55 Fargo

Normspeed, and anyone else for that matter, my engine takes a lot of cranks then fires right up, especially in cold temps and if she has not been run for a day or more. Once she has been started, and the engine is still warm, she immediately fires as soon as you hit the button. Not sure why this is, but it's always been like this, no matter what I have tried to do. My battery is 3 YO, the cables are 1 gauge and new, all new wiring, points, plug wires, fairly new coil etc. The electric choke works fine, but she is a hard to cold start, but she always starts. Temp in garage was about 35, so it ain't that cold in there. I wonder if my battery is not all it should be, it is a 675 cranking amp size, the cables and connections are newer, she cranks like a typical 6 volt, steady but slower than a 12 v system, she doesn't fire right away though, wonder if it is a fuel delivery problem, the fuel pump has been on the engine for many a year, the carb is rebuilt and clean..........Fred ps not trying to hijack your thread

Hey Aero, are they way brighter than the regular incandesant bulbs. I was just outside with the 47, my incandesant look darn good and bright from behind in the dark. The LEDs should be way brighter I would imagine, and how about in daylight, would the LEDs be a lot easier to see for traffic from behind. I plan to convert my tailights to stop lights also via some circuitry, that way the stop lamp and the tail lights will illuminate when the brakes are applied.........Thanx Fred

You better believe it they do, the highways, and my road, and most country roads, that are school bus routes are well plowed. The City Of Selkirk streets are done well, but Winnipeg is an icy slick nightmare except for the main drags.....Fred

Hi all, just went for a 2 mile ride down my road, it is around 0 to -4 f in my locale today, sunny and no wind. The car ran great, heat not bad either, consdiering I have no interior in the car, no inulation or cloth except for the front seat. The car ran nice, rode nice, I could have easily went for a longer riode, but there is no salt on my road, but here is salt on the highways, plus I am in winter storage insurance right now, so, I could not venture too far, just down to one of the neighbours and back. I have not driven on the road since about November 1st, I reall miss not driving the Coupe at least once per week, and sometimes daily in summer......Fred

Lookin good there Fireball, typicial area for rust the lower body under the back window. Water,dirt, salt can accumulate in there and causes rust through over time. I would make sure you have drainage holes at the bottom so moisture will not collect inthere anymore, and don't forget to seal any weld joints etc, on the underside of your repairs, sealed both sides, makes it more water/moisutre resistant.....................Fred

Ed, bought the new insert at Canadian Tire today, NAPA in my area didn't have any. Infact they had all type of inserts,sockets, they even had sockets that ould mount sideways in the park light housings, I may change those too. It works fine, though only problem was the wrie is only about 16 to 18 g, not 14 as it should be. This should be okay for 1 bulb I would imagine?

Not true Ed, Don and Ed, okay Normscoupe too, eat beans, America needs the gas, good to run the furnace with up north in the states, saves on the natural type gas, hey wait a minute this is the natrual stuff, for more xotic southwestern gas, eat refried beans, then do a gastank leak test with his gas, careful with the cheap cigars though.

Hi all, I pulled the car out of the garage the other night, I noticed my tail lights went dim a few times, then I noticed my license plate lamp going off and on, sure enough, it was shorting at the bulb socket somehwere. I just pulled this off the car, and had a look at the wire and socket on the bench, pulled the old bradied insulation back, discovered the single 14 g wire insulation all cracked up, at the base of the bulb socket it was clean worn off to bare wire. No wonder this was shorting, one of the only items I did not rewire, I did run a new wire to it, but joined the new wire to the wire from the bulb socket. This was a problem waiting to happen, will replace with new wire, should I buy a new socket piece, or just solder new wire to pin on socket base....Fred

Hi Frankie, never thought of this before, is this correctable? I have though of going the LED route, but so far my regular bulbs are quite bright, new wires, good connections and grounds , make that possible with a 6 volt system.......Fred

