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1953 Dodge - What have I got into


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I have yet to start on mine... Actually still waiting on it to be picked up in KS and delivered to WA. ? But it’ll get here eventually.

So I’m wondering if you’d care to share a ball park figure on what it cost to get it back on the road..

$5K?, $10K? More? Less?

Thats my project

3203C9E3-64FB-4988-BAF7-2309E93D8188.jpeg

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unfortunately the truck shows no sign of any decent prep prior to the spray of the primer coating and would therefore be totally suspect and will require a complete strip in my opinion...appears to have good bones and so should be well worth you time and beside, its an adventure....

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Have to ask yourself, what you consider "back on the road" ... New paint or something that starts and moves?

Very possible, the brakes are shot, The engine valves are stuck, the tires need replaced, a couple wheels are bad  ... the list goes on.

Maybe, when it is delivered, will start up and run.

I suspect you have a project, like many of us do have, and we enjoy having the project to put the ol truck back together.

 

You will spend many enjoyable hours putting this truck back on the road.

If for some reason you think you can do it for X amount of $, It would change as you went along.

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I don’t want to hijack the thread but yes I totally agree.

My process is similar to petandvanessa’s doing the work himself, buying the parts as needed. That’s why I was curious. Regardless of the answer it’ll be enjoyable.

Edited by Steve-L
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1 hour ago, Steve-L said:

I have yet to start on mine... Actually still waiting on it to be picked up in KS and delivered to WA. ? But it’ll get here eventually.

So I’m wondering if you’d care to share a ball park figure on what it cost to get it back on the road..

$5K?, $10K? More? Less?

Thats my project

3203C9E3-64FB-4988-BAF7-2309E93D8188.jpeg

That won't take much to get back on the road.

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There's lots I still want to do, but right now it's not needed straight away. I kinda like just plodding along and fixing things as I go. What I enjoy is driving Tug, I popped down to a 60's diner the other week just for the fun and enjoyment of driving him.

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For openers, I would do an 800 grit wet sanding and get it on the road.  If the engine is dependable, then the first money goes into brakes and tires. 

 

I rebuilt this, so yours will be much easier. 

D70D050C-3CF6-4EE6-A806-3DD80A9332AC.jpeg

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Wiring!  Either make your own harnesses based on the old ones (about $250) or buy them from Rhode Island Wire (about $1000).  Mine were crumbling apart and I built my own harnesses with color coded wires made for 6v.  Every truck I've seen near the age of my '53 either had unsafe, crumbling original wiring, scabbed together patches of wire of various - or monochrome - colors run all over the place, or it was properly rewired.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Time to bugger about with a Mopar 820 6 volt valve radio for the 1953 truck. It's not a standard radio for a 53 Dodge truck, but it will fit in the dash.
Got the tuner display bulbs working. 

Fixed the low voltage vacuum tube heater circuit working, you need those for those little electrons to come out to play. 
Next step will be to start replacing the old paper condensers which will be rotten after 66 years. 
I need to chat to my daughter about the high voltage dc part of the circuit. That's going to be the tricky part.

Unless anyone has a Mopar 820 power supply/amplifier module that they might have. It's the unit on the left in the black and white pic below.

Please let me know if you have one.

It will be really cool if I can get this radio working and installed in my 53 truck.

IMG_20190920_161926100.jpg

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Time to bugger about with a Mopar 820 6 volt valve radio for the 1953 truck. It's not a standard radio for a 53 Dodge truck, but it will fit in the dash.
Got the tuner display bulbs working. 

Fixed the low voltage vacuum tube heater circuit working, you need those for those little electrons to come out to play. 
Next step will be to start replacing the old paper condensers which will be rotten after 66 years. 
I need to chat to my daughter about the high voltage dc part of the circuit. That's going to be the tricky part.

Unless anyone has a Mopar 820 power supply/amplifier module that they might have. It's the unit on the left in the black and white pic below.

Please let me know if you have one.

It will be really cool if I can get this radio working and installed in my 53 truck.

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I noticed that the above power supply and amplifier is missing the vibrator, which is essential to convert the 6 volts dc into about 200 volts dc that the valves need to work.

From what I've read, the old mechanical vibrators are almost impossible to find.

 

After a bit of research I found a company that has solid state versions of the original mechanical vibrators. They cost about $40, so not to bad.

 

I'll have to order one of these to get the power/amplifier part of the circuit working, as well as ordering new replacement capacitors. These old radios have wax capacitors which breakdown over time and must be replaced. Fortunately, modern replacement capacitors are much smaller than the originals and are really low cost.

 

Looks like I'll be breaking out my soldering iron in the near future.

vibrator.jpg

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I did some further reading and found a better source for the 6 volt positive ground vibrator.

 

This should be a direct retro fit for the power supply chassis and replace the mechanical  vibrator.

https://www.tubesandmore.com/products/vibrator-4-pin-automobile-radio

 

Ordered the key parts for the Power Supply. The Power supply, chassis and radio should arrive by Friday and I've studied the circuit diagrams, so I know what voltages to expect when I power it up.
I remembered I had a digital oscilloscope in one of the spare rooms, so I've dug that out, that's going to be super useful when testing the Power Chassis.

Oscilliscope.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

The 53 tube radio fought me all the way, but I won.

The radio is now working, still need to do some adjustments and fit the correct speaker with the correct impedance, that should fix the higher volume distortion. 

 

Should be fun to have a 53 tube radio in my 53 truck ?

 

 

Edited by peteandvanessa
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Slight change of plan. The radio that I just repaired was working fine.

 

Unfortunately Tommy two tooth the truck driver, had hacked into my dash with an after market radio many years ago.

When I went to fit the repaired radio, I realized that the dash would have a hole in the dash that wouldn't be covered by the Mopar 830 radio when installed.

 

So I moved to plan B, which was to take the Mopar 820 radio that I had purchased,, recap and clean and test it, then fit that into my 53 Truck.

 

Here's the radio installed in my truck, the speaker is in the center of the dash, here I purchased a new 4 ohm speaker and fitted the new speaker under the Top speaker grill.

 

I now have a working radio in the truck and it sounds great, it's actually pretty loud at full volume.

 

 

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