Leaderboard

After reading i decided to make my own tool using the old upper pivot bar, pivot bar bushings, 2 bolts with 4 washers and 2 washers. I cut the pivot bar to the right size for mounting the shortened pivot bar bushings. I also welded a washer on the pivot bar bushing. I made the just fitting between the arms and secured it with the 2 bolts on the new pivot bar. I mounted the tool on the new bar and mounted the new bushing a few turn to center the bar, see also the link above. Now i could turn both old bushing out,1/16 inch each to spread the upper arm and mounted the new bushing according, see also the link above. After mounting the bushings i turned the old bushings in and removed the tool, the movement of the new bar and bushing is as it should be. Dan Old pivotbar and bushing converted to miller tool

I have a lot of 1/2" and 9/16" wrenches of all flavors including sockets. I buy them 4 or 5 at a time and when I get home, they have magically reappeared. Sometimes, when I go on a cleaning binge, there are piles of sockets that were not there the day before. Gradually, they all disappear until the next cleaning. It must be gremlins or something.

This is why I have not been working on the p15 lately or posting pictures of my progress: There hasn't been any. I sprayed the body down with oil and let it sit Raw Under The Canopy. ( I don't know why my cell phone capitalizes these random words when I dictate to it. ) Since I retired this year I have not done much except little fishing and work on my experimental boat. This boat had a 40 horsepower 2 stroke pushing a modified and reinforced 30 horsepower hull. I have owned it for 20 years and it is a '76 Columbian by RJ Smith. Here's a photo from a couple years back and you can also see I hadn't stripped the Plymouth down yet. It's so modified today that you would not easily recognize it next to the original boat. I have converted the boat over from gasoline to all electric, so I can fish at quiet lakes where they do not allow fast boats. This is a totally experimental setup built from scratch, mostly out of junk I had laying around, and mostly because someone gave me the Navigator Motors (Over $1200 new!) I also have a $500 MinnKota motor up front & each of the three is 55lbs thrust or approximately a 1/2 horsepower gasoline motor at cruise and I can run all three from my seat. Here it is parked in front of my tow vehicle. The X-24v had lots of mods since I took that photo. I added a casting deck and spend a lot of time reinforcing the gunnels with fiberglass. It was in the high 100s this summer and so lots of the work was done at night. As you can see there the sun was well over the yardarm and around the horn. I built the casting deck with a seat in the front. It's mostly all just glued to the plastic boat with siliconized latex rubber. With the Electric setup it goes just as fast as it did with a 4 horsepower gas outboard. Slow. So far this is the only fish I've caught out of this boat worth keeping and it was only 14 inches. See the deck there? I put grit on the top so it wouldn't be slippery. The front motor will be upgraded to a 24 volt motor and I have a larger 1hp electric motor on order It will replace both of the Navigator Motors and Tiller arrangement for now. Eventually it will replace the small front motor and I will get a 2 horsepower electric motor on the rear. It will never be enough to make this boat plane but that's not my object. I figured the top hull speed on this is going to be somewhere around 6.5 miles per hour if I'm really flogging the batteries. Right now I have run 5 hours at 5 miles an hour without a problem, and with six group 29 batteries on board there was lots of reserve power. But my homemade tiller Arrangement is flexible and no good at all in rough water. It will handle much better with the new electric outboard, but my experiment in building this was that I wanted to see if I would be happy with a 5 or 6 mph boat after owning a speedboat. I am and so now I'm not at all squeamish about spending thousands of dollars on high quality electric gear. If you don't count batteries or cables, my big expense on the electric conversion was for the stainless steel hose clamps which hold each motor to the tiller. There's also about $8 worth of electrical conduit, which I reinforced internally and externally at the critical mounting points. I swaged out some tubing to make doublers and triplers for the main pivots, & there are solid internal stainless steel slugs. I used at least two parts from a Plymouth p15 on this Electric outboard tiller arrangement, and anybody that can spot them wins many brownie points from the gods of mopar history.

