Californian

I was helping a friend recently and we had a similar problem with the R/R wheel locking up we checked everthing and even after the wheel cyl. rbuild it still did it, we were in the master cylinder and i new something was wrong when the fluid did not spurt back in the M/C from the vent hole after the brakes were applied, my friend ending up taking it to someone else and they determined the M/C piston cup was in backwards and was not allowing the M/C to vent hence the brakes locking up and the brake pedal getting harder.It would release after the car set... I had this happen years ago with My Harley with juice rear drum brakes and i had put a master cylinder on that had a rubber piston cup for Dot -3 not dot5 i put in there, and the cup expanded and a little piece of rubber got cut off and went in the brake 3/16 hard line and got stuck and the brakes would lock up, I carried a wrench with me to release the fluid pressure , then i took it apart and blew the brake line out with compresd air and out came the rubber from the m/c piston cup I went back to dot 3... Tom (12)

A miilion years ago I had a 48 Plymouth Deluxe and I did not want a radio in that dash, at that time I got turned on to the idea of instaling a Blaupunct Radio because of the 6 or 12 volt and negitive or positive ground...I put the radio in the glove box and the flush mount speakers under the front seat..I did not want an antena showing so I made a bracket that i bolted in under the car to the frame to hold the antena.I ran the antena through a couple insulated clamps so it didn't grpound out......under the seat theres no holes that need to be cut.. Happy motoring, Tom (12)

Just getting back on this headlight door thread...My friends headlight bucket is the one with the slot on the top and the hold down screw at the bottom, He has been able to make some adjustments to the fender molding and the and the top grille bar, I belive he used the mopar clip and some aftermarket clips to mount the fender moulding,he has had this 48 Two Door Sedan for over thirty years and almost every piece of exteior mouldings had to be found.... One thing he needs is a door arm rest and a right side rear arm rest... Tom (12) *********************************************************

Tim, We know there is a left and right, it seems maybe the 46 door is the different one? My friends 48 has a hole for the bottom screw and a catch at the top and... his headlight door has three squares and the headlight bucket has one square at the bottom for indexing the headlight door to the bucket...The doors my friend has are the flat edge and we would like to here more about the rolled edge...If you could check your doors it would be appricated... Thank you all for the info, Tom (12)

My friend has a 48 P15 two door sedan and his head light door is not lineing up with the fender molding and the top grille bar... His headlight door is off by almost 1/2". Does anyone know was there more than one headlight door for the P15's... Tom (12)

Thats great and is what i used to do on a smaller scale, take return postage paid envolopes and put them in one box and what was in these letters in another box and stuff the envlopes with other than their own mailed advertisements, and after a while my junk mail droped real low... Tom (11)

Snap-On makes two different eight sided thread files, you may be able to dress up the spline with the right one. Also in the past I have changed shafts to get a good worm gear, I had aquired an NOS chry shaft & worm gear and pressed the worms off both shafts and put the new one on my P15 shaft. Tom (11)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/austin7nut/5143689225/in/photostream/

This seems to be simular to the Mercury Water Injector I once had on a 48 DeSoto, it had the carburator to manifold gasket with a 1/8" pipe coming out that ya hooked a hose from it to the glass bottle that held the water and it had a needle valve you adjusted and the vacum made that water perculate,still have the bottle somewhere...Nowadaze you dont have to add water in CA the Winter gas has more water in it & less power... Tom (10)

heres the link to the technical page that has a section on heat riser or I think it is in the shop manual.. http://www40.addr.com/~merc583/mopar/framesets/techtipframeset.html

Always liked the stock color of these engines, one sugestion is paint the harmonic balancer black and use white paint or chalk in the timing marks makes them a whole lot easier to read with a timing light... the engine looks great ..... Tom (10)

The kind of switch I have used are the rotory switch whith the red plastic knob with a small insturment light bulb that gets brighter as the switch is turned to the right & the fan speed is increased and they clamp on the lower lip of the dash... Tom (10)

