TodFitch

Got the original Chrysler part number for the rear main seal parts or service kit? The kept a lot of designs for a lot of years. If your seal is the same as the 1930s engines then there might be a retrofit neoprene that would work.

I believe that Best Gaskets supplies a neoprene seal designed to replace the rope seals on the motors that only ever had rope seals. If I ever need to dig into that on my car again I will investigate that possibility.

I suspect that they were die cut. The fellow that had a shop behind the one my Mom owned did lots of screen printing and die cutting. If I recall correctly, he used a plywood board that he somehow embedded thin strips of metal to make shaped blades. Those were put into a press that looked a lot like an older letterpress printing machine. Drop a piece of cardboard into the holders on the machine, cycle it so the blade(s) on the plywood tool were pressed into the cardboard and Bob’s your uncle, the whole piece was cut into the final shape in one operation.

Yes. I just assumed the 51 Plymouth in his profile but it would be nice to have that confirmed.

Last I check, which I admit was quite some time ago, Best Gaskets was making fully rebuild kits for our engines and, I am pretty sure, they also made the rear main seal available separately. At that time they would not sell to the retail but it isn't too hard to find an auto supplier that carries Best Gasket products. Fuel pump gasket is easy (there aren’t that many different mounting flanges). But that one is also trivial to make from some gasket stock from your local auto supply. See my parts cross reference at https://www.ply33.com/Parts/group9#9-11-01 and the Best Gasket website still shows that their 4162 rope seal kit is in their system. Their engine rebuild set for your era also shows a fuel pump gasket with a part number of 3043 but I don't know if you can get that separately. Their fancy pop up results don't give me a link to the specific items so you will have to look them up for yourself. They have a list of vendors on a page on their website too.

There are some “smart” chargers that won’t start to charge if the battery voltage is too low. I don’t know if the Battery Tender brand is in that category or not.

When they were making the rules Coker Tire successfully lobbied to have an exception on the date code rule for collector car tires. So some collector car tires have a date code but not all do. I didn’t believe that when I first heard it so I went searching on the government website for the actual rules and found the exception. Then I went looking for the explanation of how the rules were determined and found that Coker was the one behind it. Been a while so I don’t have the links but that information is probably still someplace on a government website.

That 6-52-11 number looks like a "part type code" rather than a part number. I am away from my reference materials and, for that matter, don’t have a Dodge parts book to look up the part number. If you have the parts book, and if it is like the Plymouth equivalent, you will see some parts illustrations along the top then the "part type code" as in the heading for each column. You look down the column to your vehicle and that is where you will find the part number. For lots of miscellaneous small parts I have had good luck using the original Chrysler part number in places like Rock Auto and Napa Online to find the modern equivalent.

'33 does not have the full length water jacket and has a little more narrow block & head. I believe there are some studs on the '33 that do not enter the water jacket but do on '35 and up engines.

Early on this thread was the information that the timing chains are the same for all the 1933-54 L-6 engines. That said, for Plymouth the original part numbers from 1933-34 are different than the later part numbers. I suspect the interchange to the later part number still holds. For what it is worth, I do not have parts books for Dodge so I can’t check but on the Plymouth side the 1933 and 1934 use the same part numbers. Mechanically Dodge and Plymouth were nearly identical in 1933 & 34 so it seems very likely that your proposed interchange will work.

As @Dave72dt mentions, you can get a wider female spade that will probably fit. But don’t spend more than $30 on it because you can get a dimmer switch for you car with screw terminals like you want from you local auto supply for that. See, for example: https://www.napaonline.com/en/p/ECHDS101 I am grateful that there are specialty vendors that have hard to find parts for our cars but I always wonder why people use them for run of the mill parts that are usually locally available.

Chrysler tested these engine designs at max BHP in 50 hour tests. So basically it can run at 3600 RPM at full throttle for hours on end. Back that RPM down a few hundred for longer life and keep your cruise speed to maybe 3200 RPM. At that 3200 RPM with 4.11:1 rear and 600-16 tires you will be moving at 65 MPH. It will not be a quiet as a modern car but a lot of the noise will be from the fan. And if you weren’t used to driving in cars from before the early 1970s gas crisis it will sound like you are beating it to death. But you aren’t, that’s just how cars of the late 1930s through the early 1970s sounded when at speed.

And this story is also the reason why I would never consider buying a modified car unless it came with complete documentation down to the last nut and bolt that was non-stock.