I saved a couple of engines and one transmission from the scrappers this week. Engines and transmission were $125 each. 1st engine and transmission is a 55 Pontiac 287 with 4 speed hydromatic. The interesting one is the hemi. Pulled it out of a 55 1 1/2 ton truck. It's stuck. I'm hoping I can save it. Plugs were in, antifreeze was bright green and it had the hood on and shut. No air cleaner on it though. I know nothing about hemi's. Can some one enlighten me on where the block numbers will be so that I can find out what I've got? Thanks

After seeing the work and bracketry 4mula had to do, I am wondering if something from the offroad world would work good in this application. They now make electric power steering boxes that hook up with a whopping 3 wires and are self contained with the computer and such. It would splice in on the steering column in the engine bay and be pretty simple overall. Not sure how much the Omni rack plus pump, hoses, brackets and joints would be. These run around 700 or so. (I am pretty sure these are just adapted out of modern GM vehicles) http://www.pacificcustoms.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=ac498700&Store_Code=PC&PowerSearch_Begin_Only=&sort=&range_low=&range_high=

Bought the Poncho engine and transmission for my wife's 55 wagon. For the price I couldn't pass up having a spare.

before turn signals were the rave.... this was your "signal" you were slowing/stopping

Don you just lifted a weight off my chest I was so worried it was something serious and I would have to tear the engine apart. Thank you

Some of the manifold studs penetrate the water jacket. Simply remove the leaking stud and put some pipe dope on the threads, reinstall it and you should be good to go. Same with some of the head bolts as they also penetrate the water jacket.

Thanks guys I thought so I wonder why the book says different. You guys had my back again if I can ever help you let me know. Gary

Just noted that I did not respond to the original question in this thread. I will in the following. The tack strip on my '39 Plym is very typical of most older model open cars consisting of a special metal band, about 3/4" wide that is riveted to the body at the upper edge of the body. The older bodies have a dense paper strip that is crimped into the channel. The rivets that hold the strip onto the body are a special flush type rivet. The removal of the rivets requires drilling them out so as to not damage the body. The tack strip channel should have been removed before the finish paint was applied. Most companies that supply top fabric have a new plastic type of tack strip which will hold the tacks in place and not stain the new top material. The tack strip should be re-riveted onto the body, then the proper size of new tack strip is placed into the channel and the edges are re-crimped to secure the plastic strip in place. I used i/8" pop rivets with the head inside of the channel...Wm..

This prank was on me. In my early days with this forum and auto mechanics I had to trust and rely on forum members for most everything. Several were most helpful and I came to have the highest respect and confidence in these few. When I started working with the wiring, gauge, solder, lock washers on terminals, etc, in one thread regarding soldering, I was informed that if the solder got TOO hot, it would release the smoke that was placed in the wire for safety reasons!!! So newbies, forewarned is forearmed!

This might or might not help.

1973 D100 Adventure Club Cab. Another first for Dodge was the introduction of the Club or extended Cab pick-up in 1973. This is the one that was used in their advertising campaigns.

It was the 2nd incarnation of the Oz Dart. First produced in 1967 as the VE model but only available in a 4 door sedan, Station wagon and a ute (2 door) versions. As can be seen, front end is more like the Dart. The second incarnation was like mine, a VF, which cam out mid 1969, now available in a 2 door hardtop as well, no soft top option, like in the US. A lot of these were chopped up (like mine) in the 80's and 90's when they were cheap as chips. Then in mid 1970 the third (and last) version came out, the VG. This one is the sporty 'Pacer' model.