Our family has had Chrysler products since the early fifties, when my dad traded the 47 Nash in on 51 Plymouth two door sedan that took the family to Disney Land from San Francisco the year after it opened .. When I aquired/scored a 47 Plymouth 4 Door Deluxe back around 1969 , A little while later I wrote the Chysler Corp about the availabilty of an owners manual, and they sent me a brand new 46-48 Plymouth owners manual or NOS one if one wants to be P/C, in a manila envlope free of charge...my how things have changed.... It's a dam shame that so little regard to the history of Chrysler Corp is payed by those that have inhareted this great American company! Just think for years stamped/cast many of the parts MoPar produced came with the DPCD symbol somewhere on that part or the part box it came in... Tom (09)

Hey Rodney, Just to add to what Greybeard went through, If you get to the point of rebuilding the steering gear take a look at the worm gear cone faces that the bearings seat on, Its been my experiance that the cone surfaces are often pitted and a new worm gear is needed... The sectors used to be sold after-market.. A lot of these Mopar - Ross & Gamer worms are the same a numer of years for different mobel Mopars and are pressed on to different legnth steering shafts . I know I had a nos worm and shaft tagged for a Chry and pressed the worm off and pressed it on the the shaft for my 48 Ply. Tom (09)

Tom, just a thought, while doing the electrical inspection was the pig tail wire in the distributor loose or frayed? if it is then it can ground out momentarily when the distributor advances either mechanicly or by vacum... The one place I remember a problem in the fuel system was the flex-line between the fuel pump and the steel line from the gas tank., these lines have been known to swell on the inside and restrict the gas flow was what a friend of mines dad said when he had a Ply convert back in the 50's.. The best test to elimanate anything before the carb is with the fuel line pulled at the carb and a hose on the fuel line directeted to a bottle or can and ignition off out in the open air, jump the starter solenoid with a remote starter switch and spin the motor over and you should get some steady spurts of gas right away, if it acumalates fast then you know your good so far... And you mentioned earlier about a clean fuel bowl could some crud got in the carb , pull the carb air-horn off the carb body and check in the float bowl for crud if you still think its fuel related... Have you checked the compression on this engine dry then wet with a few drops of oil? Keep a journal with some of your findings for future referance..or just do like I learned to do was to write the compression readings on the inside of the hood with chalk... Tom (09)

My uncle told me when he drove a Jitney on Mission St. from Daly City into downtown San francisco it was a 7 passenger Plymouth .. The jitneys after WWII were mosly Limos like Dodges, DeSotos, Chryslers , Cadilacs and later when they wore out the Limos they went to Vans and they traveled the same route as Municipal Ry's 14 Mission and were ten cents more than the public transit back in the 60's .I always seen the 7 passenger Plymouths listed in parts books but never seen one ,yes this right hand drive is a rare find for someone..... Tom (09)

TRW used to offer a set of valve springs and retainers that were not like your regular valve spring collar/retainer they had rotators in the thicker collar to keep the valve from seating in the same spot on the seat thus less chance of burning a valve...Has anyone heard of them being made these day since I havent seen a TRW part in years.. Tom (09)

A word of wisdom was passed my way 40 years ago when I did a valve job on a 51 Ply " better to here them, then to smell them" as far as adjustment ,.010 and .012 hot, Sears still sells the long thin tappet wrenches and for the feeler gauges for hot I snipped off the .010 and the .012 feelers and soldered them to some copper tubing to make some extended gauges for the hot adjustment.... Tom (09)

When overhauling a Mopar flathead six , use Brass Freeze Plugs , they used to use them on the Chrysler Marine Engines the Crown & the Ace motors, used to get them at Bocelli Chrysler/Mercury Marine in San Francisco years ago, but you can probbly get them at NAPA or anyplace with a good selection of Doreman products... Tom (09)

