I’m so happy right now I could hug a tree, because for the first time in almost twelve years of ownership, I can close the driver’s door of my 1965 Dart without slamming it, and I can open it without applying 750 lb.-in. of pressure to the door handle button. Getting there was a multiple-step process involving several months, a Mopar specialist, and a tree, and it all culminated with my wife mentioning that “rednecks aren’t just from small rural towns, are they?” Owning an old car is always an adventure, isn’t it?
I took the first step in repairing the door back in March or April 2025. The driver’s door hinges were both worn beyond their service life, as the good men and women at Chrysler didn’t design the lowly Dart to be around in 1970, let alone in 2025. My research disclosed that the lower hinge (pictured above) is extremely hard to drill through and requires specific reamers to ensure pin alignment. Because buying the tools and figuring everything out would eat up a fairly significant amount of time and money, the general consensus among A-Body aficionados is that sending them to a vendor in California named “MoparLeo” is the only way to go, so I did. Leo will only rebuild an entire set of four hinges, so the passenger hinges will most likely end up baffling someone at my estate sale.
Because I keep the Dart at home from November through May and rarely drive it in the summer, I didn’t want to pull the door off and wait weeks for hinges while I was still driving the car fairly regularly, so I bought a set for a very reasonable price from a guy who was parting out a ’65 Dart sedan. I sent them out and Leo had them done in a couple of weeks, primed and ready to paint. This summer, I bought a can of “Medium Turquoise Metallic” and gave the hinges a splash so I could have them ready to install when I brought the car home from storage.
This is the old lower hinge; I include this illustration to show that I don’t just fix things for fun; this hinge is completely wasted.
Replacing the hinges is not that difficult. Removing the door makes the most sense, but I usually work alone and remounting the door would have been bulky, so I replaced the hinges one at a time. The first step is to remove the fender apron, which is held on by six bolts. I also jacked up the car and removed the tire to give myself more room to work.
This is what you’ll find behind the apron – good access to the hinges. One bolt for each hinge enters the A-pillar from the outside, while the other two are accessed by removing the driver’s kick panel inside the car. Therefore, each hinge is held to the pillar by three bolts.
Then, I removed the two bolts holding the hinge to the door, replacing the top hinge first. Because I bought the Dirty Dart from a salvage yard and it is clearly a beater, I wasn’t terribly careful about watching the paint, and indeed I ended up chipping the front edge of the door (worse than it already was – I’m not the first person to try a door adjustment on it).
Before I reinstalled the pillar bolts, I wrapped some 3M “Strip-Calk” around them to seal out water; Chrysler had done something similar when the car was new.
Here are the new hinges installed; the next step is to wrestle with door adjustment. I’ll save you the profanity and tell you that it took about an hour to get it to a place where I was reasonably happy with it. Fore-aft adjustment is handled by the pillar bolts, left-right adjustment by the door bolts. There are myriad combinations, most of which are wrong.
Afterward, however, the door was just as hard to open and close as it ever was, even though it was no longer bumping the center post on its way in and out. The reason was this: at some point, something clearly fell on the car and bent not only the drip rail but also the door frame itself. This is the driver’s door.
This is the passenger door. See how the door should be just about flush with the pillar? The driver’s side was squishing the weatherstripping and putting undue pressure on everything from the latch up.
Therefore, I decided to use a tree to pull the frame back into position. My lovely bride took this picture of me setting up my come-along and straps, and this is what elicited the redneck comment. She comes from a small rural town and is accustomed to seeing inventive methods to repair things, and hey, if it does the job, who cares how stupid it looks?
This is a close-up picture of things before they miraculously didn’t go wrong. Every once in a while, the gods of internal combustion smile on a “mechanic,” and a plan comes together as said “mechanic” intended. I cranked on the come-along and pulled the door frame in various locations past the point where I wanted it to finally rest until it settled in roughly the right spot.
And this is how it ended up. For the first time in years, the door opens and closes as Mother Mopar intended it to do, which probably wasn’t that well, to be honest. It’s no Riviera or Thunderbird, but I don’t need to slam it, and that’s a good thing.
It’s been a good weekend of Dirty Dart maintenance; I drained the radiator and the block and refilled the system with new antifreeze, and I flushed out the brake fluid. Since Michigan has a humid climate with wild temperature swings, I do both every three years or so. I’ll also need to replace the tires before I start putting miles on the Dart on dry days this fall, winter, and spring; the tires are 10 years old and that’s when they get replaced, regardless of tread depth. There’s nothing handier than a beat-up old station wagon (other than a beat-up old truck), and I just made the Dart a little more pleasant to cruise around in. And my neighbors weren’t even mad about my using their tree.
