converter primer were used, followed by Omni MP282 SV High Build 2K Primer, and finally Omni MTK Acrylic Urethane.
Before I got a hold of it, this wagon was involved in an accident that damaged the left fender, front door jam, rocker, and believe it or not, the dash frame. If you look at this early picture you can see the two switches to the left of the steering column appear to be misaligned. The pot metal instrument cluster housing was even bent. For the cluster housing, because it is a pot metal item and not easily repaired, I found a replacement, but as for the frame, I straightened it out myself. Its not perfect, but its a lot better than it was before.
Once all the parts are clean and organized, final assembly finally begins...
This car was given a blackout treatment behind the grille from the factory. I tried to reproduce this, hopefully, with over-restoration of the effect.
Pictures of how I restored the blackout area behind the grille.
To read more about this often over-looked effect, see AutoHD's Guide to the blackout effect.
Around Halloween 2005, I dropped the engine into the car. Here are some pictures
This car came with a 3.23 open 8-3/4 rearend with tapered axles. Since a SG couldn't be fitted the rearend without some axle work, I decided to update it a bit with a 1966 Coronet rearend housing with flanged axles, a 489 3.55 SG carrier, and 11" drums.
With a mixed bag of parts making up this RB engine, finding the correct combination of pulleys and alternator brackets was a challenge. The 1973 heads have the provisions for later alternator bracket bolts, and the water pump housing is a 1963-1964 style where the alternator brake bolt near the water neck is a little more centered than the later heads. The balancer is a non-symmetric big block style balancer. I probably could have spent $300 or so for all new pulleys and brackets, but I wasn't confident that it would all work with my engine components.
The pulleys were parts bin units. I'm not sure of the exact application. They might be from a small block. The Alterator brackets are 1963-1965 B/RB with A/C brackets. They were also used as early as 1960 on non-A/C applications. While they were used on production Max Wedge cars, they were used on some promotional photographs of stand alone Max Wedge engines of the era, so I like the idea of using them here.
I installed a Hays street/strip clutch that is a heavier unit than the stock big block clutches. From my experience of broken torque shafts (z-bars) with my daily driven four speed Dart, I decided to beef up the clutch linkage as much as possible so the pressure from the pressure plate springs is applied to the clutch assembly, and not to the weaknesses in the clutch linkage.
I started with a few six cylinder 1962-65 B-body torque shafts, a perfect and a 1962-1965 V8 B-body torque shaft. Since the V8 unit was so nice, I decided to keep it on the shelf and build a stronger V8 unit out of one of the six cylinder units. On six cylinder shafts, the tube the factory used was much lighter and of a small gauge steel compared to the V8 unit. Additionally, one of the arms is shorter on a six cylinder unit. For the modification, the short arm was extended, the tube was reinforced, and some bracing was fabed for both arms.
I had to fabricate from scratch the bracket that bolts to the bellhousing and holds the right ball stud for the torque shaft (visible in one of the images). I also reinforced the fender apron where the torque shaft's left ball stub is located (I once witnessed this fender apron fold and buckle under the stress of a truck clutch in a 1964 Valiant). My reinforcement isn't tremendous, but I hope it is sufficient.
The last item I reinforced was the clutch pedal support. This is the bracket that bolts to the firewall and supports the master cylinder, and holds the pivot for the brake and clutch pedal. Once the clutch linkage was installed, the bracket flexed tremendously while the clutch ledal was actuated. To help secure this, I welded a 9/16" thick washer to the bracket so that a threaded rod could run from that hole down to the floorpan near the exit hole for e-brake cable. the added support helped a good bit. The thread rod works well, but I'd like to replace it with a more factory looking support piece in the future.
This is a straight forward section. The wiring harness is nothing more than the original wiring harnesses with the addition of an electronic ignition wiring harness added. I decided to mount the ECU near distributor. I made a bracket from some 1/8" X 1/2" steel bar. The ECU tucks in between the two horns. The bracket bolts to a few holes that already existed in the core support (perhaps they are for A/C components). Location of ECU.
I wanted to add a 3/8" line to the wagon to feed the 440. The same engine was in a 1974 Plymouth Satellite and it would run out of gas at the end of the 1/4 mile. Finelines and The Right Stuff sell nice pre-bent 3/8" lines for sedans, but nothing for a station wagon. Where the sedan line ends behind the 8-3/4"'s center housing, the wagon line continues over to the driver's side quarter panel to meet up with the tank. The line was difficult to bend, even with a decent tubing bender (oiling line before bending with WD40 helped too). but the tubing bender couldn't with a radius less that about 2", so no one will mistake the line for a factory piece. It does, however follow the path of the original line so won't interfere with suspension or exhaust, or get ripped by road debris.
The most daunting task was building a 3/8" sending unit. Although 3/8" sending units are available for old mopars, they are only available for /sedans/, no station wagon support. I rebuilt an A-body sedan unit by adding a 3/8" line and extending the float arm. It was easier than I thought. I also added a vent tube to the station wagon gas cap. Pictures of all of it follow.
Sending unit modified for a 3/8" fuel line.
I bought 25 feet of steel line, and believe it or not, I used all but 2 feet on the fuel line and the sending unit tube.
In search of Parts
- 8-3/4" housing-carrier stud, 3/8-24 thread.
- gas tank sending unit pn# 2275588
- gas tank seal pn# 2123656
- steel clutch rod washer #4019412
Relevant Links
- http://www.moparsbymosher.com/
- http://1962to1965mopar.ornocar.org