This is my latest, and probably the toughest project to date. I had been looking for a 1933 or 1934 Dodge sedan body for a number of years without much luck,until this one came up


It's a 1928 Dodge Victory 6, and was located about half a mile from where I work. It was a little older than what I was looking for, but I felt that I would never find such a solid complete car like this one again. The story I got from the owner was that the car was originally from out west, and was brought back to the Montreal area by a trucker who planned on restoring old cars after he retired.I guess he had a truck route going out west loaded, and he would bring old cars back on his return trip because he had the room on his rig.He had about 20-30 cars in his compound when he either got ill, or died. All the cars went up for auction, and were bought up by a gentleman in Oshawa. They were in Oshawa for about 2 years and being sold off one at a time. That's where I bought it.You can still see the lot number written on the sun visor.


Taking the car apart was a breeze. I think I only snapped off half a dozen bolts, where as all the others came apart as though they were brand new.The car was totally complete right down to the plug wires. The only thing missing was the hood ornament and small hub caps. I felt kind of bad cutting up such a restorable car, but in my opinion, it is ugly restored to original.Besides, it's a four-door!!


Once I ripped out he interior, I sifted through the dirt and garbage that was inside to see if I could find any old relics.There were two complete sets of old spark plugs, an old cap and rotor as well as a spare water pump. I also found about 5 tube patch kits strewn about inside. I guess these old cars were a pain to keep air in the tires. The only money I found was one penny dated 1956.I drilled a small hole in it and hung it in the car for good luck.I did find a complete newspaper in the back, so I had an idea of how long the car had been sitting. The paper was dated October 10 1963.This thing must have been sitting in a barn out there for 41 years.


Once the car was taken all apart, I loaded the body, hood and fenders into my trailer, and went to the chemical strippers. I had never acid dipped a body before, so this was all new to me. The other cars I had restored were all stripped by paint remover, razor blades and sandpaper. That has to be the crappiest job in the world. I thought about getting it sandblasted, but was afraid to warp the mint sheet metal. Besides, you can never get all the sand out of the joints, and that comes back to haunt you at paint time. As you can see, the results are amazing. It came back looking like a brand new body. No rust, no paint, just shinny clean bare metal. I was told they dip the body in "nitric acid" for about 5 hours until there's nothing left except bare metal.After they rinse and neutralise the steel, it's sprayed with a water soluable oil to prevent rusting while you bring it back home.The frame rails were sandblasted because they were thicker and wouldn't warp. It was cheaper too because dipping is pretty expensive. It cost me about $1700 to get the dipping done, but the time and effort it saved me ofset the cost.Even with all the time in the world, you could never get the same results as dipping.


When I got the body home, I thoughroughly washed the metal down with lacquer thinner to remove the oil they put on, and procedded with priming.Because dipping will remove paint even between panels, you must find a way to get primer back in these tight locations. I bought hyperdermic needles from the local farm supply store and injected all the tight areas that I knew my spray gun wouldn't reach, and let everything drip out of the joints, The body was then sprayed with a thick coat of zinc-chromate etch primer, followed by an epoxy etch primer. The epoxy alone would have been sufficient, but I figured that the zinc-chromate wouldn't hurt. Time will tell. The epoxy finish when cured feels like glass and looks awesome. I know it's only primer, but it is such a mental boost seeing the body in one solid color, it gives you motivation to dig right in.



The picture on the left shows a simple jig I made from the original frame. This was used to re-align the frame halves when the crossmembers were removed. The only parts I used from the original frame were the rails.All other structures were fabricated from new steel.


The frame rails were monted on 1 1/2 square tubing legs that I made so that I could level them up. When everything was level and square, the legs were lagged to my shop floor, and the car frame was tack welded to the legs. This gives me a perfect, solid surface to buid the body on because it will end up on this frame anyway.I then proceeded to shorten the body. The first cut was the toughest because it meant it was the point of no return. Using zip-cut wheels in a Makita 4 1/2 grinder made cutting a breeze. You would think that the metal they used almost 80 years ago would be garbage, but it's much nicer to work with than the new cars. The new car metal is alloyed so they can make the panels thinner, making the outer skin like a snare drum. As soon as you put any heat to it, it warps all over the place



I placed the front half of the body up on the frame, and tack welded them together in the proper location. The rear half was then trimmed 8 inches, and welded to the front half.At this point the car looked odd, because the rear door opening was so small that a child would barely get in.The picture on the right shows how the "B" pillar was cut from it's original position.



With the pillar out of the way, I trimmed the body so I could relocate it about 7 inches rearward.



Up to this point,things have been pretty simple.If I made a mistake, I could always break the tack welds and just move the part accordingly. The doors were a different story. There was no room for mistakes.I think I spent a whole day laying out scribe marks so the two panels would join perfectly.The picture on the right shows the original driver's door, and the original rear passenger door. By cutting them in this fashion, the front of the passenger door was able to be welded to the rear of the driver's door, thus making a door which is about 7 inches longer than it was.



