Dodge City

I got the old Dodge out a few nights ago to meet one of my truck drivers to exchange some paperwork. I told him I would be in The Syndicate's company car. (the name of my trucking company) The only thing would have made it better if I would have traded the cowboy hat for a fedora hat and maybe a silhouette of a machine gun outlined on the door for effect.

You Canadians have some real good cowboy stuff in a singer named Corb Lund! His song Horse Soldier and video is well written and sung. I wanta be in the cavalry is great too! Keep punching those cows and singing them good songs...

I also have noticed this with the 20 something crowd Keith. I don't know if it is because older people are more reserved and don't share their emotion as easily as someone younger. When I drive my 50 Dodge around the 20 something crowd is the ones that mostly honk or roll down a window to say something. When we are at a car show they are the ones that want their picture taken with the car. Interesting for sure, promising for the future of this hobby.

The diesel trucks I drove in the 70's came with explicit instructions from the bosses I drove for that said "never lug the engine, it will score the cylinders and is hard on the bottom end" "you'll ruin the engine you dumb kid" The operating RPM on a cummings was 1800-2300 then. Todays redesigned diesels are 1000 0r 1100 on the bottom of the range to 1450RPM on the high side they want you to upshift then for better fuel economy. We are upshifting to achieve lower RPM now at a point where we would have ruined engines back then. The old Volkswagen engines I have were very explicit as to the harmful effects of lugging the engine. Interesting how they managed over the years to redesign the harmful effects of lugging out of the engines to improve miles per gallon. Good Topic Keith!

Happy belated Birthday Walter. You did us proud! Your engineering was ahead of its time.

The old Dodge Shop manual call for a 1950 Dodge to run 90wt. or in Extreme winter 80wt. and change every 20,000 miles or 2 years. I know yours is a little newer than that. I run Amsoil 80-90 Severe Gear Synthetic in my 1950 P33. Change every 50,000 miles as recommended by Amsoil. Hope that helps...

I had a tri-hull boat that had a hole in the bottom of it that was the size of a nickel. It was right where the water line slapped the bottom of the boat at high speed. I J.B. Welded it and it lasted for 12 years until I sold the boat. Never did crack back out. Keep an eye on it and you'll find out eventually if you made a mistake or not...

As a guy that has a few VW's around, I've never seen anything like that before. Very unusual looks like you came a long way on it though. Good work!

Sniper, Great information! Very much appreciate the picture. Now I fully understand what the mechanism consists of. I will crawl under the car tomorrow and make sure I even have the lever that fits between the springs. Thank you for the concise picture and for taking the time!!!

I have a 1950 Dodge Wayfarer 2 door business coupe with fluid drive. The emergency brake didn't work when I got it. Upon inspection I find some missing parts. Around the band that fits over the drum, there was only one spring and looks like in the repair manual there was supposed to be a lever or two to actuate the brake? I'll add a photo to show all I have. My question to you all is what is a good source for these parts that are missing? Also when searching salvage yards for this what years on the emergency brake were interchangeable? Is it a Dodge only or did other makes (Chrysler, Plymouth, Etc.) have the same configuration, and what years were the same? I do understand mine was a 2 1/2 inch width band on it but is the parts missing springs actuator levers the same on the 2"? Any help would be greatly appreciated! I tried to search the site but didn't come up with very good results. Once again thanks! as I've found from the time I've spent on this site you all are very knowledgeable at your craft...

The rub block was different on this distributor. I've seen some points screw holes on the right side of the points and some on the left side of the points also.

I recently got a set of at NAPA that showed correct for my year of car but ended up not correct for my distributor. I didn't pay a lot of attention they looked the same and just installed them when I noticed everything was the same but the cam follower didn't come close to touching the distributor cam.

LOL Seriously! I usually don't bust out at someone's misery but that's funny.

This on on a 1950 Dodge Wayfarer. To my knowledge may old Chrysler, Dodge ,Plymouths, Desoto's had them. There is a plug (can't remember if those were 7/16's or 1/2 inch wrench size on each side of the axle about an inch or two inward from the Brake backing plate almost on the bottom of the axle. Mine were really rusty but managed to get them out pretty easily and shove some grease into the hole and reinstall plug.