Removing the door panel on 1927 dodge touring car I want to make a key for the passenger side door

[Larry b]

😃

Edited December 7, 2021 by Larry b
More information (see edit history)

[28 Chrysler]

A 1927 Touring car would not have a lock on any of  the doors.

[keiser31]

18 hours ago, Larry b said:

😃

Is your car really a sedan?

[Larry b]

I believe it is a touring car it’s a four door with a lock on the passenger side door 

[Larry b]

[CarlLaFong]

A touring car has a folding soft top and rarely has door locks

[trini]

I think there is some confusion here. I came across description of cars as 4 door touring sedans. From my knowledge a convertible is not a touring car. A convertible is a convertible. Another name is a soft top, or ragtop.

Lincoln at one time made a 4 door convertible. Most cars that I know off has the door lock in the drivers side. The passenger side door is locked by twisting the inside handle. My M G B ragtop. Driver door has a lock. With the top down I can just step in the driver seat with the door locked.   Will some one correct me.

Cheers. 

[trini]

If the door panels  are anything like  on my 28 DB, the ferule on the door handles are screwed on . They are made with pot metal and has to be broken into little pieces to remove. The Ausie chap reproduces them in stainless steel.. I bought mine a few years ago. Now the cost has gone up by almost 50 %.  The panels are attached  to the door frame with headless nails.  You may look up Meyers Early Dodge website to see what the new ones look like.

[wayne sheldon]

Language can be a difficult subject. Language MUST be somewhat stable in order to have meaning, yet it must evolve to accommodate new needs. 

In recent years, people that do NOT understand history beyond their own childhood have gone to writing their erroneous beliefs on what they think words should mean in discussions about antique automobiles. The whole "touring sedan" thing is ridiculous! The words Touring car" and Sedan" had very specific meanings to the cars of the 1910s and 1920s.

Marketing departments have been muddying the waters for well over a hundred years with short used exceptions to the rules. There were a very few EXCEPTIONS advertised as "touring sedan" in the 1910s and 1920s. HOWEVER! For all practical purposes, "touring sedans" became a certain type of SEDAN in the mid 1930s. The combined "touring sedan" was NOT generally used by the automobile manufacturing and selling industry during either the 1910s or the 1920s. PERIOD!

According to literally hundreds of manufacturers during the 1910s and 1920s,-------

-

-

-

This is a "touring car"!

 

 

Edited December 8, 2021 by wayne sheldon
I hate leaving typos! (see edit history)

[wayne sheldon]

According to almost a hundred automobile manufacturers of the 1920s, many of them producing dozens of models during that decade,---------

-

-

-

-this is a sedan!

 

 

[wayne sheldon]

What Lincoln did or did not do in the 1970s has no bearing whatsoever on what a 1920s Dodge should be called. Terms like "ragtop" and a dozen other affectionate words coined after World War 2 also have no meaning in where door locks are or were used on a 1920s car. Which side of a car the outside door locks was or wasn't on varied from make and model and year to year. A lot of 1940s and 1950s cars and trucks had outside door locks only on the passenger side, because some states outlawed exiting or entering cars parked in the street on the traffic side. My 2002 Ford Expedition only has outside door locks on the tail door and the drivers door (good thing I am still agile enough to climb in from the back when someone parks too close to the driver's door!). 

1920s touring cars almost never had door looks. Because there was nothing to the body above the belt line that could actually keep an intruder out! Touring cars and roadsters sometimes had ignition locks, or even transmission locks to prevent theft. 

[JACK M]

If it were a few years newer I would suggest looking on the rear edge of the door for a set screw near the lock.

Key being rear edge, the part you cannot see with the door closed.

Couldn't say if this was how they did it on the 27 sedans, but it is how they did it in the thirties and forties.

[Larry b]

This is it

[keiser31]

14 minutes ago, Larry b said:

This is it

That would be the four door sedan, not touring.

[Larry b]

My mistake. You see the lock is on the passenger side door 

[JFranklin]

There were laws in some areas that prohibited entering and exiting on the street side. Ford made millions of cars without a drivers door!

[BHWINCVAP]

Here are a few picts of the inside of my Very Early, Just Barely a 27 coupe door. It should be similar on yours .. I would start by removing the  screws and the door handles..

 

Here is an old post I found by MachinistBill that has good picts.  and instructions on how to remove the pieces that are missing in my pictures.

https://forums.aaca.org/topic/198088-1926-coupe-door-mechanism-removal/

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 8, 2021 by BHWINCVAP (see edit history)

[wayne sheldon]

A very nice looking Dodge four-door sedan! Good cars, with a big following in the hobby. A lot of people have 1920s four cylinder Dodge cars and enjoy driving them, parts availability is pretty good. Although some detail items like door locks might be difficult.

