My 1964
DODGE DART G.T.
Two-Door Hardtop, 225 Cu. In.
 |
Home |
Basel, in December 2001
About a wonderful Slant six, and about all the more or less big break-downs.
One fine day Luke turned up to take me for a ride to the near "Alcace". When he came round, he was sitting in his grand-auntie's white 1964 Dodge Dart G.T. two door hardtop.
It was love from the first moment. This car is one of the few Darts that were direct imported from the USA. Luke told me that his auntie will replace it by a 1995 Chrysler Cirrus, so the two following years were restless - for me. Luke already knew the monthly question. "When is your grand-auntie ready to make the deal?" Finally in September 1995 I was the lucky-one.
When I purchased it, the odometer counted 153,000 "Kilometers". The first thing to do, was to clean the car, outside as well as inside. (The aunt was a bad smoker.) Second step was, to build in a suitable CD-hi-fi-equipment. I didn't remove the old - Original Dart! - AM-receiver, I just disconnected it.
So
I was ready to cruise, and I did.
But soon, in spring 1996, the ball and trunnion universal joint of the propeller
shaft was broken. The fun stopped, but not for long time. I got it fixed. The
next thing was the carburetor's acceleration plunger pump who gave up its
service. For this problem, a SFr. 42.00 carburetor-revisal-kit was the solution.
Then everything seemed to work properly. A lot of wonderful cruises followed, and
I spent a nice amount on petrol.
During one of those rides, a loud banging noise tore me out of my daydreams - this time the exhaust pipe broke off, just behind the manifold flange. The pipe wasn't in a bad condition. We welded the broken parts. I'm sure that this part of the pipe is stronger than before.
Now the odometer rolled to 157,000 km. And after this first short year I still got a lot of pleasure with my Slant six. I hope that more Dodge-years will follow.
After some years of driving, the brakes needed to be done. The front brakes had to be replaced. I searched a pair of brakes. When I wanted to change them, I discovered that on each side were different brake systems. that was the point, where I desided to make a "disc-coinversion". A friend already had a restored set of discbrakes. From that time, my Dart reduce speed more efficient. The only disadvantage are the 14" wheels wich were nessesary for the conversion, instead of the Original 13" with the wheelcovers. But with the new wheels (painted in bodycolor) and the dogdishes it looks better.
I drive it, as often as I can.
