Thread: Interesting Project (not Mine)

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I'm not doing so good right now, (degenerative arthritis in my lower back) getting around is a bit of a pain (literally).

Haven't been out in the shop too much, can't really do too much out there right now anyway.

I did get a call from a friend of mine a couple days ago who wanted to know if I could shed some light on job a friend of his just got in. Turns out it is a 20 to 27 Dodge Brothers Hearse. While I was over there I did manage to find the heavily painted over body data tag, which will hopefully be able to shed some light on it.

D Hearse by M Patterson, on Flickr


Mechanically it appears mostly original, Down to the mechanical rear brakes and no front brakes. It may also have had an engine swap.

The engine is what fascinated me the most. In line 4 and from what I researched it appears to have had a romping stomping 4:1 compression ratio. It also has a factory chain drive starter/generator that was a 24 to 26 option and is part of a 12 volt negative ground system. I even managed to find a wiring diagram for it.

Starter Gen by M Patterson, on Flickr

For now the guys project is just to try to get it running and moving (and hopefully stopping LOL) .

I'll probably stop by off and on to see how he's doing on it.



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That’s awesome! Love the oddball vehicles.

I agree, this will be a special when done.

Yeah, I really enjoy looking at the innovation that went into the early 1900s stuff. The Starter/Generator on this one is particularly interesting to me.

The guys who's working on it I would guess is probably in his mid 40s and has never been around anything this old. I went over the spark advance and throttle advance levers on the steering column the gasoline primer cups in the head (2 of which were broken off and and one missing a piece)and how to hold and pull the manual start crank handle so as not to break is hand/arm in case of backfire when starting with the crank.

According to what he had been told it is 1 of 3......but that is not unrealistic for what ever model year it turns out to be. From the looks of it it was ordered as a truck cab and chassis, then sent to somebody who built the coach. A small 1or 2 man shop could realistically take 3 or 4 months to do the build out (mostly metal clad wood).





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Sorry to hear of the medical maladies, Mike. Lower back pain isn't pleasant to deal with any time!

It's good that you're there to give the guy some guidance. Some things are common sense, but some take some ingenuity and experience, too.

".....Some things are common sense, but some take some ingenuity and experience......"

Isn't that the truth! Back in the mid to late 60s there was a spell when I was restoring antique tractors. The technology of the era is pretty similar to the old hearse, so most of the stuff was pretty familiar.


Pic 4 by M Patterson, on Flickr

This particular one took a pretty good chunk of my leg out one day when it backfired when I was cranking it to get it started. My own damn fault, I had the spark advance set to fast and was holding the crank wrong (and I knew better but was in a hurry). After I calmed down a bit I realized it could have actually been a lot worse.

It was one of those hard learned lessons I don't want the guy working on the hearse to repeat, which was why I showed him how it should be done.



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Originally Posted by rspears

It's good that you're there to give the guy some guidance. Some things are common sense, but some take some ingenuity and experience, too.

Sometimes you don't realise how much you know until you meet with someone who has never struck a particular problem.
I spent most of my life working in the bush. I had bulldozers and draindiggers (back-hoes I think you call them,) but sometimes wheel tractors are the best option.
And sometimes they go down in the mud belly deep.
And always in places where you can't get at them with the crawler machines.
Chain a fence post (or any other solid log,) to your rear wheels making sure you won't rip the tyre valve out, and then back up.
I've never had that technique fail.
Although its been a wee bit fraught at times...
(And I only ripped a valve off once...)

The same trick can be used with crawlers, just don't try to turn as the back end is getting up in the air or it's quite likely you'll throw a track off.

And that will give you more fun things to do for the rest of the day.

"........but sometimes wheel tractors are the best option. And sometimes they go down in the mud belly deep......."

Ain't that the truth. We had an old Buffalo wallow on our farm in Illinois right in the middle of a field. Every few years when the weather conditions were right dad would end up burying the tractor in it when plowing. It usually happened so fast that that he didn't have a chance to shut it down till he was almost up to the axles. Fortunately the wallow was rather small so another tractor could be set on solid ground to pull him out. Those years the Wallow wouldn't be planted LOL.

I've heard about the log/fence post trick but never seen it used.

And in case anybody is interested what a Buffalo Wallow is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_wallow

or that there were Buffalo in Illinois:

https://www.nps.gov/articles/bison-bellows-9-16-16.htm



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I too hate to hear of your back issues. I have similar problems and they suck, big time. I hope yours gets better soon.

Nice that you can pass on your knowledge, especially since you are down.

I have only worked on one original early car, a 1930 Model A that a fellow I knew bought. He knew nothing about mechanics, but fell in love with the car. I was tasked with keeping it running and it was a learning experience for sure. Yeah, it had 4 wheels and a motor, but it wasn't even close to things I was used to working on. Just setting the timing was very different. It was the brakes that got me. They scared the crap out of me every time I drove it. Of course, I was probably driving it faster than I should have. I did talk him into letting me rebuild the brake cross bar and they did work a lot better after that.