Dodge Pilothouse Era Truck Club News
Dodge Pilothouse Era Truck Club Newsletter
January, 2006 Issue Published bi-monthly
THIS ISSUE
• really old news • main article • humor from the past • news of the club • meet the member • fun stuff
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
"The pilot-house cab was higher, wider, longer, fully waterproofed and provided excellent vision through it's large, non- opening windshield. It's chair-height, comfortable, adjustable seat assured the driver a comfortable ride."
Don Bunn and Tom Brownell, Dodge Pickups, History and Restoration Guide, 1918-1971, pp. 62-3
NEWS OF THE CLUB Welcome to the DPETCA Newsletter It's here! We've got our first official Dodge Pilothouse club magazine out the door and in the email. This is another substantial step for our club.
You'll find this magazine is designed around a mix of "the old and the new." I even thought of calling it that. Tell me what you think. We have reprints right out of the 40's and 50's. And we've added some background information on the historical aspects of our trucks. This issue has a terrific article about the factory where many of our Dodge trucks were produced - "Dodge Main".
You also find current information that updates statistics about our club and in-depth articles about some of our club members. We end it all with some jokes right out of the 50's and a few funny movies, just because we all enjoy a good laugh.
● Now, some recent information about our club. We're currently 83 members strong, and still growing. It won't be long before we reach 100! Why not encourage your friends to join us? Most recently, we've added and want to welcome the following new members:
Mark Gunter from League City, Texas Steven Hood from Sherrard, Illinois Derek Olson from Coon Rapids, Minnesota David Erb from New Holland, Pennsylvania Wes Felts from Rockport, Texas JimGaspard from Dallas, Texas Shane McGilvrey from Noblesville, Indiana Tom Davis from Surrey, British Columbia, in beautiful Canada
In future articles I'll offer some insights to the people who use our web site. We really have quite a world wide following for these old trucks. We have finally added DPETCA merchandise. Now, you can proudly display our association with our favorite truck by purchasing hats, mugs, shirts and more. There's quite a selection to choose from. Make sure you stop by and see all the wonderful "stuff". Here's the link if you need
Content being added to our site include new reference material to help repair, restore and maintain our old work horses. We are adding parts list books for Fargo trucks, more brochures, truck color chips and new repair manuals for our Fargo/Dodge/ Desoto owners both here in the U.S., as well as in Canada and Australia. Our goal is to be the most complete reference file:///F|/Dodge_Pilothouse/newsletter/jan_06/jan_06_newsletter.html (1 of 8)1/27/2006 1:02:57 PM Dodge Pilothouse Era Truck Club News
library available for our Dodge Pilothouse trucks. You are helping us accomplish that goal.
Our ultimate goal is to continue to grow till the day we can support our own truck meets. I look forward to the day we are large enough to host our first Dodge Pilothouse National Truck Meet. Won't that be a glorious event! i don't when it will happen yet, but that's our goal for the future.
Enjoy the rest of this first issue. We're on a bimonthly schedule right now (that's every other month). Give me your feedback and comments because after all this is your club and we want to make sure it meets your needs.
DPETCA President and Editor,
Bob Koch
MAIN ARTICLE
We'll be looking at some of the Dodge factory plants in the next few issues. This issue focuses on the Michigan plant known as "Dodge Main". In future issues we look at the San Leandro, California and Windsor, Canada plants as well as some others. What follows is a reprint from a handout that was given to visitors at Dodge's truck plant in Warren, Michigan.
Chrysler Corporation’s truck manufacturing activities are centered on the 88-acre site of the Dodge Truck Plant, the world’s largest factory devoted exclusively to truck production Its 1,518,159 square feet of floor space house facilities which produce the third largest volume of trucks built by any company in the world.
The most noteworthy feature of the plant, however, is the day-by-day union of the arts of custom building and volume production methods. More than 350 different models available in the line of Dodge “Job-Rated” trucks are built on several assembly lines. Each customer’s order is filled individually to meet his personal trucking needs, so that often a four-ton tractor, a school bus, and a half-ton pickup truck might follow each other out of final inspection.
The nerve center of the intricate supply organization made necessary by this assembly procedure is Dodge Truck’s planning department which schedules procurement of parts to build specific models and times their arrival at one of the plant’s four receiving docks. The purchasing department must deal with from 900 to 1000 suppliers in buying the parts not made by the Corporation.
