Hey everyone...I think the last time I posted here was probably early June, the first time my Dart bit the dust (it wouldn't start consistently, and when it did it ran extremely rough and stalled out when put in gear). I tried a few simple fixes like new spark plugs, cleaning the points, even replacing the fuel pump. None of this really helped things, and I gave up and sent the car to a mechanic.

I've made a few posts on forwardlook.net about what's happened since then. Those posts follow:

"I told the mechanic what I went through with the car and what I feared the problem was--something internal like bent pushrods--and he assured me it probably wasn't anything that complicated. I was on his case for all of July to get the car done, but he was so backed up with work he didn't get to it until early this month. Of course, after he finally looks into diagnosing the problem, he tells me--guess what--some of the valves were sticking open and some pushrods were bent!

A few days later he tells me he has it running smoothly and it's ready to go. He cleaned out the valves, straightened the pushrods, changed the oil twice, flushed the coolant and replaced the radiator hoses, replaced the exhaust manifold, points, the drive belt, and a bunch of other little things. So, nearly two months and $1000 later, I have the Dart cruising at 65mph up the CT turnpike towards home on Thursday night. I'm ecstatic--it's running better than ever.

I stop for dinner on the way home, and when I start the car up and try to exit the lot I get a big scare--I push the pedal down and the car stalls. I roll to the side of the road, restart and as soon as I depress the pedal, same thing. I start it again--the engine's having no trouble starting up and idling--but this time I really floor the pedal, and after some hesitation it springs forward. Of course, at the next stop sign it stalls when I depress the pedal slightly. I figure out that as long as I give it a lot of gas from a stop, it won't stall. So I get home just fine. Later that evening I take it out to see if it's still acting up, and it isn't--it ran around town perfectly for maybe 20 minutes. So I park it on the street and head into a bar for a beer with friends. I spend maybe an hour at the bar, then for the short drive home, it's having the stalling problem again. I keep giving strong gas from a stop and I get home fine. I call the mechanic who says it's a problem with the accelerator pump and not getting enough vacuum at the initial depression of the pedal, something he experienced sometimes while working on the car--we agree it's not a big deal since the engine has no problem restarting after stalling, but that I'd try to get back to him soon so he could tweak things.

Friday I decide that, if the Dart is running OK I'll take it to visit my family, about 18 miles away. It stalls once or twice trying to back out of the garage, but I "prime" it a bit, revving it in neutral, and after that it has no sign of the weak vacuum and makes the trip without a hitch. I take it out later that evening, again with no problems whatsoever. Early Saturday morning I take the car out and hand wash it--it had gotten pretty dirty from sitting at the mechanic's place for over a month. Then give it a cruise around town to fully dry it off. Then my brothers want to go for a ride, so we take it out for a little while. It has a bit of the stalling problem, though by now I'm a pro at getting around it, and I return it to my parents' garage running smoothly at about 10:45am and I go out with the family to the ballgame at Yankee Stadium.

After I return, I try to take the car out of the garage at about 6pm--only about 7 hours after it ran fine--and it's like someone sabatoged it while I was away at the game. It starts, runs roughly for a second and dies. I try again, giving it more gas, which makes it idle faster but still roughly, and as soon as I come off the gas it dies. Right away I was pretty sure it was an internal engine problem AGAIN and I had no chance of fixing it myself, and I'm pretty upset. All that time and money, and the car runs for about 2 days. So I guess tomorrow morning I call the mechanic and give him a hard time, and figure out towing AGAIN.

I'm about ready to give up on this car. I've put way too much time and money into it and gotten far too little out of it. I've owned it since the first week of April, and it's been drivable for less than four weeks since then."

The next post:
"So I left the Dart at my folks' place last Saturday night and tried to talk to the mechanic all this week about him making a house call or just making towing arrangements. None of that ended up happening, but I did go back to my folks' place Thurs. night because it was my little brother's birthday and we were having some relatives over for cake and all of that.

My uncle shows up to the party--he hasn't seen the car yet but he's been asking me about it all summer. So I say, come take a look, and maybe you can fix it too! He knows a bit about cars and used to work on his own when he was younger, so I thought what the hell, maybe he can tell what's up with it. So we head out to the garage and lift the hood, and I say "now check out what it does when I try to start it," expecting it to run roughly and immediately die out. Of course, the car starts right up and idles, which it hadn't done since last Saturday morning.

So I just have to laugh, and I'm sitting there shocked and surprised. I get out of the car to check out the engine, and it's purring away, a little rough, but not bad. I back it out of the garage--no stall! Drive down the driveway, no problems. Take it down the street and back up the driveway...running pretty strong! Not as smooth as it was before, having a little trouble uphill, but driving well enough and just burning a little oil. What a relief, though, that it's obviously not that serious a problem. Maybe the high temperature last Saturday had something to do with the temporary breakdown? It was nearly 100 degrees that day...

