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Harvest weather here in southern Alberta.I had the old DeSoto out for a drive, took the camera along...

I haven't touched the dwell and timing on my 39 Plymouth since I purchased the car 3 years ago. I've been working on other upgrades to the car during that time. It was idling very rough, plugs sooty, stalling at idle. The vacuum meter showed vibrating needle as if it had bad valve guides. The timing marks on the crank pulley were covered in rust, likely for years. I checked the dwell and it was 50+. After finding the timing marks on the pulley the timing was 3 inches on the negative side of the marks. Adjusting the carb made no difference. I set the dwell to 39 degrees, timing at +2 and adjust the carb using the vacuum guage and set the idle adjustment to proper speed. Now it runs and idles like a new engine and the vacuum guage shows that the engine is in good condition. I only mention this in case someone finds their recent purchase idling as if it's valve guides were worn. A tuneup can solve this problem.

my b-1-fa dwarfed by a 70s diamond reo.

I also was visiting a graveyard. Take it for a run every week .

This past Sunday I stopped at a couple of cemeteries on the way home from church and visited relatives. It was a nice setting and opportunity to photograph my '49. The odometer rolled past 50,000 a couple of weeks ago and I've driven over 1600 miles since the end of May - a little over 100 miles every Sunday. While the car does seem to consume oil with every trip I am diligent about checking and filling as needed. It drives very well and has not let me down yet so I will continue treating it with care and respect. I get a fair amount of waves and thumbs ups, but not as many as one would think (Either drivers are too old, too young, or too annoyed that I'm out not always driving well past the posted speed limit) - I did have someone shout at me from a walking trail so I just smiled, waved, and kept on driving. Fun to see what everyone is up to! Thanks, Keith for fostering community here!

2 door version

Hi all, This past weekend I took the 1939 Plymouth out for a drive. It was a beautiful day. I crossed over the Connecticut River to the New Hampshire side and drove North into the White Mountains. Turned out to be about a 4 hour drive on 2 land highways. Lots of great sights and car performed wonderfully. I saw two different Avantis about half an hour a part. Perhaps they had a club get together somewhere? Here are some pictures I took during the ride.

Back in the garage at HOME. Paint and body came out perfect, Sooo happy with the color. I'll be posting more pix as assembly gets started. Happy Day !!

you have a newer replacement water pump that has the sealed bearing assembly instead of the old grapihite bushing and brass bushings. The sealed bearing pump is a better pump becasue the sealed bearing is a better setup with less chance of leaking and then the water leaks becasue the brass or bronze bushing gets out of shape. You might want to look on ebay to get the newer style instead of th eolde style but be aware that if you have three studs that come out of the front of the block that ae used to hold the wp onto the front of the block and it is held on with nuts then the newer version will require that you need to pull the lower left stud out of the block so that you can use the new wp becsue they made the wp thicker inthat area. Also since the bolt willgo into the water jacket make sure that you put on some watertight grease to make a good seal if not then it will leak right at the bolt where it threads into the block. If you are restoring the old original style wp do you have all of the tools to face the body and burnish the shaft bushing and also to install the flange that holds the fan blade to the front of the WP? To do the jog correctly wil require some of these specila tools that were sold by the Miller tool compnay for all of the Chrysler products. Rich HArtung desoto1939@aol.com

Let me jump in, If you love it I love it! Everything that was modified can be unmodified ... Will was very contentious about this, and I love seeing the skill level and results. Where Will lives, not so easy to come by a car such as this. Here in the USA, we might find a car in such great shape, And we think we have to save it in original condition. Then we go out and buy same car in poor condition for $500-$1k and do anything we want to it and nobody cares. We saved it from the scrap man. I just do not think Will has the same options or opportunities as we do. He has to use what is available. Lets be honest, if you own a car and it is not what you want ... but you are not allowed to make it what you want ... just a pile of wasted time and money, you may respect it but you wont love it. Personally I would not want the car, not my style ... let someone else save it ... Last car I owned was 36 years ago. When I was 22 and my wife & I dated, we went to dinner and a movie in a Dodge 1 ton dually. Our honeymoon we took the CJ5. Trucks or vans, no cars in my stable I just hope Will wont look to bad on the forum from the dog pile of purist for his choices. I think he made a car he loves and will take care of.

Ralph, that is a beautiful car! Love the colour! It certainly has been hot and dry here lately.