Virtually all of the Corporation’s plants are called upon to manufacture major components of trucks. Dodge truck motors are built at Dodge Main, Plymouth, Chrysler-Jefferson, and Highland Park, axles are made at Lynch Road and New Castle, Indiana, body parts are made at Highland Park, DeSoto, and Dodge Main: the rest are purchased from vendors. The function of the Truck Plant is to bring all of these components together in the final assembly of trucks.
Each of the parts manufactured by Chrysler has, in turn, its own history of supply and inter-plant cooperation. The motor, for instance, has five major components, each of which is acquired in a different manner: crankshafts are both purchased from vendors and forged at the Dodge Forge plant; cylinder blocks are cast at the Dodge Foundry and also purchased; cam shafts are acquired from suppliers; and pistons are both bought from suppliers and cast at the Highland Park Plant. All purchased parts are made by suppliers according to rigid Chrysler standards and specifications, and each part was first designed and tested by Chrysler’s Engineering Department.
To make sure that the right engine—and there are eight different truck engine models—reaches the right chassis at the right time, the Dodge Truck planning department operates an ingenious coded teletype system. Body and engine specifications, color, special equipment, and accessories are teletyped on a “schedule ticket” and flashed to key locations throughout the plant. Each receiving station feeds material to the main assembly line in the order received, thus assuring an orderly flow of parts into the proper truck.
Some 540 of Dodge Truck’s 6,000 employees are responsible for this long range planning, daily scheduling and material handling. About 4,000 employees are directly involved in manufacturing, 543 in shipping, 219 in maintenance, 167 in factory accounting, 65 in inspection, 78 in medical and plant protection, 50 in master mechanics department, 33 in factory management, 10 in administration, 9 in personnel, and 57 in miscellaneous activities.
Their operations are conducted in a main assembly plant, a military service building, and several auxiliary buildings. The entire facility has a capacity of approximately 900 trucks daily, handles 47 freight cars, has 9 miles of conveyors, uses about 231,000 gallons of water daily, 84,000 cubic feet of gas, 113,000 kilowatts of electric power, and employs 41 electric trucks and jitneys.
A visitor to the Dodge Truck plant can get an overall picture of operations at a glance from a 1/16 plot scale model of the entire manufacturing space which is kept up to date. All proposed changes in routine, plant layout, and machinery installation are first plotted meticulously with wooden models built exactly to scale. This device is used for constant study by the plant engineering department to determine ways of cutting costs and increasing efficiency.
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(aerial illustration of Dodge Main plant)
After viewing the layout board, visitors are escorted to the beginning of the two assembly lines. Enroute they pass several sub-assembly operations, the first of which is the trim line. Here upholstery, windshield wipers, mirrors, heaters, etc., are installed in bodies after they have arrived from the paint department on the second floor. They also pass the radiator and grille sub-assembly line, the express box pickup assembly, the rear and front axle sub-assembly, and one of the receiving rooms.
The first object placed on the final assembly line is the frame, which is laid transversely and upside down on the moving conveyor to facilitate installation of springs and axles. Visitors pass between two lines; the left line handles half-ton, three- quarter-ton, and one- ton truck assemblies, and the right line handles all large units, from one and one half-tons up. After axles have been added to the frames, they reach a point known as “turn-over”, where they are literally flipped over and placed right side up, facing forward.
The next step is the “merry-go-round” a circular subassembly “line” where final sub-assembly of motors is completed before installation on the chassis. Then the growing vehicle enters the chassis paint booth, receives a protective coat of paint, is conveyed into the drying ovens and out onto the line again. From this point on parts are assembled on the chassis rapidly. Wheels, radiators and grille, bumpers, the body and accessories each fall into place at their appointed stations so that the skeleton appears to become a truck with miraculous speed. Actually it takes about two hours for the frame to make its journey from beginning to end of the assembly line.
The final step in truck construction is the “roll test,” in which the truck is driven off the assembly line and onto a set of free-moving rollers. These allow the truck to remain in place as the rear wheels spin in a simulated highway run while an inspector checks the general performance of the truck and of its gauges and instruments. The “roll test” is a final inspection; actually the entire assembly process is checked constantly to make sure all the parts and assemblies meet Chrysler specifications.
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In the Military Service Building Route Van trucks and military vehicles are built simultaneously on the same assembly line. The general layout is similar to that of the main structure, and the plan of the assembly line is almost identical. Because of the carefully developed system of scheduling the arrival of parts, it is possible to manufacture both military and civilian trucks at the same time.