Although I have not had a face to face meeting with any of yall, I have had a lot of phone talk with a few of you, as well as email converstions with a few of you too. I often feel like the long distance relative to the big family, now I know there are others that live a lot further from the USA than me, I am relatively close, 70 miles from my front door to the US border, but not many of you are living in Northern ND or Minn. I would love to meet some of you guys, in fact this year I hope to get to some event where I can meet possibly a member or 2. At this point in my lfe, there are a couple of obstacles, 1) cash to travel just for car events, 2) raisiing kids, 3) my Wife is not a fan of my old car hobby. But the plus is this, I get a lot of time of, so maybe I will be able to get myself out to meet some of you guys this year at some event. The closest regulars to me are Young Ed (Minneapolis), Normscoupe (Milwaukee), Pat S. (Calgary Ab). How about we organize a big Internaitonal P15 D24 Meet, somewhere in the US, say in a few years, maybe we can get a real crowd from this forum.......Fred PS partial to Las Vegas

At 70 MPH your current set-up minus the T5 trans, say using a regular 3 spd without OD trans at 70 mph your Tach would be spinning at 2973 rpm. At 2200 rpm, 3.54 diff, 28 inch tire, and 3 spd trans no OD, you would be cruising at approximately 52 mph. At 2200 rpm your engine would cruise beautifully all day long, at 2973, it would be running quite a bit harder, may be tougher on the engine thats for sure. Probably why for the most part, these cars were driven in the 50 to 60 mph range during there hayday, most P-15s might have had a 3.73 or even a 3.9 or worse 4.11, the RPMs screaming down the road at 65 mph

Ed, whats it sound like doing 65 mph on the 694 or I 94. Hey 2 guys from work drove down to Minneapolis on Friday night, left Winnipeg at 3:00 in the morning, cars in the ditch everywhere along 1 29, but there Crazed Football fans. I have essentially the same set-up as you in my 47 Chrsyler Coupe, flattie, 3spd standard, dry clutch and a 3.73 rear end, my tires are P205 75 15s. But you know Ed, I feel uncomfortable going over 55 mph, as my engine has miles and the rpms are getting up there over 55 mph, mind you my car is around 3400 lbs, your Plymouth is around 3000lbs, that might make a difference too.............Fred

Hi all, thanx for the replies to this ??. I always though these engines would be good to about 100 k, this old guy I was talking to must have meant 60 k before maybe a ring/valve job would need to be done. The low gearing on these vehicles, would also no doubt help determine longevity of these engines. Along with operating conditions, dusty roads, oil that is of lower quality, etc. I also have a supervisor where I work, he has about a 10 yo Honda Civic with over 300000 miles on it, this guy is from Beaumont, California , and has made a lot of trips back home in this car, as well he lives about 30 miles from work. I have no idea how many miles I have on my engine, it has great oil pressure 45 at an idle, and 55 on the highway, compression is 100 to 110 psi, no knocks, does not seem to burn oil, but does leak a lot of oil, still need to fix that sometime in the near future. Here is a pic of inside the valve chambers on my engine last spring when I repaired the heatriser on the manifolds, it was pretty darn clean in there and no sludge........................Fred

Hi all, on my way home from work last night, stopped at a small country gas station on my route. The owner (about 65 to 70 YO), was there we have talked about flathead 6s a lot of times before, he has used them for racing cars back in the 50s and early 60s, for farm and industrial uses, he seems to know these engines well. I asked him how long these engines might expect to last if they are well maintained. and not abused, Now his answer was this about 500000 miles, is this possible? I also asked him how the flatties would start in the cold weather we were having last night about -20f, he said they would start fine if the oil pans were warmed up. He also mentioned that they would have metal tubes welded on the oil pans to allow tiger troches to be inserted to heat up oil pans, this was used for northern construction sites and such. The flat head engines were sure versatile and reliable tough engines, but 500000 miles sounds like a lot.Anybody have any ideas on this?

Brendan, have seen this pic on ol skool rodz, mine is believe it or not better looking, but boy they look a lot alike.............LOL

Some Epoxy primers and some 2 k urethane primer s are definately tintable. Contact your local Autobody Jobber.

