Dodge50 Ramblings

The Community is now up and running and while I am away in France and Spain during Jan, Feb and March this will be the place to leave your requests for help, vehicles and parts for sale, wanted items and general enquiries. There are 2 administrators, (me and TheBarrelShifter) and 1 moderator (Littlegem) and between us will be updating and answering questions on the site.

We are moving out of our house in two weeks and will be on tour untill we return from Spain so Emails to me with general questions might take longer for a reply than leaving a message on the forum, you can leave me private messages via the members profile list which I will check regularly.

I am fitting my computer and screen into the bus and will be running it with inverters so not only will I be able to use GPRS ( General Packet Radio Service) to update and download without the cost of a mobile phone dialup charges, it costs £2.37 per megabite rather than X amount per minute and as long as I can get a signal I can do it from most of europe, or so I have been told (We will just have to wait and see won't we, otherwise it will be internet cafes) we can also watch DVD's, play games and our son can do his education bit as well. I am also fitting my Surround sound Stereo system, oo eerr.

It looks like a new engine will be fitted before we leave the uk and maybe a gearbox as well, I am starting to aquire the spares I need to take with me like, clutch slave and master cylinder, exhaust gaskets, wheel cylinders, brake shoes and fittings, fan belts, wheel nuts, wheel bearings, hub seals, alternator, all types of nuts and bolts and anything else I can think of.

I am also hoping to fit belly boxes and cut off at least 5 inches from the body skirts to give more ground clearance, fit 8.5 x 17.5 tyres and 3 inch blocks under the road springs to raise the body.

If we do all this in four to six weeks I will be amazed but as soon as we are out of this house I can just get on with it, it is so much easier being on tour as we will have no bills from the house, and you know how much money houses suck up, we won't have to worry about nearly half as much stuff like the landlord coming round, paying all the bills on time etc. etc.....

So what am I doing with my car, trailer and Big Vern our S75 Dodge50 van?
Well the trailer is being scrapped, Big Vern is being filled with the stuff from the house that we want to keep and storing him on a friends land all covered up and wrapped in canvas to keep him warm, the car I am not sure what to do with, it spent 4 months this year parked at my mums fully insured and taxed, yet was only used twice and it's mot ran out when I wanted to pick it up, so I had to pay £300-00 to get it sorted as my son Otto was in hospital and I couldn't do the work myself. Will it end up at my mums again? I want to sell it but Shealagh (my wife) thinks we should keep it!! Where? Is what I say and to what cost, sell it and be dammed.

Have you seen the rather bad bit of parking at Community Parking Problems ?
Have you seen the rather mad Poor Little Kitty found by Maccmac ?
Have you seen Matrix Revolutions Yet? Yes? If so , you lucky git.
Here is the latest review from the Independent. A bit Shitty though.

Nothing to do with dodges I know but I thought you might like to take a look.

Thats it for now folks

Greg

10th October 2003

Well I have set up a new community for all you lot so so I hope it's a fab place to drop by. Please let us know what you want to see, any bits of the workshop manual just use it as you see fit.

I will be spending time moving out of my house and full time into my S56 bus with my wife and kids. we will be spending the last part of the year in the uk and then hopefullly of to France and spain and maybee Italy.

3rd October 2003

Those of you who read my ramblings on a regular basis will have noticed that I have removed the last one because I have a bit of a dilemma. Maybe you can help me with it.

As you know I recently bought a dodge 50 S56 bus.

In all fairness I bought it in a rush and probably didn't look over it as well as I should have, and I except that there was a certain amount of work to be done. That saying certain problems arose after I bought it which meant I had to return to the dealer for help. I was treated as a trouble maker and made to feel as if my requests for help were unreasonable.

To me this showed a lack of professionalism and left me feeling abused and upset. As this person has used my site for commercial purposes to advertise his vehicles for sale and done so on a good will basis, I feel unable to support or recommend him to anyone wanting to buy a dodge50 in the future.

I know a number of people who are very dissatisfied customers, I also know a number of people who are very satisfied customers. This is where the dilemma comes in.

On the one hand This site has always been intended to supply anyone who visits it with help, information, support and somewhere to exhibit all the wonders of these fantastic vehicles. It is very important to me that when I promote someone on the site that I and others are getting a fair deal. This is why I felt it necessary to inform people of the treatment I received as I want to forewarn people based on my experiences.

On the other hand I don't want to start naming and shaming people, as I am aware that there are always two sides to a story and don't want to be accused of using the site for venting personal criticism's.Which is why I have taken the previous Rambling off the page and the BlogSpot.

So what do I do?

If there is someone out there treating us customers badly How do I let you know?

On a lighter note we went to the Trolleybus Museum at Sandtoft,the other day its near a place called Belton in North Lincolnshire, it is the worlds largest collection of electric Trolley Buses from all over the world, there are Buses from 1929 and they have restored many from europe and the uk.

I will be puting a special 'it's not a Dodge but I like it' page up soon and I will put the pictures I took there.

We arrived at about 2pm and found out it was closed and only opened once a month, but the man we spoke to said we could have a look about.

It was brilliant, as we walked around looking at the buses outside, volunteers who were working there kept coming up to us and saying things like "I've opened the door to the exhibit, you can go in and have a look if you like". By the time we left we had had a ride on a 1939 Trolleybus, looked around the main storage depot with 51 Trolleybus in, seen inside a 1940/50 prefab house which is kitted out down to the toast rack, we had a look at the shop fronts and all the while there were people on hand to answer questions. Bloody Marvelous.

So we thank the people at the museum for all their kind help and letting us in when they were closed. Here is the web address for them www.sandtoft.org.uk

greg@dodge50

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