Story about our 1969 Dodge Custom Royal

Story about our 1957 Dodge Custom Royal

In 1969 I owned a '57 Dodge Custom Royal which had a 318 cid engine out of a '59. A friend of mine wanted to see how fast it would go so we tried it out. When the speedometer hit the pin at 140 miles per hour we chickened out. Shortly after that I traded it off on a '55 Ford Fairlane and it sat in the bush until the summer of 2000 when I retrieved it. We counted 147 bullet holes in it and the windows were all shot out of it. The floor was completely rusted away and the remains of the seats were sitting on the frame. The carb and distributor were shot off of it and the rad was also full of holes.

Since the car had still run well when I traded it off, out of curiosity, I decided to see if the engine would still run. I replaced the carb with one from an '87 318 and the distributor from a '70 360. The rad came from a '65 Fury with a 225 Slant-six.

The engine was tight though not completely seized so I very carefully loosened it up. I had to replace the oil filter can with a spin-on filter since a replacement cartridge was not readily available. I replaced the cartridge filter base with one from a '66 engine which had a spin-on filter and then filled the engine with new oil. I had to replace the spark plugs and some of the plug wires and since the ignition wires were shot I just hot-wired the coil.

After putting a jug of gas on the roof and running a hose to the carb I was ready for the big test.

On the first attempt the engine fired but would not run. After wearing down two batteries, I thought "Nothing ventured nothing gained". I then hooked two batteries in a series circuit and sent 24 volts right to the starter.

IT STARTED!!!

When it first started up it smoked like a house afire and did not run well at all. After some tinkering with the plugs and wires I got It running well enough to get it warmed up properly. After running the engine for about an hour it started running well enough so that it would sit and idle, though still not very smoothly. I had pulled the dipstick on the tranny earlier and it was low but still had some oil in it after 31 years of sitting idle. I decided to see if the old automatic still worked... it did!

I knew I was building a house of cards but I decided to put wheels on the car and see if it would move. It did.

Driving without brakes was a little exciting so I repaired the rusted up master cylinder, blocked off the back brake lines and repaired the front wheel cylinders and hoses. The gas peddle had gone with the floor so I used an old choke cable to speed up the engine and after moving the gas jug from the roof to the rear seat, it was ready for a test run.

Since I live in the country on a quarter section of land, finding a place to drive it was no problem. Since the dash is all shot full of holes I don't know for sure how far I drove it since its rehabilitation but my best estimate is well over 500 miles. The more I drove it the less the engine smoked and the better it ran. Once it is warmed up, the engine usually starts on the second or third piston and it runs very well.

In 2004 a young movie producer from Vancouver wanted to shoot a short film in our area and having seen the old Dodge in his travels, he decided that it should have a part in the film. The film was shot in part at River Trail Country Vacations and the old car co-starred with a new Ford SUV. The film was quite well received at its first showing in Vancouver where it was played at a film contest showing numerous films that had to be created, shot, edited and delivered all within a 48 hour period.

I would be interested in hearing any other unusual stories about cars of the fifties being rescued from oblivion.

My e-mail address is - info@rivertrailcountryvacations.com

PS: I also have a '55 Dodge Regent,4 '57 Dodge Regents, 1'57 Dodge Crusader and a '59 Plymouth among others.