1938 Aussie 7 Passenger Plymouth

[1938 Duds]

Hi Mate

I have just found this site. i have a 1938 Dodge Seven passenger sedan here in Kyneton Victoria. I bought mine in 2010 from the northern Suburbs of Melbourne. it is very rough, the guy I bought it from bought it in 1971 and was going to restore it, but never did. 

He said he had never seen another 1938 Dodge one, but here in Kyneton there was one as a taxi until the mid 1970's and it got crushed.

Here are some pics of it as we got it.

Cheers Craig

 

[Sniper]

May I donate to the remove the Ford label fund?  lol

[Marcel Backs]

Very nice car and a body you do not see very often! It has tons of potential to become a class ride. This site has all the info to fix your car up and a great bunch of enthusiasts. Welcome aboard!

[westaus29]

Only just saw your post 1938 Duds, I would have thought I would get an  email notification. Great to see another one! A big job ahead of you. I would strongly recommend you pick up a std sedan in decent shape for spares as your car will be worth it in the end. I was tempted several times to pick up someone's abandoned project but here in WA am too far from the action.

[westaus29]

Next job on the saga of restoring the 7 passenger was to repair the jump seat floors which were inserts. They didn't look too bad but had bad pitting and pinholes. The rest of the floor was in good condition so decided to remove and replace them. I put it off for a long time as could not work out how to weld the new floors in, but eventually used a hydraulic jack and length of timber braced against the roof to hold them in place, and plug welded with the mig boosted pretty high.

 

Spot welds to drill out every two inches over and under

 

 

This exposed the rust underneath which was sandblasted and etch primed

 

 

 

Then plug welded new floors and sealed edges with mastic

 

Edited May 21, 2021 by westaus29

[Andydodge]

Interesting pics..........was that circular hole the factory thing?............I'm trying to understand why it was done like that but seems odd........lol.........good work tho' on the repair..........I'd be making sure that the seam underneath was well sealed also..............andyd

[westaus29]

Yes the circular hole was ex factory, spot welded around the circle as well as floor edges, and I repaired it more or less to original. I did seal it both sides, just didnt show all the pics. I dont believe there was any sealing ex factory, only an underbody bitumen coating about 3mm thick. There was lots of rust under the floor plate. Obviously the seat wells were a moisture trap, and seeing as the roof leaked due to the way the stretch body was built, it is a wonder the rust wasnt worse.

[westaus29]

In starting the rust repairs at rear of body, I ended up a bit out of my depth in part due to taking up mig welding for the first time, also despite not looking bad, there was very little usable metal left to hold things together. The pic below shows what I started with. The beaver panel was shot with both inner and outer 50% gone. Both rear corners were toast and the boot floor was full of holes and buckled from numerous rear enders.

I managed to buy a replacement outer beaver panel which included corners on USA ePay. The centre panel was close to same profile as the Aussie body but the corners turned out to be too narrow. I also had a boot floor panel fabricated up with the original ribbing pattern - more about that later. Next we did a one day mig workshop with one of our experienced club members. Then I started on the left side and discovered that the rust extended thru 3 layers, including the edge of the boot floor. I cut out the rust and tacked in the layers one at a time, had to use guesswork with the boot floor section as it was badly dented and buckled. All ok so far, love the mig.

 

 

 

 

 

Moved to the right side which looked in better shape, but found rust behind the inner re-inforcing that extended right up to the edge of the mudguard. The further I went the more rust I found. And then the mig went to SH#$%, and I was very unhappy with the result so I stopped to regroup. Took a 4 year break .. ??? Moved to kitchen renovation, then rust repairs on my 55 Plymouth (which went well, by the way), then 38 chassis and engine, before returning to tackle the body. Turned out the problem with the mig was the wire spool had come loose as a result of a missing clamp .. fixed with a cable tie. Not a pretty look, that right corner.

 

 

 

 

 

[sidevalvepete]

You are doing good work Jim. By the time you have finished with this you will be able to do anything! Looks pretty similar to mine as far as where the rot set in. Middle floor panels were ok but all the edge near sills and over the chassis rails were all shot. My boot floor was also toast. Grandfather had used it for years to transport piglets to and from the market. Pig pee is obviously pretty corrosive stuff!

 

Looking at your work, you are doing the s as me sort of stuff....cut out small bits, tack in good steel then weld it in fully. Then on to the next bit. Started my job at bottom of the twin rear windows where water leaking rusted it out nearly to th ed trunk hinges. Then floor edges - front to back, then boot floor,  then door sills. Lastly the door bottoms and the guards. Ended up boxing the door sills to give better strength. In lots of places old repairs had been done that we had to cut out to get back to good metal. Looked overwhelming at first but small pieces in a methodical fashion kept the structure from being warped or out of line and achievable. Here's a few pics of mine showing some of the progress details

[westaus29]

Sorry Pete, only just saw your post. Very similar problems!

[westaus29]

When I finally got back to working on the back of the Plymouth, the first thing was to brace the boot opening to match the width of the boot lid. Next was to replace the rusted metal in the boot lid.

The lid has an inner and outer skin and they had been tack brazed together with a very rough repair at the bottom. I separated them with one of those new thin disks and cleaned off all the braze metal as you can’t weld over it. Only about an inch of the inner bottom had to be replaced, but the outer skin was a mess of rust and dents over the lower half, and the bottom edge was about 1 cm short in the middle due to earlier repairs.