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Nice, always been an advocate of no points for style, whatever works. This is nothing new, as I heard of a chap who worked at Pontiac on the line, and was standard practice to slam a 2×4 in the door jamb so the door would close.
“If it looks stupid but it works, it ain’t stupid!”
Drove my Beetle into the back of a car with the right front fender badly dented. Since I was in high school and not enough money to even fill the tank, I removed the fender myself and bashed it back into shape with a hammer, a mallet, and block of wood in my Dad’s driveway. With a few bucks from Dad, I found a can of green spray paint which was only one or two shades off. Lasted a few years till I got rid of the car.
Very good, sometimes you have to dispense with the niceties and get the brutal tools out.
It’s helpful to have a good tree available. I’ve used our maple to hoist up a motorcycle for tire replacement.
Brilliant solution; I’d consider doing this too.
Bending metal has been done by me on bicycles, with OK results. Work included returning forks to the original rake after an old Schwinn had obviously been crashed into something and spreading chain stays and seat stays so the rear dropout can be made to accommodate a too wide rear hub for which the bike was not designed. Bogus engineering for sure but both worked.
“Hi, Aaron!” I, too, am part of the “body repair by tree” club (two different cars, even).
It’s a *really* good feeling when you get it back in reasonable tolerance!
Glad you’re a member of the club, Ed. 🙂
That is one fine looking automobile. Thanks for keeping it going!
Thanks!
Nice long roof .
I know and do quite a few “Farm Fixes” I have learned over the decades, you’re very brave to post this, I give technical advice in numerous places but am cautious about sharing the grittier methods due to push back from those who don’t understand .
-Nate
Oh, I don’t mind if people poke fun at my methods, and folks around here aren’t too critical (thankfully). 🙂
The tree worked. That is all that matters. It was a great idea and it’s good to hear the door is working as it should.
I’ve only once been brave enough to take a door off. Thankfully, the neighbor who was with me was a retired body man, so I knew the situation was not as dire as had I been solo.
Installing a door is touchy with no help. I’ve done it a bunch of times, but I’d rather not if I don’t have to, and I’ll always try to have someone around just to steady things, as I’m sure you found out when you installed a door. Luckily, it doesn’t take a lot of muscle if you have it centered on a jack reasonably well.
When my son rear ended a car in our ’92 Caravan, I used a come-along to pull out the front end. But since there was no tree out front I parked the F100 with some wheel chocks in front of it to attach it to.
That come-along has been handy every once in a while including just very recently when it was out to use raising the transmission in my xB during a clutch job.
What no article on the clutch replacement?
Tomorrow.
A come along and a big tree are great body work tools. Way back when my friend in college didn’t get to take the car he shared with his younger brother when he went off to college. His younger brother needed it to get to and from his part time job. Well on his way home one night he smashed the front end of their B210. His dad of course was pissed and told my friend he could have the smashed car. I already had a come-along so we stopped at the hardware store for some eye bolts and other misc fasteners. The problem was the only tree in the yard was maybe 3″ in diameter. So we went to a local park of sorts with a gravel lot for maybe a dozen or so cars. But they had parking stops, one of which was right in front of a ~3′ diameter tree. While doing the pull an old lady turned in concerned we were trying to pull the tree down. (Imagine that in today’s world). We convinced her we weren’t doing any damage to the tree and completed our pulls. We did get it back to the point where a headlight could be reinstalled and point in the right direction and that was about it. No new body parts, just bashing and pulling the existing parts back sort of back to close enough to work. He ended up driving that car for 2 or 3 years.
Great solution.
In the back of my mind, a come-along is a basic automotive tool. I’m sure that this comes from early exposure to my mother’s brother, who provided most of my formative experiences related to automotive “repair” (use of quotation marks to indicate that said repairs did not always result in actual repairs). Having to generally work alone, he would use a come-along to pull just about anything that couldn’t be pulled by the bulldozer or tractor. After both the bulldozer and the tractor became idle and un-repairable themselves, the come-alongs were used more frequently. Engines, bumper-straightening, frame-pulling, tugging cars out of the dirt that they were often sinking into, etc. To your wife’s comment, yes, my mom’s family in rural Maryland were absolutely aspirational hillbillies (and actual rednecks). Not that there’s anything (entirely) wrong with that.
I have one, but I’ve confined myself to using it to pull and straighten all manner of fence posts and poles.