Dodge Truck experience with military vehicles has been lengthy and extensive. More than 400,000 Dodge trucks were built for our armed forces and our allies in the years 1941-45. Each one came from the Dodge Truck plant, which began large volume military truck production with the one and one half ton 4 x 4 in 1939. The next year Dodge Truck received the order for the half-ton four-wheel-drive light truck developed after Hitler attacked Poland in 1939.
Although Dodge has been supplying trucks to the Army since 1934, activity was naturally accelerated in the anxious days before World War II. Chrysler officials assisted Army engineers in setting up preventive maintenance schedules, training drivers and mechanics, and conducting automotive schools.
After the first half-ton truck had been adopted, the Army called for a new three-quarter-ton 4 x 4 truck in three basic models —weapons carrier, command and reconnaissance car, and ambulance. Dodge truck became the sole source of this new truck, of which it built 255,000 during the war. They were on every front and in every major engagement, the “workhorse of the front lines.”
By 1942 a larger truck of the same characteristics was needed. Chrysler’s answer was to engineer a one and one half-ton truck with six-wheel drive that was 96% interchangeable in service parts with the previous model. Dodge truck built 43,278 of these.
Today the plant has the dual role of producing military vehicles and the wide variety of civilian trucks that the market demands. Dodge Truck currently is producing government-ordered trucks under three contracts calling for a large number of cargo, troop transport, and ammunition-carrying vehicles; ambulances, specially- designed maintenance trucks, and utility vehicles. All of which are three-quarter ton 4-wheel-drive vehicles equipped with Dodge 94 horsepower engines and have wheelbases of either 112 or 126 inches.
These Army trucks incorporate lessons learned in battle use of Dodge Army trucks during World War II and Chrysler experience with the peacetime adaptation of these vehicles called the Dodge ‘Power Wagon”. Among the improvements over World War II models are greater cross-country ability, greater ease of control and fatigue reducing easy-riding qualities.
These vehicles ford streams even though completely submerged, operate under all climatic conditions from the Arctic to the Tropics, resist dust, water, corrosion and fungi, and operate on difficult terrain with comparative ease. All are equipped with blackout lights, and cargo and utility trucks have drop seats for carrying personnel. Dodge civilian trucks range in gross vehicle weight from 4250 lbs. to 40,000 lbs. The gross combination weight goes as high as 50,000 lbs.
Dodge Truck is one of the five major manufacturers of trucks in the U.S., who together supply more than 9O% of the nation’s trucking needs. With the military load upon it Dodge Truck is expanding its own facilities by another 128,000 sq. ft. to increase its productive capacity.
Reprinted by permission of Don Bunn. Text originally published in The Heavyweight Book of American Light Trucks 1933-1966, Motorbooks International. Pages 156-158. Photo's added to enhance article. On a personal note, Don tells us that this book is now a collectors item. It currently sells for $85 - $135 on Amazon.com.
MEET THE MEMBER
We chose to start this magazine series highlighting specific members with a person who is quite familiar to all of us, and who might be considered the father of the pilothouse web sites. On our forums he appears to us as gtk, or G.T. Koldjeski. The "G" is for Gerald, a name seldom used in daily conversation.
G.T. has a passion for vintage Plymouth and Dodge vehicles. His first was a free P15 in 1970 while in college. His Pilothouse connection started after needing a truck to do the odds and ends around his property In Santa Barbara, California. A 1949 Dodge truck was located in Minnesota that had been a working truck on a farm, used daily to haul grain from the fields to the bins. The farmer was the original owner and still had the original title to the truck. His son made the arrangements to sell the truck and G.T. had it shipped out to California upon concluding the purchase. As the second owner of this 50 year old plus work horse, known as "Big Red," he weekly puts the truck to work around the house. file:///F|/Dodge_Pilothouse/newsletter/jan_06/jan_06_newsletter.html (4 of 8)1/27/2006 1:02:57 PM Dodge Pilothouse Era Truck Club News
G.T.'s passion for Chrysler vehicles has been demonstrated as his collection has grown. He owns the 1949 pickup, two 1948 P15 Plymouth Club Coupes, and a 1947 Dodge business coupe. All of these are in various stages of completion.
Noting that there weren't many web sites to help users of P15 (1946 - 48 Plymouth) or D24 (Dodge 1946 - 48) cars G.T. launched the P15- D24.com site in October of 1999. The web site has been a great success with Plymouth/Dodge owners, providing them valuable information and a place to come together. Today, the site averages approximately 160,000 hits* (see footnote for explanation of "hits") per week. In December 2001 he created a new web site for our Dodge trucks, pilot-house.com. G.T. works hard to give us the information and photos that we enjoy. His philosophy for both web sites is summed up in his statement, "Anyone is welcome at either site whether it be to Gtk is a bit shy about pictures of himself, but restore an original, or to rod out a hotrod. These are sites for all to proudly enjoys having pictures of his truck enjoy." The web sites allow a critical mass to be reached and displayed. successfully draw all types of owners together.
