Body Panel Schematics?

Hi, I am restoring a 1938 Dodge Panel Truck (humpback) The bottom (3-4") section all around the truck is rotted away or has been bent up from an accident. I need to know the shape of the metal to rebuild it. Are there any schematics available to see what it looked like so I can duplicate it? If not, What should I do? Thanks.


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check out Hemmings Motor News. They have quite a few restoration links and guides. They would be a really good place to start. They are sold thru book stores and news stands.

There is no such thing as far as I know, not at least thru any "normal" source. The "schematic" would be extremely complex to make, and read. I have done just what you are doing, there is always SOMETHING there to go by. If you really have NOTHING, if it is nonexistent, then you need to find someone with a truck like yours to fill you in on the details. You can make templates out of poster board, drawings, measurings and so forth to get the job done.

I have to say that I have seen exactly what you are talking about, so it does "exist" possibly somewhere. I was in New Mexico on vacation recently and stopped in a town called Santa Rosa. There is a museum there called "Route 66 auto museum".

It is more of a private collection that the guy charges people to look at than a "museum" but a very cool place with some super nice cars. Anyway, he had hanging on the wall an actual "Blue print" of a 1953 somthing (I think it was a dodge) front passenger car fender. It was absolutely amazing. It puts things into perspective as to how it was before computers. This was a life size, side, top and front view of this fender. This blue print was about ten or twelve feet long on the wall. It had a "datum" line along the top and sides of the drawing with measurements going from that datum line to the different points on the fender. There were MANY, MANY measureing points so the fender could be reproduced from this blue print. It was very cool.

Now, I have been in and around vintage cars all my life (45 yrs) and I had never seen one of these before, in person, a book, nothing. So I have to assume they are pretty hard to come by.

You are on your own on this one.

I know up until the advent of cad/cam , everything was blueprints. You might search and see if the car companies or somewhere might have something you could use. The other option would be to find pictures to give you a rough idea what you would need to do.

This brings up an old heartache for me. About 3 or 4 years ago a fellow posted an ebaY auction for the original factory, full sized drawings for the '33 Willys coupe body! No one bid on it and I didn't have enough pennies to meet his reserve price.

That's too bad Willys, you should have emailed him and asked what he would have taken. You would be suprised how many things you can get just by asking.

I'm not as dumb as I look! That's exactly what I did. Had a really nice conversation with him and did a lot of bench racing but he was firm on his price. And I had to agree with him - as I recall it was only like $250.