It’s been said that all good things must come to an end and so is the case with Deals on Wheels resident restorer’s project stories
This will be the final time readers will have to endure my seemingly endless excuses for being behind the eight ball with any real kind of progress in any given month. Sadly, this final chapter will not see the completion of the Dodge due to my inability to find a final use in which to put the truck to.
Things were looking up at the end of the previous issue of the restoration process when a turntable that looked like it would fit was found. The turntable presented itself at the last minutes of an auction on Trade Me and was said to have come off a TK Bedford.
While due diligence is always recommended when making a purchase, this fool figured that even if the distance between the chassis rails differed slightly between a TK Bedford and an RG13 Dodge it shouldn’t have been too much of a problem to modify the turntable to suit the Dodge – wrong.
Thus, the initial elation of finding a piece of equipment that could have finally given the truck a sense of purpose came crashing down when the reality hit that the cost of modifying the unit would exceed the added value of the transformation.
Unhappily, this was the final nail in the coffin for what has been a far more costly restoration than I’d ever imagined possible. When I embarked on my restoration journey with my old K Bedford back in 2012 and I started writing about it in the magazine, it never occurred to me that that one restoration would turn into the five vehicles that would follow it. But now that run has ended rather abruptly.
Thinking back over the previous restoration, the 1970 D Series Ford, I’m reminded that it had a hiatus of a couple of years in which it languished in an almost completed state before finally being presented at the testing station and coming out on the other side with a COF.
That being the case, I guess the Dodge will eventually be completed once some more funds have been gathered, so I can then move on to completing the project somewhere further down the track.
While there will probably be further restorations to come, sadly this is the last one of mine that will appear in monthly articles in this magazine, which of course isn’t to say that there won’t be the occasional update as time goes by.
With that thought in mind, I’m going to sign off with a goodbye photo of a 1955 A5 Bedford that I’ve had sitting around for quite a while heading off for a trip around the paddock, albeit very noisily and with absolutely zero chance of it stopping in an emergency.
I’d like to close in thanking (in no particular order) some of the people who have been of so much help with my last two restorations, the Dodge and the D Series Ford, for it is without these kind folk, two old-timer trucks wouldn’t have been given a second chance at going yet another time round – thanks guys.
- David Gander – Timaru – Dodge
- Noel Galloway – Woodville – Dodge
- Ben Tacon – Palmerston Nth – Dodge mechanical advice
- Kevin Healey – Huntly – Dodge parts finder
- Graeme Blackstock – New Plymouth – D Series
- CRD Automotive – Auckland – Dodge and D Series
- Simon Coombes – Ex Auckland – Dodge donor
- Murray Firth – My long-suffering workshop buddy
Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank the entire Deals on Wheels team for touching up my tardy photography and generally making a silk purse out of the ‘sow’s ear’ storylines I’ve often presented them with over the past 12 years.
So, here you go – a sampling of the Dodge’s journey over the past 32 months.
Images by Lyndsay Whittle