A person cannot live working on just cars and trucks alone and G.T. has several other hobbies. He enjoys sailing, a sport he has done for 30 years. Sailboats keep him and his wife on the water many days. He enjoys crewing on a 29 foot racing sailboat, as well as campaigning with his wife their 18 foot racing sloop, plus single handing a 14 Laser dinghy. If you don't find G.T. at home, it's because he's out of town at a regatta. (Check out www.mercury-sail.com to see the latest race results!) Besides being a charter member for DPETCA, he also was one of the three original organizers of the Golden State Region for the Plymouth Owners Club.
Hobbies, of course, consume money, and G.T. works in the computer industry as a sales manager to afford his pleasures. He states, "It's a great industry to be in, always changing. " Must be, as he's been in this field for almost 30 years.
His current project is the '49 Dodge truck. He has rebuilt a New Process synchronized 4 speed and is in the process of finishing the engine rebuilt. He also has acquired a 1-ton '49 for parts which will give him the parts to convert his 3/4 ton to a 1-ton dually, complete with the optional 20 inch wheels. The hope is to have this project complete this spring, if work doesn't interrupt too much. As G.T. says for many of us, "You either you have the money and not the time, or the time and not the money." How well we know that statement to be true.
More can be read about "Big Red" on GTK's web site: http://www40.addr.com/~merc583/pilothouse/phpage/wip.html
Thank you Dean Haueter for interviewing GT for this article
* One of the terms frequently thrown around regarding web site traffic is "hits." Technically, "hits"refers to the total number of files that are requested from the server. A typical visit to a web site will include "hits" on a number of pages. Not only is each page counted as a hit, but all the graphics on every page requested also register as uniquely requested files, a.k.a. "hits."
REALLY OLD NEWS
A selection of articles from past Dodge magazines and articles of interest to our readers. The following article is reprinted with permission from DaimlerChrysler. It first appeared in The Job-Rater for Truck Users, Volume 2, Number 1, pp 4-5
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HOW TO GET THE MOST FROM A 2- SPEED AXLE By W. W. COE, Traffic Manager, Allied Van Lines
HOW TO SHIFT THE 2-SPEED AXLE 1. To shift into low axle ratio: a. Keep engine pulling, push axle control button (A) down. b. Disengage and re-engage clutch as quickly as possible.
2. To shift into high axle ratio: a. Keep engine pulling, pull axle control button (A) up. b. Release accelerator pedal and disengage clutch at the same time. Always keep accelerator pedal down when axle control button is moved, except when going down grade.
HOW TO MAKE A SPLIT SHIFT 1. To shift to the next higher gear in the transmission and at the same time from high to low axle ratio—make the transmission shift in the usual way and just before releasing the clutch pedal, move the axle control button (A) down. 2. To shift to the next lower gear in the transmission and at the same time from low to high axle ratio— move the axle control button (A) up, then release the accelerator pedal and complete the transmission shift in the usual way.
Want to get maximum power from your engine, make better time on less fuel, and save wear and tear on your equipment? Then get real well acquainted with that 2-speed axle on your truck. It will do things for you that will surprise you.
A lot of drivers—and this goes for some old-timers, too —have yet to learn how to use a 2-speed axle. Some have the idea it’s to be used maybe a couple of times on a trip—-shift to the low range when going out loaded, to the high range when coming back light. The real function of this mechanism is to enable you to apply the full power of the engine to all the road conditions you encounter.
Note the gear ratio diagram on next page. It shows every one of the gear ratios that are available on a truck equipped with 5-speed direct-in-fifth transmission, 5.83-8.11 to 1 2-speed axle and 8.25 x 20 tires. It also shows the speed at which you travel in each ratio when the engine is turning over at governed speed of 3000 r.p.m. If your truck is equipped with a tachometer, all you have to do is watch the “tach.” Perhaps your truck isn’t equipped with a tachometer or governor. In that case, you must watch your speedometer or judge engine speed by sound and feel. You must learn to shift before the engine begins to labor
Let’s suppose that’s my hand on the gear shift lever, in the picture at left. Jump in beside me and let’s make a regular run. As the diagram on page 5 shows (read bottom to top), we start off in low first, shift the axle to high first, split-shift to low second, shift the axle to high second, and so on, as rapidly as we can until we get into high direct fifth. Now we’re out on nice, level concrete zooming along in high direct fifth at 55 m.p.h. Here comes a small hill, but, with the load we’re carrying, we begin to lose headway as soon as we start up the grade.
