Taylormade

It was Midas - it's stamped on the muffler. I, too, suspect it has something to do with the exhaust, but I sure can't figure out what.

Ouch! Another example of "what were they thinking?" or, maybe, "this car was not designed to last over 80 years." Were these original equipment on your car?

The distributor is at the engine re-builders at the moment. I'll check for you next time I'm there. It is a tiny little thing.

That is the exact pedal car I had as a child - right down to the color. I have home movies of me receiving it as a Christmas present in 1948. Good luck with the restoration. If all else fails, they make Chinese reproductions at a fairly low price - I got mine for $139.00. You might be able to use the running gear and windshield from that. It comes as the "Torpedo" body, so I am going to have to fill the three portholes in the side of the body to make it match the less expensive model that you have and I had. I wish I could have found an original that I could have afforded. Nice find!

Back at Loop 70 it was time to take out the crankshaft. The 32 Dodge was the last year for babbitt bearings. The four main bearings are removable bronze-backed with a babbitt surface, sort of an insert bearing on a grand scale. The main caps were a bear to get off as they are attached with studs in the block and very difficult to pull straight off. If they get cocked at all when you're removing them, they'll bind against the threaded stud. It was a royal pain getting them off! Once exposed the main crank journals looked as good as the rod journals. The babbitt inserts also looked very good, but since we decided to grind the crank, they will get new babbitt also. Loop 70 doesn't pour babbitt, so the rods and bronze inserts will be sent to Harkin Machine Shop in Watertown, South Dakota. They will pour new babbitt in the rods and finish the inside diameter to the specs Loop 70 will send them once they grind the crank. Harkin will also pour new babbit in the bronze inserts. This will be done oversize and then Loop 70 will line bore the mains in place in the block to match the newly ground crank main journals. Harkin charges $65 per rod and $55 per main. We plan to get new pistons from Egge, new valves and a new timing chain and gear. My final chore was the tedious task of removing the valves, springs and lifters. Nothing exciting there. I used a typical L-head valve spring tool and fished the keepers out with a magnet. Everything came out with no problem except for one valve that had to have its head filed to remove a bit of mushrooming. The area was pretty clean, without the gunk I expected, and that made things a lot easier. With the valves out, I removed the camshaft, which looks very good. With that, the motor was totally disassembled and ready for cleaning and machine work. The folks at Loop 70 were great and there was a constant influx of customers having work done there - guys with model As, thirty era Chevys, Mopar and others, all ready to talk cars. It was a fun day.

I arrived at Ed's and was delighted to see my passenger side front fender primed and ready to go. He then showed me progress on the rear fenders, which we originally thought would need little work. WRONG! They were almost as big a mess as the fronts. Lots of rustout where the fender met the body. Mucho cutting and replacing sections of metal, all carefully shaped to fit. Ed had also sandblasted the lower sections of the body and we got our first look at the rust damage in that area. As usual, the blasting revealed all the hidden secrets the paint had been hiding. The good new was, that despite the rust holes in the rear fenders, the wheelwells themselves didn't need any metal replacement around the top - just a few small flat sections along the bottom. The lower driver's side turned out to be very solid - only one small section that will be easy to patch and a few pinholes that will weld up with no problem. Ed blasted the inside and everything looked good there, too. He will make sure all the rust is blasted out after the repair is done and then use a wand sprayer to coat the entire inside of this section with epoxy primer. This should make things good for the next eighty years. The passenger side was much worse. The entire lower section - inside and out - will have to be fabricated and used to replace the rust carnage. It will then get the same primer treatment. The sills and door bottoms on both sides look great. more good news. There were a few soft spots at the very bottom back of the body, but nothing major and patch panels will be easy to fabricate. The cowl and firewall look brand new - no corrosion at all. Very good news. I can't wait to get everything back home so I can work on the frame and get the body and fenders over to the painter. By the way, does anyone know what this rubber mount/pad/damper is? It's a rubber piece bolted to the frame X-member, but nothing was attached to it and I can't figure out what it's supposed to do. Phil, crawl under your DL and let me know! By now it was almost two, so I headed back to Loop 70 to work some more on the motor.

