Progress on the '40 Plymouth woodie wagon

[Bob Riding]

I have been making good progress on the P10 wagon since summer. As Don indicated, it doesn't rain anymore here in Fresno, so we can work on our cars 24hrs/day, 12 months /year. Here are a few progress pics.

 

 

I put 10 coats of varnish on it last summer, and then fit the wood to the chassis this spring. Most of the metal pieces inside the car are powdercoated -there is a shop in Clovis - Kip's Powder Coating) that not only does great work, but is very reasonable too. I find myself powder coating parts that I hadn't thought of powder coating, like the piano hinges for the doors and tailgate, just because they make it so easy!

I installed a split intake and exhaust manifold from George Asche, with two rebuilt Carters and had a local radiator shop make up a split exhaust that blends back into the single exhaust pipe. These are old time muffler guys and assured me that I didn't need dual exhausts, because of the size of the single pipe and the output of the 218 that I'm using. Good thing, because the placement of the gas tank, off to the drivers side, makes it pretty tough to route a second exhaust there.  I also installed a George Asche OD that I bought from him 10 years ago and with the dual carbs and split exhaust, I can easily get it up to 65mph. Not sure how fast I want to go in a car made out of toothpicks, but it's nice to know that I will be able to keep up with traffic anyway. Next challenge : the seats.

[casper50]

Very nice.  Lots of work there.

[suntennis]

A beautiful job of restoring.

[Don Coatney]

Bob, Looks a bit better than the pile of tooth picks I saw

[61farnham]

Nice job so far on the Woodie, can't be many of those about?

 

Thanks for posting.

[40phil41]

That's looking great Bob. Unbelievable how far it has come. Is that the steering wheel you bought off me on ebay?

 

Phil

[Bob Riding]

That's looking great Bob. Unbelievable how far it has come. Is that the steering wheel you bought off me on ebay?

 

Phil

Yes indeed....I Por 15ed it a bit and it looks great

[Bob Riding]

Bob, Looks a bit better than the pile of tooth picks I saw

Yes sir...no more splinters! When did you do your California visit...2005?

[Don Coatney]

Bob Riding, on 30 Nov 2014 - 3:19 PM, said:

Yes sir...no more splinters! When did you do your California visit...2005?

2007

 

[Jim Yergin]

Looks great Bob. With my '41 woodie with O/D the road noise at 65 drowns out the creaking wood. Going 65 is not a problem, it is having decent brakes to stop from that speed is what I found important.

Jim Yergin

[Jeff Balazs]

Very......very nice. That is going to be one extra special car when it is done. My hat is off to you.

 

Jeff

[DJ194950]

Bob,

last I saw your Woody It looked like pic #1.  Perfect and the wood was out being done. Worth the long wait!

Never knew the floors/seat risers/etc were wood besides the side and top.

 

Your are a perfectionist,  but got to love it!

 

Love to see it at 48dodgers yearly BBQ some year! Hope soon!

 

DJ

[deathbound]

Very nice!!!! What brand/size tires are you running?

[Bob Riding]

Thanks for the compliments. It does take alot of work and one of the more challenging aspects is that, as you know if you are restoring an earlier Mopar, is that many parts are not repopped and available from a glossy catalog. As Jim Yergin can attest, the woodie parts are even harder to find. I've counted less than 25 - 1940 plymouth woodies in the National Woodie Club and elsewhere, so I've found that the hunt is the thing. I also found that Chrysler shared manufacturers with the other carmakers, for example, some of the woodie door hardware is exactly like the Ford parts, which makes sense, given the limited market at the time.

My intent was to restore, resurrect, recreate, bring back from the dead, etc. the vehicle to as as new condition, that was safe to drive and not a trailer queen.

My dad said that you only really need two things on a car- good tires and good brakes, so I've put disk brakes on the front and I'm running the Coker 16" steel belted radials, which I really like. I will install seat belts, and that's about it for modifications ( except for the dual carbs and OD). I did choose different colors, as everything that Chrysler did on their 1940 wagon was some shade of yellow or beige.i It was like they were trying to hide the fact that the vehicle had any wood on it. 1941 was much more colorful, for some reason. Maybe Jim Benjaminson knows the answer.

And I still think that's still the best looking front end (the pic with the 1940 Dodge and Don standing in my driveway) - and the car is looks good too!

