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53 Dodge build thread


53dodgekustom

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Mocked up the master cylinder and pedals today. Made some stops like suggested. Had to open up the mounting holes a little. Also had to trim a piece on the clutch linkage that was rubbing. Looks great otherwise!!

 

 

Looks good. How much side to side "play" do you have in the pedals?

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Referencing post #49. Will that mount work on my '54 Plymouth? I need mounts and pedals and this answers the mount issue. Since I'm going disc brakes and dual MC will need to change anyway. 

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Referencing post #49. Will that mount work on my '54 Plymouth? I need mounts and pedals and this answers the mount issue. Since I'm going disc brakes and dual MC will need to change anyway. 

Call ECI. They have different mounts for different cars, manual transmission, fluid drive, ect. 

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Hey man if you haven't gotten a rear end yet I highly recommend You Pick A Part down near Washington Park IL. All concrete, clean, all vehicles up off the ground and very organized. My Dad and I got a got a 96 explorer with 170,000 miles rear end yesterday complete with everything on it with discs, calipers, rear sway bar, parking brake linkage, u bolts, lower shock mounts, 3:73 posi and driveshaft ($25 extra because we couldnt get the dang bolts out) for $140. A little more than I expected but that's the place to go if you want one.

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Finally started putting my control arm bushings in. I had to make an insert for the one that was stripped out. 

 

I really wish I could make stuff at work. The little lathe works ok but takes forever! I also have limited tooling so accuracy and surface finish is sub par compared to what I use at work. 

 

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Finished insert.

 

AAEB9CBA-286C-4D3A-B8DE-8AB68C51D2C3_zps

 

Went to my buddies shop and used his radial arm drill press to drill out the control arm. 

 

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He also tig welded it in for me. 

 

B893E12C-01E3-4789-B80F-0774F856AE6A_zps

 

I cut up a piece of pipe to use as my tool to keep the arm from closing together while tightening the bushings to 165lbs. 

 

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I'm having issues with the king pins now. My car uses a needle bearing type bushing on top and a bronze bushing on bottom. The kit I received just has the bronze variety. They are way to small for the top.  

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Hey man if you haven't gotten a rear end yet I highly recommend You Pick A Part down near Washington Park IL. All concrete, clean, all vehicles up off the ground and very organized. My Dad and I got a got a 96 explorer with 170,000 miles rear end yesterday complete with everything on it with discs, calipers, rear sway bar, parking brake linkage, u bolts, lower shock mounts, 3:73 posi and driveshaft ($25 extra because we couldnt get the dang bolts out) for $140. A little more than I expected but that's the place to go if you want one.

I've been there before. It is pretty nice. Good deal on your rear end find! 

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I'll be good...I will not a word.....

 

no I won't.....devil is present at  my keyboard...

 

to find rear end..put both hands in back pockets and squeeze...

 

I envy you folks with a pick and pull near you...we have not such animal in our immediate area..closest to my knowledge is south Atlanta...but the killer is..and not a real problem to me most of the time..nothing newer than 10 years...so basically a specialized outlet..

Edited by Plymouthy Adams
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The 2 Upull yards by us are the same way. Nothing within 10 years of current. However both of them have another yard next door that they are partnered with for the within 10 years of new cars.

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Finally started putting my control arm bushings in. I had to make an insert for the one that was stripped out. 

 

I really wish I could make stuff at work. The little lathe works ok but takes forever! I also have limited tooling so accuracy and surface finish is sub par compared to what I use at work. 

 

EA9F16FA-E542-4399-8DB5-410ACCDE854B_zps

 

Finished insert.

 

AAEB9CBA-286C-4D3A-B8DE-8AB68C51D2C3_zps

 

Went to my buddies shop and used his radial arm drill press to drill out the control arm. 

 

329DD69D-31B4-4809-908D-65F4920F7A7E_zps

 

He also tig welded it in for me. 

 

B893E12C-01E3-4789-B80F-0774F856AE6A_zps

 

I cut up a piece of pipe to use as my tool to keep the arm from closing together while tightening the bushings to 165lbs. 

 

510559B5-07FF-422E-B8C1-8B0BC3CD26E6_zps

 

I'm having issues with the king pins now. My car uses a needle bearing type bushing on top and a bronze bushing on bottom. The kit I received just has the bronze variety. They are way to small for the top.  

nice job on the A arm  repair,,goood thinking on the  bar/tool

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Put the upper A-arms together last Saturday. I found out I have the wrong size bushings for my kingpins so I had to order them. Still not here yet though!

 

The special tool in the shop manual actually spread the the upper A-arm 1/16 from it's natural position and then the bushings are torqued. 

 

It took me a bit of thinking but I came up with this.

 

Used my friends little mill to make some parts.

 

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Wedges!

 

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Spread it open and torqued the bushings.

 

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Hopefully my parts will come in tomorrow and Saturday I can put the spindles together.

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Well I finally received my correct kingpin bushings so I had the pleasure of assembling my 3inch dropped spindles. Getting closer!!!!

 

I borrowed these adjustable reamers from a guy at work. He had never used them. When i started messing with them I realized that they were made for exactly what I was doing! Only issue was that it had seven blades so it was impossible to measure where you were and how much to adjust. Trial and error. 

 

Reaming the bushings for the kingpin.

 

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An assembled spindle.

 

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Threw the control arms and spindles on the frame to mock everything up. Just had to put the wheel and fender on to see about how it's going to sit!

Exciting.

