Taylormade

Copper gets brittle and can crack. It doesn’t like constant vibration. My 29 Plymouth had its original copper brake lines when I got it and several snapped with little pressure when I removed them from the frame during restoration. Copper-nickel doesn’t corrode, stays flexible and has a superior pressure rating. I made repeated, flawless double flares with my Eastwood flaring tool, and easily bent the lines to their original locations. I helped a friend install stainless lines and they were a pain to flare and bend using the same tools. You can probably get away with copper, but I’ll always use copper-nickel from now on.

Rather than steel brake lines, might I suggest Cunifer, nickel-copper lines. They are much easier to bend and flair, and they won’t rust. They also have the coppery color the original lines had. They are used in many modern cars. I used them on my 32 Dodge Brothers DL sedan and couldn’t have been happier.

I’ve spend close to $2000 on the correct wool broadcloth material from the late lamented LaBaron-Bonney. I found a local trim shop that agreeded to do just the seats for two grand. He’s done a very good job, not perfect, but my car will be a driver, not a show car. He admitted to me that he grossly undercharged me and would have told me five grand if he had to do it over again. I paid $1200 for the correct material to do the doors and other trim panels. I plan to do the doors myself with the exception of some stitching to outline a shape on the door panels, then do all the installation myself. Ceiling material was $200. My wife stitched it up and I’ll install it. I need help from the upholsterer to stitch the door panels and to do the rear arm rests. I figure that will be around $500. I cleaned and painted all the seat springs. The upholsterer used cotton stuffing for the pleats. No foam was used anywhere. The pleats are very deep and there are a lot of buttons. The first attempt at the seats was a disaster, then I found the new guy who did them. The first guy didn’t have a clue what he was doing. I had to buy another two yards of broadcloth thanks to that idiot. The interior has been the least fun project of the restoration. I have a 32 Dodge Brothers sedan very close in size to your car.

I’m no Pontiac expert, but I think the fastback makes it a bit more valuable than the trunk models. Does it run? What’s the interior like? Are the floors solid? Is the wood solid in the doors and body? The condition of the wood will make a huge difference in value. I don’t think you will get more than three grand for it. You may find just the right guy who loves Pontiacs, who knows. I don’y even want to guess the bill for chroming that waterfall grill.

Hmmm...maybe mine didn’t either. The previous owner, Phil Kennedy (editor of the Dodge Brothers Club News) took the axle apart years ago and told me he didn’t find any shims at the time. I just figured it had been monkeyed with somewhere in the past.

You’re exactly right about the shims, ply33, but when I took my axle, apart I discovered that the shims had been removed at some point and had long disappeared. Hence my quandary.

If they are anything like those on my 32 DL, you take off the hub, then remove the outer seal. You can use an axle puller, but I just put the hub back on loosely and put the axle nut back. This gave me enough room to slide the hub back against the bolt. My axles came out fairly easily with this method, and it didn’t take a lot of banging to get the axle to move. The outer bearing race will come out first, followed by the axle with two attached tapered roller bearings back to back, with a slight ridge on the axle separating them. This will leave the inner bearing race still in the axle housing with the inner seal behind it. You use a three jaw bearing puller to remove the inner race - this process usually destroyes the inner seal - and then you can grab what’s left of the seal and remove it. Then and Now Automotive had the correct inner seals when I rebuilt my rear End a few years ago. They had outer seals, also, if I remember correctly. There are shims on the back of the inner bearing race that determine axle play. These are a real pain to figure out if you change the bearings. You have to put everything together before you can determine the axle play. If you’re wrong you would have to destroy your new inner seals taking things back apart to install the correct shims. Have fun!

Correct, Spinnyhill. My marine plywood is not treated, it simply uses waterproof glue, but all the wood floors use anti-squeak fabric between the wood and the metal frame anyway, so no problem.

The 32 Dodge Brothers sedan I’m restoring had plywood floors from the factory. I think the earlier cars used solid wood boards. I replaced mine - which were sadly rotted beyond repair and covered with an impossible to remove black tar undercoating - with high grade marine plywood.

Use marine plywood, it’s laminated with waterproof glue and holds up much better than standard plywood.

Is this for sale or are you just displaying a rather beat up taillight for our edification?

I'm working on two art projects, #D models of an old Richfield gas station and a 1911 Flying Merkel board-track racer. Still a long way to go on both, but they are coming along. The Merkel motor was a real bear to model.

Beautiful car, Matt. What are you asking?

Back on my feet, no pain, totally mobile, no crutches, cane or walker. I can finally get back to Daphne! The machine shop I mentioned earlier did a great job on the steering box and only charged me 25 bucks. The before picture shows the roached threads; not a pretty sight. The after shot looks a lot cleaner. not perfect, but a vast improvement. And you can't replace missing metal. They also cleaned up the housing threads. Now the two pieces screw together easily by hand. No binding or drag. Another problem solved.

It would be a pain, but you might check the serial number against the 31 models listed in the current roster. It should be listed in the old roster.

I assume there’s nothing in The Dodge Brothers roster. Nice looking car.

Exactly the same as my 32 Dodge Brothers. The old lacing pretty much fell apart during deconstruction. I put the new lacing on the radiator shell with split rivets- it has to be done before inserting the radiator. The new lacing is flexible enough to peel back - as in ply33’s photo- and install the mounting bolts.

My intake/exhaust studs looked fine - from the outside. I noticed one had bad threads, apparently cross-threaded - so I decided to replace it. When I got it out, I discovered about 3/4 of the inner threads had rusted away. I was shocked at how little of the hidden inner threads remained. And this stud was a bear to get out, despite the damage. Do not take it for granted that any studs that appear okay on the outside, but come into contact with the water jacket, are solid and in good shape.

51 years and going strong. My wife is an organizer. When the restoration of our 32 Dodge Brothers gets out of control - parts and tools scattered everywhere - she arrives in the nick of time and helps clean up the mess. She and our youngest granddaughter (13) worked the starter petal when we started the rebuilt motor for the first time last year. She’s not particularly interested in the actual restoration process, but loves to travel searching for parts or looking at cars. We rode motorcycles for 20 years and she rode her Harley 6800 miles on one trip we took to the wrst coast. She’s always been a trouper. I couldn’t ask for a better partner.

They are closed over the weekend. I’ll try Monday morning and see what, if anything, I can do.

The action house is close to me. I’d be glad to go and take a look if the car itself is close by. I’ll give them a call and get the details.

If you want all the crud out of your block, get a pressure washer and blast out the block through the casting/freeze plug openings. I could not believe what came out of my 48 Plymouth block - two large pails of rust and debris.

Lying in a hospital bed after having knee replacement surgery. Everything seems to have gone fairly well. Some pain, but not as bad as I was expecting. They say I should be home Thursday. I found a terrific machine shop, one those places full of mills, lathes and other machinery run by two guys with tons of experience who love old cars. After explaining my problem with my steering column, the first question was, “got it with you?” I showed it to them and said it was from a 32 Dodge Brothers. That was all I needed to say. Their eyes lit up, told me it would take a couple of days, and then proceeded to show me the 29 Ford pickup, 36 Ford pickup and the 55 VW convertible in the back room. They are going to turn the threads on a lathe and use a tap on the interior threads of the steering box. Hopefully, problem solved.

The Ken-Tool would probably work, but it’s too small - the diameter of my unit is two inches at least. You may be right, Gunsmoke, but good machine shops are hard to find around here. McMaster-Carr has a correct sized thread chaser die for around 300 bucks.

I’ve got one around somewhere - you know that story. But I can lay a common bolt in the threads and it matches perfectly, so it’s a common size.