My girl friend was unpleasant, so I enlisted the help of a friend's sister to replace her. The friend had been killed in Nam, so the sister was into a lot of drinking. She fixed me up with a real nice girl, and the three of us went out. In the end the sister and I had a little too much to drink. I became involved with the girl while my friend's sister drove. We were way out in the country when we came across a road grader sitting by the road. I wanted to drive it so the girl and I got out and the sister left in the Dart. I couldn't start the grader so we got out just as we heard the 340 coming back, sucking the leaves from the trees by the narrow road. I don't know what was on her mind but she hit the grader with the left head light.
I called my dad and he came with the wrecker and took it back to the dealer's shop. It was in pretty bad shape so Leo traded me another one just like it, but green. By the time they had fixed the yellow Dart I had let the green one get away from me and it hair lipped a tree. I took the yellow Dart back and had it for another nine years. During its warranty period, after I got out of the Air Force and went to work at another CP dealer, I did a lot of warranty work on the car. I pulled the engine, slicked up the heads and had all the moving parts balanced. Our transmission man improved the shift and after I became the rear-end specialist I changed the gears four or five times. I always went back to the 3.23's.
Then I acquired a 440 that was in pretty good shape. Since I could get all the parts through warranty I decided to rebuild it in my spare time. I first stripped it to the bare block, washed it with high pressure water and went to work with a grinder. I removed all the burrs from the inside where oil would be, smoothed the upper oil return areas and drilled holes by the cam bearings and funnel shaped them so that no oil could stand anywhere on the top of the block. Then I pressure-cleaned all of the oil passages, flushed the water jackets and removed the left over casting material. I chased all of the bolt holes and cleaned them. then I boiled the block in acid for two days, washed it again with hot water and blew it dry. I reinstalled the freeze plugs and oil plugs and painted it inside and out. On the inside I used red Rustolem, painting everything but the bearing areas. The outside was Chrysler enamel.
The heads I ported and polished, deburred, smoothed, and painted the same as the block. I used all new valves, lifters and 6-pack springs. I polished the rods, smoothed the forging marks on the crank, had them balanced, and put the engine back together with a Mopar Hemi grind, cam, roller chain, and high volume oil pump. I used Chrysler exhaust manifolds; the right side looked ok but I opened up the left side as much as I could. They were pretty rough on the outside, so I started smoothing them. When I finished they were as smooth as glass.
The transmission man took an old case and put all new Hemi parts and a shift kit in it as a favor. I already had a three-row radiator. I used later model AC brackets to mount the new compressor as low as possible. I painted a 100 amp alternator to match the engine. I used a new Thermoquad from a police car. I had switched to electronic ignition so all I needed were wires and a distributor. I used Chrysler exhaust pipes going to custom-made mufflers that were free flowing and emptied to the side like the TA Cuda. I painted the exhaust manifolds and pipes with white high-temperature paint.
When I was ready to make the swap I brought my Dart into the shop at noon Friday. One guy helped me that afternoon and by 3:00 Saturday afternoon I had the engine running without the exhaust hooked up. I drove around the block to let the salesmen know I had it running. I hooked up the pipes and let it run in the shop until it was good and hot. Everything was working fine and the white paint on the exhaust was baking to a hard finish. I left the Dart in the shop, and on Monday morning the front-end man set the alignment, with the added weight in mind.
When the car was ordered my dad had deleted the strip, and I had removed the Swinger tape. While I was breaking in the engine I saw that the pick-ups had the word DODGE on the tail gate in tape. So I ordered two of the decals, in black, and put one of each quarter panel. With the engine broken in and a new oil change, I hit the highway. My dad didn't like riding with me before. With the 440, the Dart was even more dangerous. I had H70 Goodyears on it and they weren't able to hold it at all. With the shift kit, it broke the tires loose when it shifted under light power. Since I needed fatter tires I changed to the large bolt pattern, later model discs on the front, and an older model rear end housing. While I was getting the parts together to go to the wide 15" wheels I remembered that one of the last Imperials had discs on the rear, so I put them on the new rear-end set up. With the 15" rally wheels I could get some pretty wide rubber under the finders.
Other things I added were a 150-mph dash from a GTS, cruise- control, chrome rally mirrors. power brakes, power windows in the doors, and a twenty gallon fuel tank, with dual flip-up Charger filler caps.
I sold it with a new coat of yellow paint, without the decals.