My girlfriend has been wanting to get an older vehicle that would be a little easier to fix than her current Acura Integra and $900 later we've got a '58 Dodge sitting at the shop. We're going to be getting the original 230 flat 6 running tomorrow (hopefully! Thanks to a Holley 2300 purchased from flathead doctor, who by the way was a pleasure to deal with.). The truck has had a NP420 put into it in place of the original 3 on tree and has had an ugly ass flatbed welded onto it that will soon be getting cut off and replaced with a little cleaner one. It looks as though the truck has been "restored" at least once in the past, there is some well used blue paint over the original red. We plan on going back to the original red. Anyhow here are the pictures. Seat is currently out while we wire wheel the floor and start getting ready to repaint the interior.
Congrats! Good luck with the build, its always great to hear about another old Dodge truck getting back on the road!
Tranny cover is going to have to be fixed, they cut the hole way too big for the 4 spd: Dash with the nice aftermarket A/C (not sure if you can see the 6" fan mounted by the mirror) and high-tech navigation system: Working on the floorboards a bit with the wire wheel: From the front: From the driver side, notice the super custom homemade barefoot gas pedal: And another: The nasty flatbed constructed of 8" channel iron and 4x4"s that was then welded directly to the frame: From the outside: The original 230, just waiting for the Holley to show up from Tennessee tomorrow: And that's where we are right now, the bench will be going in for upholstery sometime this week and hopefully we'll soon be getting the interior stripped down and repair the rust etc. and then painted in red.
Progress has been slow as work has recently picked up andI've only been able to work on the truck about an hour at a time for a couple nights but I got the Holley 2300 (which turned out to be a 4412 500cfm rather than the 350 that I think would be a better fit but it was a deal so I can't complain, hopefully it won't be too much carb) in the mail and had to put 2" worth of spacer as well as the 2 to 1 adapter to get everything to clear the head. After some tinkering the old 230 fired! I didn't run it for any longer than I had to as I need to run some new fuel line/filters and clean the tank out but everything seems to be in order so far. Tested all of the lights as well and they all work properly too. Waiting for a short day at work to get the seat in to the upholstery guy but I am going to need some time to finish up work on the wire wheeling/sanding of the interior and then painting anyhow. I've got a few little rusty spots needing to be adressed but nothing too scary and then I need to do some work to the trans tunnel as well. So in summary things are moving slowly but they are moving. More pics to come when there is progress to be shown.
Dropped the tank and dumped the old fuel out, no chunks or any other terrible crap going on so I didn't get too involved in cleaning it. I was, however, lucky enough to stumble upon a rats nest strategically built between the tank and the frame. Luckily it had been vacated by its' resident but I still ended up wearing a good portion of the debris. Of course while coming out the fuel filler neck hose tore so I went and grabbed some fittings for the fuel line, new plugs and wires, fuel line and filters, filler neck and a bunch of hose clamps. Got the tank all back in and reconnected and replumbed. Fired the engine off again and ran it a bit longer this time. Oil psi came right up but I have a major coolant leak on one of the heater hoses to deal with which is not a big deal at all. Just knocking the simple things out one at a time and hope to take the maiden voyage in the truck this weekend sometime.
The Dodge is fully alive! Got the rest of the fuel line replumbed and the truck fires up and runs with ease every time. Ran it for about 5 minutes today and the oil pressure ran up to about 52ish psi at what is a pretty high idle. Does this seem unrealistically high to anyone or is it just me? It's just got some cheapo gauges in it so I'm sure they're not the most accurate things in the world. Got a video of the truck running today: <iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/JlAvLarOs8Y" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Sounds pretty good for an old stock 230!
So things have stalled out on the truck. The gf and I both decided maybe a truck that would be less of a project and have more parts available would be a good idea so another $1700 later we have a nice clean (and more importantly running and driving) '75 Chevy shortbed truck sitting here at the house that we can improve as she drives it. So now I've got this freaking lump of Mopar sitting here and I have no clue what to do with it. I'd love to just get the thing sold in one piece but it's looking less like that's going to happen all the time and I just don't have the heart to scrap the turd. But I also get too antsy seeing something just sit, I've got to do SOMETHING with the truck. The problem here for me is just the complete lack of aftermarket on these trucks. One of my pet peeve's is having a vehicle with rotten rubber in windows and weather lenses on blinkers etc and that's the type of stuff that I can't seem to track down anywhere. SO I ask all of you, what should I do with this thing? I really don't want to just leave it sitting for years waiting for the aftermarket to show up.
