fhubler

This is one of the coolest looking cats I've ever seen.

A fine bristle brass brush goes a long way as well, especially in areas you can't reach with 00 steel wool. Take the extra few minutes to run a width of good, quality masking tape any place the trim meets the paint to protect it. Make sure the car is completely dry before starting & blow the residue off of the paint as soon as you finish. You want to make sure all of the steel wool residue is off of the car before it gets wet again.

Greg, here's why I think a new water distribution tube may be in order... It's the original one in there, along with the original water pump. The engine warms up at a normal rate & runs steady at 195-200 deg. in operation at any ambient temperature. An IR temperature gun shows higher temperatures toward the rear of the water jacket (10-15 deg). The dash gauge & the IR gun show the same temperature at the sending unit (measuring the same temperature from the same location). The previous owner replaced all of the hoses, the belt & had the radiator professionally cleaned & pressure tested. The radiator is providing about 20 deg. cooling at idle (195 at the inlet, 175 at the outlet). I do not suspect any timing issues with the engine. The heat riser is missing the counter weight & is being held open with a hose clamp. That will also be rebuilt. The engine fires right up under all conditions (still 6V + ground), idles smooth & produces smooth, even power through the rpm range.

Everybody forgets something sometime. After I put my A back together, I drove over an hour before the front shocks fell off. Not bad for finger tight...

Thanks, Greg. I did not think of the mounts. They are original, like most other parts of the car, and have dry rot cracks. I do plan to replace them due to age. We'll see if that changes anything. I think checking the relationship between engine alignment & the vibration makes a lot of sense because the angle of the car when I come to a stop seems to make a difference. I will wade into the things that need attention on the car after Christmas and see what I get done over the winter. Motor mounts might make sense when I have everything apart to change the water distribution tube (if I have any sanity left after that job).

I'll tell ya, though - after driving a Model A for 3.5 yrs., the Dodge is like sitting in the library. When you start hearing a noise in the Dodge, you think, "something must be wrong...", when you stop hearing noises in the Ford, you think, "something must be wrong..."

It's not hitting anything - I jacked it up & crawled under there to have a look. It vibrates so much, you can see it - like when Bugs Bunny runs into a closed door...

Question for the group. Under certain circumstances while at a stop with the clutch out & the fluid drive engaged, we get a vibration toward the center of the exhaust system strait pipe about midway between the muffler & the kick up over the rear axle. It is like the kind of vibration you get in the middle of a recurve bow string after releasing an arrow. The previous owner had the exhaust recently replaced. If I put it up on jack stands, leave it idle with the parking brake on & the clutch engaged, it will stop if I put some pressure sideways on the strait part of the exhaust with my foot. Any ideas? Would a short flex pipe right after the down pipe like a modern car often has be a possible solution? Could it be the new style hanger they put on? It will do it maybe one time out of ten when coming to a stop on the road...

Beautiful car! Can't wait to see some pictures of the interior as well... There's nothing quite like the feeling of cleaning up an original old car - they're only original once! Very nice work!

Assessing the "quality" of a car is a very subjective thing. I never pick out a car for someone or make specific recommendations. I just try to get them to articulate what they really want in a vehicle & then brainstorm about some that might fit the bill. I could go on & on about what I like in a vehicle, but what do you care about what I like or dislike about your car, or taste in cars? It's like trying to explain why someone falls in love - most of the time, they don't even know! If you want someone to think the best of you, listen to what they like about their car and agree with them heartily!

Actually, I learned it in the paint jobber business many moons ago. It is a measurable property of clear coat. The stuff we sold had a better DOI than the competitors, so it was a selling point...

Well, this isn't right out of a book, just out of experience with old Model A's... You may be able to pull the boot back on the coil wire on the distributor cap end & rest the end close to the point where it goes into the cap (as close as you can & still see it, and watch for a spark while someone cranks it over... Just don't touch it while they're cranking... or do the same thing on one of the plugs to see if you have spark at that point...

I sold a '58 Sunbeam Rapier drop head coupe to a guy like that years ago. I took photos of every panel inside, outside & underneath - probably about 60 in all. When he came for the car he said, "Wow. Its more rusty than I thought." He got a rare car very cheap, but he had his work cut out for him. I felt bad for him, but he really wanted the car and I would have given it to him, but he said, "No. I have to give you something for it." Hopefully he brought it back to life. I went to look at many cars myself that I thought were great, but quickly changed my mind after a short examination. Our '48 Town Sedan was the opposite - the seller said, "Yea, it looks good from a distance, but the floors are rusty." I found 4 rusty panels, all of which are available at reasonable cost and no structural rust - a weeks worth of work for the shop I use and the average person would never know anything was repaired! That's rust work I can live with.

Does anyone know of any published wheel options for the 1946-48 cars? As I was watching a documentary about the reconstruction of Europe filmed just after the war I noticed a business coupe in Italy with wheels painted the same as the original spare wheel of our '48 Town Sedan. I wonder if the red wheel with white pin stripes was common on black cars? Was this a standard color with a standard hub cap & either wide or narrow trim rings optional? Where trim rings standard on any models?

Such beautiful styling. I think that 1933 was one of the best years for automotive styling in history for so many manufacturers with the Mopars being some of the finest. To buy a car sight unseen is a very risky business indeed!

Its one of those quirky things that I may never see again, but I'm sure someone else will. It was on the back side, so you couldn't see it without rotating the seal... I see on your profile that you have a lot of interesting cars - any pictures of the '33s posted somewhere?

Just wanted to share a situation with the brakes that was discovered today with the hope of preventing someone else from running into the same issue. We have our '48 Town Sedan for a whole 3 weeks now & it has been a great deal of fun. The previous owner had the brake shoes, flex hoses, wheel cylinders & master cylinder replaced not too long ago. He didn't drive it much (about 1000 miles since 1985). It drove fine for me for about the first 2 weeks & then the left front brake started to intermittently pull & sometime lock up altogether. Backing up a few feet would free it up again. This afternoon I finally pulled the left front wheel to check it over. The upper wheel cylinder dust seal was pushed out toward the backing plate. After pulling the plunger out of the wheel cylinder, I found that the dust seal was dislodged, apparently when the wheel cylinder was put in place. The plunger was out of the hole & off to one side between the edge & the hole. When the brakes were applied, the seal would bulge out instead of flexing inward causing the plunger to bind. After putting the plunger back through the hole it belonged in in the center of the seal & reinstalling it, the brakes worked fine again. The moral of the story is, when you install a new wheel cylinder, rotate the dust seal to make sure it is properly centered & seated before buttoning everything back up.

My thoughts exactly yesterday after polishing out the original 70 year old black on our Town Sedan. Unfortunately, I did not take a "before" photo because I thought, "It will never look as good as the preserved paint under the stop light housing..." I couldn't believe the results... You don't get much better DOI (Distinctness Of Image) than that!

Gorgeous car! Thanks for sending more photos!