This week I headed over to Loop 70 Auto to work on the motor. Ed and I had dropped it off on my last visit. The shop is about four miles from Ed's place, so I could do a two-for-one day. The guys at Loop 70 had graciously suggested that I could save some money by disassembling the motor by myself - in their shop and under their supervision. Hard to refuse that! They had the motor on a stand and ready for me when I arrived. My first job was to remove the head studs. One of the things that really worked for me was that the shop obviously had all the correct tools for disassembly - stuff that would have cost me a fortune to buy or rent. All the studs but one came out easily. There's always one. It snapped before I even put any real pressure on it, so I suspect it was already damaged. They told me not to worry, they'd put the block on their drill press and get the broken stud (snapped below the level of the deck) out with no problem. If I'd done it at home, God knows how I'd have ever gotten it out! I removed the distributor and the oil pump. It turns out that both Phil and I had taken good care of the lubrication chores on Daphne. The entire motor - inside and out - was coated with a film of oil. It was everywhere! I wore rubber gloves and still ended up an oily mess at the end of the day. Next, I flipped over the motor and removed the oil pan, getting my first look at the innards. Check out the copper oil lines. Not my favorite engineering method of delivering oil, but they were in good shape and the guys said if I was careful and didn't twist or crush them during removal, I'd be fine. Thanks to the coating of oil, the fasteners came off easily using two wrenches and both lines came free with no damage. It was kind of like loosening a huge brake line. The oil pickup and screen were very clean. Phil had drained the oil and cleaned up the oil pan at some time in the recent past, so there was no crud or debris coating the bottom. That was a welcome sight - thanks, Phil! As I mentioned in a previous thread, there was some cylinder bore wear and a slight ridge at the top of the bore. It was slight enough that the guys recommended that I not bother with a ridge reamer and just pop the pistons out. I carefully removed the rod caps one at a time, then tapped each piston and rod out of the bore through the top. I used a thin metal rod on the bottom of the piston to tap on. This proved to be a two man job as there was danger of the rod getting caught on the cam or the piston falling out of the black and hitting the floor. I held the piston in the bore as one of the guys tapped and kept the rod straight and away from the crank and the cam. Despite the ridge, it took very little tapping to get each piston and rod out. At this point we could examine the babbitt rod bearings and the rod journals on the crank. Everyone was amazed! They were in very good condition. Some measuring revealed that the motor had been rebuilt at some time in the past. The rod journals had been turned and were slightly under the original specs. The guys told me that if I intended to use the car for parades and Sunday drives, they would use the rods as they were. They were in that good shape. They said there was usually checking and stress cracks in babbitt this old, but mine looked almost perfect. However - and there is always a however in car restoration - when I told them I intended to drive Daphne to Michigan for the 100th Anniversary Meet, the room went silent. Finally, I was told, "Well, they're good, but maybe not that good." We decided that discretion was the better part of valor and chose to rebabbitt the rods and turn the crank. At this point it was about noon and I headed over to Ed's to see how the metal work was coming.

Thanks West. As usual, it goes from fun to frustration, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I've read many of the other detailed restoration threads on the site, and I always learn something new. I hope my thread helps a few fellow restorers out there.

Boy, this makes me glad I'm going with blackwalls on my restoration. It was that way it was when I first bought the car 45 years ago and now that I found her again, she's getting the original treatment. I have to say, though, that those wide whites do look good on the big classics.

Or, as Phil Kennedy reminded me, 1931 - as my car is a very early one and was probably built in 1931, not 1932.

For those who might be interested, I have a thread over on the Dodge and Dodge Brothers section that documents the ongoing restoration of my 32 Dodge. You can find it here: http://forums.aaca.org/f143/ressurection-daphne-1932-dl-348459.html#post1151916 Sorry, I'm just too lazy to post it on both forum sites. Richard

If you remove all the paint with remover and the dash is back to it's original condition, a thin coat of epoxy primer and then your topcoat - if sprayed correctly - should not fill in the engraved metal. I'm sure the old factory enamel was put on thicker then today's paints. Of course six coats of base and five of clear might cause a problem. If you do use basecoat/clearcoat, fill in the engravings before you clear.