Your readings on each cylinder should be at most 10& different, idealy they would all be even at anywhere from 100-120 Lbs across the board... You may want to try a few drops of oil in no.6 & 5 cyl if it comes up its rings if it stays the same its a valve or the head-gasket with 75000 miles on it , original and never apart it may be time for a ring & valve job and check the bearings out with plastigauge... There was a article in an old Popular Science mag,that showed an ilistration of a spark plug where the purcelein was removed and the spark plug was threaded 1/4 pipe to take a male air couppling and with each cylinder at TDC on compression stroke and with the air adapter in the sparkplug hole and compressed air was put to that cylinder and you listen through the oil filler ,the carburator and the tail pipe to locate your leak weather it be valves or rings or cracked piston... But all said and done white smoke is usually steam and as said earlier it could be no 6 cyl head gasket ,now also if it is found to be that, you may want to look at the water distributor tube if you have a rusty cooling system and no 6 being the furthurest out on the line of the tube... Tom (09)

I never had the optima, but I have had an Interstate dry battery in my 89 FLHS for about 5 years and its just starting to show the need for replacement so I am becoming a fan of the dry cell batts for what ever use... I tried using two six volt acid batterys on a 53 Crown Imperial I had in the early 70's and used whip cord cable for battery cables, because it was available, a bad conductor I found out, better to use copper core welding cables. The extra battery after a few months was low on voltage, I always figured because of the whip cord cable with ,several non -copper stranded wire circuits was not a good high amperage conductor and it was to far away from the charging system on the other side of the engine compartment also the specific gravity on the cells started going lower..Kind of like the charging system (Gen & Regulator) will recharge the battery closest to it... I finally opped for the large group two I think it was, they used to come four six volts, two on each battery box on oppiset sides of the Mack tractor's were I worked, I believe they were in sereis then parrelel to make for a 12 volt system... I also found out after rewiring my 37 Ply, if you have new wiring on a stock six volt system , it will perform well in what it was made for.... I found this 37 Plymouth two door sedan at a Skaggs Drug store parking lot in Prarrie Village KS in 1980 just a few days after the fillie Genuine Risk had paid $ 64.00 on the front end at the Kentucky Derby ...I heard the generator start squeling and located a starter & generator rebuilding shop in Kansas City KS and borrowed some tools and had that three brush generator fixed for $15.00 , had new glass put in all the way around and had the title chaged in my name, called JC Tayolor and had it put on my Insurace and started the 6 day crusade to drive that car back to CA..First gear had a few teeth miisuing but all the other gears were good Mt St Hellens had just erupeted and the ash was coming down to the high plains.. The car overheated and I stopped at Salina KS , after having it checked at the radiator shop all was cool and I kept the cars speed down to 45-50 mph , ( I was trying to make Denver in one day) Now somewhere along the way I found Walter P's boyhood home in Ellis KS and took a photo of the 37 in front of the house W.P.C. had lived and a copy was reprinted on the cover of the Silverdome Gazzett , the local Walter P. Chrysler Club that was started by Norm Frey and friends.. Just as I was leaving Grand Junction Colorado , I noticed the destination sign 125 miles to next service and a hitch hiker who road with me to Sacremento.. it was cold that spring , hadn't dressed for the occassion so we stuffed news paper in our jackets and along side of the seats and doors to stop cold air, no heater of course.. It was the first time that I had been on I -70 then US 50 the Lonelieist Highway in America..The views were just spectacular heading west and when you hit the top of a peak I believe it was the Frisco Mts in Utah and look straight ahead and the highway dipped into a canyon and up to the next peak to peak and the distance looked like it was about 10 miles or more and then look to north and see a major storm headed your way, and thats when you know you put all your trust in W.P.C. enginering and this 37 Ply 201 Road King to make the journey.... Once in the S.F. bay area , I stopped into Antique Tony's on West Gertrude in Richmond CA and showed him my recent find ... Talk about wrecking yard ettiqutte, If you lived by Tonys simple rules of closing doors & trunks etc and listen to what he told you before ya went scavageing and have some respect for him and his yard and that type of respect pays off in dividends of long lasting friendship. At that time you coulndn't have found a better friend in the old car racket..Tony always said we would miss him when he was gone and he was right.... The 37 Ply is in a safe place out of the weather waiting for me to have the time to fix the brakes and fuel system in order to make her road worthy again... Tom (09)