I love your Dart wagon. I also hope that MoparLeo has an apprentice…as what’s going to happen when Leo is no longer around?
I don’t know, Jeff! There are so many Leos in the world doing any number of specialized jobs, and eventually, we old car owners are just going to have to figure it out for ourselves, I guess.
Don’t know if you are aware, but fed law will not let a tire professional to work on a tire over 6 years old. I have 9 year old tires on my car and a slow leak was unfixable because of this. The leak I later determined was in the sidewall. I’m in the process of getting new tires, all-season as it has performance tires now and they are terrible in snow.
I’m not sure that’s a federal law, Greg. Last year, I had some nine-year-old tires rebalanced on my ’65 Skylark, and they replaced a wheel for me, too. And I used two separate tire stores. I had those tires replaced this year, but I haven’t been able to find anything about a federal law prohibiting stores from working on tires after they’re six years old.
Few years ago, I went to Town Fair Tire to get some used tires mounted. They said they would them as long as they are NOT over 10 years old. (didn’t know if it was just their Policy).
There is no such federal law. In any case, that would have to be legislated on a state basis, as that’s out of the fed’s area of governance. To date, no states have adopted laws regarding older tires. Some shops may refuse to do so for liability reasons.
While there’s no doubt that the rubber in tires ages, the rate of that deterioration varies very considerably depending on how much they are exposed to UVs, heat, ozone and other environmental factors. Meaning tires on a car stored mainly inside and not exposed to lots of heat and ozone will age significantly slower. So applying a one size fits all approach may be convenient but realistically does not adequately reflect the actual condition of the tire.
Not so sure about that, Paul. I know for a fact, a ( responsible) tire shop near me said 6 years is the limit for tires, and the date of manufacture is on the side. Also once at a Walmart, my son needed tires, they only had 3 in his size, so I said, oh just give me 4 of the next size up, the manager said they couldn’t do it. Liability dictated they have to install what is original equipment, as a slick lawyer will jump on that as a cause for an accident.
That’s all the result of limiting legal liability. It started with the big national chains and has worked down to smaller shops. Their liability insurance undoubtedly requires it. But I know of a couple of shops in Eugene that sell used tires older than that. And will mount oversize tires.
If you know how the US government works, you’d know that the feds cannot regulate something like this as it’s not an aspect of interstate commerce or such. It’s a local issue. And a bit of Googling told me that several states have introduced legislation but none have adopted it. Why bother; the lawyers have already made it a de facto law.
Yes, sometimes body work is all about bending stuff! Now, are you getting wind whistling around those previously crunched weatherstrips?
My 71 Scamp probably suffered from the same hinge problem you described. But instead of replacing the lower hinge, I removed the bolts at the cowl and shimmed the hinge with washers until the slop plus gravity lined the door latch up with the striker.
Surprisingly, no extra wind noise. I mean, it’s not all that quiet anyway, but it’s as “quiet” as before.
Does it leak?
Water? Probably, but I don’t drive it in the rain. Oil? Definitely, but not too much. 🙂
You don’t drive it in the rain…?
Between my trucks, cars and boats, I’ve used a come-along for so many various projects. It must be in the top 10 essential tools for a tool box, I suggest.
Its next task is to pull back the torque tube on my ’53 Buick so I can yank the Dynaflow this winter. Not really looking forward to it, but the fluid gets dark quickly and the dripping is a little worse than I’d like.
Rural Engineering at its finest. Thanks for the Dirty Dart update.
You’re welcome! The Dirty Dart keeps plugging along.
I was already impressed, but it “went to plaid” when you casually mentioned that tree actually belonged to the neighbors.
It reminded me of a line I once heard, about how the original Land Rover was designed to be repairable in the middle of nowhere using a screwdriver and a rock, and you borrow the rock.
Ha ha. Yeah, my neighbors were leaving to go somewhere on my second pass at the door. They just laughed. He planted the tree decades ago, but it’s technically a city tree anyway (they own the lawn extension).
Does it leak?
Nice to see an update on the Dirty Dart. Your method of fixing the door frame probably isn’t all that different from what body shops would have done back when these cars were roaming the streets — though they might have used an anchor in the shop floor rather than a tree. One of my closest friends’ families has owned a body shop for several generations. My friend and his father have told me about some of the brutal and crude techniques they used to fix and adjust cars decades ago — but they worked.
I need to tackle the door hinge repair on my Malibu, but I’ve been putting it off because of the massive, heavy 60″ long doors. The passenger door still closes like new, but the lower hinge on the driver’s side is worn enough that it requires a firm shove to latch properly.
