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.

A picture of the trunk of my black car on a cloudy day (sun was not shining when picture was taken) . Used Nexgen gives a mirror like finish.

If you got good paint Nexgen is great stuff. Easy to apply, makes paint very shiny and slick like F11 but supposes to have 3 times more the ceramics in it. Just spray and wipe. $20-$30 per bottle will do about 20 cars. They advertise 30. Top rated.

Whatever happened to handing out poppy's for Veterans day or was it Memorial day. Whatever happened to Country music, now they put a cowboy hat on a hippie and call it country. Whatever happened to S and H Green stamps. Whatever happened to 5and dime stores. What ever happened to yard darts. What ever happened to building a car that rides good. Whatever happened to neighborhood get togethers. Whatever happened to making teenage children work.

Just wanted to start a fun thread that would test our memories a little bit, and hopefully make for interesting reading. This could be something like Whatever happened to ashtrays in cars, or pledge of allegiance in schools, or maybe an old forum member that had passed on etc.

I have a shop manual. Also researched the forum real good before tackling the job. Every thing went textbook until I found the adjusting screw locked up. Wouldn't budge even with an impact and hammer. Didn't want to break anything from brute force so backdoored a solution. Now no play in the steering wheel. No binding (did have to add another shim back in that I had taken out because it had some drag on the wheel) I still have the star lock retainer in place on the cover plate which I noticed was what the notch on the adjuster screw was for after I had asked the question. Appreciate your valued input!

Dang ol'screw would not budge no matter how much force I used. Page from the Cowboy Life manual, "do what it takes to get the job done and move on"

Whatever I tried I could not free up the adjuster screw or slide it out sideways. So thinking about it a moment I thought what does the screw do? It pushes the gears closer together so I didn't screw the top plate down all the way down leaving it about a 1/3 of an inch from flush then bolted it together, pushing the gears closer like the adjuster screw does. Then I would check play in the steering wheel unbolt the plate again twist it out a few more turns bolt up the plate check play etc. until I got the setting correct. No more play in the wheel!

My steering wheel has a lot of play, about three inches. I took the side cover off the steering box and removed a couple of shims which helped a little. I then took the cover nut off the adjusting screw and locking retainer and screw wouldn't move either way. I Managed to get the plate removed, but screw would not budge. I struck it with an impact driver and hammer a few times and it wiggles just a little but will not loosen or tighten. I noticed the adjusting screw has a keyway notch cut into the side of it, am I missing something here? Any help is much appreciated!

knuckleharley, Don't know what to say. Amazing life story! Thanks for your service to this country! And thanks for sharing your story, you have made me feel welcome here and I appreciate that! As long as you have hope, and a few dreams the tough things that life throws at you is always worth the fight. You are in my thoughts and prayers!

Is the lack of interest in the old car collector hobby from the younger crowd due to lack of disposable income when you are starting out with a family? Or due to misinformation or ignorance about the old Mopars do they think it will cost $20-30 grand to get into this? Or is it mostly something you acquire as you age some. Or when you are younger your hobbies and interests are different than when you "mature" (kind word for old).?