Dodge Kingsway rebuild

[JBJ]

Hi All,


I question my sanity before I started this project.

We bought this Dodge a while back, from a guy that rebuilt it. It was a one owner black 1956 Dodge Kingsway Coronet, Australian built, before he rebuilt it.

As we bought it, it had a 351 Cleveland Ford motor & C10 auto, with a 28 spline 9"Ford diff, & a HQ Holden front chassis graft, using power steer & disc brakes.


We've given it a lot of work, & many of you have seen it on runs on the east coasty.

So just recently, I got a rush of blood, & decided to rebuild it.

I bought a fully recoed 351, got the C10 recoped, put a recoed 9" diff & new housing in, & a new Aussie Desert Cooler 3 core triple flow radiator. Runs like a dream, the best its been since I bought it.

So I then thought, I may as well fix the rest of it.

I knew it had a lot of rust in a few spots, but generally its pretty good.

So I bit the bullet, & got it re registered, then stripped it to a shell.

I've got the rust repairs being done by a coach builder, who is hand making the repair panels. Not cheap, but bloody good.


No pix as yet, but they will come when I take some next week.

This is as big a job as rebuilding Lucille was, & probably a lot more expensive.

Why did I take it on & not just buy a US car like everyone else.
Not sure, but I think its because I like the Dodge being Aussie Built, & it isnt a Ford or Chev,

I'm going to put a set of Chrysler Firepower (hemi) tappet covers that I have on the Clevo, its pretty easy.

Some pix of as it was.


JBJ

[JBJ]

Hey Reddo,


I'm a bit traditional in colours. So I'm planning a mid to dark red on the bottom, to go with the dark red interior. The top will be Spray Chief Super Sno Pearl, which is so white its silver in the sun. All the trim & badges will be kept, with a bit of kustom work on the back guards/tailights.


Lots of bucks in replacing screens, windows, rubbers, & rechroming bits.

Guess I might have to keep it out of the weather.

No point reinventing the wheel when red & white is just about the mostest colours anyone can paint.

But one big bonus from it being repaired, I get to tow the Sunliner behind the the Jailbar on our Bundaberg Christmas & then a week travelling out bush in Qld, ending up coming back thru Texas, Goondiwindi, Nindigully, Tenterfeild, & lots of other spots

JBJ

[JBJ]

Hi Centura Quest,

Got problems with offsets on it.

The Holden front is redrilled to Falcon, & will not handle much inwards offset.

The 9" diff needs lots of offset in to clear body.

I was running Magna rear rims & XF Falcon front, with full hubcaps.

Big problems with a spare, as I couldn't swap front to rear.

So the BA rims & some spacers on the front solved the problem.


I would prefer chrome steelies, but detest whitewalls after running them for years on my Jailbar, so I'm still not sure what I will run. I'm not going to narrow the diff because the way the car was built by the previous owner doesnt allow that to happen without major chassis rebuild.

Guess I'll sort it out as I go. Minor problem at this stage. I guess I can order chrome steelies with BA mag offset, & stay with spacers as is.

Looking stock isn't my motivation. I alter & modify as I want to get the look I like. If I didn't like the shape & lines of the car, I would have got rid of it & bought something popular like everyone else.I build for me, not the spectators .


JBJ

[sutcac]

".....I'm a bit traditional in colours..."

..........yeah ,....like heavy metalflake green and silver!!!!!!!!!!!! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[JBJ]

Hi Sutcac,

I dont think you were into hotrodding in the 50's & 60's, so I'll excuse your "ignorance" ;D ;D ;D


Where I grew up in southern NSW in the 50's & early 60's, Metalflake was THE paint then if you could afford it. Most "little" American early hot rod magazines I read & collected seemed to have metalflake painted feature cars, & a big percentage of the NSW hot rods I saw in shows were painted in it.

So when I built my rod as a 60's style rod, I used Metalflake, along with period styled wheels, tyres, engine accessory build style, kustom bodywork, etc.

It really is in the eye of the builder what is produced. The only show award I really appreciated was being selected by Little Mick ( a Qld hot rod/tattoo/bike fanatic) as one of the top 10 Nostalgia vehicles at Wintersun a few years back.


As I say, traditional to me, not so for others. But it doesnt really matter much.


JBJ

[sutcac]

Hey JB..........you're right there..........absolutely nil experience with early hotrodding scene
...........but heaps to do with water ski boats from the 60's onwards , ................
...............hence I guess my association with metalflake to fibreglassboats ........though I think the 'flake' was in the gelcoat, not sprayed through a gun...............back in those days, the more metalflake you could have on your boat, the better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

as you say......different strokes for different folks ............

............the Dodge should look great in her new colours .......and chromies/painted steelies would be my first choice in wheels also. ...............