Should have asked about parts availability for the old Dodge before you jumped into a 70s Chevy. I would have told you the parts your looking for are available at www.robertsmotorparts.com. Oh well, you can get stuff for the Chevy truck a lot of places. Maybe you should post an ad in the classifieds here on the HAMB. If I had any money, and the truck wasn't in CA, Id be interested in it. Gene
I posted a couple of threads asking about parts on here and got somewhat limited responses. The chevy is a lot further along already which was appealing to the girlfriend anyhow and it has an automatic and air conditioning. Overall it's just going to be a better fit for her so no regrets there. I've posted an ad here in the classifieds but again there's been no response to it. I think for the time being I'm just going to keep the thing and tinker with it when I can. Sucks to have it sitting but it's bought and paid for, no sense in taking a hit on the purchase price. Thanks much for the parts link, that's a new one for me, I'll check it out now.
aftermarket support? heh.. why not just put a small block in it, or better yet, a 413 industrial. then it could pull an oak tree down..
Small block was/is the plan for if/when the original 230 gives up. Part of me was hoping we couldn't get it running so we could just do that from the get go but the curious side of me had to see if I could get the thing running and now that I have and have seen how well it actually runs it's going to stay put for now. I just wish things like original styled switch knobs and blinker lenses etc were readily available in the aftermarket. Maybe it's just the OCD part of me but I can't stand to see otherwise clean vehicles with old ratty hardware on them like that.
Well as I mentioned in another thread I decided to pick up a SBC a little early for the truck. $400 later I've got the engine and trans and got to work on it. As we started the day: We pulled about 12 bolts and unhooked some wires and off came the front sheetmetal: Lifted the truck with a crane on my brother's service truck to get at the transmission crossmember, set it back down and pulled the motor mounts and various other linkages and bolts: Engine out!: Craned the 350/350 over to the truck: Had to pull the exhaust pipes off the exhaust manifolds and dropped the combo into the frame: The clearance is tight around the exhaust manifolds and fuel pump but it is going to work: Firewall clearance is perfect: Probably going to have to notch the frame a little bit at the exhaust manifolds but nothing too drastic. Hard to tell but the new solid mounts land right over the frame so I'll be building some mounts off the frame up to those: That's it for the day, going to make the motor and transmission mounts soon and then we'll get it started up.
I've been thinking about this more today. Does anyone think a set of block hugger headers would clear the frame? Would my best best be some rear exit exhaust manifolds? I don't think I need to do any kind of trimming on the frame with all the options available in the exhaust department, I just don't have any different options sitting aorund to try out without making the purchase. Any advice is appreciated.
After a few weeks I finally got another shot to work on the Dodge and had an excellently productive day. Started out by getting the truck on the slab in front of the shop and elevated on my Peterbilt's jack stands (Our cup car in the background here): Mounted the block huggers from Speedy Bill. Not real happy with the quality (shocker right?), but I guess you get what you pay for. The tubs on one header are awful close to the plugs, so much so I think I am going to have to dent the tube a bit just to get a spark plug boot on: Pulled the gas tank thinking for some reason that the trans crossmember was going to interfere where it was mounted on the frame: The block huggers cleared the frame nicely, looks closer here that it actually was: A look at the span where motor mounts were to be made: Used some thick wall 1 3/4" tubing and matched the angle on the frame beneath the motor mount. Plated the top of the mount with a nut welded onto the plate and this is what we wound up with: Bought the tubular trans crossmember also from Speedway, this I actually was a fan of. I didn't buy it with as much drop as I should have though so we had to do some more fabrication: Got all the mounts in and the Chevy sits in the truck very nicely. Got it up enough to clear the fuel pump on the passenger side of the frame nicely and while I probably could have moved it back another half an inch to full inch I don't think I am going to be hurting for clearance at the front of the motor when it's all said and done. I need to get a set of pulleys, driveshaft made, and my shifter figured out and this thing will be running. If I were to be giving advice to someone doing this job for themselves I would say to get a front sump oil pan. This motor has a rear sump and it doesn't quite clear the axle due to it curving rearward in the middle. I measured and I think the suspension has a total of about 6 1/2" or so travel while I have about 5 3/4" of space between the axle and pan. I'll make the executive decision on whether or not to change the pan once it's back on the ground again, I just struggle to believe the axle will ever come up that much. This job has gone surprisingly smooth so far and I'm excited to get this thing on the ground and driving again.
The Jalopy Journal