Some would just say "Why don't you just get a 2-door car to begin with?" Well, they never made a 2-door Dodge. Unlike the Fords.If I wanted the easy way out, I would have built a Ford, but then my car would just blend in with all the other 2-door Fords out there. There's more 32 Fords today, than there were in 32 thanks to all the re-production bodies. With the "new" door clamped in place,you start to see where this is going. Just that subtle change makes the car look so much better.



The next step was to remove the "C" pillar.To fill the opening, I used the rest of the passenger door that I had previously cut in half. This gave me the body lines which would have been dificult to replicate. It fit like a glove, thanks to the hours I spent calculating where things had to be cut. If this panel would have been 1/4 inch too narrow, I would have been forced to weld in small filler pieces which is not a fun thing to do in the middle of a panel



The remaining hole was filled with new 18 gauge sheet metal. This had a slight compound curve to it, so a quick pass through the English wheel gave me the right contour. It was now time to do everything over again on the passenger's side. It only took about 1/4 of the time because the calculations were already done on the other side.



The only rot in the body was the rockers, which is amazing because not only being almost 80 years old, it was also a Canadian car.I can's see how something this old, even from Arizona, could be in much better shape.I guess they never used salt on the roads in Saskatchewan. The original rockers were stamped from 18 gauge metal, but I beefed them up greatly by using 1/8 plate. This is overkill, but I felt it this was a structually important part of the car.



The quality of these pictures are poor, but give you an idea of how much I chopped the roof. I had calculted 3 inches would have been perfect. I laid the lines with 2 strips of 1 1/2 inch making tape which would become my cut lines. I left a little gap in between the strips for that little extra drop.This was an easy chop because all the pillars are parallel. Just cut them, and the roof will fall into position.



The seams were then tig welded together and hammered and dollied to keep things from warping. The seams were invisible after grinding smooth, and needed minimal filler to finish.



The picture on the left is the final shape of the body after the 2-door transformation and roof chop. Most Street Rodders use van roofs to fill in the void on sedans, but I didn't like the big ribs in them. I wanted a smooth look but my English wheel was not big enough to give me the compound curve that I needed. I lucked out at the wreckers when I found an old Corvair van. These are very rare to begin with, but the curvature of the roof was perfect. I returned to the wreckers the next day with my Makita grinder, a handfull of cut-off wheels and my small generator. Once the panel was trimmed to fit the opening of my car, I was amazed at how perfectly it fit. Even before welding, the panel sat tight all the way around.



Even though the roof had a compound curve to it, I didn't want to rely solely on that to prevent oil-canning. I fabricated roof bows inside the car to support the roof. I sandwiched 1/8 closed cell foam in between the two. The picture on the left shows where I primed the roof before welding in the bows. It would have been imposible to get any primer in there after welding. The right picture shows the fenders bolted on to check that everything still lined up. I also placed the spare tire from my truck in the rear opening to see if the height of it suited the car. It Didn't!! Even though the wheel arches are big, the 32 inch tall tires were a bit too much. One way to really screw up the look of a car is by putting on the wrong size wheels and tires.



Here's another attempt at sizing the front wheel. This was not quite right, but but I was slowly getting there. The shot on the right shows my final decision. I'm not one to follow trends, but I decided on using American Racing Torq-Thrust 2 rims. It seems that every street rod has these things on. They are timeless, and will be in style 20 years from now as they were 20 years ago.The fronts are 16X6, and 18X8 for the rear. I chose Goodyear Eagle LS tires not because they were my first choice, but because they were the only tires that were available in 16 inch as well as 18 inch in the sizes I needed. I didn't want to have a different type of tire front to back.



This rear shot shows the original seams welded together. This gave the back an unbroken smooth look. Also seen is the panel that the fuel tank is mounted under. This panel is made from .093 sheet metal, and greatly stiffens the frame rails.Note the license plate!! Although there are a few "Non-Dodge" parts in this car, 95% are. It's just to let others know that this car is not Chevy or Ford powered.



This is a shot through the passenger door opening. I gives you an idea at how beefy the chassis is. Most of the ribs are 1X2 1/8 wall rectangular tubing. Also shown is the Air ride Shockwaves on a home built 4-bar suspension. I had originally mocked up a Ford 9inch rear housing, but removed it so that I could try and keep the "All-Dodge" theme going. I used an 8 3/4 from a 70' Challenger, with Richmond 3.91 gears, and custom made axles from Bear's Performance. The picture on the left shows the 518 transmission peeking through, with homemade shifter.



I shortened my own driveshaft, and thus far I feel no vibrations from it.I guess because it's so short balancing is not so critical.Above is the fuel tank installed. It's held up by 2 stainless straps. I made it from 3/32 3003 aluminum, and hammerformed the end plates over plywood forms.I'm using a drop-in fuel pump with built-in sender, roll-over valve and return line.It works perfectly.





















































<