Nick Moore

A few weeks ago I took a very old and rusty wheel rim to Steve Hood in Kingaroy (https://www.vintagerimsaus.com) so that he could make five new ones. While he's doing that, I went digging through my parts pile for rim clamps. I found several that were simply pieces of steel plate with a bolt hole (I guess the original clamps occasionally fell off and are somewhere beside the dirt roads of northern Queensland!), but I found one original-looking clamp, a Kelsey 56. A few minutes with a wire brush turned it from a feral-looking limp of rust into clean cast iron. Are these the correct clamps for Fast Four 21" wheels?

A couple of weeks ago I headed to Robert B's place to pick up a replacement chassis, rear axle and front axle with brakes. I'm very grateful to Bob for helping me with this rebuild. He has a trove of parts for four and six cylinder Dodges, and whenever my parts have turned out to be rubbish, he's been able to source or supply replacements. He's also making a radiator for me. The chassis has been sandblasted and painted with Bill Hirsch semi-gloss chassis paint, and a few minor parts have been powder coated. The front and rear axles will get blasted next week. The diff is the open prop shaft type, much lighter than the original with torque tube. Despite having been through the Murwillumbah floods a couple of years ago, it looks to be in good condition with no rust. It's a start...

My ‘26 Dodge’s wheels have just come back from the wheelwright. They were respoked with Spotted Gum, which apparently has similar properties to the original timber (Hickory?). The level of detail involved in remaking a wooden spoked wheel is impressive - the wedge ends of the spokes are beveled so that bolting the hub and drum together tightens the spokes and pushes them out against the felloe. It’s obviously a technology developed over hundreds of years of horse-drawn carriages, but it’s equally obvious why car-makers were increasingly turning to steel wheels instead by the late twenties. A steel rim is probably stronger, composed of far fewer pieces and would take far less time and skill to assemble. And if my new wheels are anything to go by, steel wheels might have been lighter as well. But man, these are pretty. Anyway, these were remade by Keith Wilson in Queensland (Australia):

Buckster, the choice of machine shop is important. Find a shop run by old guys, not young hats-backward 'tuners'. A shop not accustomed to rebuilding old engines won't want the job or have the expertise to do it. But the machining will break down into simple machining tasks. If you can strip the engine down, the shop can measure the cylinder bores, identify the piston sizes, measure any wear on the crankshaft and advise whether the old valves can be reused. The engine looks like it'll need a rebore and new pistons. Someone here may have a set of oversize pistons, or a place like EGGE may have some. The same for other engine parts. If you get the machine shop to do the machining and you reassemble the motor, you'll save a lot of money. Looking at the photos, I'd expect it to require a rebore, new pistons and rings, new bearings and maybe a crank grind, new timing chain and gears, maybe some new valves and recut valve seats. I rebuilt a six cylinder last year, and that lot cost about $2500. Reassembly is a piece of cake if you have a few tools and lots of time. Oh, and it's huge fun too.

Yesterday I spent a thoroughly enjoyable half hour at Keith Wilson's wheelwright workshop in Allora. My front wheels need respoking, and the rears will need to be disassembled so that the hubs and felloes can be repainted. I already had an idea of how wheels are respoked, but wanted to find out how Keith recommended I prepare the metal components. The workshop was wonderful. Everything was covered by a layer of sawdust, making it seem as though nothing had been moved for years. It smelled of wood shavings - much nicer than the metal, oil and paint smells we're used to. Hanging from the rafters were hundreds of lengths of steam bent timber for felloes, steering wheels and hood bows, left to cure in their new shapes for a few months before being used. A lot of workshops have a dog snoozing in the corner. Keith has a shingleback lizard lying on a woodpile. Apparently it's been living in the shed for years. Keith recommended I have my wheel components sandblasted, not just wire brushed, and painted in two pack. He emphasised that the paint be thin so that it doesn't get squeezed when the wheel is assembled. His spokes are usually made from Australian Spotted Gum, although he has some stocks of hickory for the purists. Interestingly, he said that factory wheels were usually only painted after assembly, so there wasn't any paint under the spokes. He had some partly finished wheels to show me, including some whose metal components had been prepared incorrectly. No warranty on those! He also had some lovely Silver Ghost hubs, which were huge and intricate. The rear wheel bearing races must have been about four inches diameter. One of his friends dropped in while we were talking, driving a Model T pickup. Apparently it's his every day car. There was a 1915 Overland in the corner, half restored, a couple of old bikes, and a few other wheeled oddities stored in the sheds. All in all, it was a fascinating place to visit, and I'm looking forward to returning with my wheels.

A couple of weeks ago I joined the Australasian Dodge club. The new member's pack arrived this week and included a magazine, booklet of serial numbers and a windscreen sticker (for when I get a windscreen). And a few days later I got a phone call from a guy named Jim Clarke, down south in Victoria. I can only assume that the photo of my rusty Dodge I sent as part of the club joining process acted as a distress call. Jim's been collecting Dodge parts for a fair few years, and just happened to have a set of 21" wooden wheels - the correct size for my car. The price was better than right - it was downright generous on Jim's part. So this morning's mission was a cold dawn meeting with a long-distance truck driver who Jim knows and who just happened to be driving up from Victoria. Jim's got a lot more parts, so I reckon this won't be the last early morning part-picking trip One rear wheel has been respoked but never fitted to a car, and the other rear is used but in good condition. The two fronts will need respoking, but it turns out that there's a wheelwright about an hour from Brisbane. My next jobs will be to strip and paint the felloes and hubs, and strip the black paint off the older rear wheel.

