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First off, I wish I would have started this when we started on the car (how many folks have said that?!! hahaha). I am a young lady with some experience with cars. Never have I redone an older car. When my father-in-law said he wanted to give us a 1948 Plymouth Convertible that he redid in the 1980's we jumped on it. Luckily my husband is an extremely knowledgeable hobby mechanic and we have a garage full of professional tools. The car was not in perfect shape when we got it, but not rough either. Primer purple with fairly decent interior and a canary yellow engine bay. We started in February 2013 and knew the first task was to start disassembling and pull out the transmission (needed to be rebuilt). Oh, I forgot to mention it has a Mopar 360 with a 727 Torque Flight. After the engine and tranny were pulled the cleaning began. The 360 was so clean you could eat off it and received a few coats of Grabber Green to suit the car's new color scheme. Next we tried to decide about attempting a home-garage tranny rebuild. No decision was made so the trans was set on aside. I started body work on the firewall after the husband welded a few holes (neither of us have done any body work before). It turned out beautiful for an amateur job! So, I continued with the rear fenders. In between body work we had the front and back seats reupholstered and ripped out the dash to paint/rewire. Poor car had it's heart ripped out and interior stripped! Blah, blah, blah. We did a bunch of stuff and sent the tranny off to get rebuilt at very reputable local shop. 6 weeks later it came back. Now it's sitting the back of our truck waiting to be stabbed back in (hopefully this weekend **fingers crossed**). Sorry for the lack of details. I'm not much of a gabber or blogger. Please ask questions if you have any. I will do my best to answer them promptly. I am excited about this awesome car! :-)

Found a couple blank cast aluminum air cleaner covers cheap and decided to give a go at creating my own dual air cleaner. The parts are identical and fit a 15" oval air cleaner. There's a center hole in each cover that will make it easy to sandwich the two together. Started by drilling out a couple oversized 2.25" diameter holes in one cover. Test placement shows that I have an interference issue with the choke actuators. So I've decided to get some 2.25" ID to OD exhaust pipe converters. Going to cut them down to create 1" risers. Then I will slice the large side of the pipe to give relief to add band clamps. For the other end, I will wedge the pipes into the new holes and then deform the pipe to remain in place. Anyone have any other suggestions for mounting? And on a totally unrelated matter, I pulled the old visor off last night in preparation for replacement with an NOS Fulton I got from Ebay. Wondering if anyone has found a source for the windshield clips? (besides the $15ea versions on ebay).

Just because you boiled the rad does not mean it is clean inside. It sounds like you still have a problem with the rad. Look to see if there is any way hot air pulled by the fan can recirculate to the front. If the air loops around nothing you do will help other than remove the hood. I

The car left the factory with an engine hood and did not overheat. The car left the factory with alcohol based antifreeze and I am sure it later was converted to glycol based antifreeze and it did not overheat. I suspect you have severe blockage in the coolant circulation system or your water pump has failed. In my daily driver F-150 I once started the engine (when I was 500 miles away from home) and heard a clunk. As soon as I turned the steering wheel I noticed that I had no power steering. Suspected the surpentine belt had failed but an underhood inspection showed the belt intact and working correctly. What I found was the power steering pump shaft broke allowing the pump pulley to spin but the pump would not do any work. My point being that even though your water pump belt is turning your pump may not be pumping.

Good luck to you both. Chet...

Beautiful car and good luck!

Looks very sharp. How come you removed your skirts, seems like an aero disadvantage. I am heading to Watkins Glen tomorrow for a day at Vintage Revival weekend. I have signed up for the Concourso Speciale'. This grouping is for under appreciated, unique,mongrel, orphan, and cars that do not fit in the "other categories" Kinda like the non sporting group at a dog show. We will be participating in a 2 lap circulation of the 6.8 mile original road and street course that was used before the track was constructed in the mid 50's. The circuits will be behind a pace car but should be a fun time any way. There is an appreciable elevation change over the 6 mi + course. I am not concerned for the uphill portions, but for the down hill coming back into town. I will be removing all my traveling kit, tools, spares, cooler, jack, spare tire. Hopefully I can rig my camera on a small tripod to get some video. Heres to our P15's tearing up the joints.................... God Speed Friend!