Wow, great looking car! I'm a 32 guy, but I'm sure the 33 experts will chime in before long. I'm amazed this wasn't hot rodded.

Already gone it appears.

I think you're correct. I believe the front fenders were taken off at some point and the car has definitely been repainted, but I'm sure this is the first time the body has been off the frame since 1932.

Ian - that fender looks great! Can't wait until mine look like that. Chris - along the top of the frame, for the fenders and the body, there is a canvas webbing. It was also on the side of the frame between the frame and the "channeled" body. This is on a back crossmember. The stuff on the top of the frame rails seemed more like a felt padding, not webbed. It was thicker than the webbing. On the back section of the frame over the gas tank were thin hard rubber pads with the cover over the pads. There was also a double rubber pad up front on the cowl flange that attached the body to the frame through the fender. You can see them in this pix. The one closest to the camera came off with the cover. Here's the one up front. The fender was in the space between the rubber and the frame.

Back at Ed's we decided to remove the motor and get it over to the rebuilder's shop. Probably a crazy idea considering it was just Ed and I doing all the work, but we went at it. First we removed the head. Inside didn't look too bad, but ridges in the bores indicate new pistons are in order. The valves looked pretty good. I've got my fingers crossed that the bottom end won't look too bad. Loosening up the motor, We found the front mount was not attached to the motor by any mechanical means. The front mount that bolts to the frame has a separate part with a rubber pad vulcanized to it. A plate and flange bolted to the front of the motor sits on the rubber. We could find no way the rubber piece could have attached to the flange. The front of the motor seems to just sit on the rubber pad. When they say "Floating Power" they really mean it! The second "Floating Power" mount was between the oil pan and the flywheel cover. This was two strips of steel with mounting holes with a rubber pad sandwiched and vulcanized between them. The top of the mount is fastened by two bolts that also help hold the flywheel cover on. The bottom two bolts mount to a removable brace that straddles the frame. The transmission "floats" in a rubber mount attached to a removable cross frame that bolts to extensions on the frame with four bolts. I'll have to make these three rubber mounts as the original rubber has just plain fallen apart. Lots of stuff to remove to get the engine free, including a half leaf spring that extends from the passenger side of the frame to a mount on the trans. We finally got everything loose, photographed and diagrammed. The engine easily lifted free at this point. Next we removed the tranny, clutch and the bell housing. The clutch plate looked almost new - don't ask me why. maybe it was replaced just before I bought it. I hope the interior of the transmission looks as good as the clutch. Ed showed off his flywheel tool - something I'd never seen. Makes rotating the flywheel to loosen the bolts very easy. With the clock ticking, we loaded the motor into Ed's pickup and drove over to Loop 70 Rebuilders - highly recommended by Ed and other locals as experts in antique auto motor rebuilding - before they closed. My suspicions about new pistons were confirmed, but I got a good bit of news. They are going to let me disassemble the motor - under their guidance - and photograph and videotape the process. A great learning process and a good way to save some money. I'll be doing that a week from Monday and will post plenty of pix. We headed back to Ed's, where I loaded up the tranny, pressure plate, clutch plate, bumpers, body mounting strips, motor spring and bags and bags of bolts, and headed home. Plenty of stuff to clean and paint over the next few weeks! Ed will start on the body tomorrow.

