cheesy

You did say North Chicago. The one I mentioned was between Antioch and Zion. I grew up across the state line in Trevor. My wife and I lived in Chicago the first few years we were married and 41 was our route to weekend sanity, free beer, and fishing. I also wasn't going to pay those ridiculous thirty cent tolls on I-94. May have even gassed up the Ambassador or the Comet at your station in the mid seventies.

Was that the place on 41 and 173? Near Treasure Island?

Well, that was fun and filthy. On the other hand, it took care of jumping out of low range.

Thank you.

Gents, I'm going to be replacing the very worn out 953137 bellcrank on my 48 DeSoto semi auto transmission with an NOS bellcrank. I've gone through my well used Service manual looking for the adjustment procedure and all I am really finding is the procedure for the 3 speed manual transmission. The linkage appears the same on both transmissions but I'm not sure the manual and semi automatic adjustment are the same. Any suggestions? Thanks.

I did full service at the local Shell station for about a whole month in 1971. I think the owner was bipolar; great guy one minute, throwing wrenches and threatening bodily harm the next. He fired me because I had the audacity to take time off to attend my grandfathers' funeral during the busy Memorial Day weekend. Since he wasn't the only game in town, my folks and several of their friends started going to the Standard station. When he asked my Dad why he quit coming to the Shell station, Dad asked what he expected when he fired me because of my grandfathers' funeral. I was with Dad at the time and the old boss asked if I wanted to come back. Told him "Hell, no. I got a job with less drama and more money." It was baling hay and shoveling cow s**t, but I wasn't telling him that.

Good to hear. I converted a 10SI many years ago for my Dad to put in his 48 Desoto. He never did and now I am in the process of installing it in what is now my Desoto. The installation itself has been one small headache after another. I should have wrapped it up today but NAPA didn't have the belt I needed.

My wife squealed with glee at the blue Met.

I’ll play. Although growing up as an AMC family, (Dad put in 30 years there)which makes me a Mopar guy by marriage, there have been a lot of Mopars in my life. Earliest memories are of a black 55 Plymouth my Dad was delivering from Wheeling, IL to Eau Claire, WI to earn some extra money. I rode with him at probably four years old and he constantly harped and complained about the power steering and brakes as being too sensitive. There was an aqua green 57 Plymouth that belonged to a family friend/boarder that constantly over heated. Usually when we were with him. Grandpa traded in his 49 Mercury for a two tone blue 56 DeSoto. Dad dragged home the 1948 DeSoto in 1978. Many years later, Dad dragged home a 49 Dodge pick up. He threw a tune up and oil change at it and sold it two weeks later for three times what he paid for it. I bought my first Mopar in 1984, a brand New Plymouth Horizon four door. Ran that for over 125000 miles and donated it to the local high school when it was time to put it out to pasture. Next was a brand new 1995 Le Baron convertible 3.0 for our twentieth anniversary. Beautiful car. Black with the camel roof and interior, along with gold wheels and low profile tires. Top leaked like a sieve and I got to where I could swap out an axle with a bad CV joint in 45 minutes. Still, kept it for ten years. There was a five year drought until I bought my 05 Jeep Wrangler LJ, which is a TJ with ten inches added to the wheelbase and an almost usable rear seat, in 2010. Still have it. If a clean Jeep is an unloved Jeep. Mine is adored. Brought home the DeSoto in late 2017. Last year, on my wife’s 63rd Birthday, we traded in her 16 year old Audi A4 for a 2018 Jeep Renegade Limited. That has more toys on it than the Audi had. My wife hates getting rid of her cars but she had her mind made up on the Renegade before we were out of the dealers lot on the test drive. We call it “Grandmas Lil Goat” because it can go just about anywhere my Wrangler can go and do it with better manners and less fuel.

I have a couple of European Beta and Facom versions of those that came with my job. Heavy and take up a lot of room in the tool box. Handy when you need them. I just call it my BFP.

I never got into plate collecting much although I did have my grandfathers set of Wisconsin plates from the teens to the fifties. They were on a wall in an open are shed and pretty well deteriorated by the time I got them. Sold those to a collector decades ago. All I have now is a South African Kwazulu-Natal plate I found in ditch while working there. That’s mounted to an inside garage door.

