MikeC5

I have returned two items that I bought from Rockauto over the years and had no issues. One was a defective wheel bearing/hub assembly that failed in a few thousand miles, the other, more recently, was a catalytic converter that was missing a (welded on) bracket. They paid for return shipping on that one since it was obviously a QA problem with their supplier. So I can't complain.

And if you are keeping the original single circuit master cylinder, it is even more critical to make sure everything is as good as it can be.

If removing the body from the frame (or placing it back on), slipping a platform underneath the body would be tricky to say the least. But if you can raise it enough to allow slipping 2x4's under it at the approximate locations shown, you could attach lifting cables to them. However, you would need to pull straight up unless you can anchor the 2x4's so they can't slide if pulled on an angle. You would still need to get creative with your lift rigging as you don't want the lifting straps to rub on the body.

If the body is structurally sound (and I assume it is since it already has final paint), I found picking it up by attaching hooks as shown worked. I measured the door openings before lifting the body off to be sure they didn't change. You can see where the front attach points are and in the rear I think I put a heavy duty eye bolt through the body to frame hole at the back corners.

I guess the bearings could be something other than babbit but I doubt it. Babbit is a generic term for a metal alloy used for 'plain' or friction bearings. The alloy varies by application, shaft rotating speed, load, etc. It is heated to melting and cast in place for crankshaft, connecting rod, cam bearings, etc. After casting, the babbit is machined precisely to fit the journals of the crankshaft. It wasn't until after WWII that manufacturers began using 'insert' bearings (which still have a thin layer of babbit on the shaft contact surface). A low pressure oil system like you describe probably still relies on splash or drip lubrication. That little pointy thing with the hole at the bottom of the connecting rods in your photo sure looks like an oil dipper. This low pressure type of system was used on the early Dodge Brothers engines (the oil pressure gauge goes from 0 to 4 psi) and the oil pump delivers oil to an oil galley in the block and from there it drips onto the crankshaft bearings. The rods rely on splash lubrication. I did a quick bit of googling but could not dig up when the first true pressurized oil system was used in automobiles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babbitt_(alloy)#Traditional_Babbitt_bearings

I'm not sure how you would do it to bench test. If you can find an place that specializes in rebuilding alternator/generator/starters they would probably have a way to do it but those types of local businesses seem to be very thin on the ground these days. If you test it in the car, the amp meter will tell you what's going on. At idle, with headlights off, the output should show on the + side (10 amps on mine). With headlights on that will come down some but should still be on positive side. What is a bit counter intuitive is that with increasing rpms the amps will drop (it has to do with how 3rd brush current regulation works). Ideally you want to adjust the 3rd brush so that at normal cruising rpm (with lights on), you are still on the slightly positive side of zero on amp gage. Otherwise you risk overcharging the battery. You also want to double check the connections to the starter switch and make sure the starter cut-out relay is working. This thread may help also. https://forums.aaca.org/topic/228044-starter-but-no-generator/page/2/

I think the rods on all engine require some side clearance. How much is the question. On the Dodge 4 it's 0.010". The only way to check condition of the crank journals and rod babbit is to unbolt the rod cap. You can then get a good visual of them and using plastigage, you can check the clearance is. If you can't find specs on what the clearance should be for that engine, 0.001" total clearance per inch of journal diameter is standard practice. On 'modern' (bearing insert) engines you typically want 0.001 - 0.002". That is a nice oil pan, by the way!

It was surprisingly painless to get the title and YOM plates in CT. I do have to carry the antique plates they issue in the car but that's no big deal.

Yup. I don't use it often enough to remember how to use the strobe and pick up and have to re-read it each time. When I first acquired it, the strobe light was burned out so I would do it by trial & error. You would be surprised how good you can get it with some guessing and just touching the fender lightly to feel the vibrations.

It does look like a stationary hit & miss engine. The flywheel looks massive; too much so for an intended automotive application. The 'chassis' appears to be pretty rude & crude angle iron construction. I would expect something a little more elegant if it were intended to be a commercial automotive product.