A battery hydrometer is a useful tool to have if you are dealing with non-sealed lead-acid batteries. It will tell you the state of charge for each cell (should be the same or there is an issue) and let you know if the battery is fully charged or not. A quick check shows at least one 6v lead-acid car battery to have a 65 amp-hour rating. On my 1970s vintage charger with a max output of 6 amps it would take 11 hours to fully charge one. However lead-acid batteries are damaged if they are taken below 50% charge. And it sounds like you may have been doing that. Anyway, put your battery on a charger and while you wait visit your local auto supply store and pick up a hydrometer. I am assuming, of course, that they still sell such things in this age of sealed batteries. They used to be pretty cheap as there is not much to them. But they can tell you if a cell is bad, etc. and thus let you know if the battery simply needs charging or if it is due for replacement.

You had different parents than me. My father installed seat belts in our '61 and when that was replaced with a '63 in late 1963 he installed seat belts in that. And my parents required us to wear the belts anytime we were in the car so I got in the habit of fastening the seat belt long before I started learning to drive in the late 1960s.

In warm weather it would generally start pretty quickly. In winter I sometimes resorted to jump starting the 6v system from a 12v car something I would not recommend nowadays since I am a bit more cautious. That was when I first got the car 50 years ago. I was in college in Upstate New York and it was my “daily driver” but since I lived on campus I didn’t actually have to drive every day.

Way back when I first got my '33 Plymouth it was hard to start and missing some power but I drove it a few thousand, yes thousand, miles that way. When I finally learned enough to to a compression test I found it had 50 to 60 psi on the three “good cylinders” and zero on other three cylinder. So yes, I would expect an engine with the lowest compression a 50 to run. Probably pretty hard to start, but it should start and run. That sounds like an excellent idea. I haven’t heard of it before but it make sense.

https://www.ply33.com/Repair/tempgauge

Galley.

I would hesitate to use teflon tape on a pipe thread going into the combustion chamber. It seems unlikely that teflon will hold up to the heat and combustion products.

Yes, if you block out the vacuum line you can remove the automatic clutch entirely. You don't need to lock out the freewheeling if you do this as that is a totally different bit of mechanical equipment. They just happen to work off the same knob on the dash. There are probably people looking for an automatic clutch assembly. They are fairly rare because they were troublesome and many (most?) were removed and thrown away. If you are going for judging it may make a few points difference if you have one on there or not. Selling on eBay would probably work but placing ads in the marque specific club magazines would also be an option. My impression is that the Plymouth Owners Club's magazine's classified ad section is fairly effective and I suspect that the Dodge Brothers Club and/or the WPC club publications would also be good. There were some variations on design between the couple of years the automatic clutch was offered so please let your buyer know what it came off so they can decide if it is what they are looking for. If you do decide to remove yours and sell it, do your buyer a favor and also get them the pivot stud bolted into the block that the automatic clutch mounts on: There are different length ones depending on the width of the engine with the Dodge/Plymouth being different than Chrysler (and maybe DeSoto). A machinist could make a new one for them but it would be nice if they just got it with the unit. The hard line for vacuum from the manifold and the control cable and tube that runs from the transmission to the automatic clutch should also be included in your sale. Basically give them all the little extra bits that are actually needed to install the unit. One pro for removing the automatic clutch is that it makes seeing the ignition timing mark on the flywheel a lot easier to see. In 1934 they moved the timing mark to the front crank pulley so that issue does not apply to a potential buyer of an automatic clutch for a 1934 model.

In the as delivered to the original owner configuration, the three positions of the knob are: All the way in: Both freewheeling and automatic clutch active. Middle position: Freewheeling active but automatic clutch locked out. All the way out: Both Freewheeling and automatic clutch locked out. Again, everything locked out has the dash knob as far out as it will go.

Thanks! I never knew the name or even that they had a specific name.

Maybe the big box building supplies near you carry different wire than those near me. The stranded wire at my local big box has fewer but larger strands than the stuff used in electronics and automotive work. I believe that is because the larger the strands the less well it flexes and the more it will work harden. For building wiring the stranded wire is pulled through conduit once when it is installed and then is basically static so it does not need to deal with long term vibration issues. I will personally stick with the wire from automotive or electronics supplies that have more strands that are smaller.

I believe you pretty much must tighten the plug until it fully compresses the spring. At least it feels that way. I think the spring is to take up wear more than to absorb road shocks. I have an old hand impact tool that came with some bits including one that looks like that oversized screwdriver bit in Jerry's photo and it is what I used to tighten the ends on my drag link.