 

 11F2D460-4116-4BC8-B205-854C2F80B135_zps

 

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Unfortunately, I found out that Scarebird had gave me the wrong instruction sheet with my brake kit. So I ordered $300 worth of parts from RockAuto only to find out that none of it will work. Shipped all of them back today. Scarebird helped me with the shipping cost and E-mailed me the correct instructions and parts sheet for my car. All the parts should be in tomorrow so I will put some brakes on hopefully.

 

Thanks for all the kind remarks so far guys. Appreciate it. 

Edited by 53dodgekustom
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Do your steering arms hit the outer trunnion housing on the lower A arms when the wheels are at full lock?

Yes. My next venture is to modify the steering arms to accept the special countersunk bolt that fatman provides and they say to mill them down to 1inch thickness so everything clears. Plus I need to make it work with my disc brake kit. Think I have it figured out after looking at it today.

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Yes. My next venture is to modify the steering arms to accept the special countersunk bolt that fatman provides and they say to mill them down to 1inch thickness so everything clears. Plus I need to make it work with my disc brake kit. Think I have it figured out after looking at it today.

then you have to switch the steering arms from  side to side and  bend at least one maybe both down a bit,, some pics of that would be great im getting ready to do all this on my  40  dropped up rights,,have them  reemed,,,and modify the steering arms make them thinner  and  counter sunk,,  yours is looking good  hope the weather breaks soon here  cost  to much to  heat the garage when its this cold,,,and calling  for  10  inches and an  artic  blast tonight burrr

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then you have to switch the steering arms from  side to side and  bend at least one maybe both down a bit,, some pics of that would be great im getting ready to do all this on my  40  dropped up rights,,have them  reemed,,,and modify the steering arms make them thinner  and  counter sunk,,  yours is looking good  hope the weather breaks soon here  cost  to much to  heat the garage when its this cold,,,and calling  for  10  inches and an  artic  blast tonight burrr

 

Well, looking at everything involved I decided to just pay the $130 to have Fatman modify them for me. I'm getting down to the wire on time and modifying those would easily take a whole Saturday. I was kind of weary on bending them. Seemed like a fair price to modify them. 

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So. I'm getting married on Aprill 5th and I'm going to try to have this old thing on the road so I can drive it away on our wedding day! I can't wait!

 

Mounted the shocks with the Fatman mount. Had to space the shocks out a bit to get it away from the control arm. Hope this gets rid of the boat at sea motion!

 

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My flywheel was in horrible shape. I had my dad take it to his old place of work and they Blanchard ground it for me. 

 

EEC98EDB-CE3A-4C2F-974A-A8BA15D97291_zps

 

Also got a big package in the mail the other day....THANKS GEORGE! Couldn't be more pleased. It looks great. I also opted for his faster second gear so it's not such a jump from second to third. 

 

4775E501-36E7-44E4-A386-606A21338F57_zps

 

Need to find some wheel studs and get my disc brakes on there now.

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Great project, great work, and great looking car. I'm not big on four doors...but yours would be an exception to my 2-door rule for sure. It is and will be a very good looking ride.

 

It's good that you went overkill on that box to ship the trans. UPS, FedX, have destroyed many similar items such as that. I've heard many horror stories of them breaking things that you would think could not be broke.

 

Your project reminds me very much of building motorcycles, with all the attention to cleanliness and attention to detail. I just finished a 10 month 1937 flathead motorcycle project/build. (I LOVE flatheads) And so I noticed the cylinder of a BMW peeking into one of your pics, which caught my eye as I also have a BMW motorcycle.

 

Keep up the good work.

 

ken.

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Just make sure that when the weight is on the front suspension there is still some suspension travel yet.  We made our own brackets, and the first ones were too short so the shock was totally collapsed and riding on the bump stop.  We had to lengthen them a couple of inches to get the shock in the middle of its travel at ride height.

 

Marty

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Great project, great work, and great looking car. I'm not big on four doors...but yours would be an exception to my 2-door rule for sure. It is and will be a very good looking ride.

 

It's good that you went overkill on that box to ship the trans. UPS, FedX, have destroyed many similar items such as that. I've heard many horror stories of them breaking things that you would think could not be broke.

 

Your project reminds me very much of building motorcycles, with all the attention to cleanliness and attention to detail. I just finished a 10 month 1937 flathead motorcycle project/build. (I LOVE flatheads) And so I noticed the cylinder of a BMW peeking into one of your pics, which caught my eye as I also have a BMW motorcycle.

 

Keep up the good work.

 

ken.

Thanks for the kind words. I'm usually not a 4 door fan either. But It's what I have and I'm sticking with it!

 

I have two BMW's.

 

This one was my grandpa's. 71 R60/5.

 

Iv'e semi restored it and have put many thousands of miles on it over the years.

 

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And I bought this one last year.

 

84 R100RS Last Edition.

 

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They're great machines.

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Just make sure that when the weight is on the front suspension there is still some suspension travel yet.  We made our own brackets, and the first ones were too short so the shock was totally collapsed and riding on the bump stop.  We had to lengthen them a couple of inches to get the shock in the middle of its travel at ride height.

 

Marty

 

I don't have the springs in it right now so I could mock up everything. The bump stop hits the frame just before the shock bottoms out. 

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Great bikes, especially like the '71. I have a 1992 R100R. My dream of course is to find a fixer-upper flathead BMW, for cheap. !!! :) My son was stationed in Germany for many years, and I told him to search for such a thing, but it didn't happen. !! The older BMW's are easy to work on, just like the old Dodges and Plymouths.

 

ken.

Edited by Lumpy
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