Well some of you may know I headed out on Friday to Wisconsin to pickup my new toy. Picked up the trailer and loaded the truck for my journey. I was so pumped!! Winds were super high here in Ontario, pushing 50 mph. So it started out interesting enough. I left around 2:30 and arrived at blueswinger around 8 am. Met Chris and we got around to checking out the dart. Clean interior, under the hood all original and fairly clean except some scaly rust starting. No biggie nothing too drastic. Looked up at the hood, underside of hood is starting to show more scale...hmmmm. Body doesnt look too bad, 1/4's will need lwr patches, but I expected that. I crawl underneath to take a look and see how "solid" it is. Now I know in my mind what I was hoping to see, but I get to finally see what it was really like. In spots yes it was solid, could see some orig paint, in other spots, like the bottom of the rockers, quite a bit of scale forming. Move to the back, and I see rust and LOTS! Rear shackle boxes are pretty much rusted out. Well blueswinger said that something could be "fabbed up" ....Fabbing such an easy word to throw around, when in reality it involves or could involve a load of work. I check out the rear frame rails and pretty rusty. Being up in Ontario, I am used to that, but this is supposed to be a super solid foundation with no patches or welding needed in the pans or frame!! Well I get picking around the rear rail, lots of rust starts flaking off...I mean lots! I put my finger inside the frame and its the same, flaky, peeling, soft.. I see a spot behind the axle that doesnt look good as well, flaking, rusty etc. I could literally squeeze the frame and feel it give. I didnt want to really go to hard at it, so I point it out to blueswinger and he climbs under and checks it out and agrees with me. If I had taken a screw driver to it, there would be a hole in the frame very easily!! At this point I figured Im not getting a good feeling about this. We go for breakfast and blueswinger graciously buys. Good breakie, I was due for some good food. It was 18 hours of straight driving. Well we get back to his house and I have decided to pass on the car. We had emailed back and forth for 2 weeks and this car was supposed to have no frame floor or pan issues!! Top half of gas tank is as scaly as it gets, so the trunk would be the same or getting close to it!! This wasnt a short 3 or 4 hour drive. This was 18 hours of straight driving!! I dont have a welder, nor am I a welder. So I figured to put both rear rails, shackle boxes I am looking at an easy $1000!! What a disappointment, I had been reassured no welding other than the body would be needed. I left, before I left blueswinger offered me a hood for my wasted time....I gladly declined(wtf do I need a hood for???) I cant believe I went to all this trouble to look at something that is rotted in the ass-end. I finally got home at 4:30 in the am. Another 18 hours straight....no sorry, I stopped and slept for 2 hours. I was to meet another fabo member, but by this time I was pissed and wanted to go home. Meeting "efriedrich" would have added 2 hours onto my drive. So I declined. So all told, 38 hours, around $500 and 1500 miles wasted!! Not happy, not impressed, but hey I got to do my Kiegel excercises for the next time I get f'd!! The 70 dart is a donor car at best, unless someone wants to invest in frame rails, boxes etc!!! What an absolute waste of time!!
