1934 Dodge. The Stewart mini van

got this in the mail today from ebay. vintage, as they call it amp gauge. it's a white face so I may mount it on the firewall with my white face vacuum gauge.

As some know I've been looking for a roof off a mini van to use to cover the hole where the canvas top was. I like the looks of the body lines in some of the vans but after thinking about it there is no way a guy in 1955 to 1962 could have put that kind of bead roll in a roof. After thinking about it more and more, watching alot of old black and white hot rod movies and going through old mags, I'm not gonna use a van roof. most of the hot rods of that era had the canvas. I'm wanting a steel roof because of the cold weather and this is going to be a daily driver even in the snow.

I shaped a piece of square tubing to match the contour of the roof. welded it in front to back and then ran 2 braces side to side. Pulled out the 16 gauge and started bending it the best I could to make a flat sheet rounded.

I didn't catch it till after I had the roof tacked on but the center bar sank in the rear from the weld, about a 1/2 inch. I didn't weld the bottom so I should be able to jack it up with a pipe were it needs to go up and weld the bottom. The heat should be enough to get it were I want it. If not I'll put the torch to it an raise the brace.

The car will get a fake canvas top. If I don't change my mind, the body will be Malono Maroon with a flatning agent. White firewall, White canvas top and maroon and white on the inside. After digging into the roof I'm getting more and more interested in the history of this car. I found what looks to be 3 different times the roof was screwed with. The factory, and what looks to be a chop top from the early days and a hack job to get the roof even lower, later on in the cars life. The first chop was a fun find. I cleaned up all the lead I found in the roof. I started welding and more lead started pouring off the side of the roof. OPPPS!! I have a lead sled and it's no Merc . The roof from the first chop and the welds were filled with lead. Whoever filled the car did a nice job. the 2nd hack which put the lid down lower was a hack job. My 6 year old could have done a better chop. Bondo on top of bondo, bad welds ect ect. I beat, dollied and hammered on it for a while and let the heat from the welder work it's magic on the hard spots.
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here's the 34 at the Labor Of Love Car Show in Burlington, Ky.
Sep 1, 2007

A month and one day is how long it took me to get the title work fixed on this car. this has been the craziest transfer I've ever seen. I had the title to the car from 1934. Someone had wrote junk on the title in 1941. this caused a problem at the DMV. Today I got my tags for the car so now I'm good to go. 2 states, 4 courthouses, 8 different trips to these DMV, more paper work than I've ever had to do, and 3 different duplicate titles from Ohio from where Ky wouldn't accept their title the way they had them fixed. I'm glad this part is over!!!

This next one may be a little strange to some. I needed an overflow bottle. alot of guys are using beer bottles. I don't care much for that idea so I had to think of something else. I picked this up when me and the ol' lady was down in Mexico. We was in a rough part of Mexico and it wasn't much on the tourist trade, so we picked up a few bottles from one of the stores to bring back with us.

My spanish is not that good but it says Agua Mineral which I believe is mineral water. Don't ask me why it's brown . I needed a bracket so off came some sockets, a little bend and I had my bracket.


What more scary than brown water? When you drill into the cap and it blows all over. I didn't think it would do this. This stuff been sitting around for a while. I figure it would be flat if it was soda. It just kept pouring out.

I made the hole small enough that the hose would have a tight fit.

I mounted the bracket to the inside of the grill shell. You won't be able to see it unless you are looking at the engine. I will have to get me a hose clamp next time at Lowe's. This one is just on there for mock up.

I like the idea of having small items such as this to show some of the things I've done, have or places I've been.

I welded up a few holes on the firewall and did my first skim of mud on the car. I know it looks like alot but it's not. Alot of dolly work to get the roof in better shape than it was. It's a thin skim coat. most of it will be sanded off also.

Like I said earlier someone stuck a french antenna in this car at one point in it's life. after digging into it. I found out that whoever did the second chop messed it all up while dropping the top even lower. Their idea of pie cuts and welds were screwed up to say the least. I hammered and worked with it till it started to split where they welded it. I couldn't get the metal out where I wanted it and I wasn't about to put and inch of mud in it like they did. I had already broke off the pipe from the french job before I remembered to take a pic. This pipe is what I found after grinding out all the mud. Rusty welds, no dolly or hammer work just a lot of mud.

out came the cutting wheel!

After cutting out most of their pie cuts and screwed welds I was able to hammer and dolly the metal on the outside of the cut. it laid out pretty well. now for the hole I cut out. It's hard to see but this has a curve to it up & down and side to side. I beat on this thing on my steps till I got it where I needed it.

I had to stop working on the roof so I could fix this. I was afraid I would have to do some welding where the french antenna was and that it would get too hot for the filler on the back part of the roof. I'm glad I went ahead and fixed it now.