The big issue, is whether or not the lock mechanisms within the door are there, and workable or not. Such mechanisms vary greatly from one car to the next, although Dodge was probably fairly consistent within their common models across a few years. Dodge was notably different than MOST other automobile manufacturers in that most of their models/body styles were all steel (no major wood framing structure!). For that reason, they have a very high survival rate, and finding someone else with a similar car to look at might not be difficult.

Most non-Dodge automobiles of that era, the interior door panels are nailed onto wood framing. Nails are often hidden in the upholstery, and can be tricky to remove and replace without damaging the upholstery. However, an all steel door had no wood to nail the door panel onto. So some other means of attachment had to be used. I have never had a Dodge, nor worked on any very much. So I don't know how they solved that problem. 

I have a 1927 Paige 6-45 four-door sedan with a Briggs body, that also used all steel doors (the body itself is wood framed!). Their solution was to have small channels welded onto the doors that the upholstered door panel slides down into. They are a bit tricky to slip over the top of the door and window handle stubs until the holes in the panel line up with the stubs, but once the handles and escutcheons are properly installed, and the trim and screws all in place, it looks and works quite well. To remove the panel, several screws need to be removed first, and the window trim moldings removed. Then the door and window handles must be removed. On my Paige, the escutcheon is pushed inward, and a pin pushed out that keeps the handle on the shaft/stub. The escutcheon and a spring inside it keep the pin from falling out under normal conditions. But that is how my Paige is done! Dodge may have done something different.

Door panel upholstery in the 1920s was usually held on in some invisible way. Modern upholsterers or restorers often use gaudy screws and trim washers that look ugly. However, they are easier to see and figure out how to remove them. I have also seen a few antique automobiles with spring-like "tacks" that push into holes in a steel framed door. Not easy to spot them, however, usually once found, usually easy to remove the panel.

The handles on my Paige were held on by a hidden pin. Dodge likely did something different. A lot of (pardon the word?) cheaper cars used very visible machine screws to hold the handle onto the shaft. Other cars used simple set screws tucked under the handle out of sight. Some handles were made of pot metal that disintegrates with age. No matter how they are held on, getting them off without breaking the handle might be impossible. It is also possible that the handles may have been changed over the years if they were the type to break into pieces easily. So you will need to look closely to hopefully see how things come apart.

 

The 1925 Studebaker two-door sedan I used to have, the lock tumbler was very well made, almost all brass. The lock/latch mechanism however, was itself made of pot metal, and was disintegrating. I hand made copies out of chunks of aluminum in order to be able to lock the doors on that car! Once you get inside your door, then you will need to remove the door latch mechanism (usually not difficult) to see how and what the lock/latch mechanism is made of. Then you can determine how easy it will be to resurrect the lock. However, it may not be necessary to go that far?

Look carefully inside the hole for the lock tumbler. Maybe you can see the connecting hole inside for the lock tumbler shaft to fit into? It may be a small square hole (likely 1/8 or 5/32 inch?), or a thin rectangle slot? (There are other possibilities.) Maybe you can squirt or spray a little cleaner (WD-40 works well) and some oil (WD-40 is not oil!) into the mechanism? Do be careful to not stain the upholstery? Either a screwdriver or a piece of square key-stock can be tried carefully to see if the lock/latch mechanism is functional? If it is functional, it may not be necessary to go all through the trouble of getting inside the door. I was able to do this with the 1924 model T coupe I used to have. The tumbler was missing, but the mechanism worked fine. I happened to have an old tumbler with a key that happened to fit perfectly! Similar lock tumblers are still used today, and can be bought at good locksmith shops and even some hardware stores. They aren't much different than the ones originally used by many automobile manufacturers of the 1920s, and once installed, look nearly perfect! Sometimes, if you get a little lucky, ones can be found that are perfect replacements.

The Dodge door shown by BHWINCVAP appears to have a set screw to hold the tumbler in place. The set screw goes in from the door-jamb area. IF that set screw or at least the threads it needs are there and good? Replacing the missing lock tumbler might be easy. Or not. You will need to look it all over to find out. When I replaced the missing lock tumbler in the 1924 Model T I used to have, it was the proverbial "piece of cake!"

Good luck!

Edited December 9, 2021 by wayne sheldon
I hate leaving typos! (see edit history)

[Larry b]

Thanks for the information I will try to be very careful 

[Larry b]

I’m sorry to bother anyone but I need some help with my car I live in the Orlando area and I’m looking for a mechanic that wold be willing to help me out with the problems I have. My car starts fine but it will not preform as I would think it would. I have replaced plugs,points,rebuilt carburetor and getting to have vacuum tank rebuilt 

[Larry b]

Orlando Florida