I've gotten a lot of good information and Technical help from HAMB members over the past 3-4 years and I thought it was time to add my own, so here goes a thread on my 33 Dodge coupe build. I had admired the lines of 33/34 mopars since High School in the late 50's, but never got around to a serioius thought of building one until last Summer. On the way to Pueblo for the NSRA meet in my 47 aerosedan, I told my friend Larry that I really liked the early mopar coupes. He said he had recently been contacted by a family whose dad had died leaving them a 33 Dodge coupe. They had kept it for a couple of years, but decided that none of them was really interested in it and they wanted to sell it. I told him to check on it when he got back and let me know. He called the following week and said it was a pristine car, that had been redone, with some minor upgrades about 10 years ago and was well worth what they were asking. I hooked up the trailer and drove from Indy to Southwest Missouri and bought the car. So here is what I started with.
The coupe was a running original and I drove it on and off the trailer and into my shop when I got home. It had been converted to 12 volt, and had a newer tilt steering colunm in it which was hooked to the original gear box. I let the ideas perculate for most of the Winter while I worked on a 48 Chevy truck I was building for my wife. I had acquired a 318 and 904 tranny out of a motor home as part of a deal on a 38 Dodge pickup, so I parted out the 38, kept the engine and tranny and started reading mopar engine stuff on HAMB and other suggested webb sites. The mopar stuff was new to me and I want to thank all of you who provided info on these engines and trannys. Along the way, I learned from fellow member, Moparman4GZUZ, that the 68 Dodge RV's had a unique intake heating system that didn't allow their heads to be used with 4 barrel intakes. Checking the numbers on my heads, confirmed that these were the problem heads. I had the block at the machine shop, but luckily, I had held back the heads. I mentioned this problem to a friend who was going to install a 318 in a 53 plymouth station wagon he was building and he said he had an extra set of heads I could have. So with the block cleaned and magged and the new set of heads being redone, it was time to pull the old engine. Yesterday, I pulled the front clip off and then the engine and tranny.
Removed the front wheels to make it easier to take the front clip off, then put them back on so I would have support as I pulled the engine. Removing the engine and original tranny went pretty quickly, once we figured out you neet to pull the over the top crossmember that holds the tranny in. There is another crossmember just behind the engine that the clutch/flywheel catch on and you can't get the engine up high enough until you remove the tranny crossmember mount.
The previous owner had split the exhaust so it had a dual exhaust with smitty's. In the previous picture I had already cut the exhaust pipe that crossed over from the manifold to the opposite side of the car under the tranny so I could get the engine out. This afternoon, I will cut off the other exhaust back to in front of the Smitty, remove the remaining wiring, and probably the lever action shocks. I will be out of town for about 10 days, so the next post should be about installing the M-II front end, motor mounts and tranny crossmember mount. I will also have to replace the rear end. I have a 8" Ford that measures the same as the Dodge, so I think I can just slide it in, use the original parallel leaf springs and replace the back lever shocks with tube shocks. I will post this up when I get that far.
very nice..I love '33 Dodges. I always wanted a coupe but have never found one. You'll love the MII, and the Maverick 8" is the perfect width
Answers to PM's I am getting: Yes, that is the 35 Ford coupe that is up for sale on the classifieds in the background. And, yes, I will be selling off the 33 suspension and drive train.
Looking good. M2 is the way to go. A lot of measuring and checking but great when finished. Just did mine last month. Good luck!
feels good to know that thru all my trials and travails with my motor and heads that it actually helped someone else out. Kinda makes it all worthwhile. That is a SWEET ride..... I'm jealous. Since I helped, do I at least get a ride when it's done????? LOL
OK, back in the shop on the 33 build. Removed all the wiring and the original fuse panel. Although it had been converted from 6 to 12 volt, it still had the old glass bullet fuse panel. Cut away the exhaust pipes. Removed the gas line (previous owner had run a hose from tank all the way to the pump). Now I am ready for the new MII front. Am going with a JW Garage MII kit. Measurements taken. Ride stance in the front needs to come down about 3", but will wait to adjust that until after engine/tranny are installed. Thanks to a lot of help from Bud, MoParMan4GZUZ on HAMB, I think I finally have the engine build straightened out. The machine shop has finished the valve job on the replacement heads. The cumbustion champer measured about 64 CC's. Will mill about 10 thousands off the head face to reduce the CC to around 60. I am planning on using a set of Kieth Black 167 standard pistons. They will put the pistons further up in the cylinder and together with the head milling should raise the compression to around 9.7-1. That will allow me to use a slightly bigger cam. When I was in Washington last week visiting family, I was able to go look at Bud's Dodge pick-up build. Quite impressive, as was his mopar sedan. Will post pictures on the front end swap later.