................look forward to seeing the finished job ...............
...............keep some progress pics coming ..........

Sutcac. ;D

[JBJ]

Hi All,


Just got a chance to take a few shots to show the quality of the repairer's work. I won't go into this much detail again, but its a pretty tricky bit of metal fabrication he's done to get the dogleg, back guard & sill nearly repaired. This is an example of his "budget" work, that is doing what he can with a MIG rather than taking his time welding everything with oxy


.











Its going to take a lot of time to get the car pretty well rust free, but thats what I want to do. It will last me the rest of my driving life when its finished in a few months.

JBJ

[JBJ]

Hi All,


More pix on progress.

We've replaced both side inner & outer sills, doglegs of back guards, & inner & outer guard wheelweels.

Bringing another fairly rust free Dodge from western Qld this weekend to get all the bits I need.

Hopefully we'll be able to use parts of it as patch panels in some areas, to save having to hand make the panels as we have for the work to date.















JBJ

[Cruz]

Hi JBJ,
Keep at it ,will well worth the effort.
Cruz

[kazandadam]

It's always frustrating when you decide to bite the bullet, start grinding away & find more work than what you bargained for! Then comes that "Well there's no turning back now".

But JBJ......once it's done it's done, & when you stand back & look at the finished result, you can say "I'm glad I did it"

Keep up the great work, I'll be looking forward to seeing the finished article.........cheers Adam

[JBJ]

Thanks Guys,

The hardest bit for me was deciding to keep a car I love & have( & my family does also) against buying my dream car ( A 1957-9 Chrysler coupe).

What I have is pretty unique, being an Aussie built sedan. Sure it has buckets of rust, but its straight, & almost complete. Rust is repairable with enough skill, patience & money.

After discussing buying & rebuilding a US Chrysler/Dodge/Desoto with Kaybee, he gave me an idea how hard ( & also read expensive) it can be to find little missing bits from US cars of the less common type.

I looked at what is being driven to Rod Runs, & my Dodge is pretty rare on the aussie scene. I even thought about making it into a Tudor, but decided not to.

So I thought why be like most of the others & build a belly button car ( everyone has one)

Hence my (stupid say the majority) decision to save a good old car.

I'll stick the rebuild out. Another month or so the major body rebuilding that requires expertise I dont have will be finished, then I can get stuck into the remainder that is within my skill levels.

JBJ

[JBJ]

Hi All,


Finally caught up with the guy out near Tara with the Dodge I was trying to buy for spares for my rebuild.




Drove out & smut 57 (Andrew) offered to help by picking it up on his trailer & towing it home to my place behind his Toyota ute.











Its pretty good for parts, but pretty well past rebuilding overall, with heaps of rust in floor & boot, but hardly any in the bits I need. Its been sitting on ground without wheels for over 25 years.

This now gives me a great set of rust free doors complete to rebuild, instead of struggling to patch my existing ones, as well as good repair panels for plenum chamber/door pillars.

I think this one must be a 53 or 54 model, & is a Kingsway custom (not A Coronet like mine)

More pix when I get it home & strip it to cut out repair panels

JBJ

[Deleted]

;D ;D ;D
Onya Dennis

Pleased to see ya got the car out of that boneheads paddock.
Your other post about the rest of the goodies out in the same "corral" set my blood boiling.

I HATE HOARDERS.... When will they learn ya cant take it all to the grave.

If someone is willing to part with the hard earned.. to buy the bits needed to get another old classic back on the road . why then , should some self centred moron simply say..........................no.
In closing.. good score mate i am following the Dodge makeover with interest..... ;D

Reddo

[JBJ]

Hi All,

Gave this one a shave & haircut, but I got some good panels.

Rest is going in a day or two.






JBJ

[kaybee]

Wow...you processed that one pretty quick.....hope you didn't need ALL those bits to ressurect the Dodge ;D ;D......have you got any more of the headlight rims like on your white front clip?

[JBJ]

Hi Col,

I needed major repair around front door pillars & bottom corners of windscreen, plus a bit at top of centre pillars/lower roof. I cut out big bits & got them blasted, because the panelworker thinks it may save me a fair bit of money if the bits are good enough for him to unpick seams & reuse, as against hand fabricating every piece.

Hopefully another 2 to 3 weeks will have the majority of rust properly replaced. He seems to be doing a relly good job.


With the headlight rims, I only have the set on my car, that the previous owner made in a Foundry class & cast in gunmetal ( or so he said) then polished & chromed. He did the door handles & bonnet mascot at the same time. They are pretty good & no pitting anywhere.

The motor turns over freely, & a young hot rodder here is putting it & gearbox into a 39 Dodge Sedan hes resto-rodding hopefully.

