Last month, we covered our woeful tale of how we began this project. A rain-slickened road and drum brakes led to the situation seen above; our bone-stock, 318-equipped, four-door granny car was found lacking in safety when it counted. Luckily, nobody was hurt, but it was decided immediately afterward to update the vintage brakes and suspension as soon as possible. Wilwood, PST (Performance Suspension Technology), and MagnumForce Racing were all quick to answer the call to help upgrade the front end of this stout little Dart.
The disc-brake conversion kit and a suitable master cylinder and proportioning valve came from Wilwood in Camarillo, California. PST (Montville, New Jersey) supplied an original-performance suspension-rebuild kit with all the parts, pieces, and bushings to eliminate the age-related deficiencies of the Dart's 30-year-old front suspension. Finally, MagnumForce (Campbell, California) turned out to be the icing on this effort's cake, providing not only the people, place, and expertise to do the work, but also a set of trick new tubular upper control arms.
They don't build cars like this anymore, that's for sure. Here's the Dart after it was released from the tow-truck hook, after being tipped up on the dirt embankment for a couple of hours. The mirror didn't even break off!
Additionally, MagnumForce proprietor (and serious Mopar madman) Ron Jenkins provided various other required components and fittings before we were finished, including the braided brake lines. He even rummaged around in his storage loft and found a loaner set of 15x7 police wheels with the 4 1/2-inch bolt circle that were needed for the Wilwood hubs up front.
As a related and final piece to the puzzle, Stockton Wheel (Stockton, California) easily solved the spare-tire problem that exists when driving a car with one bolt-circle size up front and a different size in the rear. These folks manufacture and carry a wide variety of DOT-approved adapters that let you put just about any wheel on just about any hub. I didn't know this when I called to inquire about getting a wheel drilled for both bolt circles, but finding out certainly made life easier.
The inch-thick adapters for this application, whittled out of 6160 aluminum billet, presently give the back of the Dart a wide-track stance with its borrowed rims in place; these are cool pieces. Stockton Wheel also signed up to adjust the backspacing of whatever wheels are chosen for permanent use.
Meet Michelle, one of a half-dozen people who showed up to help before this '71 Dart's wheels even quit spinning. While the other five braced the teetering car, Michelle singlehandedly dragged your humble narrator up and out of the passenger-side door (after I finally found my camera).
During its two days in the MagnumForce shop undergoing this suspension upgrade, nothing was done to the Dart that a competent home mechanic couldn't handle. Aside from a few moments spent with a hydraulic press, the most exotic items used were pickle forks and a flaring tool for the brake lines. And the most frustrating, time-consuming part of the entire process (as seen in the last issue) was removing the outer bushing shell from the lower control arm, which could have been avoided if high-performance, urethane bushings were installed (which reportedly drop right inside the existing shell) instead of rubber.
Of course, after this sort of suspension work, a stop at an alignment shop was required to true everything up. And during the three-hour drive back home after all was said and done, I was amazed at the difference and couldn't believe I'd even been willing to drive it in its previous condition.
All of that mental, "Well, it's a 30-year-old car" allowances as to its handling were now gone. The steering was solid, positive, and quickly responsive, and it no longer had the slightest tendency to wander around in its lane. But the improvement in the braking situation was the most profound of all. I was told that greater pedal pressure would be required with the change to front discs (and no power assist), but any difference was unnoticeable. Instead, I was overwhelmed that its braking action was equal to, or better than, any vehicle I've ever driven. Going from worst to first in any venue is great, but I was able to notice, by its glaring absence, just how apprehensive I had actually been about the brakes during the short time I'd been driving this car-and for good reason! Follow on as we finish our trip to the straight and narrow of Mopar front suspension conversions.
One of the main advantages of the MagnumForce tubular upper control arms is the ability to replace the torsion-bar suspension with coilover shocks. The billet adapter at the left is used in the upper shock-mount location to make it all possible.
