1949 Dodge PilotHouse Ute from Australia.
- Thread starter wendle
- Start date
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pistolpete
Well-known member
Nice to see you on the road. Your attention to detail is awesome, thanks for taking the time to share your journey with us.
SAVEE
New member
Wendle, I just found your build here on ratrods and I am tripping out. I have the same cab (faded red and all) and have a WB V8 ute sitting next to it ready for the cab swap!
Love your work, it's solved alot of my concerns and has me excited about my build again!
Your build has led me to sign up to this forum... nice.
Pic of my truck when i first got it. Running gear wasn't with it and the chassis needs alot of work if i was to use it.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Love your work, it's solved alot of my concerns and has me excited about my build again!
Your build has led me to sign up to this forum... nice.
Pic of my truck when i first got it. Running gear wasn't with it and the chassis needs alot of work if i was to use it.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Wendle, I just found your build here on ratrods and I am tripping out. I have the same cab (faded red and all) and have a WB V8 ute sitting next to it ready for the cab swap!
Love your work, it's solved alot of my concerns and has me excited about my build again!
Your build has led me to sign up to this forum... nice.
Pic of my truck when i first got it. Running gear wasn't with it and the chassis needs alot of work if i was to use it.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Cool truck.
Seeing as yours is already a ute and not a large truck I'd think seriously about doing the work required to keep the original chassis.
I only really used the Holden chassis to legally shrink the truck down, and it works well (with a lot of work), but the downside is that my car is now legally a 1977 Holden not a 1949 dodge.
I reckon use the Holden front end and drivetrain in the Dodge chassis?
I really want a photo of my truck next to yours
Can you measure the height from the ground to, say, the centre of the headlight for me?
Drove the old girl into work this morning
Sits on the highway nice at 65-70mph and the temp goes to 180° and doesn't move. The fans didn't even come on until it was sitting idling in the driveway while I was mucking around unlocking the gate.
Got a couple of little things to look at, got a little clunk noise at the back of the cab on the bigger bumps (our roads are pretty bad).
I'm thinking I might need to buy some new body mount rubbers, I re-used the old ones and they are a bit hard and crushed. Can't think what else it would be in that area.
Also my number plate lights on the back are nowhere near bright enough, easy fix.
Oh yeah, I ended up painting the cut/welded/sanded areas with some red primer, I was advised to have it all one colour for rego inspection.
Sits on the highway nice at 65-70mph and the temp goes to 180° and doesn't move. The fans didn't even come on until it was sitting idling in the driveway while I was mucking around unlocking the gate.
Got a couple of little things to look at, got a little clunk noise at the back of the cab on the bigger bumps (our roads are pretty bad).
I'm thinking I might need to buy some new body mount rubbers, I re-used the old ones and they are a bit hard and crushed. Can't think what else it would be in that area.
Also my number plate lights on the back are nowhere near bright enough, easy fix.
Oh yeah, I ended up painting the cut/welded/sanded areas with some red primer, I was advised to have it all one colour for rego inspection.
Looks good! Are you going to do anything under the bed? I'm thinking it would be a good spot for a storage box - maybe 10" deep or so, not all the way down. And where's your spare tire? Any good old truck has a spare laying in/on the bed.
Then again, that bed looks pretty.
Then again, that bed looks pretty.
Looks good! Are you going to do anything under the bed? I'm thinking it would be a good spot for a storage box - maybe 10" deep or so, not all the way down. And where's your spare tire? Any good old truck has a spare laying in/on the bed.
Then again, that bed looks pretty.
Thanks man, swap for your olds?
The spare will be under the tray at the back, I left a space for it, I just haven't finished building the mount for it. It swings down after pulling out a receiver hitch pin so the tyre is easy to get in/out.
Surprisingly, there's actually not a whole lot of room under there. The 2 big tanks take up most of the space. I think I will cut another set of the plates I welded to the LH chassis rail to mount the battery and weld them to the RH rail in the same place to mount a couple of ammo cans for some basic tools. Maybe line one with styrene to hold a couple cold beers in case of emergency?
Snake Farm
Ol school snake charmer!
Driving the Rat to work! So what do the folks at work think of it? Do they "get it" It's great to see ya having fun with the old Dodge [cl[cl
So what do the folks at work think of it? Do they "get it" It's great to see ya having fun with the old Dodge [cl[clDriving the Rat to work!
The old guys and the girls in the office love it. The young blokes don't think it has enough motor
Way too long without an update!
This car is pleasant enough to drive that it has become my daily driver this year.
Took me a little while to get through all the red tape with getting it registered properly and 100% legal, but got there in the end.
The biggest thing I have noticed is that it just makes people smile when they see it. I think around here when someone sees a shiny chromed up street rod or muscle car they think of the $ involved and get a little jealous, but people just see this thing and grin.
Whenever I am sitting at traffic lights people are taking photos (including drivers of other cars LOL), I get big thumbs up signs from cars going past, all sorts of things
Another thing is that from the back it just looks like the shadiest old farm truck rattle-trap. If I am first to the lights I can look in the mirror and watch all the other cars get into the other lane to avoid getting stuck behind me.
Then I take off and leave them all a long ways behind
Only thing I have changed since last year is getting rid of the electric fans and shoehorning a mechanical fan back in there. I just hated the sound of the electric fans coming on, didn't suit the car at all...
This car is pleasant enough to drive that it has become my daily driver this year.
Took me a little while to get through all the red tape with getting it registered properly and 100% legal, but got there in the end.
The biggest thing I have noticed is that it just makes people smile when they see it. I think around here when someone sees a shiny chromed up street rod or muscle car they think of the $ involved and get a little jealous, but people just see this thing and grin.
Whenever I am sitting at traffic lights people are taking photos (including drivers of other cars LOL), I get big thumbs up signs from cars going past, all sorts of things
Another thing is that from the back it just looks like the shadiest old farm truck rattle-trap. If I am first to the lights I can look in the mirror and watch all the other cars get into the other lane to avoid getting stuck behind me.
Then I take off and leave them all a long ways behind
Only thing I have changed since last year is getting rid of the electric fans and shoehorning a mechanical fan back in there. I just hated the sound of the electric fans coming on, didn't suit the car at all...
Todd
He's just one of them Rusty-Chainers!
Jeez, he's getting big!
Snake Farm
Ol school snake charmer!
Another thing is that from the back it just looks like the shadiest old farm truck rattle-trap. If I am first to the lights I can look in the mirror and watch all the other cars get into the other lane to avoid getting stuck behind me.
Then I take off and leave them all a long ways behind
[cl[cl[cl That alone would make it all worthwhile to me
Great to see you having this much fun with the truck. 
bob w
Still crazy after all these years!
You built a great truck. The proof is you want to drive it all the time.
GJunktionMike
Something's wrong with that boy!
Nice job on the build[cl.
Thanks everyone!
Pics aren't loading on this page for some reason this morning... Photobucket server must be having an aneurysm or similar...
Yep, he's two years old now. This truck has always been in my garage since he was born. Probably thinks everyone drives around in 65 year old cars [cl
Just got into work after filling it up and driving it in. Man, those 2 big tanks take a long time to fill from empty...bob w said:
Pics aren't loading on this page for some reason this morning... Photobucket server must be having an aneurysm or similar...
Stacy
Well-known member
I love it man, I get so much inspiration from your build because you're fairly local and we've got the same laws to contend with. Great update, glad it's still going strong. The things I really want to keep like you have are the dings and door handles
