Oops I did it again... 1920 Dodge Brothers Roadster

[BobinVirginia]

5 minutes ago, Lahti35 said:

Thanks for the kind words!

You’re welcome and they’re deserved. You’re doing a great job covering details of bringing the Dodge back to life. Great detail on stuff that matters. No BS just facts of what’s needed 

[dibarlaw]

On 6/16/2024 at 6:22 PM, Lahti35 said:

I replaced the tie rod bolts and bushings this afternoon, there was play but not as severe as the springs.

 

I made a bushing remover/installer out of some threaded rod, nuts, washers, and certain size sockets to allow the old bushing to be pulled out the bottom and the new one pulled in from the top. 

 

It worked pretty good. The old ones came out without much fuss. Here's an original next to the replacement.

 

Inserting the new ones in place after cleaning and lubing the castings...

 

I did run onto a snag with the hardware supplied for the tie rod bols. The nuts were too short, I seem to run into this pretty often... The new castle nuts aren't as tall as the old ones and as a result the cotter pin holes in the bolts sit past the nut. Are they going to back off? I guess not all the way but it bugs me so I found a box of vintage nuts some time ago and have been using them instead. You can see the old NOS one (green arrow) is taller than the new unit.

 

All buttoned up...

Same issue I encountered on the ball stud replacement on my 1925 Buick Standard. One of the original nuts was cracked. So I had to go to the modern style.

 

[Lahti35]

The spring shop got the front leaf spring today and will start working on it Monday. Hopefully I can get it back early the week after next and get it back on as i'm on vacation then and that would be a great time to do it. 

 

Other smaller springs require attention as well... This week I did some research and chatted with other owners about the accelerator linkage spring. I was sure what was on the car was not factory.

 

There seems to be a lot of variation over the years on the gas pedal style. I found pictures of various springs attached to the throttle arm on the carb but that didn't seem right either.  Other pics showed a spring running from the gas pedal to a tab on the bell housing...

 

That got me looking close at the gas pedal and sure enough there was a hole hiding under some dirt. I think the spring in the cobbled up wire mess was the original spring, although a but mangled, it did fit well.

 

I did get a new spring in this afternoon and put it in, with no issue. The gas pedal now sits much higher off the floorboards, it had little travel before. It also returns much more positively too.

 

I enjoy undoing these past "doings", it looks better and it definitely functions better in stock form. It's just a small thing but between research, parts ordering, and conversing with Dodge owners I've got 1 1/2 hours into it. I can see the appeal of a 5 minute patch job with some wire, lol. Straightening this out was a team effort in the Dodge sub-forum, thanks to all who contributed!

 

 

Edited June 22 by Lahti35 (see edit history)

[Lahti35]

I'd been trying to figure out what to used for packing around the enricher shaft on the carb... It was too small for typical graphite packing and the small rope looking stuff for faucents at the hardware was suspicious. I found a member who used it and said it failed and leaked after some time. I found some suggestion to use soaped up string, viton O rings, and another to use the yellow gas tolerant thread tape. I found this last tip on the Yesteryear Tractor forum and since I had some I thought I'd give it a go. Will it work? We'll see!

 

I took a length of the stuff and twisted it into a thin rope, then coiled it around the shaft and ran the packing nut down some to compress it. 

 

It compressed well and did offer resistance to turning the shaft when tightened so we'll see. I also got my new spring for the carb so I put that on as the old one failed when I removed it. 

 

I made sure to set the shaft so the needle inside the carb was just touching the dashpot without lifting it, then adjusted the stop screw so that it was just touching the arm. This is a critical adjustment and needed to be done right. When I pulled the carb apart there was a fiber washer under the domed head/vaporizer that kept it up 1/16" from touching the lip of the carb body. I couldn't find anything about it in books or from fellow enthusiasts so I removed it, must have been someone's "fix" for something. 

 

Factory setting complete!

 

Since the carb was done I decided to get it off the work bench and put it back on the car. I cleaned up the flange and removed a set of bad cracked gaskets from the block, then installed the carb with one new gasket. 

