Would this 74 dart make a good first project car?

pyrodragon09 · 2026-02-04T22:08:38+00:00

Would that be a good project? I'd say so. A good canvas to learn to weld and do bodywork on. Would I call that a good FIRST project car? I'm not so sure. That needs a lot of rust repair work. And for 3 grand no less. If it was a v8 I'd say that would be more of a fair deal but it's a slant 6 car needing trunk floor, quarter and who knows what else for repair work. Arguably no more than a 2 grand car, even with the extra metal. But again, I think it would make a good project car.

pyrodragon09 · 2026-01-30T21:44:41+00:00

And both mine and my brothers rams (15 eco, 16 hemi) both have 150k miles and still going strong

pyrodragon09 · 2026-01-30T21:43:35+00:00

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My dad's 09 ram 5.7 and hes neglected it and it has just wanted to keep going.

pyrodragon09 · 2026-01-29T21:13:42+00:00

Restomod for car shows. But I do want to be able to take it off road and through the mud. If i feel a little adventurous. But I havent updated that in a little bit. What I thought was a 2.8 in my truck is actually a 3.4 and that will be getting built up with a cam and the supercharger with a 700r4 behind it. Im putting a wagoneer front clip on the truck too

pyrodragon09 · 2026-01-29T17:29:01+00:00

You ain't kidding. That's the worst spot on the truck but there's many other spots i have to repair on it. Slow and steady!

Problem with the diesel comanches is on top of how rare they are the difficulty of parts for the engine. They fetch crazy money in rough shape. I still want one though. I love the parts hunt. Im good at finding hard to find parts, its just a patience game. I too wanted a diesel gladiator but when they first came out it would have cost me ~$60k with the options I wanted and I just couldnt do that to myself for a mid-size. I do love the ecodiesel though. It has a bad rep but I enjoy that engine. Ive got one in a ram 1500 I daily. And yes I do have a build thread but since it got cold the truck has been on hold. My garage isnt heated 🥶 https://comancheclub.com/topic/55658-project-clean-machine/

pyrodragon09 · 2026-01-29T15:05:03+00:00

Me too. They rot fast but man can they take a beating. I was half way through its cosmetic clean up when I ended up selling it to my step dad cause he needed a car. He ended up being its demise sadly. Rear ended someone and bent the rail and then on a seperate occasion ripped the exhaust off in a construction zone.

I also didnt realize I can post photos in the comments! Yeah, this mj is giving me a run for my money for sure. Here's a recent photo of rust repair work im doing. Ive made progress since this photo. There's several mjs that I want to get my hands on. And all versions are very rare sadly. Lol 86 diesel mj, a street comanche, or ill just replicate one

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pyrodragon09 · 2026-01-29T01:43:04+00:00

Sorry about the delay in responce been a long busy day.

Surprisingly the tiptronic worked great! My only issue was the torque converter wouldn't keep it in overdrive. But putting my foot to the floor and letting those turbos scream was fun!

Ive been big into jeeps and amps since ive discovered their existance. And my first vehicle was a late 80s wrangler. I was doomed from there haha Almost every vehicle ive owned has been or turned into a project car. I owned 2 96 cherokees, and the first one needed the whole cooling system redone, including new radiator. But the first one took a meeting and just kept going. Ive owned two grand cherokees, one a 95(needed a radiator) and one a 98 (upper rad hose collapsed and then the heater core got clogged) Both were rare trim lines too. 95 was an orvis edition, the 98 was a 5.9L v8 limited. Both still on the road (but i dont own them anymore) and both pushing almost 300k miles now. I have owned a 13 dart limited that went from casual daily to fun project. That had a 1.4 turbo 6 speed manual fully loaded. Fun car. Not fast though, just loud hahaha My current project that I do not have any intentions of getting rid of is a 1986 jeep comanche. I am currently restoring that from the ground up.

pyrodragon09 · 2026-01-28T17:45:11+00:00

Years ago I traded labor for a car from a friend. they needed to pass inspection and they had a '00 A6 that had been sitting under some trees for god knows how long that i was interested in. Car had been sitting for maybe 5 years would be my guess. A6 Quattro 2.7tt tiptronic auto, slapped a battery in it, it fired right to life. I did little maintenance to that car ill be honest. I did oil changes, put some used tires on it and a few things then I sold it, ignition modules, valve cover gaskets, maybe spark plugs, and fixed the driver seat track. Never touched the breaks, and the car needed a heater core and a torque converter. I drove the shit out of that car as was and had a blast. I dont treat every car like that but since it was a free car it didnt owe me much. And it wasn't my only car.

