Art Bailey

Thanks for the kind words, Keith! I'm jealous that you're finding junker parts! If I could've harvested a bunch locally, I would've done that...it's pretty dry around here. Yeah, my kids are going to have a big dumpster party when I'm gone---"...what the hell is this thing? Dad was such a nut..."

I've been eyeing that styIe of hold down, too, wondering if it'd work. The oem hold down seems to have been made out of stamped steel which didn't fare well against battery corrosion, and when you find one on ebay, it's like $75 for a mostly rotted out piece of garbage.

Hey all. While undoing some pretty sketchy repairs on the '48 DeSoto rear axle, I found myself in need of some shims. Someone tried to compensate for a spun bearing by getting rid of all but one shim on one side, and I was afraid I wouldn't have enough to do the job correctly. One single shim on the open market today is about $10. Being the cheap bastid that I am, I set about figuring out how to make my own, and probably spent 4x the amount that would have gotten me the few shims I needed on raw materials. But, I picked up some new skills, dusted off some geometry that was probably taught to me back in HS but I was too busy making eyes at Trish L_______, cut my finger only once, and now I'm swimming in shims and shim sheet stock. Anyhow, first step was to order some shim stock from McMasters-Carr. Got some packages of .007, .010, .012, and .015. A pack of 5 is around 20 bucks, I got two shims to a sheet, so that's about 2 bucks a shim. Or actually, even less than that, considering how much left over shim material there was on each sheet. After cutting out my shim stock into squares, I sandwiched them between two pieces of pine, thusly: Next step was to figure out how to lay out 5 holes on a circle, evenly spaced. I was pretty sure I'd need some of that geometry stuff. This guy explains it well: Next, I traced the shim I had onto paper, and took a lot of measurements with a vernier caliper. At this point, you're probably thinking, "why not just trace it out on paper and use that as a template?" I've done that many times, and the results are never very good, or as good as I'd like. This time, I wanted to see if I could make something that fit pretty close to perfect right away. I also wanted to see if I could bang out 8 or 10 in one shot. So, as you can see in the drawing, I found the center of the big hole, which is pretty close to 3" diameter. Taking lots of other measurements and doing some simple calculations that I won't get into, I found the center of the topmost hole, and the diameter of the larger circle created by the smaller holes that runs through the center of all of them. I could've done all this in a cad program, too, but I don't know how to use one. Baby steps. Next, I had to figure out where exactly to put the other holes. As the guy in the video says, if you know the diameter of your circle, consult the table on pg. 75 of "Machinery's Handbook." I happened to have a copy of "Machinery's Handbook", so I consulted page 75... . 5 holes for a 1" diameter circle is approximately a .588 chord. Multiply that number by the diameter of my particular 5 hole circle, 3.75, and you get 2.205. Set your compass to 2.205, and you should be able to pace off 5 evenly spaced holes. I figured it'd be better to use a piece of shim stock on top of the wood for more accurate layout, so I went ahead and did that. Lacking layout fluid, I scribbled all over it with a sharpie. It might be hard to see, but the Xs on the circle show the exact center of each hole to be drilled. I paced these off with a compass, then center punched each one. To the drill press... Badaboom. Took apart the sandwich, traced the outline of the old shim onto each new shim, snipped with aviator snips. Mine is on the left, the old one on the right. How do they fit? Well, I got sloppy with the drilling. But that said, it only took some minor tweaking of two holes with a round file for each one to fit perfectly. In the past, with the old trace and drill with a hand drill method, I would've made a mess out of everything. Hope this helps someone out.

Cool. I'm pleasantly surprised to have wider rims, which opens up the options for radials on my heap, but on the other hand, I had gone ahead and bought a rim from French Lake to use as a spare, not thinking I had anything other than stock '48 rims on my car, so now I'm stuck with a useless rim. My heirs are going to have a hell of a yard sale, if there's even a market for my junk when I croak. The Kelsey Hayes are a bit better in that they aren't made in two halves, like the stock rim, creating a seam up the center of the rim, which I imagine might leak if used without a liner when going tubeless.