So the rest of the bits I cut off are going into my chook pen in case of an accident. I have a complete front ,boot ,2 back guards, & 4 doors & a dash as spares now.


Hopefully I'll never need them, but parts are getting scarcer as you know.

JBJ

[Deleted]

Wow...JBJ
Love your work on your latest radical custom..
A real Wintersun show stoppa.
Ya dont muck about when ya do a top chop/ pillareless.jobbie,.. and those radiused rear wheel arches look neat......
How nostaligic is that.... .......................................................................................................................................ummmmmmmm... ... wait a minute....... its the white car your doin up. isnt it.... ;D
...

;D ;D ;D ;D

[JBJ]

Hi All,

More panel repair. Getting into the home stretch I hope. There was a BIG hole in the firewall where previous builder fitted a HQ heater unit, that looked horrible.
So Peter welded some steel in the hole. Part of it was from the donor car, but he made the patch panel bigger than we already planned when I cut the patch panel out. Dindn't make much difference to Peter, he just welded more in.



This is what he repaired on the back guards.








This is some of the bad rust in the windscreen/door pillar area that had me concerned. He's got it under control & being replaced properly.










Slow expensive work, but the only way to rebuild an old car with rust , that you want to keep

JBJ

[neilncheryl]

Nice work JBJ

What are you going to treat the repaired areas with so the rust can be discouraged for as long as possible?

Neil

[JBJ]

Hi Neil,

Peter the Panelbeater is a fan of sump oil, in large doses. But he suggests getting the car into at least etch prime, put any required fillers on it, & at least one base coat of sealer over the body before I pour anything inside the panels.That way nothing seeps out of seams, etc, into the final paint coat.

I'm considering using the product POR15 recomend SW2 protective oil instead of sump oil, but first I'm getting the interior & all visible steel unpainted panels sandblasted & etch primed. I'll be sanding the existing 2 pack gloss fairly well be the sandblaster primes over it at the same time as the cleaned steel.

The entire floor & internal panels will be painted with POR 15 black, after etch priming

I think it will be relatively safe from further rusting if I wait until I get final primers & paint on it before laying on the rust preventer.

Hopefully it will be ok. Certainly wont need much bog after Peters repairs.

Rebuilding my dash at present, taking all the holes & assorted guages & crap the previous owner put in. Luckily the donor dash, though rusty, was pretty good.

JBJ

[Deleted]

Hi JBJ
Peter Pan the El. Beater is doin a good job.
Should have left a fist sized hole with rubber bung in the firewall so ya could reach through and do some fine tuning while motoring along.

Used sump oil.. i would imagine be full of acidy crap, burnt crap from engine deposits, fuels etc and stuff that would actually attack metal if left dormant in sills etc.Yeah yeah.. i know oil is good as a temp rust preventer but it does float on water ya know...
The old man use ta soak a t shirt in old sump oil and take the door trims off then swing the shirt round and round ..

Filled the sills of many cars with the stuff... and lubricated the glass for the next 6 months.

If Peter doesnt get those rusty bits inside the panels blasted clean and then treated . the rust will continue its march on into the new bits after a while..

At least when ya finished ya will know what ya got. I always wander just how clean the bodywork is under the great paint jobs on some of those mega buck restos we see in Just Cars and on ebay.
.

Keep it coming dude.

Reddo

[neilncheryl]

Hi JBJ

I used POR15 on the Roadmaster Chassis & axle as well as the vauxhall towbar.
Easy product to use, comes nicely off the brush and a little bit goes a long way.
When cured it is hard to scratch.

There is another similar product out that is made in Australia, cheaper and claims to be better (that could be the ausie in them though) and that product is KBS. Haven't used it but was thinking of using it on the Single Spinner Chassis and under guards.

If you google POR15, KBS will come up as one of the results if you want to have a read.

All the best with the resto
Neil

[JBJ]

HI Neil,

Thanks for the comment on the KBS paint.

I had noticed details somewhere previously& looked it up.

There is no distributor for it up here, & a local guy carries good stocks of the entire POR15 range.

So unless someone has used it to tell us, & it's easy to get delivered at a better price than POR15, I think I'll stay with the one that I can get easiest.

JBJ

[JBJ]

Hi All,

Getting into serious stuff in the front door pillars, where I knew it was bad.

Petes cut away enough to find good unrusted sections, & made up replacement pieces using some of the sections from the donor car & some new metal



This is where it will be welded




JBJ

[Geoff & Jude]

hi dennis

the old girl is gunna be as good as the day it came off the line after all these repairs.

it didn't look like it had that much rust in it before - amazing what you find when you start getting into it.

she's coming along well.

it's a big job, that's for sure.

geoff