Norm ,You hit it ball out of the park when you said, "Regardless if you have a service manual and parts manual for your car, we should never take apart a car, or part of the car without first taking detailed pictures of what we are taking off, before taking it off. That way we won't forget how it goes back together again" With the invention of the PC & Digital Camera and flatbed scanners it has all aidded us and others in the catologing of all important information. Now we have the tools to do what Norm pointed out...When something with a lot of parts is taken apart I clean the parts and lay it out in order and then I take a digital photo thats what I didn't do before digital cameras , back then I just cleaned and layed it out in order...Inspect and put in a box & get the parts needed... Forty years ago when I started this MoPar quest there was always an example car to be found and some things don't change much on these Mopars in a few years, I do remember being at the Chry-Ply dealer looking at the parts book to get that rubber grommet that went in the trans shift linkage on P15's and up and when worn out it made it hard to get into reverse on a hill ... I built motorcycles from aquired parts and it was the parts book and knowledge of others that helped me put things together right....It was back then wheather at a swapmeet or finding a wrecking yard or auto parts house going out of business I scored an orginal Holanders interchange book and Mopar parts books or one that was really great and was free when buying parts from them, was a Mitchell Motors catolog from when they were in Ohio in 1983 or on the M/C side and outfit called Kick-Start that used the Harley Davidson parts, their book had diagrams and pages from a Book called Question and Answers. They all used OEM diagrams in their parts books, bottom line it's all about the right information... The point I make is that a lot of this info is being repoped and if your in it for the long hall its worth geting the info that pertains to what your into....It used to be you could ask the counter person at your parts house if they had last years TRW, Esis, Mcquay Noorris, Champion catologs and when they got new ones they would let you have the old ones...great source for sizing charts for intake & exhaust valves & springs and guides and spark plug heat range charts... Rags ,Vinyl gloves ,cleaning solvent or paint thinner is the same thing and acetone in a spray bottle will save a lot on brake clean and clean up oil or grease spots on the floor with a rag, before brake clean we used to use Carbon Techrachloride (cleaning solvent) to clean oil or grease off the brake linnings.. Those freezer bags mentioned in this thread are great for keeping small parts grouped together... happy wrenchin, Tom (09)

You might look for a machine shop with the Sunnen Expandable Hone and that will allow you to have a wet stone used to size those new king pin bushings to the pins ...I was fortunate enough that the place I worked at the time had one and learned how to use it on king pin rebuilds on their fleet of Dodge trucks... Tom (09)

On diesel exhaust you took that right! No matter what diesels commercial value is, it is still the filthiest thing coming out of a truck or buses exhaust pipe!!! I know first hand after 25 years around diesel tractors and urban transit coaches,the problems that breathing diesel exhaust and woodburning smoke can cause or make worse like asthma for one! The CARB rates diesel exhaust as a cancer causing carcinigen and we don't have spare the air days in Northern CA because breathning wood burning smoke is good for everyone... Try getting out of the cab of what ever diesel cage you have and get on the backside of diesel burning vehicle and take a long hard wiff of that aeromatic diesel exhaust you like to spew!!! Tom (09)

"some of the gadgets from the 40s and 50s are highly prized finds years later" Thank you Norm, that thought remined me of the Mercury Water Vaporizer , I believe it was called and was on a 48 DeSoto when I bought it and I kept it on there cause it looked cool.This water bottle that looked like a large pickle jar and the water in it bubbled up with the engine runnning it had a metal spigot coming out of the carburator gasket that went to the bottle and there was a neddle adjustment on the top of the bottle to trim the water being sucked into the engine to cool the valves or cool the gas mixture.... Tom (09)