Not much progress for the last few weeks. I've been involved in the tedious process of stripping the seats down to the springs, cleaning off the rust - mostly surface, and not too bad - and painting everything. I also got the rust off the front seat frame and got that painted. Yesterday I made another 2 and a half hour jaunt to central Missouri to help Ed with the body on the DL. When I arrived he had the other front fender nearly finished and it's looking good. We removed the last bolts holding the body to the frame. It's an interesting mounting method, with two large bolts up front on each side bolted through a cast mount just in front of the front door. Another large bolt is attached to a pressed steel flange on the firewall. This bolt also passes through the front fender and into the frame. At the rear, four bolts pass through the rear body pan, the stamped tray that covers the gas tank and into the frame via captured nuts. Earlier, we had removed the trim strips that use captured bolts that hold the lower sides of the body and the running board splash shields to the side of the frame. A bit of rocking and the body came loose in a shower of rust dust and disintigrating body webbing. We used Ed's lift to get the body up in the air. It's surprisingly light - we could easily lift the rear to get a 4X4 under it. Once it was up on the lift we got a good look at the rust and corrosion. It wasn't quite as bad as we expected. Looks like we will only have to replace some short sections rather than the entire lower area. The worst section was on the passenger side under the front door where we found - guess what? - a mouse nest. So, our original theory finally proved correct and after waffling on the cause of the rust out, mouse urine now presents itself as the leading factor, followed by many years of upstate new York winters. With the body off, we got a good look at the frame. Lots of surface rust, but the frame itself is very solid with no rustouts or other visible problems. Check out the size of that X-frame. No wonder Dodge figured there was no need for a center body brace. There was a ton of grease everywhere - some of which probably held the rust at bay - so we loaded the frame onto Ed's trailer and headed to the local carwash where I dropped 12 bucks in quarters trying to get everything clean. Some of the grease had apparently fossilized over the 81 year life of the car and refused to budge. I would say we removed about 70 percent of the crud. At the finish, the carwash looked like a grease storm had rolled in, with golf ball sized globs of grease all over the walls and ceiling. I'm sure the owner of the car wash went into cardiac arrest when he saw the carnage. A little less grease after the wash down. My DL has the same type of shackles as my old 29 Plymouth. They are a real pain to find. I will probably have to machine them (new pins, fill weld the cups and re-machine.) No fun at all.

You learn something everyday. They apparently fixed that on my 32 as it suffered many winters in upstate NY.

Lots of work, but it's a no reserve auction so, at least, you know what they want for it. I have never seen the vents rust out of a car like that. You have to wonder if the front cowl was sitting under a waterfall to ge that kind of damage.

I got this reply from Dupont on primer application: Hello, The epoxy primer will have better adhesion over an abraded surface which includes sandblasting. Sandblasting can lead to a coarser profile which can telegraph up through the primer. Using 80 grit will help level the coarseness resulting in a smoother appearance. The important thing is to get primer on the bare metal within a few hours to avoid corrosion. Thank you for your interest in Axalta Coating Systems Todd Brenner Technical & Color Specialist So, it looks like blasted or sanded metal is fine, with the sanded giving a smoother surface to the primer.

Thanks everyone. I guess I'll just run a DA with 80 grit over the blasted metal to be safe and then shoot the epoxy. I know I could probably get away with spraying right on the blasted metal, but paranoia sets in when it comes to me and paint adhesion.

I'm getting conflicting messages on using epoxy primer on a sandblasted fender (1932 Dodge DL). I want to seal the fender as it's going to be awhile before everything is painted. I'm using Nason Ful-Poxy. My local paint shop insists I need to sand the already sandblasted fender with 80 grit to scratch it and get a good tooth for the primer. They say shooting epoxy directly onto sandblasted metal is a no-no and the primer will peel right off the surface once it dries. Several paint/bodyshop forums say just the opposite - that sandblasted metal is an ideal surface for epoxy application. Anyone out there with real world experience that can offer some advice? I have a nice sandblaster setup and the fender is blasted and ready to go. The thought of having to sand the entire fender at this point is a bit discouraging.

The enter button problem seems to be related to Explorer. As soon as I went to Mozilla Firefox the problem stopped.

It's been a dismal week in Southern Illinois. it just keeps raining - day after day. I was planning to give my finished fender a quick sandblasting to even things out and then lay on a coat of epoxy primer, but the rain and humidity make it impossible to do either. Plus the constant rain is just plain depressing - and the forcast is for more of it, all week through the holiday. I find myself sitting in the workshop staring at things that need to be done and then doing absolutely nothing. I did manage to get all my removed parts sorted, labeled and up on shelves. I went through everything, took inventory and was pleased to discover I have most every part I need with the exception of one interior door handle. I'm off to Ed's sometime in the next week to pick up more fenders and help get the body off the frame. Everything seems to have slowed to a near halt, but I'm moving along no mattter how slowly.