I would never put a french antenna in a car like this. Some know that I'm a history buff and this car has a history and I didn't want to take that away from it. So you guessed it. I didn't want a big hole like the one they had in it. If I have to french one in this car I want it to be a little smaller than most. little harder to see. 1"OD pipe was used. Leveling the car and getting the pipe straight up and down for measuring was a pain. The angle cut was made on one end.

A washer was welded on the other end and a small hole drilled through the side. With the thickness on the antenna mount the small hole should be right at the lowest point in the pipe.

the hole in the side will get a brass elbow fitting and will be cold welded with JB Weld. Rubber hose will slide over the brass fitting and the other end will go through the floor to let the rain water or car wash water out of the pipe.

I couldn't work and take pics both so it's hard to show you how to get the pipe staight up and down. What you want to do is take the pipe hold it upside down so the pipe is sticking up on the outside of your car. measure, measuer and measure. car is level. Front to back side to side. Take a marker and trace out the pipe where it's is on the body. Cut out the hole. PAIN .. now you take the pipe turn it over and stick it in the hole. Spot weld and check for it to be level from the inside of the car. If you cut out the hole perfect you should be real close. Weld it all up and add some mud.

This is only the roughed in pic. but you can get the idea. Little more body work and alot of blocking and prep around the hole will happen later. The antenna will only peek out of the hole about 4 inches.

I also got this in the mail the other day. getting tired of not being able to see the red lights.

This glass guide sits on the dash so you can see the red lights. Pull up to a traffic light that you can't see because of a visor or a low chop top. look into the glass and you can see the light over your head. Not sure if some of the younger guys would know what it is or not.

The problem I'm having is trying to do stuff to the car to get it ready for winter. the roof is roughed in and primed. Gonna hit the firewall next then on to getting windows and a heater in it. I can live with the roughed in stuff till next spring. After that I'll do the body work and shoot some color.

1/2done wrote:Have you got a heater? If not we can see if the one out of my Dodge is any good.

thanks for the offer. I think I'm going to go with a Mojave Universal Heater. the local hot rod shop has them for $125.00. same thing that speedway sells but for less money. seems funny to me because his prices are through the roof on most stuff. I guess speedy bill marked his way up. it an all self contained unit. run 2 hoses through the firewall and run your 2 wire and done. it has a 3 heat control switch also. Dave(tiresmake55) has one in his 55. said you can't hardly hear it run and it will run you out of it, it get so hot.

2 steps forward and one step back. I blew up the engine in the 34. Doesn't really bother me much, it was a dog and I would rather have something in there that I know will run on long trips and not have to worry about it breaking down. I can move it around for now but it has the death rattle. The engine I was going to sell Cole is what I will use.


I bought a truck to get the bed and dog house off of it for my truck. I never heard it run. I wasn't even for sure it was a 350. Here is my chief engine biulder taking some stuff off.

Aryan was having some trouble pulling the wires off so with this being a rebuild I showed him the Kentucky Fix All Tool we use when we can get something loose. With the Ky "Fix All" he was able to just break the plugs and get the wire off

Cole my friend, all I can say is you messed up by not buying this engine. It was in an 85 truck I bought. I ran the numbers on the block and this is what I came up with: 14016379...350...77-79...2 or 4 bolt
The lifter valley was really clean. I took off the timing cover and there's a double roller. Well someones been in here, I thought. Slid out the bump stick and it was an aftermarket. Cool so far. Ripped off the heads to find a set of dished pistons. Oh well ya can't win them all. I left the bottom end alone and started grinding on the heads to smooth out all the casting marks and to smooth any numbers or slag from casting from the block. why? because it looks alot cleaner to me when all the rough stuff is smoothed. The engine will have a nicer paint job than the car. Ronnie stopped down and ripped into the bottom end. wow, 4 bolt mains with X rods. Cool. whats better than that? I have never seen a bearing come out of one of these engines look this nice. The bottom end was all GM still, never screwed with. I came close to putting it back together without a rebuild! Ronnie said the same thing. He's never seen an engine that didn't have less wear to it. This will be a stock rebuild with an after market cam.

I ordered my rering kit from Summit Racing. The box it came in was fine but the bearings and the cam box looked like they was tossed against the wall at the warehouse. I made a call and they shipped my undamaged boxes to me yesterday. today Ron called and ask if I was ready to toss the bottom end together. . well sure. It's hard enough to get some help sometimes. It's really unheard of for someone to call you and say they are going to help you without you asking. I had the motor cleaned up and honed thanks to Bill for loaning me his honer. I was doing the crude cleanup on the pistons while Ron was tossing in the crank. Plasti-gauged the bearing and then we took turns cutting our fingers re ringing the pistons. The bottom end is together and Ron even made a phone call where he snagged a used gear drive for 10 bucks. We stopped down and picked it up then called it a night.