Operation Clean-and-Paint is underway. It's amazing that after sitting outside for donkey's years, that old Dodge cast iron only has a thin film of rust. I know the area of Australia I bought it from is dry, but still, wow! One of the parts I cleaned up was the mount for the distributor. At least, I thought that was what it was. Mine is the green one on the right. I bought a water pump and it came with another mount, which is different. Looking at the large flat section with four holes, I'm wondering if my car had a magneto instead of a dizzy? I found an excerpt from an Australian newspaper from 1927 that states: "As battery ignition has been so successfully used in Australia for some considerable time, this type of ignition will be standard equipment on all the new Dodge Brothers' cars. Magneto ignition can be made available at extra charge." I think it'll be easier to find and restore a distributor than a magneto.

Thanks for the advice and encouragement, guys. Yep, eBay and Gumtree are two sites I'm keeping an eye on, and some parts have popped up from time to time. I'll join the Aussie Dodge club too. My plan is definitely to restore my Dodge as a roadster pickup, so that it'll be a useful member of the family and not just live in the garage. With that in mind, I'd like to add front brakes if possible. One of the front chassis legs has been bent and repaired (using a fence post!), something I'd like to avoid repeating... Is the '26's front axle the same as a Fast Four's? Another question... can anyone post a picture of their steering wheel hub? The remains of my steering wheel are rusted in place, and it's resisted all non-destructive attempts at disassembly (although I am winning, slowly). I've seen similar-looking wheels on eBay, but need to know that they really are the right ones. Here's mine: In the meantime, I have to finish this first - a '72 Triumph GT6: It looks finished, but I'm still fabricating a fuel injection system and headers.

I've spent the last nine months finding parts for my Dodge, stripping and reconditioning them. So far I've found a fuel tank, carburettor, water pump, generator and speedometer. I'm now looking for a distributor. The distributor should be mounted in front of the water pump like this one: Here's the water pump and distributor mounting - I haven't cleaned them up yet: The part numbers are a bit confusing, as I have a '26 chassis (A810423) and a D-series engine (5 mains, 3 chassis mounts). I think this distributor http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/121364955288?ru=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com.au%2Fsch%2Fi.html%3F_sacat%3D0%26_from%3DR40%26_nkw%3D121364955288%26_rdc%3D1 (ebay 121364955288) is correct? It's a NorthEast model 10004. There are lots of other parts I'm keeping an eye out for - a steering wheel, gearbox, radiator, 21" wheels... but no hurry! So far the only Dodge I've found on the road is this one: Gives me a standard to aim for when restoring...

Thanks Jay and Mike! That all makes sense, and the missing brackets should be straightforward to make. I'll keep hunting for a photo of the #3 bracket. Nick

The farmer I bought my '27 Dodge from recently emailed to say that he'd dug up the radiator shell from behind his shed. I suspect he may have literally dug it up! One 1200km round trip later and I've got it. Now I have it, I have a few questions. He described it as brass, which sounded odd as I thought they were nickel-plated steel. And it did turn out to be steel, with thick copper plating on the front side. In any case, the plating and dry climate mean that the shell is intact - no rust repairs required. It needs straightening though, and a few fittings have broken off. In the labelled photo, there's a hole on one side (1) and a bracket on the other (2) - presumably there should be a mirror image bracket in hole 1? Does anyone have a photo showing what brackets 3 and 4 should look like? Is there a trick to removing the Dodge Brothers badge? Lastly, what is the bent rod at the top of the shell supposed to look like? The repairs should just involve removing the broken brackets, straightening the shell, getting it replated and fitting new brackets. Simple when you say it fast! Thanks in advance, Nick Moore Queensland, Australia f.

Hi, I thought some of you might be interested in a farm-find I recently dragged home. I'm a geologist working in northern Queensland, and one of the farms we were drilling on had a collection of artistically-arranged debris beside the farmer's runway. I had no idea what it was when I first saw it, but the clue that eventually told me it was a 1927 Dodge was the air cleaner. Although it is a body-less wreck, the steel still there is in amazingly good condition, thanks to northern Australia's dry climate. So at the end of the job, I hauled the remains home. Normally I just collect rocks The engine number is D907-581 and the chassis is A810-423. It consists of a chassis (pretty straight), engine (rusted solid), back axle (also rusted solid), front wings, radiator shell, hood panels and bulkhead. No gearbox, and only the hubs and one rim from the wooden-spoked wheels. The cast iron part between the engine and bellhousing is broken. The bulkhead (or cowling, what's the American term?) is very rusty, but I was stopped on the way home by a chap who invited me to see his Model T collection. To one side were parts from what he thought was a Hupmobile - looking at the photos now, I'm sure it's an earlier (c. 1925) Dodge bulkhead, and in much better condition than mine. Apart from the vent flap, are there any differences from a 1927 Dodge bulkhead? Interestingly, I found green paint not only on the bulkhead but also the front wings. It may be that Australian-bodied cars didn't always have black wings? At the moment I'm completing the restoration of a Triumph GT6, so the Dodge parts have been tucked away in the garage while I track down missing parts. A Service Repair Manual is on its way from Amazon, to minimise the number of really dumb questions. I'll also keep an eye out for a body - while I'd love to restore it as a roadster-pickup (practical, easy to build and a fun open-top), if a roadster or tourer body in good condition turns up here in Australia, I might consider it. As found Retrieval The inside of the engine. Number 2 exhaust valve is broken, and may have been why it was eventually dumped. Traces of green paint (more often faded to yellow) on the front wings What my friend thought was a Hupmobile. I'm thinking Dodge c.1925?