So I put it back in the garage and give it an hour or two, then go out and see if it will start up again. Sure enough it does, although now it's even rougher, but still running OK and definitely drivable. I went to visit a friend after the party and didn't get back until this morning, but I'm going to see if I can't drive it home and then to the mechanic. I'm not ruling out fuel problems, of course, but now I think maybe the timing is a little off."

And the most recent chapter:
"Last night (sat. night) my friends and I wanted to get some dinner not far from where my folks live, so we dropped by to see how the Dart was doing. I thought, maybe if it's running well enough I'll drive it back to my place w/ my friends following in case of disaster. I turn the key, and nothing. Again, and nothing. So I pop the hood and do a few placebo effect kind of fixes, check the spark plug wires, clean between the points, even shoot some gumout in the carb thinking maybe it'll act as a starting fluid. Sure enough, that does it, and it idles. But it's even rougher and clunkier than the other night. We take it down the driveway and around a cul-de-sac and back--it's really underpowered uphill. When we return to the driveway, I get out to check things out and it's not good. The exhaust pipe is belching smoke w/ a strong oil smell, and I can see some oil leaking under the engine. I check the oil level...it's OK, not like it's burning a ton, but it's pretty bad. So I give up...back in the garage it goes, and I suppose I'll be having it towed this week..."

This car has about 32,000 original miles and didn't drive for many years. Tons of people have told me that as it starts running again--I've put on about 250 miles during the short time the car has actually been drivable--old parts will wear down. Sure, that's to be expected. But should I be having THIS much trouble with the damn thing? I don't understand how a mechanic can fix a bunch of stuff, add replacement parts, have it running completely smoothly and two days later it's done for. It's not like I'm going long distance with the thing or pushing the engine hard.

Any thoughts, opinions, advice, etc... is really appreciated here and thanks for getting through my long story.

--Phil

Nothing! That has to be the coolest car on the planet!

Welcome to old cars 101. Yep, that's what they do, and if you're tenacious, patient and willing to spin wrenches and stick with it, you will learn the things required to keep this thing in a constant state of tune such that it doesn't put you down all the time. Taking it to a mechanic every time it does some oddball thing will not really help you learn unless you befriend a good mechanic, which is what I recommend.

Sorry, I will try to peruse your tome some more later and come up with some "fix" suggestions if others haven't already chimed in. The first two chapters were easy, but I was getting tired toward the end.


D/W

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If it ain't broke, fix it!

O.K. I've owned several of these older cars. What you are experiencing is just about par for the course. It would be good to find a retired mechanic who has worked on many of these cars and is willing to tinker until the problem-S- are solved, once you find a good one, treat him like gold.

It is very likely that you are dealing with multiple problems which makes diagnosis very difficult. You will almost surely end up replacing each and every item which would have required replacement after 40 years of use, even though the car has such low miles. This is normal, and while not very happy, still cheaper than owning a new car.

Start learning how to diagnose and fix things yourself or you will be paying a lot of money taking it to the mechanic several times a month until it's been properly restored after such a long time sitting without use.

Clean all your grounds and electrical contacts.

Remember that without fuel injection, a 'cold' engine does not run as well as one that has been run up to normal operating tempurature. Allow some extra time for warm-up each day and you will have less stalling problems.

Oil out of the tailpipe sounds like a miss diagnosis. All 3 of mine have black soot in the tailpipe. A running engine spits a little water, and mixing with the soot creates a dark black water that looks like oil. Sometimes it will even spray on the ground or nearby objects. Feel the crud by rubbing a little between your fingers Now try rubbing some real oil between your fingers. You will recognize that these are not the same things. Soot is caused by overly rich fuel/air mixture or from incomplete combustion due to mechanical failure (such as valves sticking) or electrical miss. If you where blowing oil out the tailpipe, at least one of your spark plugs would be completely black and fowled in one trip around the block.

If your engine has new plugs, wires, cap, rotor, points, then you might still be burning out crud from when it was running with bad components. Pull ALL of the plugs out and 'read' them to see if you can isolate the problem to one particular area or if it is instead a problem with the carb.

You will also need to check for vacuum leaks. I suspect you have several. Even with a freshly installed manifold, I have found leaks. You will need to seek better than average replacement parts (gaskets for example), or you will be doing repairs 2 or 3 times to fix the same problems. Don't cheap out when the experienced guys tell you it's worth the extra money, but don't get sucked into a trend of replacing things at random hoping to get luck, it rarely works.

Keep reading, searching, and asking questions. You will gain information and might learn to enjoy you cars unique personality. Personally, I've owned several newer cars, and I always come back to ones that I can open the hood and fix on the roadside for anything short of a blown motor.

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1980 Aspen 225 super six

Thanks, guys, for the advice so far. I'm trying to be patient and learn as much as I can along the way, but it's hard not to be frustrated.

Anyway...I have further details on the Dart's issues since I got out of work early, went to the family place and tooled around with the car for awhile. Brought my tools this time so I could actually check some things out. First thing I did was check the spark plugs--really only the first (from the front) I would call oil fouled, the rest were carbon fouled, some worse than others. I cleaned them off and reinserted them. As I was working over the engine, I noticed under it on the floor that all the fluid that was leaking (that I earlier thought was oil) was actually transmission fluid. I suppose there could have been some oil there, but most of what was on the garage floor was pink/reddish and coming from where the tranny meets the engine. I checked the level of the tranny fluid and it's still fine--not sure if this is related to any of the problems here. I'm guessing it isn't.