I watch the speedometer hand like a hawk. As soon as it gets down under 40, I shift the axle to low direct fifth. Why? Because I’m looking for a gear ratio that will lift me over the hill with maximum power and speed, and low direct fifth may be it. It is! Over we go, at nearly 40 m.p.h. If we didn’t have a 2-speed axle, we’d have to drop down to fourth gear, and we’d go over the top at about 34 m.p.h.
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I shift the axle back into high direct fifth as we drop down the other side, and we do the level stretch at a nice clip. Here comes another hill, this time a longer, steeper one. We hit it with all the momentum we’ve got. I stay in high direct fifth until the speedometer hand drops down under 40, when I shift the axle to low direct fifth. We continue to slow down and as the speedometer hand hits 37, I make a split-shift to high fourth. Still not enough power— and as the speedometer hand drops back to 25, I shift the axle to low fourth.
You see, I’m looking again for a gear ratio that will take me over this hill with maximum power and speed, and I’ve got to keep shifting down until I find it.
Low fourth isn’t it, for we’re still losing headway, and as we get down to around 23 m.p.h., I split-shift to high third. This is almost it, but not quite. So I shift the axle to low third, and that’s it. . . because in this gear we cease to lose speed. We go over the top at 16 m.p.h. With a single reduction rear axle, we’d have gone over the top at about 11 m.p.h.
Now, it’s a pretty steep grade on the downside, so I keep my eye on the speedometer. As my speed increases, I again begin shifting down from high direct fifth, but for a different reason. I want to save my brake bands, so I let the engine compression help hold me back. I keep shifting down until I find a ratio that eases me down the hill at a safe speed, and I stay in this gear until I’m almost at the bottom, when I shift back to high direct fifth, step on the gas, and build up momentum for the next grade right ahead. We make the succeeding hills in the same way. They all look alike until you get on them, then you find each one has its own characteristics. You’ll learn new tricks each time you make a run that will clip minutes off your running time.
Finally, we pull into the terminal, where we check the results. We’ve made better time than we would have if we didn’t have a 2-speed axle, because we’ve kept the engine turning over at its most efficient speed. We’ve saved fuel as well as time. And we’ve done it without abusing the engine or the power- transmitting components. Next time out, try using your 2- speed axle for all it’s worth.
FUN STUFF
Fun things not really pilothouse, but related to trucks in a general way, or just plain fun.
movie clip: I think the commentary is in French, but it doesn't matter. You can figure out what's going on with this BMW. • movie clip: Have you been eating enough beef? Here's an Australian beef commercial that that really rocks!
HUMOR FROM THE PAST
Here is humor just as it was printed from magazines in the 1940's and 50's.
Teacher: "... and from the skunk, we get fur, isn't that right, Johnny?" Johnny: "I'll say it is - as 'fur' as possible."
First old grad: "And is your wife still as pretty as ever?" Second old grad: "Oh, sure, but it takes her much longer to get that way."
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First gossip: "You know, Mrs Smith always gets herself a new hat when she's down in the dumps." Second gossip: "Well, I always wondered where she got those frousy things she wears."
Boastful young rake, dramatically: "I'm going to die with my boots on!" Blonde companion: "You sure are if that's my husband coming through the underbrush."
"The town board was debating the question of building a fence around the township cemetery. Supervisor Jed Smith from Coon Hollow 'lowed as how it was a complete waste of the taxpayers' money. "Ain't nobody on the outside wants in the cemetery," he said, "and ain't nobody in thar that kin git out, so what good is a fence agoin' to do?"
We hope you enjoyed the first issue of our magazine. Please send us any comments, corrections, suggestions, or whatever and let us know at the address below, or put a note on the pilot-house.com forum. Please let us know of your ideas for future articles and if you would like to be involved in the production and writing of this magazine.
Copyright ©Dodge Pilothouse Era Truck Club of America, 2006 Dodge and the Ram's Head logo are registered trademarks of DaimlerChrysler. If you want to contact DPTECA email us at [email protected] OR mail to DPETCA, 3778 Hoen Ave, Santa Rosa, CA 95405 USA
If you wish to cancel your subscription to this newsletter, or send us a comment at the address above.
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