1926 Dodge Brothers

Nice build my Dodge Brother![dr

You've made some great progress. I love the stance! [cl

Well it’s been a while since I’ve posted any updates.

Just before Christmas we started mounting our steering box in the cowl and quickly found that we needed more passenger room.

After exhausting everything but cutting the frame apart, we cut the frame apart.

We only gained 6 inches, but it makes a huge difference.

We hope to get it all cleaned back up this week and then start again on getting the steering box mounted.

Here's the rest of the pictures.
We started by welding some bracing to hold the front and rear of the frame together when we cut it. We added a new 3” dia. Tube into the rear section before cutting, the existing 3” tube was going away with the 6” section we removed. We made new sections of frame to fill in the center of the frame once we moved the “Z” back the 6”.
Overall we’re pleased with how it looks.

That looks like a lot of work. Good job!

Are you also going to shorten your rear control arms 6"? What would this do to your rear suspension dynamics?

Keep up the good work!

cant always seem to plan for everything... things sneak up on you... but it is frustrating when you cut somethin up you just spent a bunch of time on.. been there done that myself... in fact i still have a project that needs to be cut back apart on mine.. i got mad and moved that part to the back burner..

Keep at it!

Motorhead said:

That looks like a lot of work. Good job!

Are you also going to shorten your rear control arms 6"? What would this do to your rear suspension dynamics?

Keep up the good work!

Click to expand...

Thanks.
It actually went better than I thought; I really dreaded having to cut it up.

We’re not sure yet on the 4 link arms, looking at alternate mounting points first.
Regardless of where we look at putting them, we’ll clamp or tack them in first and check out our suspension travel.

CORPO said:

cant always seem to plan for everything... things sneak up on you... but it is frustrating when you cut somethin up you just spent a bunch of time on.. been there done that myself... in fact i still have a project that needs to be cut back apart on mine.. i got mad and moved that part to the back burner..

Keep at it!

Click to expand...

Thanks.
I just never accounted for the channeling we ended up with. I’ll know now for the next time.


The thing that was getting me the most was that I had set up and fabricated the frame on one of our framing tables at work, really took a lot of time making sure it all stayed square. I figured that was all going to go to crap as soon as we cut it. We really didn’t have the room to brace it like I wanted without the braces being in the way to do the cuts and move the Z. Lucky for us, it really seemed to stay put and all went back together nicely. My son even said he was a little nervous that it went “too easy”.

Very cool! I love what you have done with the car.

42chevy said:

Very cool! I love what you have done with the car.

Click to expand...

Thanks!

Adapt and overcome ...... the morale of the story

wow, you might be able to do a short ladder bar. keep it low on the frame and youll still be able to keep it under the floor.

keep them coming

Weather let up a bit so we got the rear end done, again. We were able to leave the bottom 4 link arms as they were and just moved the mounts. The top arms lost 6”, but everything seems to move up and down just fine.

We set the seat frames in and decided that we needed to narrow them up. So we cut 2” out of the center of each frame. Just tacked them together and set them in place to see how they look. Guess we’ll start on some frame work for the floor next.

Need some advice. I purchased some headlight assemblies off EBay. Based on the price etc., I assumed that these where just buckets with the lenses still attached. My plan was to mount some 7” sealed beam lights inside. Once I got them and started getting them apart, they are complete. They even still had bulbs in them. So my question is, do I just do what my original plan was, or should I try to find a way to put a 12v bulb in them and keep them more intact?

On my '28 Buick I adapted some halogen bulbs into them which worked out nicely.

TiredIronGRB said:

On my '28 Buick I adapted some halogen bulbs into them which worked out nicely.

Click to expand...

Do you remember what the part numbers are? Did they fit the old sockets or did you have change/modify the sockets.

I don't rember the part number, I just went to the parts store with a caliper and stared measuring the dual element bulbs until I found one that would fit. I split the original socket and used a hose clamp to hold the new bulb in.

TiredIronGRB said:

I don't rember the part number, I just went to the parts store with a caliper and stared measuring the dual element bulbs until I found one that would fit. I split the original socket and used a hose clamp to hold the new bulb in.

Click to expand...

Sounds good, and simpler than my other ideas so far. I manged to get one of the old bulbs out intact, so I'll take that with me to the parts store.

Thanks.

Those headlights look really nice. I need some old headlights, but I can't find any.

Regarding the rear links, is your instantaneous center behind the rear axle? I really can't tell by looking at the pictures. If that's the case, you will have wheel hop issues.