1936 D2

I was reading a piece in the June "Skinned Knuckles" where there was a short discussion about a product from Permatex called "PermaShield", which is a fuel resistant gasket dressing and flange sealer. You would use a thin coat of this product (that comes in a tube) on each side of the cork gasket when installing. This stuff is a non-hardening, non-setting, high temperature urethane based sealant. This would work perfectly for this application. (At least by the description given.) Gasket Sealants : Permatex® PermaShield

Oil pressure will show a pretty good drop as the engine warms. This affect is more prominent now-a-days because of the multi-weight oils in use. From what you describe I don't think there is anything "wrong". You may just be using a bit lighter weight oil than was "normal" back in the day. The current oils are a vast improvement over the oils used back then. I don't think you have anything to worry about.

The "hidden" frame number is the car's original engine number. The other numbers "jpage" is finding are, to the best of our knowledge, series numbers used by the body manufacturing company's factory processes. There are no known records for these numbers so they currently seem pretty useless. The frame number should be in one of two places as far as we know now. Those two places are: - 1) On the left rear of the frame just above the left rear's front spring mount, near the top of the outer frame face. It would be covered with the left rear door's threshold panel as seen on seven passenger sedans. - 2) On the left rear of the frame near the top of the kick-up above the rear axle. This spot is also on the outer face of the frame rail and again near the top edge and covered with the body sheet metal of the wheel well. There is a hook shape in this sheet metal with a large round hole in it near the spot of the frame number. That is the best I can do to describe the two locations of the numbers. These numbers are fairly large in font size. The whole thing should be maybe 4" to 5" long. It is stamped very lightly so do not use very aggressive media to clean the areas! You may just abrade right through the number! The surfaces that these numbers are on is flat so use a very fine paper on a block when starting to look for the numbers. Once you start to see something, change to a finer abrasive and try to use a motion across the font sections as much as possible so as to not add lines or "shape" to the font of the numbers. The object of this process is to "polish" the spot around the numbers to as high a gloss as possible so the number "imperfections" of the stamped numbers in the surface metal stand out as much as possible from the shiny background metal. On the cowl paint, both of my cars were fully satin black both on the front (firewall) and the sides of the cowl. One car was originally Mercury Metallic and the other was Black. Even on the Black one the cowl was satin, not gloss like the body paint. I think this is because when the hood is closed, some of the side vents extend back over the cowl. In keeping the side look of the vents dark and not so a short section shows a lighter body color through, I think they decided to paint the cowl sides satin black. If not, a few of the vents would have a lighter color behind them and would look strange. I suppose that at some different times during the construction of the bodies they may have made changes to this cowl side colors thing but there is little information on that. This is actually the first time I have heard that an original painted car showed color on the sides of the cowl. All other originals I have seen/heard of are semi gloss black. Oops - Yup, I for got about the inside of the trunk lid being sprayed with the sound deadener like the inside of the insert top. Thanks for the reminder!

"35cz8" - While you have the body off, be sure to look for and research the location of the "hidden" frame number on your car. When the body is off is the time to document that with photos! Thanks!

Oops> Was typing while you wrote this!

When I checked on some of the original paint on my Mercury Metallic 4Dr Touring Sedan, I saw that the body color was indeed inside the fenders, both front and back. The the body was painted and then placed on the frame. BUT, the bottom of the car was the same semi-gloss (low gloss) black chassis paint as the frame, exterior firewall and cowl, axles, gas tank, front engine splash pans, pedals and transmission tower. The bottom of the running boards were body color. The interior of the body was dark red (rust color) primer and had extensive over spray of body color but was not directly painted. (This includes the inside of the firewall). It did not seem like the floor pans were painted much, but if they were it had to be the same black chassis color as there was no apparent body color on them anywhere. While speaking about the interior, I do remember seeing hand marked chalk writing in a few spots. The inside of the firewall right of center near the top had something there but I could not make any of it out. The inside of the doors on the mechanism panel had "OK" written on them and, as mentioned in another thread a few years back, there was the paint color and body style written in an abbreviation inside the right rear "C" pillar just outboard from the rear window. They did not use an undercoating as you would think of today. It seems as though anything like that, that you may find underneath, is most likely an attempt at sound deadening or heat insulation. I did not really see anything like that under either of my cars and both were delivered to WI originally. If used as "undercoating", it would have been used here! There were sections of black sound deadening material (looks like a cardboard soaked in asphalt) glued to the interior of the doors. The center of the insert top looked as though it had a sprayed on asphalt, again for insulation and sound deadening. (This may be the same material "jpage" is seeing above his gas tank and rear axle. I don't remember seeing any of that sprayed on either of my cars though in the areas outside the car underneath.) Hope some of this helps but it may just open up more questions.

