I’ve never stopped working on the car since then and have since stated teaching my nephews how to weld and begun fabricating new cowls, installing TTI Headers and fabricating a new Z Bar for the transmission, installed a MSD Atomic EFI, Borgeson power steering gear box, etc. He was a legend and a genuinely kind human being that loved teaching all the little tips and tricks of how to make a car go fast and run more efficiently. Right around this time, Tiny had passed away. Over the next few years, I was able to get the car running and back on the road, and eventually moved back to Utah, driving the Dart cross country at this point. ![]() So, I loaded the car on the trailer and hauled it to Minnesota. We attempted to finish the car before the move but fell short with fuel lines, wiring, little odds and ends. He taught me how to weld and we fabricated reinforcements for the frame, added thick Hotchkis anti-sway bars front and back, installed a fuel cell, fabricated new leaf spring brackets to relocate them inside the frame, allowing more clearance for wider rear wheels and tires, installed the Auto Meter Gauge Cluster and I finally had a way to view RPMS, Installed thicker torsion bars, Hotchkis shock absorbers, the works… Then, just as we were getting close to finishing the motor, I received a promotion at work which relocated me to St. He showed me how to cut the strut rods, thread them and put a sleeve on them so that we could have adjustable toe-in. So, we dove into swapping all the drum brakes for Wilwood disc brakes front and back. Over the next years he told me we had to get the car ready for all the additional horsepower and before we could start on the motor, we needed to work on suspension, brakes, etc. I was floored and eagerly jumped on that opportunity. To this, he told me that his body was getting worn out and he would love the opportunity to teach someone everything he knows about mechanics and offered to rebuild the car with me. I then asked if he would be able to put the motor in the car for me as that is something I had never done. Anyways, he told me he would be happy to sell it to me even though I admitted I didn’t have all the money up front and would need to pay him bits at a time. He was probably 6′ 9” tall and a mountain of a man, but the smallest of all his brothers. This man was in his mid-seventies and went by the nickname of “Tiny”. He had planned to put it into an old Jaguar coupe back in the day but never got around to finishing the project and it had sat under the hood of the Jag ever since. He told me he JUST sold the transmission but that he had a 340 CI small block with matching 4 speed transmission that had been sitting in storage for 30+ years. I called him up and we hit it off immediately. Oddly enough, a guy just down the street was selling one. So, I looked on a local classified’s website called KSL for a A833 four speed transmission. That is when I learned I could get a four speed to match up to the slant six. ![]() I had been using it as my daily driver and it BARELY handled the freeway speed, parts would fall off, RPMS would be maxed out, no AC Etc. It wasn’t until I was about 24 years old and living in Salt Lake City Utah that I got serious about it. I paid to have the motor rebuilt, new tires, brakes, etc. ![]() Years went by and I did what I could to work on it here and there through high school.
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