I am remiss in not posting earlier about the 33 build progress, but am back at it. Unfortunately, I hit the erase button on my digital camara in late August and lost all the pictures taken since my last post in April. The camara battery was dead this morning, so new pictures will have to wait until tomorrow. I did get the MII front end installed and painted. Went with a manual rack, given the light weight of the coupe (about 2,500 lbs). Because of the stock frame configeration, I couldn't use a set of dropped spindles, but I think it will sit low enough with the weight of the engine. I know some of the purests will think I should have gone with a dropped axle, but I plan on putting a lot of miles on this car and don't want to be trying to find a bearing in the middle of Wyoming some night. Sold the stock front end of a guy scratch building a car, so, after, figuring the cost of rebuilding the stock front, adding shocks, and redoing the brakes, the MII was a cheaper deal and gave me front disc brakes. The engine build was a nightmare. It would have been worse if not for some postings by Moparman4gzuz. I had a 318 in the shop from a previous trade with a 904. But like Moparman, my engine came out of a late 60's motor home and had the exhaust heated heads. Luckily, I read his post before I redid the heads----they won't line up with a 4-barrel manifold. So, one of my buddies had a set of 318 heads out of a car he donated. The casting # indicated they had a 64cc chamber, so after milling off 20K's, the machinist and I thought we would be about 60 cc's and would be able to jump the compression up in the mid 9-1 range. Should have measured the chambers before we started. fter milling we were at 70. Checked the casting #'s again and they WERE SUSPOSED to be 64. So, we milled 60 K off the heads, then had to mill the top side to get the intake manifold to fit. At first thought I could get away with a good honing job and reuse the stock pistons. But one cylinder, the last one honed of course, still had some rough area. So, now were thinking of boring it out 20 over and installing a set of Keith Black pistons. 20 overs were back ordered, so after another month, bored it 30 over and got the bigger KB pistons. Now things are starting to get serious, so what the hell, a Comp Cam, valve work, double roller, etc, etc. Finally get the engine back together, for the most part, in late August. In the meantime, I had the 904 rebuilt with heavy cluch package and shift kit. Now, I realize the engine is going to need a torque converter with a higher stall. So, I order one from Bowler (really helpful outfit) with a 2500 stall. Now I have to find a flange plate. Back to the parts book at NAPA. Along the way I am beginning to understand why more guys don't build mopar engines. Parts are much more difficult to locate and stuff is pretty pricey. Luckily, another friend clues me into the Mopar nationals in Carlise. We go over for the day, walk the swap meet from 8 to 6, only get through about 2/3's of it, but find some needed parts and a lot of useful information for this mopar novice to digest. Get the engine and tranny bolted up, motor mounts in and a tranny mount that bolts to the sides of the X-member and uses the stock 904 set up. Engine is finally in. Will try to post pictures tomorrow and fill in on the ignition and valve cover problems I ran into.
Looks good Walt. Funny how Larry and I knew about that car for a couple of years and we never went to look at it until you got interested. Makes me think that there could be other treasure in our area. John
Keep at it man, that will be a great rod when you are done! As for mopar stuff being expensive and hard to find, you just have to know where to look and what you are looking at - you don't trip over stuff like you do for Chevs, but it's out there. What are you going to use for exhaust manifolds or headers?
Turns out the battery on my camara is shot. Tried to buy one yesterday at walmart but they were out of stock. Will go to radio shack later and get some pictures up. I am going to use some stock ribbed center dump exhaust manifolds that I traded for. Will also photo them and post. thanks for looking
Very nice coupe. I'm working on a 33 dodge coupe also. Mine is the rumble seat model with the long wheel base.
This is the tired 318 motor home engine I started with. [/attach] You can look back at post 15 for more detail on the engine difficulties. I think I have the camara problems worked out and will try to post more pictures later on the engine and other progress
Nice looking build! The 33/34 coupe's are awesome. As far as building mopar engines, I have to agree with ajmopar. There are some quirks, the chamber volume on the small block heads is notorious for being larger than advertised. And the motor home heads are pretty much useless for an aftermarket application. But stock 318 parts are pretty easy to find, I see folks giving away 318's all the time. 360's are little harder to come by. And aftermarket parts don't show up at the swaps as much as other makes, but they're out there. But all my stuff is mopar so I'm always looking. If I see something offered at a good price I usually pick it up if I have a plan for it or not. Now as I build stuff it comes in handy, starting to have a decent stockpile. I just dropped off a 318 at the machine shop. I found a set of custom JE forged pistons for it on eBay that I picked up for less than half the regular price, and a brand new military surplus crank for less than it would cost to turn the original. The Je's have a higher compression distance than stock (like the KB's), so now I just need to decide which heads to run. I'll probably run 5.2L magnum heads, they have a closed chamber design, larger valves and flow much better than the stock 318 LA heads. Plus they're pretty cheap and relatively easy to find. They bolt right up to the LA block, you just need to use oil through pushrods and a magnum intake. So parts are out there!
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