Restoration: Dodge — Part 20

By: Lyndsay Whittle, Photography by: Lyndsay Whittle

Date: 07.12.2023

A quick look back at the progress to date

Ready for painting first time round

Now that we’ve reached the 20-month mark of the restoration, I thought we’d carry on the tradition of previous restorations where I include a few timeline photos of progress to date, the first part of which is the lead photo — it’ll probably require a bit of explaining.

Readers could be forgiven for thinking I’ve inserted a photo from several months ago, when, in fact, the shot was only taken a week or two ago.

Undercab before shot

As I said in a previous issue, it was looking like the cab would need to be repainted because the truck had been sitting around over what was possibly the worst summer any living Aucklander would’ve seen in their lifetime.

After shot of the undercab (November 2023)

While the weather is one possible cause for needing the repaint, the probability is that the job needed to be redone because some incompetent restorer (no names mentioned) didn’t
do the job properly in the first place.

Anyway, whatever the reason, I finally made the call to bite the bullet and start stripping off all the bits and pieces and start all over.

When looking at the photo, most readers will probably think that this will go on for another six months, however, that won’t be the setback one might have expected, as a short upturn in the weather allowed us to get a decent coat of paint on the cab.

As it turned out, I’m happy that what originally looked like a bit of a setback has provided us with a better coat of paint (it’s not perfect but it’ll do) and we’ll now be able to move the project along and make up for some lost time.

At least, that’s the way it’s looking currently, but as we know all too well, things can easily go awry. Also, I haven’t forgotten about my promise to the readers (and, of course, myself) at the end of last month’s article, that I’d have the doors opening and closing inside and out.

At last, the door opens from outside

I’m pleased to say that I’ve kept my promise albeit at the compromise of delaying the fitting of the windows by a week or two.

Admittedly, it did take a little too long to get my head around the way the locking mechanism works, as I’d lost all but one of the photos that were taken while dismantling the doors, but we did get there in the end thankfully.

While having a short spell of fine weather where we were able to get that much-needed painting done was a welcome interlude, it wasn’t without its problems.

Although it’s been particularly fine, that good old El Niño weather pattern did give us a fair share of problems with brisk breezes that kept cutting up, something that wouldn’t have been a problem if we were painting inside a building.

The wind, coupled with the threat of the odd shower made it necessary to pause the operation (often between coats) and put the truck back in its hidey-hole, hence the photo of the truck with the peephole cut into the masking of the windscreen makes it look like some kind of military vehicle. The joys of doing things on the cheap, I guess.

In any event, I’ll reveal the painted product in Part 21 once I’ve removed all the masking and we’ve hopefully managed to refit some of the ancillary items and even possibly have all the glass fitted in the doors.

I must issue a warning and say that it’s going to be a bit of a scramble to get the work out the door next month, as I have to take a couple of weeks off to go and visit an old mate in Aussie who’s not doing too well on the health front.

A comedy of errors

An embarrassing incident took place a couple of weeks ago, for which I unfortunately don’t have any photos but is nevertheless worth sharing.

I was about to move the truck under cover as a nasty-looking storm was threatening and must’ve been in too much of a hurry to get things moving. I lowered the tilt cab and didn’t properly latch the safety lock.

Furthermore, in my rush, I forgot to secure the main cab lock before climbing into the cab.
It shouldn’t take a lot of imagination to see what’s coming next, but to paint the entire picture, I will continue with the story anyway.

I started the engine and slowly moved off down a slight descent and had just turned a tight left-hand corner when the inevitable happened. The cab lurched forward quite violently and before I had time to blink, was staring at the ground.

More by good luck than good management, I was able to depress the clutch and put my foot on the brake pedal, then compose myself and take the truck out of gear.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I tried exiting my lofty perch, before realising that I’d removed the driver’s step before painting the cab. Admittedly, the step would’ve been positioned at an unusual angle with the cab tilted forward, but it would’ve been better than having nothing at all to help with my egress.

My mate Murray was working a short distance away and figured something was wrong when he heard the engine idling and the truck going nowhere, along with the tirade of expletives coming from the hapless driver’s mouth. He reckons it was the funniest thing he’s seen in a long time.

As for me, I’ve had nightmares about the incident since and am just thankful that this all happened at a walking pace and not driving along at 50km an hour on the main road.

In a bid to bring some balance to the restorer/writer’s stupidity around the workshop, Murray decided to do something useful with a small repurposing exercise where he removed an ancillary air tank from the rear of the chassis, cleaned and painted it, and fixed it to the wall as an air reservoir for our overworked compressor, making it fair to say that at least one of us isn’t so stupid.

Murray laughs when he says it’s his contribution to the recycling movement. Until next month.

Apologies to Ben Tacon, whose surname I misspelt in a previous article. Ben was generous with some valuable advice regarding the Dodge’s braking system for which I was truly grateful. Thanks once again Ben.

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