Although Donna seldom left me without transportation, the next few years were actually very sobering, as things continually went wrong. A car that has been sitting for 24 years with only occaisional use gets exaggerated wear every time it is started. The car might as well have had 300K miles on it. It was cheap to repair, however, and I learned to do all of this myself as each new problem came up. In rough order of failure was the water pump, alternator, wheel bearings, carburetor, exhaust manifold (cracked), brakes, brake lines, heater control valve, heater control electrical switch, turn signal cancellation cam, and then finally the rear axle, which I replaced with an 8 1/4 inch unit out of a 1973 Duster. By then I had gotten enough courage to replace the front spindles and rebuild the front end with the later disk brakes from the same '73 Duster. After another 45K miles, the original slant six 'bought the farm' and I replaced it with a junkyard engine. It has run fine for 38K miles, but is slated to be replaced soon with another slant six I rebuilt myself. About a year ago, I pulled the old tired automatic transmission out of it, and replaced it with a 4-speed overdrive unit from a '79 Aspen. This has been a great project that I am very happy with. That big old chrome stick shift sticking out of the floor and the white shift ball with the 4-speed pattern on it really is nostalgic and gives 22-25 mpg even with the tired old junkyard engine in her.
Back in 1996, a college student friend (I was born in 1945) drove up my driveway in his '70 Swinger and asked if I wanted to buy it for parts. I couldn't believe that my wife actually encouraged this, so I said yes, and for $100 I had what I thought was going to be a great source of parts for Donna. This Swinger looked awful, with faded dark blue Maaco paint and a million small dents. She looked like an old Navy staff car, but as I started digging around on her sheet metal with an ice pick I discoved a southern car with A/C, tinted windows, and no rust. It was entirely too good to junk. So Donna came out of the garage, and Xena, went up on a rotissorie for a complete restoration. In the process I replaced the Slant 6 with a built 360 and 727 ATC street fighter trans. I meticulously straightened the body, smoothed everything out, and painted the body black with PPG concept paint. The interior was replaced with the bucket seats, steering column, console and floor shifter from the same '73 Duster that provided the brakes and rear for Donna, and the dash was replaced with a rally dash with a 150-mph speedometer. It went back on the road in '98 and I have put 10k mostly trouble free miles on it. I had a few teething problems, but nothing too frustrating.
Now Donna is up on jackstands in the garage getting her restoration, and Xena sits outside, and takes me to work every day. Xena only gets 14 mpg, so I miss the economy of the six, but it is very fast, and has fended off all challengers to date, even some new H.O. mustangs, whose drivers probably go home talking about a mystery Dart out there with a Hemi in it. The plan for Donna is a stock appearance with a higher profile, brighter shade of red exterior (her original color is R5 red), minus the vinyl roof, which was also removed and leaded in on Xena.
These Darts have been a great source of enjoyable hobby time, and get many, many admiring comments from people on the street. All of this, plus I have less than $10K invested in both cars together, and have them on a budget of $100 a month(seriously less than new car payments).