Very nice, great looking car, which is not very common. Looking the pix over I noted several anomalies with the car shown in the pix. Mainly the split V windshield, wipers on the cowl in lieu of the windshield header, and only two hinges on the door in lieu of the normal three that DPCD coupe/convertibles normally had. Doing some research on the '36 DeSoto I noted that the '36 Airstream's (S-1) had two levels of cars in '36, the Delux, flat windshield and the Custom.V'd windshield. The Custom RS coupe only came in the Custom line, total of 641 produced. My father had a '37 DeSoto 4 dr sdn in 39, we went to the Worlds Fair in San Francisco from So Cal. The 37 had an OD, a real nice ride compared to the '36 Chevy 4 dr sdn that the DeSoto replaced. Wm.

The missing piece in that discussion is the vacuum valve, also in the cap. When the coolant returns to ambient temp, and shrinks as it cools, it creates a vacuum in the cooling system. Once that vacuum is deep enough, the valve in the cap will allow air it enter. Now, when the coolant again comes up to operating temperature it expands. That expansion creates pressure. The amount of pressure depends on several things, how much air was admitted? That is controlled by both the difference in running and ambient temp and the valve itself. And, of course, the operating temp which determines the amount of expansion. Ideally, there would never be any pressure as a result of steam forming in a normally operating system. But, blockage of circulation paths in the engine due to rust and scale can result in hot spots that cause steam to form, even when the overall temp is below the boiling point. Not much steam, but enough to cause the cap to relieve. Steam is about 1600 times the volume of the water source!

Containing the coolant within the system in a liquid state but under higher than atmospheric pressure raises the boiling point of the coolant. Water boils at 212*F at sea level, but if contained in a closed system the boiling point can be raised considerably. The coolant remains in the liquid phase even as temp exceeds the sea level boiling point. Steam isn't present in the system until the elevated boiling point is exceeded and at that point the game is over. Pressure ramps way up drastically and the cap relieves the pressure as gaseous and liquid dihydrogen monoxide is released.

Correction to my original posting onthe r-9 rad cap. The r-9 is a 9lb cap and not a 7lb cap. So If you are running a lower pressure cap of 7lbs that should be fine and the lever helps to eliminate the issue of hot steam and water coming out the top of the rad when opening the rad. You should be fine. Never over pound rating is not good. Rich Hartung

As the coolant heats up, even before getting hot enough to make steam, it expands and that's what makes the pressure. The higher the pressure the hotter the coolant can run before going to steam. Thermodynamics tells us that the biggest factor in heat exchange rates is the temperature differential. So the hotter the coolant is compared to the air flowing thru the radiator to cool it the more efficient the exchange rate gets. Obviously there is a limit to the the juggling act that is temperature and pressure in a cooling system and in our case it's usually the mechanical limits of the radiator. Too much pressure will pop something and vent, the cap is supposed to be that thing, but when you go from 4lbs to 10lbs that's a 250% increase in pressure. So you've given the cooling system the opportunity to show it's weak points. Now if you have a new, modern core design radiator and heater and your hoses are new then a 14-16 psi cap is probably just fine. If you have the original, untouched honeycomb radiator like I do then I wouldn't gamble on that.

I am wondering about rad caps.... When the cooling system gets hot enough it makes steam. Pressure builds up inside the rad. When 4 psi is achieved the relief in the rad cap opens end steam and coolant ejects. The hotter and hotter the system becomes, the more steam it would create. Correct? So if a 10lb cap was used, more pressure builds up before it opens. Possibly over pressurizing the system, also allowing the engine to run hotter before the cap opens. However, if a cooling system is in top order and running very efficiently, keeping everything nice and cool, it would not be generating up much steam pressure. Correct? If eninge is running between 150-180F on the gauge consistently, running a 10 lb cap, it would make no difference? The cooling system is not making 10 psi, nor even 4 psi. Is that correct? The problem with the 10 higher psi cap factors in when the system gets very hot. When the rad and water pump cannot keep the system cool. 10 psi would be bad. Wondering if I am on the right path here in my thinking.

I went out an looked at my cap, no pressure rating I could find but it does have A4 stamped on the center rivet, I wonder if that means 4lbs? It's in real good shape too.

And just what is wrong with ho red wheels?

Bought the Centric wheel cylinders from Rock Auto all 4 for around $60. Stepped pistons, 1.75" bolt centers. Installed and function properly on my '42. Centric list the units as '46-47 WC only but original parts list state that the 41-47 WC were the same part numbers, this would seem correct.

These were originally a 4lb cap but I don’t think that’s available any longer. All of the vendors sell a 7lb now. It will work fine.

