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Dodge T110L


253cmg

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As some people may already know I have a Dodge T110L that is currently undergoing restoration, I have now decided to have a blog on the vehicle. Hopefully it will be of interest to some.

The first few pics are of the truck as found in the barn, approximately 1 year ago, a large part of the restoration has/will be carried out by Howard Wade of Rusty Bits as I do not have sufficient space or lifting equipment to carry out certain tasks, I will restore the bits that I can do.

 

 

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Hi Pete,

I didn't get a chance to put any more info up earlier so here is a bit more, the truck is totally complete with all the relevant data tags, year 1943, the body is not original and had been converted to a tipper (there was recently a similar truck on eBay). The original colour was desert sand, I don't believe it actually saw service but I don't know for sure, the theory is that it was produced in Canada and shipped over in 'knocked down' form, (when the top of the cab was removed the desert sand paint was on the 'locating legs' that fit into the lower half of the cab) I think it may have been bound for the North Africa campaign but was diverted here being as the Africa campaign ended in 1943, if anyone knows different please let me know. The truck spent most of its life on a farm being used for beet hauling, the chap that I bought it off remembers his father and grandfather using it for that purpose. The speedo shows approx 8k and the truck has been worked hard, the farmers even managed to break a half shaft! A 2 speed eaton axle is fitted as standard. Unfortunately the engine had not received much in the way of  basic maintenance and was in a sorry state. Here are a few more pictures, the truck as she emerged from the barn, loaded ready for the trip and the original engine stripped down, the heap of rust came out of the waterways, the water distribution tube had basically disintegrated and the aperture where it should have been had to be drilled out with a 24" drill bit to loosen the rust followed by turning the engine 180 degrees and banging the block onto a lump of wood to dislodge the crud!

Kevin

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Interesting comment regarding the desert colour you found.

Iv'e found a similar thing on my D15 cab under the data plates and some of the cab fittings other parts are standard G3.  I wonder if early contracts destined for North Africa and Britain were run simultaneously on the assembly line leading to a mix of paint finishes on sub assemblies prior to the application of the final top coat.

Pete     

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Pete that may well be the case, but surely it would mean extra man hours and poor productivity? However I have got a picture of a truck from the the same contract as mine which appears to have the Mickey Mouse paint scheme. I have decided to go with the desert sand colour based on it being the first colour applied.

The rear springs have been pulled apart, cleaned up and repainted complete with new center bolts and Spring shackle bushes, both springs were found to have date stamps, the springs also had an extra leaf fitted presumably fitted when the tipper conversion was carried out for additional overloading capacity! You can see that the rogue leaf doesn't have the tapered edges at each end, these pieces were left out during the reassembly, I think the ride will be sufficiently hard without them.

The chassis has been blasted, under coated and the first top coat. I am going to have a gloss coat between the undercoat and the final matt finish, this is to provide an extra layer of protection being as the matt finish paints at porous, I saw a restored Staghound in the Netherlands last year which had used the same method, the finish was excellent, hopefully we will achieve similar results.

Kevin

 

 

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I knew an old guy who went into raptures over my Dodges. He'd had one of those trucks post war. Used to tell all sorts of tales of overlaoding, and driving 36 hours at a spell. He claimed the truck bought his first house and brought up his family.

Edited by Tony B
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Hi Tony, it's always nice to hear the tales from the older generation, and you always end up learning something new.

Here are a few more details of the progress so far,  the first couple are of the chassis in its current state, Howard has blasted, under coated and glossed, it will be finished in the matt prior to assembling the rolling chassis.

The cab front scuttle vent surround had seen better days, luckily I know a very clever man that had the same problem with his Dodge WC54, he made some tooling to press out some basic blanks from which the surround could be made, it took a bit of 'fettling' to produce and I am pleased with the finished result.

Kevin

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Edited by 253cmg
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The following pictures show the engine being stripped down prior to the machine work and rebuild, I decided to carry out the rebuild myself to save on costs plus have a greater degree of control over the process, hopefully it will prove the correct decision!

I bought an engine stand off the Internet and selected a greater design weight than required, however it became very clear that the stand would not support the weight of the block, rather than send the stand back I elected to make it 'fit for purpose' based on the assumption that the majority of these products are imported from the same place. As can be seen the engine now sits in a rotisserie, to withdraw the camshaft the block was temporarily supported at the far end. As each part was removed it was cleaned, inspected and laid out on a bench. Various photos were taken to aid reassembly in an attempt to reduce head scratching during reassembly!

Kevin

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here are a few pictures of the engine rebuild.

After stripping the block it was sent off to the machine shop for the following work,

Chemical clean of the block

Cylinder bores machined to 10 thou over size

Remove and replace valve guides

Instal new camshaft bearings

The crankshaft was machined to 2 thou under size to suit the new big end / main bearing shells.

New little end bearings fitted and reamed to suit the gudgeon pins.