Great news! Always good to have the old cars moving comfortably! But - what is the answer to the strangely described "sparking"? What was making a 2" to 4" spark near the manifolds? So, is post #45 still the best reasoning for the "sparks"?

I do not have these caps. The photos were from another source. Just so you are aware, the caps for the '38 Dodge are a bit larger in size than the '36 caps that are shown in these photos. The '38's "look" the same (less the black stripe around the outer rim as I recall) but are a different diameter. Larger I believe. Sorry.

Here are a couple shots of the head removed from a '36 ornament...

Incorrect toe-in may cause wandering on flat surfaces especially with the standard bias ply tires as mentioned by "JACK M". Some roads, particularly asphalt, have gotten swales in them from heavy vehicles always tracking in the same place on the road width. If you don't necessarily see the swales you may still feel the wandering in the steering wheel as you move from side to side in the swale. If you can actually see the swale, you will want to ride to the right or left of the swale because if you are in it you will have trouble staying straight on the road. Rather disconcerting. You should not feel this affect on concrete roads. So if you do, it is a good sign of toe-in maladjustment.

And THAT's why it keep showing up "For Sale".

Leather was very common for export vehicles it seems. Less common by far in the US on closed cars but was "normal" on open versions. A lot of it had to do with the state of the economy here in the US at the time. Cloth was cheaper. Leather was almost "expected" abroad.

It's a business coupe. Perforation rust on the one side shown. (Don't know about the "curb side" at all from photos). Floor pans most likely gone then. Not running. Interior for patterns. Full restoration would be fairly pricey so buy price should be closer to $5500 I would think. Advertised on the HAMB - will turn into a street rod. :eek: Currently priced too high for a restorer to pull it out of that world.

Could have been some sort of "special request" of the Kew Factory for a retrofit. Not very sure how all that foreign build factory stuff worked concerning options like this OD.

As far as I know, overdrive was not available for 1936 - anywhere. This car must have been retrofitted with a '36 DeSoto OD or maybe something later, like a '37 Dodge or such. That would be my guess.

Here ya go... I am quite sure the grille and bumpers were replaced at some time. The rest of the car looks like the typical "Export" version of the '36 Dodge D2. (Possibly a D2XX)? Here was the wording of the ad... Dodge Senior 6 For Sale (1936) Dodge Senior 6, very rare. This car is a RHD UK car that was assembled at the Kew factory in London. The car has been owned by me for 13 years , car still has the original reg no . Powered by a 3.6 litre straight 6 flat head engine with a 3 speed box with factory fitted overdrive , this was very advanced for its time . The body is in maroon and is very tidy with original brown leather trim . I have some history , old buff log , instruction book , old bills etc . Car is being sold due to down sizing collection ( too many cars ).

Excellent! Thanks for the interest "DodgeNZ".

This is true IF "Atari1977" has the correct tools to proceed. He would also then need either a long wire test lamp with a sharp point OR a VOM, again with very long test leads. I was trying to list a way he could proceed essentially without any tools at all. But "Atari", if you do have access to either of these tools it is much safer (and cheaper) to disconnect the battery and then go over all the wiring looking for unexpected grounding as "JACK M" is suggesting.

