1937 Dodge D-5 4 Door Touring Sedan

Fella that built that truck is building the dodge.

Sharps40 said:

Fella that built that truck is building the dodge.

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He did a super job on the truck, looking forward to seeing the Dodge when its finished..Wish I had a '47 Chevy truck like that one..

That truck went thru a couple iterations. We bought it as an original 6 and beat up with a 20" crack in the block from timing case to rear. 4 cans of solder seal would hold water for about 6 months. When it would let go, we'd refill from gallon jugs, add the solder seal and keep driving. Then it got painted chocolate brown and cigarette cream and one day, the tired original 6 just gave up. About that time I was driving a 62 Impala (300 horse 327 and TCI TH350) so we had my PA builder do up an 83 305 on a mild build and Dad put the truck in Jims shop for hot rodding. I went to the salvage yard and pulled a pinto (Same as mustang II) front suspension and got it ready to bolt to the new mustang cross member under the truck....

It sat side by side in the shop with the Dodge for a year while being restored. About 96ish the truck was done and Dad has had it around ever sense. Yesterday we talked about making some needed minor repairs to the truck and getting it ready for him to use more often....Sundays for Church and such. I'll be coming back up here about Christmas time and do some work on it for him if its not been out again to the shop by then.

If I was to make a change on the truck for him it would be to install HEI over the Accell electronic Distributer and install the factory throttle body fuel injection.

Got me to thinkin about the cars I've owned since I started driving.....48 Dodge Sedan, 66 Plymouth Valiant, 52 Dodge Coronet, 67 VW Bug, 88 Dodge Truck, 62 Impala, 94 Mustang, 68 Plymouth Valiant, 97 Nissan Truck, 05 Chrysler Sebring Convertible, 95 Plymouth Shadow, 64 Chevy C10, 65 Chevy C10, 63 Chevy II/Nova, 71 Chevy Wagon, 13 Jeep Wrangler 4 Door, 12 Nissan Versa but in all that, the old 37 Dodge has been the constant partner. I suspect the old 47 Truck will stick around a long time too.

Yeah if I had that truck no-one could buy it for sure, had an old 65 Chevy C-10 I still give myself a swift kick sometimes for selling it..Your parents live in Williamsburg Va? My brother in law and his wife live there.

First car I owned was a '60 Ford Convertible..Then a new '65 Mercury Comet. A '69 Dodge Super Bee after the comet, bought a 72 Ford Torino new, a '66 Ford Mustang for a second car convertible wish I had that one back also. Then traded the Mustang for the '65 C-10 with a friend of mine. 1974 Ford Torino with a 351 Cleveland, that thing loved gas. 78 Mercury was a lemon, then a '79 Pinto. '78 Dodge truck, 76 Plymouth station wagon, 83 Plymouth Kcar it was junk. 87 Dodge truck. 92 GMC jimmy... '86 Chevy Silverado that I still have, 96 GMC Sonoma, great little truck. 2007 Dodge Dakota Wife's truck we still have and my 2008 GMC .Sierra..At my age I might not ever need another vehicle, time will tell..

I forgot the '67 Ford Galaxie I had automatic with a 289 2 door, that was a good car...

We picked a color for the dodge. 2015 ford ft deep impact blue metallic

Pulled the rear wheels today. One weepy cylinder and shoes too far from the trucks drums. Put it back as is....Dad wanted it to the shop for inspection anyway and it needed a heater core, so......fired it up.

No gears. Nothing. Checked linkage, perfect.


Looked at the inspection sticker.....expired 9/2013.......Dad recalled som red oil on the floor. Old trucks been sittin still way too long.

Hmmm....pulled the dipstick....nothin.....

4 quarts of dex/merc later we are rollin hot to the shop with a punch list for Eddy including new tires.

We'll have back on the road soon and ready to cruise side be side with Ol Bessy in no time!!!

Great news.....Dad just threw in a largish check toward Ol Bessy. Don't have to sell my Miroku Winchester 1886 just yet.....!!!

Been looking at paint colors on a lot of vehicles. I decided the Ford Deep Impact Blue was going to be too dark, too much for such a big car. Found a color blue that is close to what has been on the car for years. Charger B5 Blue Pearl. Also used on Challenger, Trucks and known as Surf Blue on the Jeep Wranglers and JK's.



Left front fender is on and Dad chose the fender welting. We don't have the Drivers side running board or mounting brackets as they were destroyed in the accident and the Raleigh Parts car boards were totally rusted. So, will have to buy new made ones, fortunately, they are being manufactured in steel and from reviews, it appears the fit is good.

Last bit of body work is being done on the smashed left rear quarter. Smoothing and shaping mostly.

Dad is heading down to the shop soon to help go through the parts pile and sort out the stainless trim making up a box for left side and one for right side. Christmas I'll go to visit and bring down the grill and other large parts that are spares from the parts car and currently stored at Dads house.

