keithb7

The gas I run is Chevron Supreme plus 94 octane, non ethanol. The price for that gas here works out to $1.28/L US funds. Or $4.84 US funds per US gallon.

There is some camera magic going on. All Speeds were not as high as they appear in the video. I mostly took my time to avoid kicking up many rocks, preventing any gravel damage. I made a couple quick passes for effect. There was not a ton of loose rocks on my entire trip as the road was quite packed down. The road has not seen a grader for quite some time. My car will mainly live on the pavement. Once in a while it is nice to get out and drive an old car on a quiet country road.

@Dodgeb4yaif you are in Washington, I would humbly make the pilgrimage to your garage. I'm just north of you in BC. Would love to some day.

Thought you folks might really enjoy this one. I keep my mouth shut and let the car say it all.

It Flashed up easily after the cool down period. I drove it up the hill home without any issues. I’ll get it sorted in the next little bit here.

Well, it was almost a completely uneventful cruise. Not quite. I spent the afternoon out in the country side. I headed back to town. Later I stopped to put in some fuel and left the gas station. Headed home. Warmest day of the year so far. 85 F. About a 1/4 mile from the gas station. The final hill home. Right at the hill base, I just was starting to climb. Cough. Sputter die. No cars around. I coasted backwards to a safe pull out. I Pop the hood. Raw fuel is steadily dripping out of throttle plate pivot point at the base of carb. It’s steady dripping out. Sizzling and evaporating at it contacts the intake manifold. I’m currently letting things cool down.I Locked her up and walked to a pub near-by for a beer and a burger. Hmm. What is going on here? Some clues: Hottest day yet since I took ownership of the car. Just stopped for fuel and check fluids. a few mins before. Heat soak? I’m only running non-ethanol fuel. 94 octane. Fuel pressure is regulated to about 4.5 psi and at has been fine for the past 150 miles. Cooler ambient temps though. Can non-ethanol fuel vaporize? Yes I think so. At a certain temperature I’ll bet . Maybe I’m there? Non ethanol fuel would likely have a higher boiling point than ethanol fuel, but will indeed vaporize. I’m thinking the fuel today did not vaporize. It boiled. There is no heat shield plate at the base of the carb. I may add one. There is no heat shield between the mechanical fuel pump and the exhaust manifold. I will add one. There is no phenolic spacer at the carb base. I’ll consider that too. What I can’t seem to wrap my head around is the fuel percolating out of the carb throttle valve linkage. Maybe the fuel in the carb bowl boiled, forcing its way out the vent tube? Raw fuel streamed down into the Venturi? Flowing down the walls of the carb throttle body. Then on to the throttle valve. It was closed so it worked across the valve plate, then out the pivot pin. Exiting the carb at the base. That seems likely. The engine was over come with raw fuel. It flooded. Sputtered and died. It’s been over an hour now. Beer and the burger are gone. I’ve had time to think this through. Off to try driving it home again now. Any tips are welcome. I keep learning the hard way. Lol. An electric fuel pump may be in my future but I’m not convinced today’s plight had anything to do with the mechanical pump. Seen here, we are in detention. The funny part is, this is the exact same piece of road I was driving when the fulcrum pin walked out of my mechanical pump of my ‘38 Plymouth. I rolled backwards to this exact same spot. I Popped the hood and plumbed in a 6V electric pump in record time. Fired it up and drove home.

Recent threads have inspired me to go experience the late ‘30’s on a gravel road. Today was a fantastic day to do just that. Only regret, I should have packed a picnic lunch.

@rrunnertexas Truth be known I don’t know a darn thing about welding either. I did buy a 220V buzz box tho. I am learning. When I took my engine apart I found the exhaust heat valve floating around inside the exhaust manifold. I welded it back onto the shaft, like your buddy did with yours. Mine went back together fine. It seems to work fine too, when I bench tested it. I don’t have my engine back yet. The machine shop continues to tell me what they think I want to hear. Like come back in a week. 3x times now. When my engine is back together I’m confident it’ll work. No bent shaft or issues from welding at all. And I’m incredibly talented at making slag! Lol.