I start the car up and back the car out of the garage with no trouble...sounds pretty good actually, sounds ok when I rev it, too. I park it in the driveway and check for smoke, and the exhaust seems pretty normal this time. I start driving forward, though, and the smoke appears, more of a white/grey than anything, and definitely not black. I should mention that it hasn't had ANY sign of the stalling problem since last Saturday morning (the 13th). But anyway, the smoke seems to come and go, and at one point there seemed to be clear liquid (I'm assuming water) spraying out the exhaust pipe as well. I'm afraid to drive the thing around now with the smoking, especially if it is a result of burning oil. But anyway, those were my observations earlier this afternoon...

--Phil

Sounds like some trash in the carb, maybe in the needle/seat. Any evidence of gas smell or running out of carb? ...or maybe the choke linkage is binding. I wouldn't worry too much about the smoke, if it is oil, then it burns oil, whatcha gonna do? Just drive it and keep an eye on the oil level unless it's smokin' like a freight train. A lot of times, just driving one that has sat unused for a long time will free up the oil control rings after a time. Pour a can of "TransX" in the trans, by the way. That stuff actually works pretty good to "rejuvenate" old hard transmission front seals. There's a fairly good chance that will stop or at least help the trans leak until it can be fixed right.

D/W

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If it ain't broke, fix it!

Remember also that '60 Darts came from the factory with no fuel filter and no auto trans filter. It's possible that these items may have been added sometime in the past 45 years(!), or maybe not.

And yes, old cars put back into service after extended sitting do tend to go through a period during which you have to repair and replace a great deal of stuff. It doesn't mean they're unreliable, it just means that stuff degrades and fails just as much from non-use as from use—only in different ways.

I agree with the suggestion to find an oldtimer mechanic who has extensive experience with old Mopars. Virtually all present-day mechanics have no idea what to do when faced with an oldie, so they tend to just rack up enormous parts-changing bills. Definitely not the way to go.

I will also give you my standard suggestion: READ! Go see this thread and follow the instructions therein, substituting a '60 Dart factory service manual because that's what you have.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

If the car was sitting for a long time, you'll get lots of rust coming from the fuel tank and clogging up the fuel filter.

After getting mine to run, the first fuel filter clogged up in about 50 miles, took me awhile to figure that out as it was unexpected. I then added a see-thru filter to see what was happening. That clogged in about 10 miles. I then plumbed in a oil filter as a fuel filter and haven't had any more problems (eventually I'll get around to cleaning the tank, and the fuel gauge sending unit)

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Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

yep, i got sick of buying fuel filters so i syphoned out the gas, dropped the tank, poured out everything i could, let it dry, shook it around to loosen little particles, poured those out the filler side, ordered a new filler tube grommet, put it on, lubricated the filler tube with dish soap, put the tank back on and because i had opened up the sending unit just to make sure everything was kosher i was rewarded for all my hard work by a leak from the sender unit that continues to this day even though i also purchased a new gasket and sealing ring. but she starts up every time and runs great, same fuel filter for months now!

I suggest you buy new plugs, not just clean the old ones. Be sure to remove the washers on the new plugs, they are not used on slant sixes, but the parts store won't know that.

If you are seeing carbon and oil fowling, your engine needs more time to work that crud out. Run it! Change the oil/filter frequently so the gunk doesn't just move around and collect someplace different. No joke, once a month for the next 3 months if you drive every day.

I suspect, like Dennis, that the smoke is due to some trash in the carb. You might not see the results of a rebuilt carb until the engine has some time to clean up. A little smoke is O.K. it should clear up as the rings re-seat and the only way to do it is to drive it.

Time will tell if they are going to seat or not. Check that #1 spark frequently to see if it is improving and be sure it doesn't fowl out completely. (that will make things worse)

Once clean oil, plugs, and gas burn out some of that old carbon, it should run much better.

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1980 Aspen 225 super six

Ooops...that's true for '63-'74 Slant-6s, but '60-'62 heads do use the washers on the plugs. Confuzzed yet?

Get a set of Autolite type 925 or 985 spark plugs.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Eh?

D/W

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If it ain't broke, fix it!

First I ever heard of that. I have alwez used washers with no problems. Please attach supporting data and I will go remove all of my washers.

D/W

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If it ain't broke, fix it!

Go do a search; this has been covered numerous times here.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

That's alright. Guess I get an "F" for the day...

D/W

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If it ain't broke, fix it!

I confess I didn't know that the 60-62 heads were different than the 63-74. Thanks for the clearification/correction.

On several early 70's heads I have in my parts pile, I've installed the plugs with and without the washers and it is clear that the plugs don't seat all the way with the washers. Removing the washers made my trucks motor (with the old style head) start -MUCH- better.

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1980 Aspen 225 super six