I use mine probably three times a year. Biggest job is the deck, which takes two and a half tanks of gas and the better part of an afternoon. Sometimes I think about pressure washing the engines on the DeSoto and the Ural, but if I sit the feeling passes.

No photos easily available to me but I had 1937 JD A when I was in high school, (cough, cough) years ago. It was a basket case that I reassembled and got running. I’d show it at the Kenosha(WI)County Fair Antique Engine Exhibit until I sold it my senior year to a gent who restored it. He continued to show it until he passed away a few years ago. I think it is still in his family. According to my Dad, our family farm was a testing ground for McCormick-Deering tractors in the 30s to the 50s (could be BS, too).

Thanks again, guys. I have what I need ordered from Brillman.

Thanks guys.

Looking under the hood of the DeSoto, it’s obvious that some wire replacement is due. One of the wires to the carb is more electrical tape than insulation. I’m not too sure there’s even any wire in that tape. Anyway, I want to clean up the “repairs” and use cloth covered wire just to keep it looking ‘right’. I’ve done a search on the interwebs and the wire appears available, I’m just wondering who you guys get it from.

Good read. We had a 46 Hudson pickup when I was a kid. Mom hated it.

My oldest and her family live outside of Union. It’s a two day drive each way for us, 22 hours if we want to kill ourselves. I always find cool toys while we are out there.

Late to the start here but here goes. I was 13 and had been in Green Bay, WI at my cousins place. He and I were glued to the TV and both had our little Aiwa reel to reel tape recorders going. My Dad had gotten a call from work, so we had to leave early to get back home. I missed the landing on TV. But, while riding in the 3rd row seat of my parents 67 AMC Ambassador wagon, I had my Midland transistor radio glued to my ear. I shouted to my folks that they landed and my Dad layed on the horn. I remember “a lot of guys about to turn blue here” like it was yesterday. Still have the Aiwa, the tapes, and the Midland though neither works anymore.

They do. Underside of the bolt heads, too. Loc-tite 565. I work with hydraulics and every one of my tool boxes has a tube.

Me too. I’d heard they could be a bear to get out. I couldn’t budge it by pulling with my homemade hook but was able to get it to move when I grabbed the hook with a long pair of needle nose pliers and levered it. Moved it back and forth a few times then gave a yank. Went down on my can with the tube in my lap. It’s a good thing the tube was reusable as the replacement was a few inches shorter than the one I pulled out. I’m guessing the tube was probably replaced, poorly, before my Dad bought the car.

Hey all, been MIA for quite awhile. My company went through a reorganization late in 2017 and they've had me on the road almost constantly since. As a company, they did a bad job of it and we are now fast approaching reorg #4. Anyway, I didn't have much time for the DeSoto the past almost two years. The car also started over heating. Badly. I talked to my Dad about it and said the car always ran hot, which was why he added an auxiliary fan. To me it shouldn't be that way, so I back flushed the system. Didn't work. Had the rad boiled out. Didn't work. Replaced the water pump. Didn't work. Someone, somewhere, mentioned the water distribution had to be the problem, as I went through everything else. I bought a tube last September in the hope of being able to work from home for a couple of weeks, but that didn't happen. I finally scored a couple of weeks at home and caught up on all the honey do stuff and I was finally able to get to the DeSoto last Tuesday. When I finally got everything apart, I found the pump end of the tube almost pinched closed. I pulled the head to check the fluid passages and found the head bolt tightness all over the place. I pulled the tube and found it in good shape but there was a big wad of black RTV plugging the ports to the number 6 cylinder. Unplugged and cleaned the tube, reinstalled it, and formed the pump end to the block. I chased all the threads in the block and head bolts and found black RTV on those. Jeez, Dad. Buttoned it all back up and let it run. Temp never exceeded 180F. Retorqued the head and went for a ride. Ten miles at 60mph and the temp never exceeded 180F. 75 miles today and the same results. Back to being stoked about the car. Too bad I'm back on the road tomorrow.

Wow! I had a similar set up on my 52 Ford 215. Once dialed in, it was a great runner. Surprisingly, my gas mileage went up.

After some consideration and the fact that I have a plasma cutter for making brackets, I'll go with the alternator. I built it specifically for this car anyway, so I might as well use it. I will probably still use LEDs for the dash lights, though. When I put them in the gauges of my forty year old Honda, I could finally see if I was speeding or not. I usually was.

Changing out the flasher is a given.