"Losthopes Ol' Lady's 1949 ply Build"

[Losthope]

Well Hello everyone on the P15-D24 forum ! Longtime lurker first time posting  .....this is my build thread over the past couple months I started it on 12-27-13 and going to copy and paste it here hopefully you guys enjoy it.....,i have a few other low buck drive way builds threads on the hamb and other car forums on my other cars and following my motto this one will be to! I have my 1966 chevy c10 and 1954 ford but seems like most my family members and friends have 50's mopars and im always working on them and they have grown on me over the years so thats what the wife and i decided to look for when we decided to sell her 73 vw and get her a american classic car for her x-mas gift.

We knew we wanted a 49-52 , I preferred to find a plymouth 2dr would be nice but since it is going to be the wifes car a 4 dr. would work also and what she preferred . we searched craigslist for awhile but didnt see anything to appealing for the prices..then after spreading the word through my group of car friends my buddy joe who always seems to be finding and buying classic cars out of fields and barns ,said he had one a 1949 4dr. plymouth deluxe he needed to pick up off a ladys property he sent me these pictures over the phone:

 

 

 

 

 

talking to joe on the phone he said he wanted the stock steelies off it and would put some 14" ford rollers on it , we talked about price and i could tell he didnt pay much for it and said it had a pink slip from 1974 and was last reg in 1975 said he already had a rear door with some minor dents but had all the window hardware , he said the lady that had it said her husband( whom passed away) bought it from their neighbors that moved out of state in 1975 and didnt know much about it or if it was running.

Looking at the pictures and the damage I assumed it was hit then parked and that their might be a possibility that i could get it fired up. So after striking a deal sight unseen over the phone for $350 , trading a .38 special revolver, and agreeing to build joe a section of fence for his back yard (labor only) about a days worth of work the car was ours and was perfect because i now had another project to work on!

Couple days later Joe towed it to his shop and called me up to come see the car:

Edited February 23, 2014 by Losthope

[Losthope]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 23, 2014 by Losthope

[Losthope]

 

 

 

[Losthope]

 

 

[Losthope]

One upside to having my dad that owns a few 49-52 mopars and that my cousin that owns and also have been parting out 49-52 mopars and that I have 3-4 other friends with mopars I knew that i had a good chance at getting the hook up on parts, Quick call to my cousin Glendale and tragic59 on the HAMB and I had two straight doors and a 2 15" stock steelies , call to my dad and I had 2 more 15" stock steelies and a better front and rear seat and some better door panels out of a 50 plymouth..

seats with factory plastic being unwrapped for the fisrt time! Not perfect shape but should do the trick for awhile:

 

 

 

 

 

Picked up a set of shaved whites from another friend:

Edited February 23, 2014 by Losthope

[Losthope]

 

Joe said he wanted to fix the drivers side before he handed the car over to me so i dropped off the doors i got from my cousin so joe could hang them and try and get the b-pillar and c-pillar pulled out the best he could. I stopped by today to see how it was going ,still needs some more love but looking better!

 

 

 

so thats it so far till it gets home, floors and rockers are shot on the drivers side most likely from the damage and doors not being closed and rain getting in ther since 1975 , cars a total project and everything will need to be gone through but thats what i enjoy doing , plans for the car is try and get motor to turn over and fire up and then tinker from there on..
 

[Losthope]

Well it has been awhile since i started this thread not alot of progress , ive just been busy working and any free time has been helping Joe pick up more old cars and organize the two wharehouse spaces he has , one for all his cars and parts and making the other one a usable shop space for us to build some cars, Good news is Im now renting a space in joes shop area and have a covered place to work on my projects instead of the drive way at home, also worked out a deal with Joe for a 1926 dodge brothers sedan project that will be next after i get the 49 plymouth road worthy...

a few things have been done so far on the plymouth ,i gutted the interior "Holy rusted floor bat man" !! I got some work todo on my hands but Im ready for it, found Joes english wheel and shrinker ,and strecher and moved it from the warehouse up to the shop area,looking for a metal break still and I have a bead roller coming from eastwood so should be tackling the floor soon...in the meantime i did rebuild the distributor with new parts , and took apart the starter since it was sticking engaged when i tried to start the engine up:

 

 

 

Starter looks like it was rebuilt before the car was parked years ago, i just needed to clean up the inside a little:

 

 

 

and the result of letting some marvel mystery oil sit in the cylinders a few days and a few new parts and a little elbow grease was the engine firing up for the first time in a long time

Click video to view:

 

 

[Losthope]

Put in another days worth of work today tinkering around, I tore the front end apart to see what the brake components looked like , have the wheel cylinders soaking at the moment since the plunger inside are frozen in the cylinder, hopefully when i get them out the cylinders will be rebuild able and not pitted so i can get this car driving and stopping for awhile be for i decide to tackle the disk brake upgrade :

 

 

somehow i forgot to take a picture of air chiseling the rivets on the lower control arm spring plates but im in the process of swapping them from the top to the bottom to lower the front end , also built a electrolysis rust removal tub out of some rebar and plastic bin and have all the lower control arms in the de rusting process:

 

 

 

 

[Losthope]

well I have to say the electrolysis rust removal method is awesome!

couple hours in the bucket ,little wire brushing and rinse and rust just falls off were picking up a giant plastic tub pallet and going to build a bigger tank for bigger parts heres how the a-arms turned out with the spring plate on the bottom to lower the front end have them bolted and welded:

 

 

 

also did a quick job on the backing plates they could of went back in the tub a little longer but think im going to just go ahead and do the disc brake conversion since the wheel cylinders are shot and itll cost about the same to rebuild stock drums with new parts as it will be to do disc:

 

 

Today i worked on the rest of the front suspension , cleaned the globs of road grime and grease and stripped them to bare metal , painted and rebuilt them.....need to replace all the grease fitting still....I also pulled the rusty springs out of the de-rusting tank,hit them with a wire brush and they looked brand new came out bare metal and cut a coil off should get the front nice and low untill i come across a set of aerostar springs to replace them:


 

[Losthope]

 

Today ront clip was removed from the 49 plymouth, Took everything off of firewall, cleaned the rust,grime, and grease off the front of the frame to bare metal ,primed and painted .....time to pull engine and steering column to finish the bottom side and inside of frame and then onto repainting the firewall and engine! PROGRESS!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Losthope]

 

And its Out! Now its time for more grime and grease removal on the frame:

 

 

 

Today i final finished wire wheeling the rest of the front of the frame back to the trans crossmember of crud and got it painted and put the suspension back on:

 

 

and temporary put the drums back on to make the car a roller again, Boy is it sitting low without the engine in , I had the ol' lady stand on the front of the frame with her big ol' butt and jump up and down and everything's looking good so far , but will see what it looks like when i set the weight of the engine back in, and then i can determine if i need to swap some taller springs back in:

 

 

 

 

cant wait to get the rear lowered now, when i swapped the plates on the a-arms I knew the plates on top were going to be close to the springs so i only bolted them on and didnt weld them like the bottoms, have very little clearance as of now going to be pulling them back off and doing some pie cutting and welding on them to gain some clearance and still have to cut the stock swaybar mounting hole tab off since i wont be using the stock sway bar and with the plate swap mod the sway bar bracket wouldnt work anymore anyways:

 

 

[Losthope]

 

I also cut out a better c-pillar from another 49 plymouth in a junkyard to patch in since the original c-piller was just to mangled up to really mess with anymore , also got the rear fender off the same car that was messed up a bit also , but banged out some dents and started getting it back to shape to graft the to boogered up fenders together to make one good one!

