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1958 Dodge utility truck


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I found this in Kentucky; its a 58 Dodge utility truck that was retired from a local fire department several years back. Other than some rust here and there and a bad repaint this thing is solid as a rock and runs and drives really nice for a 61 year old truck. 230 inch flathead with a four speed. Not sure what I'm going to do with it yet; the guy i got it from had it licensed and used it for a weekend cruiser. For now I'll probably just put a new factory floor mat in it, replace the dry rotted tires, find some matching hubcaps, and cruise it to the local shows.

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Yeah; that’s about it. Not going to mess with a full restoration. The door bottoms are bad but I’ll tackle that later. I just want to fix a few things and cruise it around to the local shows for now. It had some old household carpet that was really nasty so I pulled it out and ordered a factory rubber floor mat. I went ahead and patched a couple spots in the floor and put some por-15 on it to protect it.

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Here you go, I got the mat from Roberts Motor Parts. It fit OK; the only pre cut hole was for the steering column and it wasnt in the right place.  But it's better tThe only serious rust is the passenger door and I found a replacement this weekend that needs a lot less work. I put a new floor mat in, cleaned it up, adjusted the brakes, and ordered some tires. I’m using these Dakota wheels as the original were only 5” wide and I couldn’t get a 235/75/15 on them. Other than replacing the door; that’s about all it needs. (For now)?

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  • 3 months later...
11 hours ago, falconvan said:

Time for some steering and brake upgrades. I found this donor truck; planning a front frame stub swap and rear end swap. I’m keeping the flathead; it runs too good to change it.

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I need to find one of those to fix my dakota!!

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

From what I read the first generation Dakotas are the best to use. Not sure on the wheelbase; I'm not using the whole frame so I wasn't concerned with it. The Dakota frames have a kick up past the cab that would not have worked with the service bed unless I wanted to raise the floor in it. I'm going to cut the frame at the firewall and mate the Dakota front stub to it; plus change to the Dakota rear end.

 

You think it had enough rear springs? The Fire Department that had this must have really hauled around some heavy gear to need all this.

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Got the Dakota rear swapped in; perfect fit. Even the driveshaft will work with a u joint change. Just leaving it bolted in loose until I get the front clip in and see what the front ride height looks like.

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Edited by falconvan
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