Nice job so far on the Woodie, can't be many of those about?

 

Thanks for posting.

  

Looks great Bob. With my '41 woodie with O/D the road noise at 65 drowns out the creaking wood. Going 65 is not a problem, it is having decent brakes to stop from that speed is what I found important.

Jim Yergin

  

Very nice!!!! What brand/size tires are you running?

[fstfish66]

very nice

[William Davey]

What a beautiful job.  I can't imagine the hours expended.  I hope it's just the camera angle, but the T in your fuel line from pump to carbs looks to be kind of close to the exhaust manifold.  Could this lead to driveability/starting issues in the future?  

[Bob Riding]

What a beautiful job.  I can't imagine the hours expended.  I hope it's just the camera angle, but the T in your fuel line from pump to carbs looks to be kind of close to the exhaust manifold.  Could this lead to driveability/starting issues in the future?  

Thanks. I can't imagine the hours either! Luckily I had a D14 to drive, while waiting to finish the woodie.  I appreciate your noticing the potential problem with the T, but I think the camera angle makes it look closer than it is. I haven't had any issues, even in the California summer heat (100+ degrees).

[Bob Riding]

Here are some pictures of what turned out to be one of the most challenging parts of the woodie restoration- the seats.

 

Chrysler, (and I assume most of the other auto manufacturers) subbed out the wood body tasks to other companies like Briggs, Pekin, and in the case of my wagon, US Body and Forging Company.

 

I don't know if they also made the seats, but the construction was similar - solid dimensional lumber that was finger jointed at the corners. The unique design that Chrysler came up with was to insert the spare tire into the middle of the back of the front seat, apparently in response to their female buyers, whom they thought wouldn't want it located in some other more difficult to access location.

It also had the effect of limiting the knee room of second seat passengers, but maybe because people where shorter in those days, that didn't matter so much?

This was challenging to reproduce, and still have the front seat be comfortable, as half of the depth of the seat back was taken up by the spare tire. It didn't leave much room for seat springs and horsehair padding.

 

Although I could reproduce it almost exactly, the woodwork would be hidden behind the upholstery and so I thought I would make it lighter and stronger by using 3/4 cabinet-grade plywood. I designed, what looked like to me, an ice cream sandwich, added the structural wood supports and sheet metal pieces.

 

I then took it to Cal Fast Upholstery in Fresno to finish the seat. They sourced a vinyl that looked virtually identical  to the original and using old pictures as a design aid, sculpted the seats in two different densities of foam, and recreated the stitching pattern and type (what they called French Stitch). The results were beyond my expectations. The seat is very comfortable, yet provides me with the support I need for my aging back. I had the frames powder-coated in a copper color that was a little brighter than the original, but I think contrasts well with the brown seat colors.

 

Next topic: dual air cleaners- old style

[RodFru2u]

Beautiful !  Great Details .

[Seaside Pete]

Wow! what a great car and restoration. Well done.

[Ulu]

That's a really lovely car. I can't imagine the idea of putting a filthy tire inside the passenger compartment though. Maybe they figured these were just for farmers or something...I dunno. I would surely have put the tire elsewhere, like on the tailgate.

 

That's some pretty fancy woodworking. I'd be afraid to tackle a woody. In fact I'm almost afraid to touch a woody.

 

The last one I touched was about 1987, in a big Sanger junkyard right on old 99. (You old CenCal guys will remember it.) It was a '41 (?) Ford woody, and I was amazed at how rusty the metal parts of the body were, yet the carriage bolts on the rear header were bright shining stainless; and I had to touch one to see if it was a stainless bolt, or just a rusty bolt with a stainless cap.

 

15 seconds after I touched it, the wood body groaned and just fell over and collapsed into flinders.

[greg g]

If you are running tubes with your Coker radials, you may want to dismount them and check that all the mylar ba rcode stickers have been removed from the inside of the tires.  They chafe the tubes when the tires flex and eventually wear through the tubes.  

[Niel Hoback]

Wow, good tip!  I don't have Cokers, but I'll sure watch for stickers.

[Ulu]

Not just that, but feel the whole tire inside with your hand before you put the tube in. Sometimes crap just gets inside the tire.

[Don Coatney]

Ulu, You should visit Bob Riding as he lives jest a few miles from you. You should also connect with forum member Mark Haymond as he lives just a few blocks from Clovis.