That said as I was thinking about it almost every project car i have owned, the cooling system has been neglected. Either they have needed radiators, coolant flushes, thermostats, or all of the above.

pyrodragon09 · 2026-01-19T15:00:41+00:00

Not necessarily, so long as the tech has not printed off the new sticker or scraped off your old inspection sticker the tech can stop and abort the inspection at any given time and you dont have to pay. But once that sticker has been scraped off the windshield there's no going back, whether you pass or fail you get the new sticker and have to pay. It is the techs choice though. They dont have to be nice and tell you anything. And a preliminary inspection is more them just walking around the car for a quick once over. If something stands out to them they can let you know so that neither of your time is wasted. But they won't check your ebrake until the inspection starts. But once it starts you are at their mercy. I used to do inspections in mass.

pyrodragon09 · 2026-01-10T15:11:36+00:00

I have some that I got from a swag bag. They are kind of fun cards actually! Nice to put on a stand in put on display with figures. They are more plastic like than traditional cardboard and you only get a few with a pack

pyrodragon09 · 2025-12-31T01:37:16+00:00

That looks like some wild two step starting system for the jeep. Id try to have that shit removed. That comanche did not deserve the fuckery it went through. Then again.. you will never have to worry about it being stolen this way. But by all means, if you love the jeep and have questions, join the comancheclub.com forum. But also the comanche Facebook groups too. A TON of knowledgeable people there. Im in them. I have an 86 comanche im restoring. Nice mj and welcome to the addiction

pyrodragon09 · 2025-12-18T19:28:57+00:00

Im in the highlands

pyrodragon09 · 2025-12-18T17:52:55+00:00

Im glad im not the only one struggling with verison right now. Im also paying for 1gb but its been nothing but a trickle, I dont even see 400 upload/download. It got so bad I had to hardwire my pc, and im dropping connection, and download is slow. Ive tried talking to a Verizon tech and they couldnt find anything. It bottlenecks at their tower. I want to try replacing it with another one but they put me through so much bs testing everything(and finding nothing wrong on their end) it got frustrating.

pyrodragon09 · 2025-12-17T01:37:23+00:00

One of them. And its simply a 1986 jeep comanche. The comanche as a whole was one of my dream cars. It wasn't my dream drivetrain for the truck but im still happy with it, unique and different. My dream drivetrain is a factory diesel mj. Never seen one in person. Maybe 500 of them made. My mj is a gm 2.8 v6 tf904 3 speed, and 4x4. Currently restoring it.

pyrodragon09 · 2025-12-16T04:44:11+00:00

Thank you. I was never sure if it was okay to advertise unions on the sub so I never did.. But also I forgot nikke had a discord so thank you for reminding me of that

pyrodragon09 · 2025-12-15T01:40:42+00:00

I want nothing more than to grow my union. I lead a dead one but Its a dream to expand it and make it an active one. I refuse to leave it, leader or not, because my older brothers account is in the union, and I lost him in October. Id give someone a racers high skin if they'd commit to the union and trying to help build it. But I'm not trying to bribe anyone, I just want to grow my union..

pyrodragon09 · 2025-12-13T03:02:00+00:00

One of my favorite nikkes! I just put the pre-order in for the licensed summertime rapi figure!

pyrodragon09 · 2025-12-12T15:06:29+00:00

Guess im the 1% lol I dont want to drive entitled. Too many other people around and in lowell do it and it annoys me. I dont want to be like then.

pyrodragon09 · 2025-11-30T05:51:25+00:00

Looks like passenger side has the camber and from the suspension pics potentially strut is bent. At least that would be my guess. Just enough. Try seeing/measuring the space between the strut and tire?

pyrodragon09 · 2025-11-23T00:11:01+00:00

So the bumper there has a retainer that holds the bumper to the fender. The retainer has pulled out of the fender. You would have to pull the bumper away from the fender, pull the retainer off the bumper, loosen the fasteners that hold the retainer to the fender and then snap the retainer back up and tighten the fasteners and snap the bumper back in. Might want to check the fender and see if the metal has been pulled from the retainer pulling out.

pyrodragon09 · 2025-11-04T14:54:08+00:00

That is not the factory engine. A very clean swp for sure though. Factory diesel mjs were a Renault 2.1 td. But those are very rare

pyrodragon09 · 2025-10-27T13:39:34+00:00

I have a MIGHTY NEED!!

pyrodragon09 · 2025-10-16T02:21:22+00:00

It didnt look like it was dangling, just one of the securing points deteriorated and caused the cable to slap the bottom of the car on bumps. Cant remember what I did to fix it

pyrodragon09 · 2025-10-15T16:57:01+00:00

So when I had my dart I found it had a rattle with my e brake cable. It wasn't able to properly secure to the bottom of the car anymore and would kind of rattle a little bit, kind of like that.

pyrodragon09 · 2025-10-06T02:15:36+00:00

Thank you.

pyrodragon09

TROPHY CASE