Fluid drive

Hey Tom: It really isn't a good idea to use motor oil in a fluid drive unit. 10 WT non detergent is specified in the M-5 transmission but ATF should be used in the fluid drive unit.

You guys don't miss much! Chrysler engineers found out that the rotor ( actually called gear - rotor as opposed to plain gear ) type pump produced better volume at operating temperature and viscosity than the old gear pump. This happened in the late 30s . When I started working on cars all they had available were gear pumps . I remember the rotor pumps coming out around 1939. Unless this pump is some specially made part he is misrepresenting it.

Oh , did anyone mention exhaust cut outs?

I hadn't thought of most of these good oldies for a while. Fun! Just for fun do any of you know what a flat foot floogie with the floy floy(some called it floy doy ) is ? It hasn't anyhing to do with a car!--Give all of you a clue . It's a person with a problem.

Don: Please do not be mislead by the appearance of the old brake lines , if you do not replace them you are gambling your safety and the safety of anyone that rides with you + your car. Old lines are DANGEROUS! they rust through from the inside out. Not to mention the fact that you cannot get them clean so chances are that you have already contaminated the new DOT 5 with the residue left in them. As the fellows have told you new cylinders should not be pitted. Often they are because the old goop the factory used to assemble them dried up years ago and has drawn moisture. I would contact Mr. Bernbaum anyway and see if he will make good.

Brian: Do you have the backing plates off of both sides? That usually helps. --Make sure you keep the shims separate so the axles are centered against the thrust block as Del said--- If you have a chain large enough to slip over the threaded end of the axle you can screw the nut and waher on over the chain and by jerking the chain they will loosen also.

Houndog: There should be a wire protruding from your wiring loom in the vicinity of the bottom of the steering sector. Usually these had a bullet type end on that wire and on the steering column wire & a bakelite connector was used to plug them both into.Those horns work by actually completing the ground when you push the horn button so the wire you are looking for should be carrying current and if you ground it with the horn( make sure the horn is working ) connected it should sound. So many times those wires were terribly oil soaked and often damaged because they hang so low. It sounds to me like these other fellows like to sound their horns too but their batteries are low> Used to call them W.W.I's back in the '30s.

Don: I greatly appreciate the time and obvious knowledge that you so kindly shared with the rest of us by posting these instructions. I will try this method on the next project I tackle - If I am allowed to live that long! Do you know Gerald Elwood ? He used to woodgrain lots of parts years ago and used to be active in the plymouth and W.P.C. clubs.

Dezeldoc: I would be very careful about just sticking a set of rings in that engine. If the cylinder walls are tapered you are wasting your time. Chrysler used to make oil saver rings for tapered engines but by the time you hone those bores enough to allow the new rings to seat you will have noisy pistons that slap on start up. ALso if the bearings are very worn there will be enough oil spray on the cylinder walls that any kind of a piston ring won't be able to handle all the oil. Take it from an old fool that's made all the mistakes more than once. Better save your money and do it right !

Oh funny!!! I am going to have to send those on. Here's another one. There was a very old man sitting on a curb crying uncontrollably when a new rookie cop walked by. Moved by compassion the young cop sat down next to the old man , put his arm around his shoulder and said,"what's wrong pop" Through the sobs the old man said " I'm 97 years old , have more money than I can ever spend, a 200 room sprawling mansion, servants that take care of my every need , a fleet of limosines, a priate jet and the most beautiful 30 year old blond wife in the world that adores me" Then the cop asked again "well what has you so upset ? " The old man responded " I can't remember where I live"

Terry: I have rebuilt MANY chrysler L head engines both sixes and eights. I would be glad to help you "maximize " your engine. You can email me directly if you wish at armorysam@yahoo.com

I have a complete set of Chrichely adjustable angle blade reamers I have used for most of my life for kingpin, distributor,steering sector,etc bushings. It would be normal for most any machine shop to have a set on hand. The nice thing about these is that you can set these to cut up to the point the last finishing can be done by a hone . Now ...make sure the guys doing the reaming USE A CENTERING GUIDE because both eyes of the spindle MUST be reamed in line. If anyone reams those bushings on a wrist pin hone one at a time he will ruin the job. How far from Wyoming are you?