Hey Bob, no fair, your only about a 1000 miles straight south of here, would yall like a blanket of snow from the north for New Years...........Fred

How about some pics for us Northern boys, like to see what it looks like in the Boro on January 1st. How is the weather there today, I was snow blowing the driveway earlier, it was about 5 with a strong north wind, I was thinking to myself, most of you guys on here wouldn't be too partial to this weather..........Happy New Year BTW

Thats right Dennis, up here in Canada if you owe the revenuers money, and you continue not paying they will freeze your bank accounts, garnishee wages, and jail you if this is a high dollar amount or goes on too long. Now they want you good law abiding citizens of California to wait, thats okay cuz they can do it, they outta pay you folks in that State interest or give you future tax breaks in leiu of there lack of funds. My counterparts in your State the California Dept of Corrections Officers, I have heard they could roll back there wages, according to a clause in there contract according to Governor Swartzengger, he could also cut back there pensions, which if I am not mistaken is 3% a year or full retirement at 25 years service, we have a 2% per year pension here for federal COs, we have been trying for years to get 2.33% or a 30 year full pension, but so far no such luck. Federal COs, and the RCMP, in Canada, can expect only about 1% wage increase per year for a while, although it's better than a roll back or lay-off, it still sucks when everything around you is going up in price...................Fred

Shel, we had snow here overnight, left work to find highways covered in snow, they have done all major routes by 2:00PM today, but it was one of those type of snowfalls that is border line, just enough to make driving lousy, about 2 to 3 inches or so. On the ride to work last night, the highways were in such great shape I passed a car doing about 75 mph, without a concern, this morning same highway doing 40 to 45 mph, and 35 mph at times. Canada is also going through a tough economic time, not as bad as the USA, but we will be feeling it here also. I have a very stable Federal Government job, in the filed of Justice, so I have little concern. But a lot of folks in the private sector are not so fortunate here. Manitoba is a bit of a have not province, it's got a small population base about 1.2 million people, where 75% of that lives in the Capital region of Winnipeg, we were a leader in economic growth the last few years, at about 3 to 4 %. This morning on the radio, our Premier ( Governor), stated there would be 0 economic growth for the coming year, but major dollar projects like the Winnipeg City Floodway expansion project (1 billion dollars) will be completed. It protects the capital region, it has the capacity to now protect against floods that could occur 1 in 700 years. Thast what Fargo and Grand Forks ND could use as they are on the same water shed as us. I will not be using any credit to continue working on 47, will only use extra cash when available, which means it ain't too available, might have to drive it in primer with blankets on the seats for a couple more years, not going into credit card debt for my collector car. I have done enough of that already..............The market will recover, but not without casualities and costs in it's wake.......Fred

All the Best to my friends on this forum, Happy New Year........

Joe, then use Evercoats Gold for your filling, for glazing use Evercoats 2 part polyester putty, followed by PPG K36, block to perfection, paint, smile and have a Beer........

If you are using Evercoat Rage gold or Extreme, you might not even need much, if any glaze. I would do all your intial filler work with the cheaper fillers, then do the las coat or skim coats with the expensive filler, a lot of pros do it that way, cheaper stuff on the building and shaping, expensive stuff fo the fine tuning. The cheap stuff is generally not inferior, just coarser, and more prone to scratching, thats why you go over this stuff with a premium filler to finish the patch. I would use Evercoats 2 part glaze putty, but beware this stuff apparently cures hard so maybe keep it to the fine finishing.Or you might be able to use the pourable polyester putty and mix it into you filler, to create a very fine flowable putty. A lot of guys use the Evercoat Gold Or Extreme as a finish putty. I also just bought some Bondo Brand 2 part polyester glaze/putty will let you know how it works, I also have on hand Evercoat gold filler, these should be fine, a few coats of high build urethane primer will make a difference too, PPG K36 is a good product for high build priming....................Fred