Aug. 20: Despite needing to be timed again and also needing to set the idle mixture screw (I hope to do both tomorrow after work), the car runs amazing! I dumped a little bit of gas in the carburetor to prime it, and she started right up. The idle was at about 400 RPM, and stayed there without me having to feather the gas pedal after about 30 seconds; and that was without the choke on. I took it for a quick spin around the block and I realized how my old flathead should have been running all of this time. I'm going to put new plugs in it, and like I said, I will time it and set the idle mixture screw and we'll see where we're at. I just want the car to be my daily driver again! I'm close now ?

Looks good to me. The lever is a nice option. It allows release of pressure without removing cap and risking burns from hot steam or water.

same for my b-1-fa

Working on the easy items first. Cut rubber pads for the tail lights. Some of the "Cupped" washers I had original. Others are actually a Harley Davidson part.

I feel for you. Same here. Hope you are getting close to drive time ?

Hey everyone, thanks for the help! I found out it was 180 out of time and it fired right up!

My Plymouth manual says a P24 has a pressurized cooling system but does not say what "psi" cap should be used.

I looked in my Atlas replacement service handbook and for your car you should be using an R-9 cap that has a 7LB rating. From the pictures of the ones on ebay there is no relief lever only the spring inthe bottom of the cap. Do a search on ebay and you will see the various caps. 7 lb max rating nothing higher Rich Hartung desoto1939@aol.com

Casper50 is correct, your photo shows the correct orientation. Fat side down.

https://www.thecj2apage.com/storage/47_autolite_service.pdf it's listed here in a few different places under 1941 Plymouth, and Fargo and then I got distracted . . . couldn't find what engine specifically

many noise for just 2 lowering blocks and a pair of knuckle spindle !!!!

when I took mine apart I took photos. Mine was on fat side on bottom. Pretty sure it had never been off of mine before.

Greg, I had the local paint store color match the " Panama Sand " from the D24 color chart. Old chart, probably faded lighter or darker but I am extremely happy with it. Close enough for Govmint work!

This poor guy getting beat up here pretty badly....nothing done so far that cannot be undone....the old American car culture in Europe is far different from here with some exception of the HAMB and the way they view and build their so-called traditional rods. 95% of this group would probably not like his music or his clothes, I know I would not....we all do not build cars the same way...many here don't build but only buy or pay for work done and their total input to the hobby is fueling the beast at the gas pump and later passing gas at a cruise in. Little more tolerance is needed here...at least he is working a Dodge and keeping it flathead.....rather see this than a bunch of misfit ragtag skankmobiles on the craigslist page that are not even mopar....we got daily running threads on non-mopar cars here which in my opinion do not belong but some of our members are not as brand loyal as others....I forgive them their error....

Seats are done, added Milton 476 tire valves, red paint to spice up the wheels. No car shows, but there is a cruse in every Fri 30 miles away.

Each Wed night the regulars show up at a local parking lot. Quite civilized there too. No stunt drivers or show-offs. The police and local businesses leave us be. Its a good time. My spot tonight was tucked between some performance cars. I was the odd-duck there again. No, I’m not seeing any other Mopars from about ‘64 back. Just my old Ply. No complaints. Rare is cool with me. Tonight I passed 800 miles on my 38 Plymouth’s odometer for 2020 cruising. i’d sure like to 1,000. I will aim to.

New "old school' wheels for Booger and radial highway tires. goes down the road so much nicer

The Bench Seat Console for the 67 came and once again it is flawless in construction and looks like it belongs there. A very comfortable and functional addition to the car.

Great looking paint. I know the feeling, I just got mine back a couple weeks ago.

You won't want to hear it but this car deserves to be left alone, the way it was originally designed and built. While not exactly criminal, it's certainly a shame to see your first steps with this cool old car - it already looks way, way worse. _

Not much of a pic but here are my two. The Plymouth (SD) Club Coupe has just over 39K original miles and has been on the lift since September (I travel a lot) but is nearly buttoned up and ready to get out for a test run. The Dodge has just over 100K on the clock and is a recently-added four-door stablemate that I've taken around the block only once so far. I have the garage space, so if I can convince the War Department, these will be joined over the next few years by one each `49 Desoto and `49 Chrysler.

Just little BBC with my car club Friends in France

I WENT TO SEE THE VETERANS MEMORIAL AND THE DODGE ROLL-OVER TO A NEW START!! LOL

My wife and I stopped at Elliot's Park along the West Branch of the Susquehanna River near Clearfield, PA for lunch today. Had Long John Silvers takeout. Just out for a ride with no particular place to go.

save your money...I got some from them, very disappointing...I even had a nice set though hard but not deformed originals that I offered them to use as a sample and they blew me off saying they have the right product and no one else has ever complained....I find that hard to believe...one guy at that place even told me that is what I get for buying a Mopar.....I replied no, that is what I get for dealing with folks with closed minds.