On the topic of heat risers. I agree it may not be of much benefit in the south. Yet... I learned something interesting. It makes sense to me and I think, is worth sharing. My .02 to provoke some discussion. A cold engine is chocked off at the carb intake to create a rich air/fuel mixture. Rich A/F leads to inefficient fuel burn. Leaving behind unburned carbon. It accumulates and builds up. Carbon gathers on the valves, top of piston, piston ring groove behind the top ring, cylinder head etc. Carbon is very abrasive. Like teeny particles of sand grinding away at your engine internals. There will always be some carbon in these engines. Running SAE30? Have a look in your oil pan. Although I’ve not personally studied the sludge build up, I wager there’s plenty of carbon and soot in there. Best to minimize it where possible for over the life of the engine, it builds up. I’ve seen carbon build up above the top piston ring on the sides of a piston. It can score up cylinder walls pretty good. Then internal engine wear compounds and progresses, pretty quickly. Oil burning escalates, adding more nasty by-products of combustion into your crankcase. If enough carbon builds up behind the top piston ring, a piston ring will crack. We know that at the top of a cylinder that’s where the most wear occurs. As the cylinder wears, the cylinder tapers downward, closer to new bore specs at the bottom of the cylinder. The piston rings are sprung. They open outward at the top of the cylinder. More-so as the bore wears. The piston ring gap squeezes closed again as it travels to BDC. As carbon builds up, the ring can’t squeeze inward as it travels down. It jams up against the carbon and the ring cracks. Atomized fuel form droplets too as the A/F mixture rides through the cool intake manifold. Entering into the cylinders, again not burning efficiently. More carbon. The heat riser valve heats the carb base and intake manifold up much quicker. Enabling cleaner efficient fuel burn as soon as possible. It gets pretty darn warm down there under the hood of a car in Texas. Sun and hot ambient temps certainly help. I suspect that the heat diverter valve system still gets things hotter yet. Sooner. Aiding in reduced carbon build up. Its worth having a functional Heat Diverter valve I think. I’d rather be running a cleaner engine and crankcase. I’d rather be rebuilding an engine at 60,000 miles versus 40,000 miles, for example.

LEDs are available in different scales of white. 6000K is very white. I agree looks bad on an old car. I just ordered a pair of 6V 3,000K, warmer (yellow tinge) LED bulbs for my ‘38 Chrysler. There are lots of deer leaping about in my neighborhood. I often wheel home from a cruise or car meet, after sunset. Especially later in Aug & Sept. The equator keeps rolling south. We get dark earlier up here in Canada, each passing day after June 21. Worth it to me to give it a try.

Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys. When I think of C&W. I think of 30’s/40’s swing country. Exactly what would have been playing on the AM radio of our old mopars.

Classy car and post as usual. Keep ‘em coming. I enjoy seeing great old flathead Mopars being driven. I was also out this evening for a quick drive. A little tweak here and there. Then I need to test drive to learn of any results. Any excuse to get out. I just spent some time waxing so I stuck to the pavement.

My 70's snap-on dwell/tach tool was buit for the 12V era. It hooks up to the car battery and coil. It will read dwell with 6V, but I'm having issues with the tach function. It doesn't seem to want to read RPMs. I tried hooking the tool up to a spare 12V battery. Placed on the floor near the car. The RPM still won't read. Maybe the tool is actually not working properly? Dwell is just fine though. Recently I tried a modern, mini digital tach with hour meter. It has it's own CR2032 battery in it. It's a small unit. A lead wire wraps around 1 spark plug wire. It can be used for single or multiple cylinder engines. 2 stroke or 4 stroke. It seems to work. I can get RPM, max RPM is recorded. Running hours is recorded. Seems like a cheap easy option. I saw them on Amazon and ordered one to try. I plan to use it more and somehow verify that the RPM reading is accurate. It seems real close based on my ear. The gauge updates quickly so you get decent RPM readings. You can even program a warning zone so that at a certain RPM it warns you. The screen turns red I believe. See here: https://www.amazon.com/Backlight-Maintenance-Tachometer-Motorcycle-Lawnmower/dp/B08F25C1JW/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=digital+tachometer+hour+meter&qid=1620862576&sr=8-9

I sure like the look of that unit. Please let us know how well it works with 6V. Dwell and RPM.

