Re: 1959 Dodge 4100 4x4

Posted by Hal/WA on March 07, 2005 at 00:48:20 from (148.65.0.200):

In Reply to: 1959 Dodge 4100 4x4 posted by Douglas Houghton on March 06, 2005 at 16:43:02:

I spent a couple of Summers in the early 70's fighting brush fires with a 59 Dodge 1 ton 4x4 with a 250 gallon tank and a Bean high pressure piston pump. It was one tough machine, with a PTO winch on the front bumper and military type tires. The guys I worked with and I took that Dodge into places the "Brass" couldn't believe, and always were able to get back out, although a couple of times the winch really saved our bacon. I loved the old Dodge and the brand new Ford that replaced it wasn't half as capable or durable.

The Dodge brush rig had a 318. I suppose that it might be possible to find a 325 in a 1959, since I remember seeing a Polysphere engine in a friend's DeSoto that I thought was a 59. The early 318 and the polysphere engines like the 325 both had scallops on the exhaust side edge of the valve covers. In other words the lower edge of the valve cover is not straight across, but has bumps in it. The bumps on a 318 are much smaller than the bumps on a polysphere engine.

The polysphere engines are descendants of the early Hemis. I think the 325 (or it might be called a 326) would use a Dodge block. Since the 318 was used much longer (through 1967 or maybe even 1968), I would expect that the 318 would be easier to get parts for. The later 318 from 1967-68 and later used some of the same parts from the earlier 318, but is quite a bit different, using a different block and heads and almost all of the outer parts.

As far as rarity goes, I would say the 1959 Dodge 4x4 is relatively rare. I have only seen a few of that body style as 4x4's and that was years ago. Even the 2 wheel drive models are seldom seen anymore. But value is hard to call, especially without seeing the vehicle. If it is beat up and/or a rust bucket, it would obviously be worth much less than a nice, complete, rust free and running truck.

By the way, when my Fire District sold the 59 Dodge, they sold it to another Fire District for a token amount (I think it was $400--less than the new tires had cost the year before!). I had offered the District $1500 for the Dodge. It had less than 20k miles (some of them real tough ones, though) and was in excellent shape, just a little old. I was really miffed that the powers that were decided to essentially give it away rather than to sell it to me for almost 4 times the money. I would probably still be driving it.....

That was a long time ago. I would think that in the shape it was in and with the low mileage it had, if that same brush rig came up for sale today, it would be worth at least $10k. At least to me.

Good luck with your Dodge. They were good trucks.

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