Where the little streams of alcohol come a'tricklin down the rocks.... Prohibition was repealed about the time I was going to my first year of high school - I remember all the celebrating. Budweiser started using that Clydesdale hitch about then and I believe they started using those horses because of all the hoo rah. Driving teams of draft horses is another one of my passions. There was a painter during prohibition that worked at the chevrolet garage. Every time he would paint a car-I think it was ditzlac in those days- he would dump the little bit in the bottom of his paint gun in a screw on lid jar in the alley. After a while the alcohol would come to the top and he would strain it off and drink it. One of my close relatives put raisins and sugar in a copper boiler, soldered the lid on and ran a length of coiled copper tubing out of the top. He put that on a kerosene three burner stove. Although he tried he couldn't drink those slow drips of alcohol as they came out.The house he lived in was built in about '28 after one of the stills blew up and burned the place down. Then there was my friend's uncle Oliver. He left a brand new '29 chevrolet coupe - first six cylinder chevy they made -had those solid disk wheels on them-got word they were waiting for him at the Iowa border so he left the car along the side of the road in northern Missouri and never went back. Oliver ran his product into town in stoneware jugs with the corks parrafined slid down in the bottom of cream cans filled with milk in the rumbleseat of that chevy coupe. Was a railroad cop ( can't quite remember his name) that hung around one of my relative's businesses. We all knew that he knew we were hiding illegal unstamped booze. There was wainscoating on the back porch of that building and we fixed it so you could pull up one board and hide a bottle. Well one day we decided to chance it and give him a drink. After that we never had to worry about the bums bustin up the place or breakin in because that cop watched after it like it was his own. Thank you for allowing an old soul to reminisce !!!!

Lakota ! Thank you for being so perceptive. I didn't think anyone would know who Lydia was. (Let alone Julius Marx! ) Evan

Many of the mid '30s cars were made from the firewall back by Budd body company. Their logo was their name with an arrow through it. Chrysler made everything from the firewall forward. Chrysler couldn't afford a die that would form a solid steel top until '37. That die was in use until the early '50s. They just kept modifying it as models changed . Had to house it on the ground level of the factory it was so heavy. Back when the airflow came out in '34 they didn't test the dies while running production . When they fired everything up heat changed the shape of the panels so much they had to use a huge amount of lead in those early airflows just to cover up the mismatch. Many of the wheels on our cars were made by the Motor Wheel Corp too. If they are still around I'll bet they ship their products in from China.

Please be careful !!! If you have them sleeved with brass you cannot use silicone /D.O.T.5 fluid because brass and silicone are not compatable. I just bought an extra pair of fronts for my '36 from George Taylor down in Pasadena Texas. Give him a try he may have some for you. He is really a helpful and reasonable guy. His email is ; tex1gt@sbcglobal.net Evan P.S. I have some other sources if George can't help you.

So many of these pictures make me homesick - like the one of Lakota's parents in '37 . How come no one has a button down bill wool cap on? Everyone wore those when I was young from the service men on the lines in the Chrysler factory to paperboys on the street corners and when you don a fedora hat PLEASE turn the brim down over one eye! Back in the 30's if you were seen wearing a fedora like some of you boys here everyone would have thought you were a banker. As I remember those zuit suits came in on a very limited basis mainly in the 40's . Guys on street corners that used to whistle at the gals walking by and were called wolves wore those things mostly - like the old Bugs Bunny cartoon. Everyone wanted a sharp crease in their dress trousers back then so we used to put them in between two boards under the mattress at night. I miss the gals looks from the '30s. Jeannie Harlow killed herself in '37( I think she was maried to William Powell then) and an even better lookin gal Thelma Todd died around 1935. If you admired a woman then you didn't have to worry about tatoos ( except for Lydia the tatooed lady!) and metal piercings. My theory is that these big gals with the rings in their noses have them there to keep them from rooting up the yard.

There were some interesting comments about steaming up windows ! Makes you wonder if anyone is exaggerating? No one told you that the way to see if your heater core is restricted is simply to feel the hose going in and the hose going back to the engine. If the out flow hose is hot the heater core is clear. In the days when I serviced cars (And F.D.R. was president but I voted for Alf Landon in'36) we had an accessory called a "winterfront" that attached to the grille and cut down on the airflow throught the radiator. All you had to do was watch the radimeter and open the doors in the winterfront if the engine threatened to overheat. Still a good idea to stick a piece of cardboard in front of the radiator or grille to keep that engine temperature up - cold engines do not run very efficiently.