I tried to shrink it back into shape but it was too bad and I decided to cut off about a foot and renew it. In hindsight I should have cut it about 2 foot up where the straight section ended. In that way the curved top would have held the shape in place. As it was, I had to try and get a flat join in the middle and that is not one of my skills. Did the best I could but spray putty had to come to the rescue. For the moment I left it tacked until I had a better handle on the boot opening, as a test fit against the beaver panel was not too good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 2, 2021 by westaus29

[westaus29]

I had reshaped the boot lid outer skin to match an original I had access to. When I matched it to the beaver panel it was a poor fit and I had to cut and reshape it to fit.

 

 

 

Next I cut out the rusted beaver panel and its inner skin.

 

 

 

In order to fit the new beaver panel I had to fabricate left and right transition pieces because the rear corner patches that came with it from the USA were too short. I installed them all temporarily with metal screws.

 

 

 

The left lower side of the boot opening had suffered from collision damage and rust and was not very stable so I decided to replace with new metal.

 

 

 

 

When I went to test the fit of the boot lid the rotisserie frame got in the road so I was not in a position to weld in the beaver panel.

 

 

Edited July 2, 2021 by westaus29

[Sniper]

Nice work, looking forward to the progress.

[westaus29]

I discovered that the right lower side had also been damaged by collision and rust had spread under the lead fill. The right corner had also been pushed in about 25 mm (1 inch). So I cut, braced and repaired that side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I welded in the beaver panel extensions and refitted the beaver panel temporarily with metal screws.
 

 

[RobertKB]

I admire your metal work! Wish I had those skills!

[Andydodge]

Agree.......very nice, quality fabrication skills with good pics, great work......andyd

[westaus29]

Before taking the body off the rotisserie repairs were needed to the boot floor sides, which needed access from below so I cut the floor out.

 

 

The previous right side repairs did not meet the new floor so were rebuilt. The rusted section of the seat brace was also replaced

 

 

The rusted edge next to the rear seat was rebuilt

 

 

The left side was repaired

 

 

Undercoated then lifted the body onto the chassis

 

 

 

 

 

[andyd]

Both you guys deserve medals for the amount of quality fabrication you are doing with great pics that also add to why this forum is a real addition to the Mopar restoration world.......many thanks........andyd

[sidevalvepete]

Nice to see the progress Jim. It's a big job but when you get past this part with the main body you will have a real solid, rust free base to fit up all the doors, guards etc to. It is a big car the seven passenger model, well worth preserving.

[westaus29]

Once I had the body back on the chassis, I had two 2mm floor supports fabricated at the local trailer shop, one to replace the original floor to chassis brace and the other to provide extra support under the floor near the spare tyre, as the floor panel was 0.9mm which is a bit light.

 

 

I trial fitted the boot lid and the floor

 

 

 

Then braced the rear body, welded the beaver panel and its inside skin in place, then welded the floor in

 

 

 

 

Next I fabricated and added the floor side braces and the right side tool dividing panel

 

 

 

Edited May 12, 2022 by westaus29

[andyd]

Nice work....that tool shelf is not something that my 1940 has although there is a section that I use for various bottles,jacks & tools etc between the floor and beaver panel which I too basically had to fully replace..........andyd

[westaus29]

Thanks Andy, mine was all there but badly rusted, dented and distorted by previous patching attempts in my earlier efforts in 1980's. It is a great help having the rotisserie courtesy of a mate who built it for his 55 Buick restoration, and the mig courtesy of another mate who I have pooled resources with. The side panels were made using an Eastman bead roller which I modified extensively based on a youtube post.

 

[James_Douglas]

It is great to see someone putting in such effort on a long wheelbase car. Rarely happens.

 

I had to get a new rear end pumpkin and the only thing I would find was a 4.3 gear set. I have tried to find a NOS 4.1 without any luck.

 

In the event that you rebuilt your pumpkin as apposed to just swapped it out...and you have your old gears sitting in a box...I would love some detailed photos of the ring and pinion.

 

I suspect that the the 12 bolt long wheelbase ring gears MAY have been used from the 1930's all the way to 1954 in the long wheel base cars. The Chrysler Parts Books sort of hint at it if you look them all over. But Chrysler did change part numbers sometimes because they changed suppliers although the gears were functionally the same. Since the LWB cars were such a low production item, a lot of the documentation is weak on parts.

 

Great work! 

 

I am going to look at a 1954 New Yorker 8 Passenger next week. It is very rough. I am also going to the dark side and looking at a done 1956 Chevy Bel Air 4 door hard top. We will see...I really need to take the 1947 Desoto Suburban off line after 20 years of using it as out primary car. It just needs everything, although so far the rebuilt trans and BW-OD is working ok.

 

Keep it up, I look forward to seeing it on the road.

 

James

[westaus29]

Hi James, you have set me thinking about diffs again. I have a 55 Plymouth which needs a ratio change and investigation so far reveals that some earlier Plymouths shared some of the same parts. I need to go back and confirm what I did to change the 38, and if any of the parts are common.

[westaus29]

With welding completed inside the boot, the body went back on the rotisserie to finish welding underneath, grinding off and preparing for undercoat.

 

 

After etch priming, exposed joints were sealed.

 

 

 

 

 

Then the floor was painted black, followed by a coat of underbody sealant to the underside