Going through some photos and stumbled across these. The air cleaner, carbie and intake manifold. When the day comes and I start the motor. . . . . . these should help a lot. . . . mmmmmmmm.

April 2009 update

Hi all.
I have some good news and bad news.

The good news is that the Dodge build is still on the go. Slowly but surely. The bad news is that at the moment it's come to a halt!

The other good news is that there is a new car I'm working on taht will get me on the road a lot quicker than the Dodge.

For anyone interested the link is as follows:

http://1971valiantvip.blogspot.com/

Hope you enjoy watching this one get on the road as much as you've enjoyed watching me play with the dodge.

BTW. The Dodge isn't written off!!!!. The cogs in the grey matter are still turning and I'll be working on it a bit here and a bit there. So keep watching for updates! They're sure to come.

Some new shoes

Well it's been a little while since the last post, but then not a lot has happened. HOWEVER! I did manage to get my hands on a diff out of a 1964 Dodge Phoenix. The diff originally sat behind a 318, so it should marry up nicely with the rest of the running gear. After finally getting the right diff for the car, it was time for the new shoes to go on. This was done predominately to set the ride height for the car. Now I just have to nut out the front end and get the car sitting level.

Now we've caught up with real time.

The previous blogs have been posted have been a catch up as to where the car came from and where it's come too. I'll keep posting bits and pieces as I slowly progress.
I've had a first meeting with an engineer in regards to making the car safe and reliable. My first inspection will be once I have the chassis rails boxed in and the running gear in place. The rail plates only need to be tacked in at this point. I've got my TIG welder all set up, so from here it's going to be lot of practice!
As for the 14" wheels, well they're going to be scrapped. I'll be fitting 20" Dodge rims from the new Dodge Nitro. It should look pretty cool with 21st century Dodge rims, and they're close to the size of the original wheels!
I've also managed to pick up a 4 barrel Edelbrock manifold for the 318 as well as a set of extractors.
So from here on in there should be some interesting and strange progress!

The rust is slowly disappearing

This shot shows the guards in the foreground. I've been trying another recipe for rust removal on them. 'Phosphoric acid'. This is called rust dissolver and is available from K&H. Peter Tomassini put me onto it. He also suggested I use toilet paper over the treated panel and keep it wet with the rust dissolver. Well it worked, but the toilet paper stuck the proverbial to a blanket! I got onto it with the wire wheel and had toilet paper from a**hole to breakfast all through the shed! The guard thats closest to the camera actually has a shine on it!!!!!! (Look back at the photo's of the guards when I first got the car and the transformation is just shy of a miracle!)

Roadster tub joins

I've drawn over the weld joins in red to show where they are. This tub is made up of 8 pieces, not including the panels that sit beside the wheels. The person who did this welding in 1925 was very good. When running your fingers over the bare metal, you can't feel the joins at all.

Universal colour scheme

After a long weekend in the garage and a box of dust masks, the car was beginning to show a lot of promise. I was finding some good metal under the rusty brown colouring!
One thing that had puzzled me since I'd picked up the roadster tub, was how did they make it? There didn't appear to be any noticeable joins inside or outside of the sheet metal. After wire brushing the body, I found some beautifully welded join lines around the body.