Rogillio

I could tell you electrical stories that would blow you mind John. 28 years as an electrical engineer for The Boeing Company I have seen a lot of electrical phenomena. If you think concrete won't conduct then try this: Stand on concrete with bare feet and stick a butter knife into the hot side of a 120V outlet. If concrete is an insulator you won't be a path yo ground. Give it a try and let me know about how concrete won't conduct electricity.

It's not a theory, it's a fact verified by test. The sense circuitry electronics probably operates in the milliamp region. Floating ground and ground loops confuse electronic sense logic. I don't have a scope to check but the charger might also ride a small milliamp ac signal on top of the dc current to detect the type of battery, the voltage, current and polarity. I don't know how the charger knows the type of battery, AGM, VLRA, etc. I do know when I checked the voltage between the hot side of my outlet in my shop and the bumper of my car ingot 120v proving the car was grounded thru the Jack stand and thru the concrete in my shop.

2 wheels done. 3 to go. Tire : $175 Tube: $25 Rim rubber: $25 Powder Coating rims: $75 Labor: ~3 hrs Total: $300 (I work for beers) Satisfaction of bringing a 1926 Dodge Brothers Coupe back to life: PRICELESS!! The rear axle is 180 out! I took the lugs off the right rear wheel and found they were left handed threads. I checked the left side and sure enough they are RH thread. So the rear axle has been removed and/or replaced and put back on 180 out.

Like all things in life, we balance what we want with what we can afford. Chome the bumpers and radiator shrouds on 2 1926 Dodge Brothers Coupes or take the family on a Disney Cruise the Christmas? Hmmmm.....hello Mickey!

Dent is still there in the other side. I figure it is patina ....a battle scar

One of 5 wheels done. Tank almost done.

I only paid $6,000 for my car! I think I've beginning to acquire a taste for cheese.....my breath may smell like cheese but I'll still be sleeping in the bed with Mrs Rogillio and not on the coach.

Looks great to me! I agree, it's hard to justify the cost. I like the black. Oh well, that is waaay down on the list of things I want/need to do to my cars. If I can make them look better for pennies on the dollar, I will. The powder coating is 100% reversible and at any time, if you should find your self with extra cash you don't know what to do with, you can sent them out to be chromed.

LOL. Maybe.

I got the rod in today from Myers.

Yikes! I was a 1926 DB Couple like mine at an estate auction recently listed for $27,000. It was 100% restored.....guess I know why. I a seperate note, I was at a car show recently and looking at this 1930s rat rod. Everything under the hood of that thing was chromed including the exhaust manifold and chrome braided plug wires. I see this woman looking in the truck of the car which was covered in velvet and she says, "Now....this truck would not orginally be finished this nice would it?!" Really, is that the only thing you see on this car that might not original OEM parts?! :-) LOL

Why are there no Dodge numbers for 1928? I guess that is why Chrystler was buying DB out....so maybe that is right and there are no 1928s? My car was build in July/Aug 1926 and it called a 1927 series (per the serial number charts). Does that mean mine was one of 180,000 (1927 production numbers) or one of 265,000 (1926 prodcution numbers)?

I have been watching CL and eBay for about a year and a half looking for other 1926 DB 2-door coupes and I finally found another one and bought it. I started trying to find one for parts but the one I found is actually in better condition than the one I have mostly restored so now I am restoring 2. I got to wondering if there were any numbers available indicating just how 'rare' a vechile is. Presumably DB Club has some records about members' vehicles and that would give some indication of how many of a particular model and year that members own. But I'm sure there are 2x or maybe 20x that many out there is someone's barn or back yard or shop that no one knows about. I wonder if Early Myers Dodge has numbers based on the number of customers they have asking for common parts? I guess it really don't matter....I like to think my '26 coupe is relatively rare....certainly rare than a comparable Ford. I figure every year that goes by my car becomes more and more rare as people chop them up for rat rods or for parts. I so one like mine for sale at a big estate sale in FL for like $27k....I guess if I had unlimited time and money I could have mine professionally frame-off restored....but that's just not me. I like mine looking like I just drove down off of Walton's Mountian not drove out of a museum.