Progress. With luck, by the time I get there at Christmas I hope to see some suspension and perhaps a driveline going into place!

That isn't far off from Petty Blue.

Pretty color. Looks like the supposed Carolina Blue on my old truck.

That is a pretty color...My old '86 Chevy pickup is painted grabber blue just a shade or so darker than the color you all chose for the Dodge..

I'm looking forward to seeing it laid on. Partial to light blues and with all the shadows made by the curves shouldn't have a big dark blob look where all those good shapes get lost.

If that year model was available in a two tone, yours would look great with that blue with silver as the second color. I'm partial to blue and think you've picked a nice color however you guys decide to finish coat it.

Thanks. All the factory lit and pics I have show the typical washed out and dull single color paint jobs of the 30s. Only two tones I ever saw on old dodges like this were tv/movies and redo's. I'm gonna keep it this blue and let the chrome and stainless break it up top to bottom.

Dads feeling good. Made another trip to the shop. He took along old ad copy and photos of restored D5s for the body men to use on aligning parts and sorting trim holes from antenna holes from years of holes drilled for accessories.

The last fender was going in for paint, all shaped and aligned for final mounting and in the process he sorted the 23 years piled up parts and located the last of the body bolt ons for simultaneous prep and prime. Both headlights, both headlight mounts, both tail lights and tail light stands, license light, license mount and trunk lid holder upper mechanism.

Now we start sorting through the piles of trim and spares to see if by Christmas we can locate and organize a complete set of original stainless bright work and the few potmetal surrounds and cloisonne badges front and rear.

Merry Christmas Ol Bessy, yer about to get yer bling back!

Quick email update to Dad this morning fielding his questions on parts and in particular, trim work.

Dad,

Regarding your question on the stainless molding for the Dodge.

- We have spares of grill (left and right), grill center and grill potmetal surrounds (left and right) under your deck.

- We have most or all of the hood spare molding and a spare ram hood ornament in your attic.

- We may have additional spare door molding on the few spare doors in your attic.

- The original rear bumper, bumper uprights and rear mounting brackets are in your attic.

- We may (not sure at all on this) have spare rear quarter molding on the spare quarters under the deck.

- We should have a few hinge beauty covers on the doors in your attic. These should be reversible from side to side by simply flipping them upside down.....I hope!

- We DO NOT have any spare running boards. The only one we have is passenger side down at Jims. I believe the drivers side was destroyed.

As for finding all the trim.....Worst case, and before we weld any trim holes shut on the body (i.e. substitute a paint line for stainless molding), check out the attached link.

Its expensive, but its custom made stainless steel molding that can be mounted to the Dodge if we are missing too much or can't find any on another parts car.

http://www.mcmillanrodandcustom.com/Moldings.ivnu

Happily, I found the original brown rubber gear shift knob attached to the original three speed trans! Its in great shape and I'm gonna have to machine up an adapter to mount it on the new shift lever for the OD automatic that'll be going in the car!

Sounds like y'all will be a riding in style once that car is finished..A lot of people would have just sent her to the scrap yard a long time ago, what a shame that would have been..

Email from Dad today. Glad he is there in town with the car, 10 minutes away from his home for 23 years......he's having a ball inventorying all the parts. (Never could figger why he kept all the parts all those years when I had "Sold" Ol Bessy to a hot rod shop......guess I'm more than a bit slow.)

Richard,

I checked under the deck and in the garage attic.

Deck

Grill, left, right, center top all there. Also, the curved stainless steel trim that goes around the headlight mounting bracket---there for left and right. Missing is the lower center section (about 5 inches), which I believe was a crank hole access piece. I don't think the original one was two piece,.

Left and right rear quarter panels--no chrome on these pieces, and I don't believe there was one originally.

Attic:

The hood has the center SS strip, and the Dodge Ram. The SS trim on side of the hood is there left and right.

Where the hood ends, and the body panel begins, there is one 4 inch piece in a box in the attic. So one is missing---I believe it is floating around the inside of the house somewhere---in a letter box, or something, but for the garage attic, only one, so one i missing.

There are 4 doors, a complete set in the attic. All have the beauty covers,and all have been separated from the body by removing the hinge pin. Two doors have SS trim, and 3 have handles, and the passenger side has a lock piece. Drivers side has no lock insert, just a hole. I am away from my notes, going from memory, so I can't remember which doors have the handles, which have the rim. Will come back with that later. Rear fenders are there, one has a tail light, one does not Again---memory as to which one.

There is one bumper, with two uprights. So, we have both the bumpers. The bumper has the rubber piece that covers that ugly bolt, but could not find the metal covers that go over the rubber---If that is in fact supposed to be.

I will try and get down there to Jim's next week to go through some boxes and better sort and catalog the pieces.