I spent a few hours weeding our families grave sites. It wasn't much of a workout for my truck but it was a pretty good one for me. 6 Months ago today on friday February 17th which strangely enough was also the 15th "anniversary" of my Dads passing, I suffered what the Drs called a "massive saddle pulmonary embolism". I didnt know what happened, all I knew is I coughed hard and from that moment on I couldnt take two steps without having to fight to breathe. I thought I had strained something in my chest and that it would pass but on Monday it still wasnt any better so my wife made a appt (behind my back ) hahaha for me to see my Dr. the next day and thats when I found out what had happened and I was taken my ambulance to the hospital in Tucson where I was a guest of theirs for a week..Six Drs have told me that with as massive as it was I should have died the second it happened and that "I still had work to do here" and or "God wasn't done with me yet" .Man was I scared,no make that terrified. Now here it is 6 months to the day later and Im doing really really good. Actually within a week of "the event" as my Dr calls it I was doing and feeling pretty darned good. Well except for the Lovenox shots I had to give myself 2x a day in the belly for a few weeks but even that was no big deal I was and am just so happy to be alive. A week ago my Cardiologist told me that the damage to my heart and lungs that he had seen months ago was completely gone and that I was free to do as much as my body will allow, and to listen to what my body is telling me. Then he gave me the ok to stop taking the Coumadin YAYYYYYY ! The only effects I still experience is that some days I feel so tired , a bit dizzy at times and knackered from the get go that about all I can do is rest and lay down. The Dr said thats 100% normal and that is can take from 6 months to a year or two to go away. He said its because of the trauma that my heart and lungs went thru and now my body is spending and using a LOT of energy to heal. Most days I feel pretty darned good. After I got out of the hospital I promised myself that I wasnt going to let "the small stuff irritate me anymore" and that I wasnt going to put of doing things that Ive been wanting to do but always seemed to get pushed aside... like working on my truck. So about 5 1/2 months ago I started doing the bodywork on it one panel at a time. I am or was a bodyman by trade for over 30 yrs so getting past the notion that I had to get it all done at once has been a bit strange. All those years of working on commission and meeting dead lines was kind of a hard habit to break at first but its a lot more fun to take it slow and do one panel at a time. I dont want it to be a chore, I want to enjoy it Anyway I started off by doing little things like restoring a Model 36 heater that I want to install in my truck and also a few dash parts that I believe are for I believe are for a 52 that I cant use but were in really nice shape what with being from the Az desert and all . Just small stuff at first to keep busy. As of late I have done both front fenders, the roof panel, the hood assembly and replaced the left front stake pocket. Along with doing the bodywork I've been stripping each panel because there was a LOT of paint on it . Ive been taking lots of pictures as I go along so I can look back at how it was when its all done. Sorry for the overly long and babbling post. Its a really huge and kind of emotional day for me what with it being 6 months and now Im off all the meds and everything . So very thankful . By the way, about the not whole not let the small stuff irritate me part.... easier said than done. I still get POd at some really stupid insignificant things at times but Im still trying hahaha. Its a work in progress. Again please forgive me for the long winded post. John

And that, ladies and gentlemen; is comedy!!

This is a picture of the truck.

slightly outdated picture but I'm kinda anal and like to have sets. Sockets I do have some random ones and would guess 1/2 or 9/16 is the most.

If you want to find out if you have stuck valves , pull the side valve covers and have someone crank the engine over while you watch the valve stems .

I've always heard that the P15's changed to 15's in late 1947 or 48. I don't know about Suburbans. Are they on a pickup frame? If so, that would explain the 16's. But people often changed wheel sizes back then (I guess they do now, too) - for example, about as soon as my Dad brought home a 62 Chrysler Newport (in 1966) he took the stock 14's off & put 15's on it off of our old DeSoto (53 model). Later it was my first car, and they were still on it when I quit driving it around Christmas of 1977.

One thing I've learned over the last number of years of car shows and sharing my opinion....it's mine, it's only mine, and the builder could care less what you think. He never thought for one second what you thought about HIS build, because he was building what he wanted. The chances of anyone else building that truck back to original was slim to none, so it would have more then likely hit the crusher....I'm not a fan of the work he did in regards to safety, the steering wheel should be just plain and simply illegal no mater where you live, and the roof welding looks atrocious.....that all said.....rat rods have their place in the car world and you don't have to love them, or hate them....just appreciate that it was another vehicle that may have just been melted to make 10 more Prius's I've heard guys complain about my build...and I tell them right to their face....I guess I forgot to call you before I built MY truck....so sorry....they usually shut up right after that