BEWARE of “PA Dart Guy”

OK Fellers, here’s the deal. Alan a.k.a. PA Dart Guy sold my son a 68 Valiant, $500 a real good deal. During the transaction he told us that he had a “RUNNING’ 1978 440 out of a motor home that he would let us have for $400. I told him that we would get in touch with him after Christmas.

We went to look at the motor on Sat, January 10th. When we got there Alan explained that the motor had some water in it because it was stored outside and had lost its cover. I told Alan that this build was my sons first build that I wanted something that I didn’t have to do a whole lot to, rings and bearings on the very outside. He said that any rust should be minimal and could be easily cleaned with a ball hone. We settled on $300 and took the motor home.

On Tuesday, January 13th we put the motor on the engine stand and started the disassembly. Keep in mind my 13.5 year old son is doing the wrenching, good father son stuff one would think? We took off the intake and valley pan gasket. The gasket had RTV in all the right places and needed coaxing to get off. We removed the valve covers and the rocker arm assemblies. The right hand head was the first to come off and sure enough there was a little water damage in the 4 hole. No problem, little WD40 and 5 minutes with the ball hone and 98% of it cleaned right up, things were really looking good!

We moved on to the left side where our problems began. When CJ went to remove the head bolts none of them were torqued and 2 or 3 were only finger tight. When we removed the head I noticed that there was NO HEAD GASKET!! I knew right there that we were going to have problems. In the 3 hole the piston was all the way up but had some evidence of water damage. I rotated the piston to the bottom of the hole. What I found is this; Looks like the wrist pin made a gouge in the cylinder wall 3/8” wide and .060 deep give or take , running to within about 1 ¼ from the top of the hole. There is no way that this motor was a RUNNING motor. Someone knew it was A.F.U. and went to the trouble to put it back together so it could be sold as a good motor!!!!! Just so happens that the person who got taken advantage of is my 13 year old son. He paid for some of this motor with money that he earned this summer cutting grass. I make damn sure that he works his butt off and he knows that doing this kind of stuff is a benefit and privilege resulting from hard work and good grades.

I called Alan on Tuesday evening less than 72 hours after buying the motor and told him about our problem. I told him that we wanted our money back because there was NO WAY that the thing was running without a head gasket and a big ole gouge in the #3 cylinder. He said that he would talk to his friend and partner at Chews Towing in Oxford PA, who apparently financed the motor and get back to me. I waited until Thursday and tried to call him again and left a message. As of Saturday evening Alan has not made an attempt to contact me or my son.

Alan, it’s not OK to take advantage of young guys or girls that are trying to get started in this hobby!! Especially a fellow FABO member! If something isn't as advertised it needs to be made right. I hope that this is all a huge misunderstanding and Alan contacts us and we can figure out a solution to this problem.

Here is the link that was used when he tried to sell the motor.
http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/...ad.php?t=49430

Here is the link from when he bought the motor
http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/...ad.php?t=44400
Author: admin