Emailing back to Dad as he sits in the basement office inventorying parts and taking notes....parts at the shop, parts in the attic, parts in the crawl space, parts at my home in NC, parts in his basement, parts under his deck.......Oh how Ol Bessy got meanly parted out over the years......I am sorry!

Dad,

Yes, lower center section missing on both cars as I recall. It is in fact a hand crank hole cover as the original engine has a balancer with teeth for a hand crank. I say we don't worry on the lower center section.

Sounds like we are 95%+ on front end trim work. We'll see whats at the shop for the doors and the curved pieces that go from rear door downward matching the curve of the fender. (ie the curved piece that runs under the rear vent windows.) Bet we have over 80% of the trim handy. As such I think we will trim it in the original and either locate the lost pieces or have custom bits made up as needed. With luck, we have the curved pieces in the shop as I think the custom stuff is straight only.

Good on the doors and their beauty covers.....we may need some bits there including window bottom metal and mechanisms.

Plan to put a tape on each piece and mark it left right front rear hood cowl, etc. It will save lots of money paying for time for them to locate and figure out.

As for Desoto bumpers, pretty but I agree, I want to keep it looking more original. We'll put Desoto bumpers on another project.

Thanks.

Rich.


And Dad pops back in with.....

Rich: I agree---we have most of the trim, maybe all of it. Do it up with what we have, and find the others as necessary.

Can I get a ride???

Yep. You run it code red......me and The Turp on the running boards, rear suicide doors open, guns blazing!

Or......

We could just drive it kinda normal......?

I'll dress up like Elliot Ness if you let me ride with you..

Ah heck, they's room for 7 deer in the trunk and at least 5 or 6 hunters in the body. Might as well have a big rolling party when its done!

Cool....found 3 37 D5 Four Doors being parted out in about 10 minutes of google foo.

Closest is Mass.

Got Dad continuin the inventory and pinged the Mass owner via text on running boards and stainless trim. He's doing a rat rod but mebby can get some door handles and bracketry, etc. Natch, for the right price, I'd go all in for a complete spare set of the stainless trim! But, he might be usin that even on a ratty.

The rain never stopped today to hunt....and I don't have cash for the stocks on the coach gun yet so......fixin up the Cloisonné nose badge for Ol Bessy.

This is a $145 nose badge on eflay....mine was much worse shape...



My "restoration" won't be perfect, but it'll be good I think.

After cleaning off all of the flaked chrome plating and using gentle heat and picks and brushes to remove the enameled inlays that were all broken down, I had a clean copper, original to Bessy, nose badge.

First step was to ink in the black circle and Star of David in the center. The "Dodge Brothers and remaining Star of David will remain gold colored instead of the original chrome. But, I'll still be able to replicate the gold background and chrome edging with some more effort.

Here in the photos, I have taped out the gold background of the wings to keep the paint off....after the black circle drys and I clean up the lettering a bit, I'll mask it to. Then hit it with primer all over. After that, a coat of bare aluminum spray for and aged look and top it off with clear to protect it all/seal the edges. After I see how this turns out, I gotta dig around and try to find the larger badge that go's on the trunk and get it under a similar "restoration".

Tooth pickin in black paint on the circle and star were the hard parts so far, it is amazing just how little paint goes so far when flowing it in around the letters.

Sharps40 said:

The rain never stopped today to hunt....and I don't have cash for the stocks on the coach gun yet so......fixin up the Cloisonné nose badge for Ol Bessy.

This is a $145 nose badge on eflay....mine was much worse shape...

My "restoration" won't be perfect, but it'll be good I think.

After cleaning off all of the flaked chrome plating and using gentle heat and picks and brushes to remove the enameled inlays that were all broken down, I had a clean copper, original to Bessy, nose badge.

First step was to ink in the black circle and Star of David in the center. The "Dodge Brothers and remaining Star of David will remain gold colored instead of the original chrome. But, I'll still be able to replicate the gold background and chrome edging with some more effort.

Here in the photos, I have taped out the gold background of the wings to keep the paint off....after the black circle drys and I clean up the lettering a bit, I'll mask it to. Then hit it with primer all over. After that, a coat of bare aluminum spray for and aged look and top it off with clear to protect it all/seal the edges. After I see how this turns out, I gotta dig around and try to find the larger badge that go's on the trunk and get it under a similar "restoration".

Tooth pickin in black paint on the circle and star were the hard parts so far, it is amazing just how little paint goes so far when flowing it in around the letters.

Click to expand...

It may need some more detailing, but great start.

First and second coats of primer.

A couple coats of bare aluminum misted on. Last steps will be to pull back the tape exposing the gold color and several coats of clear. But for now, it needs a day for the paint to set.

Couldn't wait.....watching paint dry is tuff!

Some clear coat and then I think it'll be ready for another 78 years in the wind.