Thanks. I will asked them about it. I'm taking the gas tank in tonight to have it powder coated....I hope. I had the gas tanked at the radiator shop being boiled and cleanred....and this was after I'd spent 2 days myself cleaning it. So hopefully it is clean enought (on the inside) that they can PC it without it blowing up. ;-) While I am there I will ask for samples. That's a good idea about having the bumpers PC black. Did you go with flat, satin or gloss? My bumpers also need work....

The radiator shroud on my '26 DB coupe orginally came in 2 flavors - nickle plated or painted. With paint being the obvious option. The shroud had lost most of it's nickle plating so I stripped her down to clean steel and when I got a quote back of $900 to have it plated nickle or chroms, I painted it back. I've been reading about chrome powder coating and googled some pictures and it looks really nice! I just can't justify $900 for the chrome plating but I might be able to affored the powder coating that looks similar to chrome. Anyone tried this? What can you tell me about it?

Great thread! I have been thinking I need to add fluid to both of my 1926 Coupes. I found the plates but have not taken the cover off.....afraid of what I might find. :-) I did order some 600W oil off of eBay when I read this. I'm still confused on the fuild level it needs to be filled to? I recently replace the tube that goes from grease cup on the floow to the clutch throughout bearing. It was a major pain to get the tube filled with gease using just the cup. I finally made a fitting that connects to the bellhousing and put a zerk fitting in and put plenty of grease on the throughout bearing. I think the brass grease cup is slightly stripped. Not too worried as it is easy enough to remove that plate and use my threaded fitting with zerk fitting.

ELI the ICE man brought back memories....reminding us thar voltage leads current in an inductor and current leads voltage in a capacitor. But remember, bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.

Google the Dodge Brothers Book of Information and a Dodge Brother's Maintenance Manual. They did a really good job back then documenting their vehicles. Those two books (not 100% sure I have the names right) have really helped me a lot.

Good points. Only thing I would add is the coil does care which way current is flowing. The right-hand-rule says that if you wrap your right hand fingers around the direction the coil is twisted the direction of the magnetic field and subsegent current flow is in the direction of your thumb. This is a great video that show polarity in red and blue. As PP said, it really doesn't matter as long as things are connected right.

Interesting. I admit I can see no rational scientific reason why it would matter. I guess it is cooler on the floor but seams like that would extend the life not shorten it. Mytht or not I keep my boat trolling motor on a shelf.

I agree it is not good to leave a battery on the concrete. I'm not really worried about leakage current draining my batter as that would take a while and I hope to have the wheels back on soon....and the simply solution to that is to pull the battery terminals off. So last night just for grins, I connected an aligator clip to the front bumper of my car and put the other end to my meter. I took the other lead and stuck it into the high side of a wall outlet....and I read 115Vac. So clearly my chassis was grounded to earth ground via the jack stands the concrete on my shop floor.

I think the headlights are not original and maybe there was not enough clearance for the rod? On the other hand, the glass has DB on it. So maybe the lights or the holders came off a different DB vehicle.

The issue of ground and earth ground has to do with the charger. The charger connects to 120vac in my shop. One of the prongs of the 120 connects to one side of the 240v bus on my breaker box. The other prong connects to the return leg that ties to the ground bus in the breaker panel. The ground bus goes out to the transformer on my utility pile. The transformer is grounded to earth ground via a long rod driven into the earth. There is along a long ground rod tied to the the ground bus is my breaker box neaer my meter base. Follow me so far? Ok, the return leg of the 120v outlet is tied to the earth ground! The charger thinks it's return is zero volts. But it is not. The 6v of the battery is tied to the return. So there is a 6v potential between what the charger ground (return of the 120) and earth ground. This difference causes a little current to flow from chassis ground to earth ground. My charger has very sensitive sense lines to detect voltage, current and polarity. The bottom line is there is nothing wrong with the car but the fact that the chassis was tied to earth ground confused the sense electronics in the charger.

Ok, just hooked the battery back up with charger not connected and I get 6v + coil-to-ground.

I am a EE with 29 years experience in the aerospace industry and I've seen ground loop problems wreck havoc with electronic circuits. I'm 95% certain of my theory. I will do some testing to verify. But I cannot take the chassis off of earth ground till I get my tires on and off the jack stands. One of my engineering friends suggested getting a dumber charger. lol. I have one and will try that.