Need some car advice

I need a daily driver that's good on gas and somthing I can understand mechanicly ( old and carbed ). I was looking through the want ads and found a few cars that looked appealing, a '73 Olds cutlass w/ 350 rocket, a '63 Falcon Futura w/ 6cyl, a '72 Dart w/ 6cyl and a '73 Thunderbird w/ 429. I figured that even though I liked the sounds of a 350 rocket or a 429, my wallet wouldn't like the gas bill so, that narrowed it down to the Falcon and the Dart. When I called about the Dart, a recording went " Im buesy, call back later " in a rude tone and that narrowed it down to the Falcon or keep looking. What do you guys think about a '63 Falcon Futura 4dr with an automatic? My dad said that when I went to look at it, to carefully check the A frame because old falcons used torsion bars and if the A frame was rusted too much, the torsion bar would strip and spin out and the car would have no front suspension, is this true?

Falcons don't have torsion bars.......

Quote:

---

Falcons don't have torsion bars.......

---

. . but they do have rust. :LOL:

Darts have torsion bars.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Dave Severson
Falcons don't have torsion bars.......

---

Ok, thanks. I knew somthing was fishy with what my dad told me just didn't know what so that's why I asked. What should I look for major problems other than a cracked or rotted frame? The guy says he drives it daily to work and back and I have seen the car before and it looks rust free when we drove by it b4, black paint. he want's 850 but will lower the price. Henry Can the rust you'r talking about cause problems?

They don't have frames either, they're unibody cars. Chassis support members are welded as part of the floor pan. Take an ice pick with you and poke around the support members. If the ice pick penetrates you got problems, or rather, the seller does.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Bob Parmenter
They don't have frames either, they're unibody cars. Chassis support members are welded as part of the floor pan. Take an ice pick with you and poke around the support members. If the ice pick penetrates you got problems, or rather, the seller does.

---

Thanks for the advice Bob.

I just went and looked at a Dart the other day. Look near the rocker panels or right under the doors and all, Darts will rust there a lot. They say that Dart are known to rust out around the back panels a lot, now I am not sure if that's true but so far from what I have seen from those cars it is. Also go in the car and pull up the carpet and look at the floors and look in the door jams, etc, especially near the front. The Dart I wen't and looked at looked alright from a distance and then close up the whole under carrage was all rusted the entire engine compartment was rusted, all the panels on the front back, side, etc was rusted so bad it had holes in it and moss growing out of them. It also depends on where you live so if your on the West then you won't have to worry about that problem AS MUCH.

That dart motor is probly a slant 6 those motors are hard to kill if you dont like the dart let me know how much it is.

the dart normaly will rust bottom of the rear quater panels, the floor, and at the corner of the door jams

Quote:

---

Originally posted by csf03716
hey matt..the falcon is a very popular little car and fairly cheap to restore there are a few part sites out there and a club in new jersey..it was the basis for the mustang, so if you know where the stangs rust...there also quite similar to the early chevy 2's (nova)..go for it!

---

Yep, going to look at it saturday, I'v seen it in passing by there house but never put it togther that the car in the ad was the car I saw b4, my mom pointed it out to me that day, that's how I remembered it. fairly gloss black ( dirty when I saw it though ) 4dr, no rust that I could see. 54 Belvedere the Dart is a '72 Dart Custom, in gloversville Ny ( 518 ) 848-4741 is the number, I'm not going to bother with it. Aparently the guy drives the falcon daily.

Hey matt, The 350 rocket isnt that much of a gas guzzler. with the 73 it was a smog motor, so its not built for performance. You can build it up if you want, but in its current state its not inhumanly bad. I got about 17 city 22 highway with my Cutlasss running a 403, and my 260 only got slightly better mileage. You might want to give it another look.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Streets
Hey Matt.. what was "Gloversville, NY" famous for?? :)

---

I didn't know so I looked it up but am unshure of my finds, it could be the library, the fact that it's near the earie canal or somthing else I didn't find.:)

Hey Streets, I know. Is it the only town in New Yuck named Gloversville???????

Well, I looked at the Falcon. too my suprise, it was the same falcon I had seen but bought by someone else and he was now reselling it but, I didn't get it. The motor was running way to rich, he cut the dash apart to put an aftermarket stereo and there were 2 holes each side of it from where the knobs were, and the unibody was falling apart. Also the exzaust was low, right rear 1/4 was rotted, some wiring was laying on the floor. somthing happened to the seat trac and seat no longer moved. Oh and the front end was loose and clanky. He said it was bushings but I knew better, when I pushed up and down on the rear of the car to test the suspension, the whole front of the car went side to side.He wanted $800 for it and I don't think it's worth $500. I'm going to look at a '66 Fury 3 for $600 and if that's not the 1, the '73 Cutlass for $500.

I also saw a nice restorable/ possibly drivable 1968 Ford Torino. It's rusty but solid, needs no panal replacement but the bad news is, it's a compleate documented # matching 32k mile original. The interior is MINT original, dash is excelent. noone was there when I looked at it and it was locked up but the documents and paperwork/ brochures/ owners manual were laying in the seat. That would be just too good to drive daily specially with it being 32k original.

Had the Mopar body rust issue explained to me a long time ago, not sure if it's 100% factual or not, but seems logical...

In the late 60's to mid 70's Mopar had an odd method of applying the rustproofing to the bare sheetmetal. The unibody structure moved along the assembly line and was dipped in a large tank of the rustproofing chemical. The chain system pulls the body up out of the tank and the excess drips off. There were areas of the floor pan where there would be standing pools of the chemical so some genius decided the best way to remove those pools of rustproofing chemical was to dip the still bare sheetmetal unibody into cold water. The theory was the excess is flushed out and the water dries fast enough that it didn't dilute the chemical sticking to the sheetmetal. Apply paint to the dry metal quick enough and it shouldn't rust.

That's why you can peel back the carpeting off an original 70's Mopar and see a straight line of rust about a foot up from the floorpan running horizontally...

As to the Falcon, you probably had rusted out shock towers in there, making the front end all wonky when you pushed down on the fender.

I finally got ahold of somebody about the '66 Fury and, no motor or tranny, out of the question.