 

 

 

After hitting the bad spots with the DA ,using red scuff pads with a TSP solution and wet sanding the rest I finally have the firewall painted it looks white in the cell phone pic but its actually a almond/cream color:

 

 

 

[Losthope]

So after work I went to the shop to start stripping the motor to degrease and clean it up for paint and low and behold I start pulling the rusty valve covers to soak in the derusting tank and can't believe my eyes looks clean as hell. Pull the pan and confirm the motors been rebuilt, still see red thread locker on oil pick up tube threads, cross hatch marks on cylinder walls, New positions,oil pan looks clean as a whistle inside, need to measure positions to see what it was bored out too....it was kinda weired when I ran the numbers on the block it said it was a truck motor, and starter was looked rebuilt when I took it apart and all the clutch components were also visibly rebuilt, someone must have had it all rebuilt then car was wrecked then parked... looks like low miles were ran on it.... So Stoked right now! Probably the reason it fired right up without rebuilding the carb or anything LOL

 

 

 

 

 

Well I ended up going to pick-n-pull and I didn't end up buying a explorer for the brake parts but still plan on getting a parts car of some sorts to strip for donor parts land sheet metal which shouldn't be hard since Joe and myself are both part time scrappers from our day jobs and come by ubwanted cars from time to time...it was 1/3 off parts at the yard and I ended up walking out the door with a complete rearend and the front rotors and calipers from two different ford explorers, besides needing some cleaning and surface rust removal the rear end has new rotors and pads, and the front rotors are decent and pads look hardly worn...cost was under $200 after I take some parts back for core charges..

8.8 disc brake rearend was out of a 96 ford explorer sport 4wd 3.73 gears with a limited slip :

 

 

and front brake components were off a 99 ford explorer :
 

 

 

I printed out the front brake bracket pdf file from "yourpc48" tech thread here:
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/s...?t=702258Heres

even tho he said he used 4x4 front rotors and calipers I walked around the yard and compared 4x4 to reg ford explorers and they use the same rotors and calipers and pulled the best looking set off the standard 99 explorer..

started mocking everything up and getting the template made for the machinist 2 doors down from the shop to cut the actual 3/8s brackets for me:

 

 

 

[Losthope]

 

 

 

 

[Losthope]

Slow day today didn't get a lot done but I did get the stock explorer spring perch's cut off and ground down and then I cleaned and painted the rear end , I left the sway bar mounts on just incase I come up with a way to mount a rear sway bar , still need to weld on new perchs for the Plymouth leafs soon as I get a set or carefully grind the ones of the stock ply rear end:

 

 

while waiting for paint to dry I decided to see what the engine was a 218 or 230.....and after measuring the stroke 3 times to make sure I was doing it right, the test results came back as a 230 measuring 4 5/8" of stroke!

 

 

 

[Losthope]

Today I got the 2 1/2" spring perches welded on the 8.8 and bought a set of 4" lowering blocks:

 

 

 

The lowering blocks I got from speedway and they don't give you a lot of length on the u-bolts to play with and are made for 3" diameter rearends so buy the time you put the u-bolts around the 3.25" rearend you have lost 1/4" of threads on the u-bolts so I cut the 4" blocks down to 3 1/2" blocks to gain back enough threads to bolt everything back together and to gain back some scrub line , also the original leafs and perches are 1 3/4" , I used 2 1/2" perches and the 2 1/2" explorer bottom leaf spring plates ..I made up the difference of space on the sides of the 1 3/4" leaf pack buy welding some filler pieces to the bottom leaf spring plates that make it into a type of c-channel that slides up from the bottom around the leafs and keeps u-bolts lined up straight and plates from twisting

still has 14" wheels on the front for now but I got the rearend installed and mocked up some 15" roller wheels and tires on the back and everything clears , car is defiantly lower then stock height but wont know the real out come until all the weight of the engine, trans, front clip, driveline, exhaust, seats ,full tank of gas and spare tires installed

 

 

had the brackets for front disc conversion cut out today and I started putting the front together before I headed home for the evening should have it all bolted together tomorrow:

 

 

 

 

 

[Losthope]

well p15 Forum that brings my build thread up to today! Hope you guys like it so far Cheers!