Thanks for the tips folks. My rad seems good. It was re-cored when the car was restored. I don't see any leaks there. Tonight I spotted a little green AF on the top of the water pump at the by-pass hose area. Tonight I pulled the head inlet thermostat neck, and the by-pass mount housing on the top of the water pump. I cleaned up the area, new gaskets and a little skim of sealant. The areas were a little pock-marked up from earlier corrosion. I may have it sealed up now. This job was the first time I think that I was able to do a repair and not need to order any parts. I dug through my spare parts stash and found both gaskets, brand new! Gotta love that. I drained the block and rad. Tomorrow I'll run a cooling system flush thru it for 20-30 mins then flush everything out. I see some scale build up in the rad. Doesn't look too bad. Hopefully the chemical flush I sourced will clean things up. The good news is the block drain pet-cock was not plugged up past it's level with rust and scale! Not too bad in there. Should clean up nicely.

My '38 Chrysler Royal has a non-pressurized cooling system. There is small leak somewhere. I'd like to find it an address it. It is hard to tell where it is leaking. Could be up under the bottom side of the water pump. I was thinking, could a person remove the thermostat, re-install water neck and put a few pounds of pressure on the system? When the system is cold and sitting. Could I maybe get an indication where the small leak is? I don't really want to buy a full rad pressure testing tool to use this one time. I've not had another need for it in my life so far. If I found a good deal on a used tool maybe. What I am wondering is, does anyone have a hack to build a rubber bung somehow to plug the rad fill port? Then I could put a low PSI gauge on it. Add 4 psi or so and see what develops. Does this seem reasonable? Looking for ideas on a bung seal it possible. Any other tips are appreciated. Thanks.

Thanks. I will enjoy it. I agree, lucky and very fortunate.

Took them both out today. My younger son drove the ‘53. I took the ‘38. We had a street cruise organized. Was fun. Lots of cars of all types turned out. That’s my cousin’s ‘68 Mustang California Special. A good hue of greenbacks there.

The car was painted when I bought it. I can’t say for sure the name of the color. Everglades green was an original color option. Maybe painter painted it the same?

Some interest in my Windsor but not sold yet. Took the opportunity tonight to get out with our sons. Great memories in this car for everyone. I forgot how smooth it is. After 8 days in my ‘38 Chrysler, 15 years of development definitely shows. Smooth, quiet luxury. I’m getting seller’s remorse already. Cheaper to keep ‘er but I’m outta room. What a car.

I am interested in some more info on my OD unit. I suspect its a Borg Warner model. What specific model would this ‘38 Chrysler have? It has a large knob, push/pull cable to cycle on and off. I see two drain plugs. 1 for the tranny housing and one for the OD housing. Yet I see only one fill hole at the tranny. Am I right in suspecting that these share the same oil? I suspect maybe the two low points in each housing trap oil, so there are 2 drains? I’m under the car going over everything this morning. It sits lower than my ‘53. I need to get my ‘38 Royal jacked up a little to fit under it. Not the ‘53. I can slide right under it no problem. A few tranny & OD pics. Green is fill port. Red are drain ports. A couple of different angles are shown. Thx. Keith

I too drive my old cars at every opportunity. I get out a lot. Many an evening, sometimes alone even. If everyone is busy, oh well. I still go. I hit drive thru and grab a coffee. Cruise downtown and park by the riverside in the park. Watch the sunset. It's relaxing. Another place where lots of folks approach to chat. I'd rather drive my old cars any day over any other vehicles we own. So I do!

Here is the link to my YT Channel@Worden18 : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVoBq2i7wl4w0W4JB6cAMjg/videos Tomorrow I organized a car event. Mother's Day afternoon. I sent out word to all local car groups and owners. I hope to flood the downtown main core area with neat cars, all types and years. Just lots of cool vehicles people would enjoy seeing. No gathering, or formal meeting place due to covid. I've requested everyone just show up at 1pm and cruise the streets. I am hoping we can pack the place and cause a traffic jam. I know there is a 1922 Dodge coming. I'll have my 38 and 53 Chryslers out. My son will drive the 53. I'll be sure to take a few pics and share if we get a decent turnout. I think we will. Car people are really itching to get out and enjoy their cars. We're still under covid social restrictions and folks are fed up. The weather looks stellar. If this works, we may just organize another similar event on Father's day!

You're making great memories. Well worth the effort. Your kids will cherish these times for the rest of their lives. Good job Dad! My youngest was 18 when I finally bought an old car. I let him take my 53 Chrysler to high school in his final year. I wish I had bought an old car when the boys were young. I missed that amazing window of opportunity to go get ice cream in a classic car with my young sons.

A little dash candy for you. Just getting behind the wheel nets a big grin. Before you even excite the condenser.