1934 Dodge Full Body Off Restoration by Ian_Greenlaw

5 minute(s) of a 362 minute read

Hi Ron,

I have the history of the car from about 1936 onwards. Unfortunately ( and not for the lack of trying ) I haven't been able to find out who it was originally sold to. I even applied to have the original build record sent to me and mine was missing. After a bit more probing I found there was a gap of approx 280 vehicles on the microfilm build sheets. One thought was that these 280 were marked for export and sent off around the world. One of the other members of this forum did say that records of exports were not kept, only locally sold ones. I don't know how many landed in Australia but again, only guessing, that a few were used as demonstrating models and when you ordered one you got the Richards Body. I haven't found anything promoting the Richards Body in a 34 Dodge so I wondered if you were thinking you got an all steel body and ended up with a Richards Body ? On the firewall mine does have RH and a number stamped on it so the body maker kept tabs on the body numbers but not the builds.

One thing I've learn't on this forum is the more you dig the more you find. I dug quite a bit but basically there are no records as to exports. Food for thought anyway.....makes interesting reading though.

I do keep searching when I get time and read as much as I can so maybe one day I'll find my answer.

Cheers

Ian

7-1-2013

mine is definitely a US built car as it is an all steel body. I've compared it to its Australian counterparts and there is a huge difference between them both structually and finish wise. the Aussie ones also had 3 hinges on the doors and mine has two.

where was the book you looked at located. interesting to be able to find it. I'd love to be the custodian of that and help other people locate their cars.

7-17-2013

Hey all,

I finally received the running boards ( all 3 pairs ) and went out to an outer suburb to pick them up. Didn't realise they were that heavy ! The guy there said he slid them under a couple of mustangs he was importing. When I went to settle the bill he asked me what I thought it was worth in freight to bring them in !!! I didn't have a clue and i was expecting $500 to $600 ( $200 a pair I thought was reasonable. He said make it $140 cash for all of them ! Couldn't believe it, paid, collected and drove off as fast as I could before he changed his mind. You have to win sometimes I guess. A friend has since told me he was looking at paying $500 for one pair to be freighted in.

Next job was to have a look at the mascot....another fiddly job. Underneath the emblem were four lugs and a tapped hole in the centre. The only way I though of doing this was to make a brass plate that would lock into the lugs, drill a hole in the centre and somehow bolt the radiator cap to the brass plate before tightening the centre bolt. I measured the opening in the radiator and after emailing a few people on ebay I bought a few 1929 Packard ( as it was advertised ) radiator caps. You'll notice a raised middle circular section. I had to flatten this down so I gently tapped it flat. I made up a brass plate and drilled four holes for the lugs to go through and a large hole in the centre for the main bolt. I tapped the sides so they looked more rounded and put on the radiator neck and put in the lock position. This gave me the the centre point that the ram needs to face. I then drilled two holes through the brass plate and the radiator cap and bolted the two together. I checked that when this assembly was bolted to the underside of the ram it would be off centre. I put a stainless bolt in the underside and bolted the assembly to the ram. The whole rams sits sideways when first placed on the radiator and when in the lock position it faces straight forward. Glad it worked first time. A lot of checking and rechecking but look the part.

Cheers

Ian