Here are some shots of the wiring diagrams with color coding. Here are some shots of the back of the ammeter. These first ones are one with original wiring. This shot is the back of the meter in my car with replacement wiring. The color coding on the wiring diagram shows the following: #07 Black - Cable from Generator [Black with White tracer] #17 Heavy Red - Supply to Ammeter from Starter Switch [Heavy Red with White tracer] #18 Red - Brake Lamp Switch feed cable (on Master Cylinder) [plain Red] #23 Green - Horn feed cable [half Brown and half Black​ with no insulator - I will have to fix that!] #24 Heavy Brown - Ignition Switch feed cable (heat resistant covering) [heavy glossy Maroon) #28 Brown - Lighting Switch feed cable [Brown with White tracer] (The Red and Black with the White tracer to the left in the last photo is an added wire for Turn Signals I had added by the wiring company. It has its own inline fuse that you can just see at the bottom of the photo. Also, the plain Black going out the top of the photo is also a separately fused line and is for the optional Radio power.) (The # is the number as listed on the wiring diagrams. The first listed colors are as listed on the wiring diagrams. The last listed colors [in italics] are as seen on the photo with the replacement wiring. The underlined items are where the wires go from the Ammeter.) You can leave #7, #17, and #24 connected. Just work with #18, #23 and #28 and/or any other connections you have to your Ammeter to solve your problem. Good luck!

My feeling is if it would be that "porous" that you would see signs of smudging from soot or carbon. Those gas molecules are small enough that if they did find a way through the casting (improbable) that there would be a lasting sign like a soot smudge or such. I am wondering more if you have had the manifold painted? If this is the case some of those high heat paints actually have metal particles in them. If the temperature of the manifold is reaching the limits of the cured paint, it may be "off gassing" some of the make-up of the paint or possibly even some of the metallic particles in the paint. This may all be a sort of a break down of the paint's chemistry from getting over its maximum temperature rating. The white looking spark could be from aluminium. That is the metal used in the firework called "sparklers". When burning those look like they have white sparks. Just a logical guess.

When you filled the system are you using DOT-3, 4, or 5 fluid? A thing to remember with DOT-5 is that you should handle it carefully, pour slowly and try not to shake it up as DOT-5 can tend to hold bubbles rather easily and not give them up easily. This can make it hard to bleed fully, causing a soft pedal. This is not such a problem with DOT-3 or DOT-4.

The five amp fuse on the generator's cutout relay should be OK also per your description. I am suspecting that your heater is separately wired, powered and fused (hopefully) and that that is why it still worked. Make use of your wiring diagram to follow the circuits back to the items they power. Part of the wiring diagrams show how the particular circuits run through different parts of the wiring loom too. This could help you find different points to use for testing areas of any particular circuit and the different colors of the wires for those circuits. Let us know what you find.

A couple things Lothar... Would you be able to take a photo of the number area at a higher resolution than the above 320x240 resolution shots? Then we as readers would be able to make the photos larger and we may see something we can give opinions on. When trying these other photos, try to get the light rather low so it will side light the numbers. This will help with a darker contrast in the areas of the bottom of the number stampings. While doing this technique, have the light come from different angles - maybe at least three different angles if possible. This may then show different parts of the numbers with more contrast. Also as I mentioned above, try to "polish" the main surface of the frame by the numbers as much as possible. The closer to a mirror finish the top surface has, the better the contrast will be of the stamped numbers. If all this fails to bring up the numbers there is a way to use a paste style acid to etch away the upper, softer surfaces leaving the lower, stamped, harder surfaces more visible. This is a forensic technique used by Police Labs to read damaged stamped numbers. (If you happen to know a "lab guy" you will be all set!) I can try to describe more on this if the polishing and photography do not help with identifying the numbers. Good luck! (NOTE: From my second look at the numbers I am going to guess right now "337". But it is only a guess until higher resolution photos can bee seen. Be sure to try more photography [the closeness of the camera and clarity -focus- of the overall shots is just fine. Just need more resolution.] before polishing the numbers any further. Then photo often as you polish on the area any further. You never know when the best view of the numbers will show.)

Brakes should be able to "lock up". Probable issues: - Drums not turned for true. Yes. Can be a problem. - Biggest issue is most likely shoe adjustment. There is a "Major Adjustment" where the anchors are adjusted (special tools required) and a "Minor Adjustment" where the mid-shoe adjusters are turned to push the tops of the shoes out. Spongyness: - This is most likely air in the lines. Be sure to do a search on this Forum. The subject of brake adjustment has been covered a few different times.