 

I hooked up the enricher "choke" cable.

 

Then the throttle rod went on. The throttle butterfly setting looked good so no adjustment there. I did notice a slight amount of play but not sure if that's shaft wear or bore wear, if the car runs good i'll address that over winter if need be. The accelerator spring puts just a slight amount of tension on the rod when it's in place, just the way it should be. 

 

I'm going to try and roll the engine over briefly tomorrow, just a few seconds to see it if will do it. When I get the spring stuff back in and get the Dodge rolling again (it's on jack stands now) I plan on pulling the water pump/distributor assembly and going through that. I'm avoiding having multiples of things going on at once to keep stuff contained and keep myself away from the rabbit hole. 

 

I finished up the tie rod bolts today after pulling the alemite fittings out of the cleaner, blowing them out, and then installing them back in the tops of the new bolts. I did grease the bolts on assembly but I'll pump some grease into them (and the spring bolts) once the front is down off the jack stands and back on it's wheels.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 23 by Lahti35 (see edit history)

[Lahti35]

I pulled the worn out shackle bushings out today... Maybe I should say I battled them out because they were happy to remain in place after 104 years and it was a fight!

 

I tried the puller I made first with no luck, they didn't budge. Then I turned a piece of metal to fit the bore with a step in it to pound them out which also failed to move them. Then it was on to drilling them out 3/4 of the way through while increasing the ID to ease the pressure holding them in. This finally worked and I was able to pound them out without excessive force. 

 

Removed! There was a slight lip from metal being pushed around through contact over 104 years, I put a slight chamfer on the hole to help the new bushing start ok.

 

I thought I was really in for a fight but after greasing the bores and the bushings they went home without much drama or crazy force.

 

 

 

I cleaned up the shackles without going overboard (don't want them too new looking!)... They're in ok shape but a bit worn, I may look for a better set down the road. For now they'll be ok. I wanted to get this done while the springs are out so it's ready to go when I pick the springs up. 

 

The other thing I did today was stick a battery in the car and turn it over briefly to see if it would. I'm happy to report that it turned over great with no issues I could hear. It was nice and steady too, none of the RRRRRRrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRrrrrrrrr you normally get with a starter motor. I was surprised how easy it was compared to other 20's cars where you have to really push and hold on the floor button to make it all happen. 

 

Next up is pulling the steering box for cleaning and adjustment due to play in the mechanism...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lahti35]

Since the carburetor was back on the Dodge I decided to pull the steering box tonight. The heat finally subsided and it was a pleasant evening for the job. 

 

 

It was pretty easy to remove, gotta hand it to those Dodge brothers. Teardown was pretty easy too, not much to it. The grease zerk was full of dried grease so I didn't have much hope for the insides and I wasn't disappointed! What was once lubricant had become a solid with the consistency of Kiwi shoe polish, but harder and with chunks.

 

I got it pulled apart without too much fuss. The good news is that nothing appears to be broken and the only bushing with excessive wear is the one the steering shaft passes through at the top of the box. There wasn't a ton of slop when the box was on the car, it was more of a cumulative effect of wear in the various steering parts adding up to 2" at the wheel. I'll get it all cleaned up and go from there. To replace the one bad bushing it looks like I'll have to pull the steering coupler off the shaft, the shaft itself looks ok though. 

Edited June 27 by Lahti35 (see edit history)

[ericmac]

I love watching how you break repairs down into simple,  understandable steps. Those looks like a very worthwhile project. 

[Mike "Hubbie" Stearns]

I wish my steering box came apart like yours. Mike

[Lahti35]

20 hours ago, ericmac said:

I love watching how you break repairs down into simple,  understandable steps. Those looks like a very worthwhile project. 

Thanks! It's all one big puzzle made up of a bunch of smaller ones!

[Lahti35]

14 hours ago, Mike "Hubbie" Stearns said:

I wish my steering box came apart like yours. Mike

I wish they all came apart like this one, easiest one I've ever done. 