DOn: The factory part # for the aluminum head is 868456, cast iron is 859224 for 1941 -1942 plymouth. That same head will of course fit 1935-'59 dodge and plymouth engines. As I had mentioned earlier different cap screws and /or studs must be used but, after I started to use my dusty & cobweb covered memory, they used a different gasket too. As I am sure you know the expansion rate of aluminum is much greater than iron too. The old service manuals always instructed us to check torque after they cooled completely off. I think the iron heads ran from 6.25 to 1 up to 6.7 to 1 and the aluminum heads were 7 to 1. The old aluminum heads that were available for the '34 plymouth I used to drive used spark plugs with a greater thread lenght as well because the shorter length threads on the plugs for iron heads stripped out the threads in the aluminum heads. I remember hearing about a Chrysler dealer in the Detroit area in about '33 who sold a new chrysler to a wealthy guy . Seems this new Chrysler owner liked to race his new straight 8 against the local "hot"cars which were Franklins then. He was really showing those Franklins his exhaust but when the dealer found out he hadn't properly run in the new engine he talked the man into driving the car up to the factory where either Fred Zeder's or Owen Skelton's men ( don't quote me ! it's been too long!) had the engineering dept. install an aluminum head and supertune the engine. Then they put the car on the dynamometer and ran it in before they would let the customer have it back - all free of charge in those days. Once again those aluminum heads were available as a special order option.

Flatie: Yes Chrysler used an aluminum head option on almost of their vehicles including the straight 8's. It was a higher compression "red head" .. Be careful if you decide to use one of those because they require different studs or capscrews than the cast iron heads. Yes the use of a smaller displacement head like the 201.3 on a 230 will raise the compression. Don't forget to use some copper plus sealant when you are repalcing that head! Evan

Mike or any one else!) Please email me at ; armorysam@yahoo.com

Bighammer: I have owned several '36 plymouths and still drive my touring sedan all the time. What type of DOT fluid did you use? If you did use a NOS cylinder it may be as the others have said, they need to be stripped and cleaned and have new cups installed in them . I've made the same mistake in the past and found out that the old storage goop they used to put in the NOS brake parts had dried out and actually drawn moisture causing pitting in the cylinder. I use DOT 5 or silicone fluid in all of the restorations I do. Contrary to popular wisdom silicone is a vastly superior fluid IF you completely remove ANY trace of the old alcohol based fluids from the system. That means you must replace the brake lines - not doing so is blatantly stupid anyway-and boil out the remaining components that are used. Wiping out the old cylinders or even wahing them out with alcohol will not remove all traces of the original contamination from the old fluid which actually penetrates the pores in the cast iron . I have done many brake rebuilds on a large variety of cars over a period in excess of 30 years( silicone fluid came out in the 70's) using dot5 fluid and had great success. Never a complaint from anyone about brake problems. Please let me know if there's anything I can help you with on your '36 they are my specialty! Evan

As some of the contributors have said the plunger and spring do regulate the pressure to a degree. They are there to provide an additional passage back to the oil pan for oil while the engine is cold and the oil is viscos. As the oil warms the spring closes the passage by means of the plunger to whatever degree is necessary to maintain more constant pressure. ( 8 cylinder L heads usually have an adjustable by pass )There are some other factors, however. The L head Chrysler engines circulate oil from the galleys thru the cam bearings and to the mains. As the cam bearings wear oil pressure drops as it will with a worn oil pump. A common practice we used to use to temporarily alleviate low pressure because of worn cam bearings was tto install restrictors or "Thextons" as one manufacturer was named. These go in the galley plugs in the left side of the block and shunt the oil flow to the cam bearings. Cams do not need much pressure as they are more than adequately supplied by splash and the resulting increse in oil to the mains would help for a while. Usually if the bearings are too worn you will wind up with so much spray on the cylinder walls that the rings can't handle it. If any of you have the old gear type oil pumps replace them with a rotor pump. The rotor pumps supply a more consistent volume of oil at higher temperatures.

Remember guys that if any turning has been done on those drums the test drum you cut away and the ones on the car must match.

Ed: I'll try and get some pictures of the Miller set up for you. Evan