 

and heres a few pics of my other projects:

 

1954 ford  build thread: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=622142/

 

 

1966 c-10 build thread:http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=629142/

 

 

[/RL]

 

 

86 Honda rebel 450 bobber still in progress:

Edited February 23, 2014 by Losthope

[knuckleharley]

 

86 Honda rebel 450 bobber still in progress:

 

I like the 450 bobber. I built one up from a 450 Dream when I was on Okinawa in 1965. They were all 4-speed big tank-big fender bikes then. Used a peanut tank and bobbed the fenders. Ran drag pipes that sometimes had baffles in them. Custom seat. Everything that wasn't chromed or polished was deep black laquer or leather.

 

I'd like to have one right now. Reliable as can be,ride good, and has plenty of power for two up freeway riding. What more do you need?

[sig]

inspirational stuff!..I´ve got all that to do !, I hope I´m as lucky with the motor

[40plyrod]

I've been subscribed to and watching your build over on the Hamb. Welcome aboard.

[mrwrstory]

You be a busy boy!  Welcome.  Keep the updates and pics acomin.

[Lumpy]

Damn....you don't mess around.

 

k.

[Losthope]

 Thanks for all the warm welcomes Guys!

 

 

86 Honda rebel 450 bobber still in progress:

 

 

I like the 450 bobber. I built one up from a 450 Dream when I was on Okinawa in 1965. They were all 4-speed big tank-big fender bikes then. Used a peanut tank and bobbed the fenders. Ran drag pipes that sometimes had baffles in them. Custom seat. Everything that wasn't chromed or polished was deep black laquer or leather.

 

I'd like to have one right now. Reliable as can be,ride good, and has plenty of power for two up freeway riding. What more do you need?

Nice!! This is my first bobber or bike build and just kinda winging it as I go ,I haven't really touched it in a couple months need to go pick it up from the inlaws and bring it to the house I just moved into, but its been fun so far and I dig the different looks of bobbers I seen at car shows

 

inspirational stuff!..I´ve got all that to do !, I hope I´m as lucky with the motor

YA I was shocked when I opened it up ! Very Lucky indeed!

 

I've been subscribed to and watching your build over on the Hamb. Welcome aboard.

Thanks! And thanks for subscribing!

 

You be a busy boy!  Welcome.  Keep the updates and pics acomin.

 

 

Damn....you don't mess around.

 

k.

 

Well "mrwrstory" and "Lumpy" to tell you guys the truth Ive always been known as a hard worker and go getter but I used to drink pretty heavily from a young age and would put my car stuff on the back burner a lot, until 3 years ago when I quit and now I pretty much non stop have to be doing something since I feel like I wasted a lot of my life and time partying it away , after work I make a point to head to the shop and get 30 minutes to a hour atleast in on working on the plymouth or my cars at home even if im tired after work I find something to take apart or clean up  ...in the end all those 30 mins and up...its almost become a workaholic sickness at this point HAHAHA 

 

I didn't get as much done on the Plymouth today as I liked but I was working wiring some new lights up in the shop and some other things that needed to be done around the shop but I did clean and sand and paint the stock 15" rims for the Plymouth and went to the tire shop and had the shaved white walls mounted , I will probably be repainting the rim color when the car gets painted amd I would like to find a decent set of real whitewalls but for now the black paint and shaved tires makes them look more presentable at the moment....And today I realized I  really need to invest in a older manual style tire changer with all the tires I change and swap on different rims tired of paying tire shops all the time..

 

 

I have a week off from work next week so I should be getting more stuff done in that time .....! and thanks again for the welcomes to the forum and checking out my build thread!

[Lumpy]

I understand. I have had too many friends that traded the things they love, like cars, hunting, motorcycles, for a beer bottle.

 

ken.

[lh3384]

You do more in 1 day than I even think about doing in a month! Still trying to figure out how the front spindles come off and what Charlie means by remove the steering arms. He sells brackets for p15 for those of us who don't have a fabricator in their back pocket. I cant believe how fast you took that down to parade rest. I got my 48 4dr in jan and the only thing I have done is pulled the left front drum and stare at the brakes. OMG! I wish you lived nearby.