[Lahti35]

So I had a mini-disaster and cracked the steering worm when pressing it off the shaft. I'm not a happy camper about it but stuff happens and i'm sourcing a replacement...

 

In the meantime I pulled the distributor/coil assembly off to check it over and fix what needs fixing. 

 

 

I marked everything prior to disassembly so it can all go back together the same way. The flexible joint is rock hard so I've got a new one of those as well as a new rotor contact and original condenser to retrofit a modern unit inside of. I'll be glad to ditch the condenser hanging of the bottom of the distributor, condensers in random old car locations bug me! Any distributor fastener seems to have been fair game for hanging a condenser at one time or another over the decades...

 

I popped the coil assembly off the end and found the advance mechanism to be dirty but all there and not froze up. 

 

I had a few minutes after dinner so I dug into the coil to see how bad it was. 

 

There is a modern style coil hooked up to bypass the original so no telling how long ago the original coil has been dead... The replacement style coil could have replaced another replacement decades ago. I pulled the coil out of it's cast housing and was surprised to see it looked pretty clean. The inside could be junk but who can say at this point. 

 

I did find that the contact, which is a blob of solder looking stuff, was covered in thick white oxidation. I scraped it off and was surprised how thick it really was, sort of a fluffy paste covering the whole thing. 

 

I also found the contact spring laying in the housing. It goes in the center of the bakelite cap but upon further inspection it was broken with the base still in the cap.

 

 

The contact in the cap is pretty corroded too...

 

Maybe this coil just needs the contacts cleaned and it will be back in service or maybe it's a paperweight. I'll invest a bit of time cleaning the contacts and take some readings on it. Even if it was in working order there's no way any sparks are passing through all that corrosion. 

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 02:45 AM by Lahti35 (see edit history)

[Lahti35]

No word from the spring folks yet... Kind of a bummer as my schedule was perfect for picking them up this week, next window is three weeks so hopefully they're done by then. 

 

I cleaned up the distributor assembly yesterday. It looks pretty good and did clean up well.

 

Before:

 

After:

 

Lots of gunk to clean out. The zerk was packed full of hard grease but I got it in the end, it's ready to fill.

 

I put a new contact in the rotor as the old one had a bent spring and was worn down severely, way past the little hat on top.

 

 

The distributor shaft itself is ok, no play, but the horizontal shaft for the advance mechanism is worn and loose. I ordered a new shaft and will install it when it gets here this weekend hopefully. Other than that I just need to retrofit a new condenser into the original condenser case and it'll be all set.

 

I set about cleaning the varnish out of the gas tank this AM but made sure to test for leaks first by just filling it up with water which showed it was leak free (at least with the varnish sealing the inside, lol).

 

I decided to try using lye after reading a few posts about it on the internet. I filled the tank about 1/2 full with water then added my can of "Red Devil" lye and waited for a bit. I wasn't sure what to expect exactly so I took the cautious approach. I did see a bit of vapor come out the filler neck and some dirty looking bubbles but that was it. Satisfied it wasn't going to erupt like a grammar school science fair volcano I filled the tank up the rest of the way with hot water and let it do it's thing. More dirty bubbles at the now full filler neck but that was about it again...

 

 

 

I've got the tank set at a slight angle to make sure there is no air trapped down at the end opposite from the filler neck. I used some sealant around the gas gauge and taped it to be sure as the screw on cap does not screw on well. The threads on the tank and cap are ok but It's not the right gauge for the tank and maybe the cap isn't either. Someone in the past epoxied the incorrect gauge over the remnants of the original, it's a mess.

 

I checked it an hour ago or so and the bubbles cleared up, the temperature of the mix is up too... There's definitely something going on in there releasing heat. I'll let it go 24 hours and see where it's at.

 

 

 

 

Edited Thursday at 11:49 PM by Lahti35 (see edit history)

[JFranklin]

I clean wire wheels in a tub of lye water, it removes most everything. I use 2 cans of lye in a tub big enough to hold a model A Ford wheel. Removes paint, dirt, and rust. Can get a few done per batch.

Edited Friday at 03:07 AM by JFranklin (see edit history)