Radarsonwheels

The throttle pedal itself is way too billet 90s for the rest of the interior. I might sandblast the chrome off it and maybe paint it satin black. The brake pedal is also new- I welded the tip of the '54 pedal to the bottom and bolted on the original pad. That'll look nice painted black. The front brakes are going to be refreshed too- new calipers, hoses, hard lines, 1" bore master, and a dual 8" power booster. I hope my 230 flathead six has enough vacuum to work the booster and I won't need a can or a pump- I figured I'd roll the dice on that one.

So this is going to be my rambling build post about the 'Dude Magnet' my 1954 Dodge 3/4 ton C-series beater. The chick magnet on it is unfortunately permanantly broken but I will mostly be addressing other issues. I think I mentioned in my intro post my buddy and I trade this truck back and forth every five years or so for small money when one of us loses momentum or interest. I have done a few cars before- enough to know that the body is the really hard and expensive part. The chassis and driveline are the easy and fun part for me. I am not in a hurry to put a small block chevy in her or drop it on an S-10 chassis- I am a mopar freak. I also see the truck as too far gone for a restoration so I'm treating it like a tool. I'm going to get it working as well as possible and keep it cheap, while hopefully avoiding rat-rod cliches. This weekend the snow melted in PA and I was able to get a few hours of work in on the truck. I guess doing a few replies on here is the best way to post pictures? Here goes: It already had a 32/36 reproduction Weber progressive carb on it but the stock pedal was beat up and bailing wired to the pushrod. The stock mechanical throttle linkage was only getting 2/3rds WOT. I got an air cleaner off Langdon's stovebolt and a cheesy ebay throttle cable and pedal setup.

Oh man I went through this bigtime. I put a dual pot master in my 54 with a rusty hope disc kit. First the pedal stroke was not long enough- if the pushrod was adjusted long enough to stop then it wouldn't return far enough to bleed line pressure back to the master- after a few soft stops the brakes would lock and I'd have to bleed the pressure at the wheel. 'No problem' I thought- I'll just weld an extension on the m/c side of my brake pedal- lengthening that side of the 'seesaw' would make a longer throw. Then the angle was wrong since the master was no longer in line with the now lower pushrod. 'No problem' I thought, I'll just make an angled shim to align the m/c bore axis with the new pushrod swing. This sort of worked except for two things- first now the pedal kind of sits on the floor and you have to pick it up with your toe before standing on it into it's rainbow into the floor, and second I was never able to find a good MC bore. I went smaller until most of the pedal travel is used and you still have to stand on it to slowly stop- there's no bite and no more travel available before it's almost floored. I just got done collecting parts to do a 1" bore master with a dual 8" booster on the firewall with a regular swinging pedal. I'm going to paint it black and use my original pedal pad. Hopefully it will stop nicely and the power will make it an easy (not touchy) pedal so I don't stress my firewall by standing on the brakes. good luck with yours!

Thanks! It took me a long time to find that grille. It came with nothing there. I did drawer pulls for a while before I found a set of bars. They came with that paint- top bar white, bottom bar grey!

Hi fellas (& gals) My buddy brought an old farm truck up to PA from Virginia and we trade it back and forth every five years or so when one of us runs out of steam on it. It is kind of a heap and kind of super awesome. It's never been a good driver but we've always putted it around as much as possible. He christened it the Dude Magnet because it always attracts a crowd and there are never any women in that crowd! The last time I had it I put a rustyhope front disc kit on it. It stopped better but the underfloor setup was never perfected with the dual pot master etc. I'm about to put a power booster on the firewall and a cable throttle while I'm at it. The mechanical throttle just needs too much work. My buddy put a lot of time and money into her but with the sketchy brakes it just still wasn't a good daily driver. It also needs some wiring. He did a lot of neat stuff to it: fenton repop iron 3 into 1 dual headers, 32/36 weber carb, oil filter with pressure bypass, tremec 5 speed on the floor, rebuilt 230 flathead motor, 15 gal fuel cell under the bed, aluminum radiator with custom welded aluminum brackets/frame, and even a nice rubber floor. I am about to install power brakes, a cable throttle (current setup doesn't get WOT and is kinda beat) and I'm on the hunt for a new rear with more modern brakes. I'm excited to be on this forum- not a lot of these trucks are still around!