Strangely, my ’74 Firebird’s doors both still seem fine, which is crazy. It has 95,000 miles on it too.
Last door I had off was on my ’71 Maverick to replace the pins and bushings. Nice part is they are framed windows so I just hung it from my cherry picker. Easy job.
Your Dart is a great-looking practical car in a quintessential 60s color of turquoise. I also like that the wagon has fully exposed rear wheels as opposed to the partially shrouded ones on the sedans.
It’s the perfect color for a ’60s wagon.
Bought a set of Dorman pins to repair the driver’s door hinge on my S-10; only to discover, to my dismay that the hinges are WELDED on!!! I carefully jacked up the door a bit, carefully hammered the old pin back into position, lubed it, and so far, it’s been working well! 🙂
I didn’t have a come along, but I had a length of chain and a power pole out the front.
Used both to good effect to straighten a radiator support panel on one of my old Valiants, so the hood would latch.
After a late night mishap.
Gently but firmly on the power while in reverse and perfect.
I don’t do things like that anymore, or late night mishaps.
Door alignment is not for the faint of heart. Never used a come along myself, but bottle jacks, floor jacks, chunks of wood and 8′, 2x4s have been drafted into service. In varying combinations.
Along those lines… Several years ago now the son of a friend posted on a forum about crashing his BMW 533i and how it was an easy total, which everyone concurred with. Except me. I bragged I could have it on the road in 2 hours. Well, it was closer to 4, and not fixed, I mean sheetmetal and paint take a bit, but I had it on the road, running, driving, nothing hitting anything just like it should be, just needing some new/used parts bolted on, courtesy of wood and a sledgehammer. Low tech is sometimes all you need.
My politics, speech and background put me far, far away from Redneck, but I am hands on and fix stuff.
Great tale.
I’ve never heard the term “come along” before (ratchet strap, ratchet winch, maybe) and I must admit a cartoon image crossed my mind wherein the old Dart was made of sterner stuff than supposed and it was the tree that came along to the door, but I’m digressing.
I have only once ever attempted to align a recalcitrant door, and certainly didn’t dare take it off, and I personally found that, due to the confinement of the the finger-biting knuckle-cracking nail-pulling surrounds, it was an essential part of the process to employ a vast excess of loud profanities. Indeed, I believe to this day that it was only by their incantation that the door fit slightly improved, as it was certainly nothing to do with my “skills”.
Watching the Dart pull down a tree would almost be worth the carnage, and I like to think that it has a Shakespearean element to it. 🙂
Back when I was an young’un, (maybe 12 or so in about 82), My Mother had a 72 Buick Skylark that she managed to get into an accident with. Someone pulled out in front of her, and she hit him. The skylark was drivable but had a crumply fender and a bumper mashed in about (what seemed like) a foot in on driver side.
I recall my uncle, with the come along strapped to one of the Pine trees just off the front porch, and using a combination of cranking the come along, and a few reverseys off the tree, managed to (pretty much) straighten the bumper out. The fender was ‘smoothed a bit’ by use of hammers, mallets etc. Drove it for another year or so, til the next ‘used gem’. (Which was either the Opel or Hornet Sportabout wagon.
The ole Pine tree, definitely a great tool, just doesn’t fit so well in the toolbox.
In the apartment that my ex-wife and I used to inhabit, the parking area was a small sloped driveway. One day I inadvertently left our Honda Element in neutral and forgot to set the parking brake, with the door open. Needless to say, the open door met the upright tree a few feet down the slope. I managed to hit the brakes before too much damage was done, but the top half of the door frame was bent outward (luckily the window was down).
Enraged at my own stupidity, I braced my feet against the lower portion of the door and gave the upper frame a good yank. I somehow managed to provide just the right amount of “yank” to it, and got it linked up enough to seal properly. Fifteen years later I can still see the crease on the inside door frame (outside looks like nothing happened).
Trees can be our worst enemy or best tool, it all depends.
In the 80s, Rob and raced Speedway “Bombers” Ours was a $45 Holden FE. After a Saturday night of racing, Sunday was the “fix wot we broke’ day.
Rob decided that he’d just pull the mudguard off the front wheel by cutting a hole with the oxy set, a bolt through it to a chain. No washers on the bolt. This is important.
Rob shackles the chain to his dad’s Nissan Patrol. I urged caution, and a washer. Neither advice was followed. The bolt pulls through, the chain flies up and leave a mark for every link from the tow bar to the roof. Even marked the glass- without shattering it.