Does anyone have that video of the exploding vacuum cleaner contest ? It would be great digitize and post to You tube...

It does look a bit nasty but I thought you had an in-line filter.

But why do you feel lead benefits your Dodge? A little googling and I came up with this: The engine in a '26 Dodge had changed very little over the previous decade in terms of combustion, so we can reasonably assume it was not designed with leaded gas in mind. What benefit do you think you're getting by burning leaded gasoline?

When you think you have water in the gas, what do you do? There is stuff called 'Dry Gas' (and many other brand names) which is basically (guess what) ethanol. Ethanol and water mix so when added to the tank, it allows removal of the water by burning the mixture in the engine. Putting 10% ethanol gasoline in achieves the same thing. I have never had an issue running regular unleaded (10% ethanol) gas in my '25 and don't even bother adding fuel stabilizer for the winter season (it does get well below freezing in eastern. CT). I do shut off the vacuum tank fuel feed to carb and run out the gasoline when putting the car up for winter. To the best of my knowledge, there are no rubber components in the fuel system on these cars, so the worry about ethanol deteriorating rubber parts isn't there. I can't imagine why anyone would put high octane leaded racing fuel in one of these low compression engines but hey, it's your money. If you are concerned about the quality of fuel, go to one of the major name brand stations that sells a lot of gas.

It does appear corrosion had significantly weakened the steel. Is there an alternative to finding good used ones?

You're welcome. ☺️

Myers Early Dodge parts has reproduction gauges.

Yikes! Thankfully, no one was injured. In the jet engine business, that is what we call an uncontained failure... I think I'm going to pull the fan off mine and take a close look but it constructed differently than this one in that it has a heavier stamping with the blades riveted on.

Perhaps it could be a vacuum tank problem where the vacuum is not shutting off when can is full. There is a valve that should close when the vacuum tank is full; if it doesn't, the tank will flood and fuel can flow down the vacuum supply line into the intake manifold, flooding the engine. This hasn't happened to me but it has been mentioned as a problem in several threads over the years. Perhaps this is where the extra fuel was coming from in your initial picture in this thread. A way to test if this is what's happening would be to disconnect the line from the vacuum tank and plug the end. Then run the engine on the fuel left in carb float bowl (and fuel that was in vacuum tank) and test if eye watering smoke goes away. This would at least rule out or point to a vacuum tank issue.

I really don't think pulling the wiper vacuum line would cause any permanent changes in the system. And even if you did get a few ounces of 3 in 1 oil sucked into the vacuum tank, it would mix with the gasoline and perhaps cause some oil smoke for a short time.

It's hard to imagine that spark plugs would have a 'use by' date. Which vacuum line did you remove?

Hi Mav, For this initial startup, just to see if it would fire up, I bypassed all of that and just hooked it up to a battery on the floor (see the red and black wires in the photo). An engine can run quite a long while on a charged battery as long as there are no other loads (I once drove an MGB 7 hours just on battery due to a bad alternator). So all I'm doing here is energizing the coil and then hand cranking it to start. The distributor points are still in the circuit and that's all you need for the ignition to do its thing. I assumed you just wanted to test the engine itself.

I did watch your videos and it does sound like the engine has a loping idle. Your 'painful to the eyes' comment makes me think poor combustion.

A compression test would at least tell you if one cylinder or two adjacent cylinders are low compared to the others which would suggest an HG problem. Do you mix the anti-freeze 50/50 with water? If less, the smell might not be that obvious. Since your car was running without the white smoke in the not too distant past, I wouldn't expect it's excessive oil burning from piston ring wear (oil burning smoke usually has a blue tinge also). If it were rich running, as Tony mentioned, you would expect black exhaust smoke.

As for the brakes, it may be that the external contracting band (that has the brake lining material) is insufficiently round and so it can be adjusted close to the drum without excessive rub. If the internal (parking brake) brakes don't work, look closely for signs of an oil leak from the end of the axle. If the internal brake shoes are contaminated with gear oil, they won't be very effective.