I was really pleased with the work carried out by the machine shop and the rebuild went well with no real problems. One real nice find was the packaging containing each set of piston rings, nos in a fantastic period design, that good in fact that I have saved them and will put them in a nice picture frame to hang in the house (I have a very good and tolerant wife!) 

Kevin

 

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Edited by 253cmg
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Hi Tony, The overall condition was generally 'worn' the cylinders were not scored but had quite a ridge, the big ends and mains were worn to the point of needing replacement before they started failing. I felt that as the truck will be doing several long trips it will give peace of mind with a rebuilt engine!

Kevin

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Good idea. Sounds like the engine had done it's time, though as you have shown, with the right  care, skills and knowledge,  nothing that can't be rebuilt. She is a lovley truck,. Hope you get a lot of enjoyment from her. 

Edited by Tony B
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Hi Tony, hopefully I will be able to do the old girl justice!

Today has been spent on the gearboxes deciding which one to use, I thought that both boxes were basically the same, I decided to set the gearboxes on two benches next to each other for comparisons, it turns out that there are a few detail differences preventing me from swapping over certain components.

The original gearbox is a heavier duty item compared to the fire engine gearbox as can be seen by the input shafts. Being as the original gearbox had seen some hard work on the farm I was leaning toward using the other unit, however having looked internally at the gearboxes there wasn't any discernible difference in wear, no chipped teeth etc, the hand brake drum and band on the original gearbox are past their best and the same items on the other gearbox were in very good order, just swap them over, or so I thought, this is where some of the details differ between the gearboxes, the handbrake band will interchange but the drum is fixed to the gearbox slightly differently, basically the method for attaching the prop shaft is totally different, on the original gearbox the propshaft  is connected in what I would describe as a 'standard' fashion - but the other gearbox requires the propshaft yoke/uj to be separated, the hole centres on the propshaft yokes are different and not interchangeable which means I have to use the original drum, bit of a bugger so I am hoping to get a company to metal spray the drum and machine it back to original size.

The original gearbox was fitted with a pto for the tipping gear, as this is no longer needed I needed a blanking plate to cover the hole, I decided to 'rob' the original from the fire engine gearbox and make up a replacement for this gearbox, even though I won't use this gearbox I want to try and protect the internals whilst I decide what to do with the gearbox.

The rest of the day has been spent cleaning and scraping the gearbox in preparation for painting. With a bit of luck I will that finished next week.

Kevin

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  • 5 weeks later...

Bit of an update on the project, time has been a bit of an issue but I have painted disassembled/assembled the ancillaries on the gearbox.

The handbrake issue was resolved by having the drum 'skimmed' on a lathe, it has left the deeper groove present but should be ok.

The handbrake mechanism would not always lock in position, after oiling the linkage it was dismantled again to check that I had properly cleaned off the paint from the important mechanism surfaces, refit and test, to find the same problem, I wondered if the return spring in the handle had become weak or there was gunge around the operating rod, looking at the push button I wrongly thought it was screwed onto the rod, bit of gentle twisting with some pliers removed the button, however I had broken it! It turns out that there was a locating pin securing the button, this pin is unseen unless you dismantle the linkage and push the rod up the handbrake handle tube.

Once I  finished cursing the rod and Spring were removed and cleaned up, the Spring was gently stretched a bit to provide a bit more tension, I decided to try and drill the end of the rod and refit the the button hoping that there was sufficient length in the rod to operate the handbrake properly, unfortunately this wasn't the case so plan C was put into action, extend the rod, once this task was completed everything worked as intended

Kevin

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Edited by 253cmg
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Well this weekend I managed to make a bit of progress on the truck, the target was to remove the engine from the rebuild stand, fabricate a frame to mount the engine on that would allow a bench test run before being installed into the chassis any additional progress would be a bonus!

The frame turned out ok and I had time to start prepping some of the ancillaries ready for fitting, the inlet/exhaust manifold had previously been sand blasted (thanks Howard) followed with a coat of 'high temperature' paint, the manifolds were bolted together using a staight edge, once assembled it looked if the 'faces' were nice and level, to be sure I set up a 10mm steel plate and some abrasive paper to give a decent surface for 'facing'. I was surprised to see that the manifolds were not in fact level, I am about half way through the task, I started to lose the will to live so went and put the carburettors into the ultrasonic cleaner and called it a day!

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  • 2 months later...

Well it's been a while since I last posted, I have managed to achieve some progress, I gave up trying to 'face' the manifolds and handed them over to Adrian Barrel to do it properly, thanks Adrian for fitting me in. The carb and fuel pump have been rebuilt and fitted along with the refurbished starter motor and Dynamo, new ht leads have been made up and fitted.

The engine was cranked over to build up oil pressure, showing approx 45psi I am quite happy!

This week a milestone was reached by starting the engine, just for a short while, the next stage will be to mount the radiator on the engine stand to allow some proper running and setting up.

At present not all photo's will load there is also a video of the engine running, if I can figure out why I cannot upload I will try and edit the post.

Kevin

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