What Really Happened That Fateful Day
This car was acquired for the use of my betrothed, Nina, a genuine soccer mom with two preteen boys. Nina is a Norwegian who has driven various types of foreign cars almost exclusively throughout the years, finding most of them quite efficient but also pretty boring. So when this one-owner, mostly garaged Dart recently became available, she ran her hands all along its contours, proclaimed it to be a car with great soul, and heartily agreed it should be ours (you gotta love it).
However, her first behind-the-wheel experience in it was brief. "The brakes are horrible, and I'm not driving it until they're fixed," she said.
The shoes were checked, the brakes adjusted, the hydraulics checked out, and her verdict was the same. "The brakes are still awful, but you can drive it if you want."
Although we declined MagnumForce's generous offer to install the coilovers in this street-only Dart, we couldn't resist showing how it's installed (also clearly visible is the modified rubber snubber for the upper control arm).
And so it came to pass that, on the rain-slickened roads of California's coastal Santa Cruz Mountains, I was nearing the end of an extended, crowded, curving, steep, two-lane downhill run that required heavy brake application, even with the automatic tranny in Second gear and the brakes sizzling. Coming around a tight right-hand curve, I saw a line of stopped cars not very far ahead of me. I stomped on the brake pedal, which had virtually no effect. I was going only about 20 mph at that time, so I pulled it down into Low, hoping for the best.
Yep, running into the cars in front of me was no longer a problem. Instead, the rear tires instantly broke loose and, given the wet road; the downhill, weight-on-the-nose attitude of the car; and the sideways momentum of going around the curve the back end made a quick swing out to the left.
The good news is there were no cars coming the other way as I momentarily took up both lanes. The bad news is the curve was so sharp, I was sliding off the road and onto the embankment before I could do anything about it. More good news: The Dart slid right in between the large oak tree on the left and the telephone pole on the right and, being at a right angle to the road I didn't barrel roll down the embankment. It almost stopped after sliding along sideways in the damp dirt, and I was about to breathe a sigh of relief, but then bad news again: The tires dug in and it ever so gently tipped up onto its left side. Good news: It stayed there and didn't roll over onto its roof.
The Dart was rather precariously balanced, though, and a bunch of folks materialized seemingly out of nowhere to hold it up while I got out. Gas was slowly dripping out of the gas cap, while these folks were frantically hollering at me to get out before it exploded (too many action movies, I guess), but I was intent on finding out where my little point-and-shoot camera had ended up. After all, I knew I would tell this tale for a long time to come, and for a photojournalist not to have photos of such an event was unthinkable.
I also wanted to find my plastic film container that was filled with 93-percent nitro, courtesy of the crew of the hemi-powered, Foothill Flyer front-engine dragster. Assuming the police would probably check things out, that was one conversation this long-haired writer figured would be better to avoid. But the police, paramedics, and fire-department personnel who came along were friendly, understanding, glad no one was hurt, and just interested in pulling the car back onto its wheels and getting it out of there.
In an ultimately futile attempt to get the initial front alignment somewhere close to the proper position, the new PST tie-rod ends were set to the same length as the (well-worn) originals.
The ultimate damage to the Dart was surprisingly minor: one dead front tire, the left rear brake drum filled with differential lube that dripped out of the axle vent, and relatively insignificant dents and dings here and there. None of the chrome trim was bent; the paint wasn't scratched; and the door-mounted mirror, which had been buried in the dirt, wasn't even knocked out of alignment. In fact, the most annoying result was that my ever-present tool pouch, which was on the back floor, punched through the previously pristine headliner, right about where the C-pillar received its ding on the outside. I'm awfully fond of that dent, though, and whatever caused it actually kept the car from rolling all the way over.
When the wrecker pulled up to her house with the Dart on the hook, Nina looked at me, looked at the car, innocently (but pointedly) asked if I had a problem with the brakes, and mercifully kept her I-told-you-so comments to herself. So that's where this all started, and here's where it ends. The good news is, with the new brakes and suspension, Nina is now quite happy to drive the Dart anywhere, anytime. That's also the bad news, since now it looks like I've gotta go and marry her so I can keep driving it too!