Hey y'all. Took the wheels to the tire shop to have them pry off the crusty 30 year old radials on my '48 DeSoto. I was surprised to not see the DDCP logo or the Mopar part number inside the rim, but "Kelsey Hayes" etched into them. They're 5.5", according to the parts manual, they switched to that size from 4.5 sometime late in production. So, I'm wondering, did these originally come with the car, or are they aftermarket? They have the hubcap clips. Thanks, Art

Oh my goodness, that's a sweet looking ride! I'm not up on all the different models, but I had no idea that Plymouth made a postless (I think that's what that's called) roof style with a wraparound rear window. Congrats on becoming a trained Mopar mechanic...I'm working toward the same goal, slowly.

Hey LeRoy, Yeah, I tore my hair out deciphering incorrect info in my parts book, cross referencing numbers, taking measurements, etc, trying to get the right parts the first time. I'm not out of the woods yet---the spun bearing on the right side wore the axle hub slightly egg shaped, and I think I'm gonna have a problem with the new race. I'm planning to make a shim, and glue it up with LocTite, but I'm nervous about it setting up too quickly, and not allowing me to set the end play. I've used that stuff once on a small bushing and it grabs in a matter of minutes. Fun. I see you went for the +/- .010 end play for our "modern highway speeds", I'm planning to do the same thing. Keep us posted, I'd like to know if you get the clunk resolved

Welp, that was easy. Right tool for the job...where have I heard that before? The mailman delivered the seal driver kit that Sniper recommended (thanks, man). It's niiiice. Precision made, nice finish. Took me a minute to realize that two discs could be stacked... supporting and centering the seal perfectly, like so: Yank out the old one... Gently bash in the new one...never having done this before (correctly, that is) I was overly cautious about when to stop. I used the depth gauge on my vernier caliper to try to figure out when it was most of the way in, but it turns out that the larger disc will be flush with the rim when it's all the way in. Also, the sound changes...you can pretty much tell when you need to stop and you've bottomed out. And finally, you can stick a finger in there and feel when the two edges meet. aaaaand, yer done. Two seals in, less than 45 minutes. I'm now a reformed seal mangler, ready to re-enter society. Thanks everyone, for all the advice! Seriously, I wouldn't have known how to pull this off otherwise. -Art

I don't know about being brave, but I love slogging through a challenge and picking up some new skills. It's also a heck of a lot more fun working on a vehicle I'm not obligated to have back on the road by 7am tomorrow. Shimming it doesn't look like too big a deal. I bought a bunch of shim material from McMaster Carr to make some if necessary. There's some good info right here on this site on the subject. I'm very glad I dug into the job, the right rear bearing was spun, I'm sure it would've been no fun to find that out on a road trip. The mailman just delivered the seal driver to me, it's perfect, really well finished and well made. 60 bucks well spent, and covers every possible size from tiny up to almost 2". I'll post pics when I get them in---I probably won't be able to resist getting them in tonight.

Art Bailey, Rear Axle Seal Manager. The pay's not so good ?

They're suckers for candy corn, too. Mice seem to have regional food preferences...my first apt. in Dorchester Ma., I decimated a family of mice in under an hour with peanut butter, snap, snap, snap. In NYC, peanut butter was a no-go.

Ah crap, I was all fired up to make a tool and prove my worth ? This does cover it, thanks, Sniper...can't pass this up.

Ha! I saw the same thing...I thought it was a '52 Fud rear window grafted onto it.

That's cool! People malign HF, but geez, they really are the go-to place for cheap solutions, and the quality of their tools is not bad at all. Unfortunately, the smallest driver in this set is too large for the seal. I've got plans to fab up something just like this with some random junk around the shop, hopefully after I fulfill all my honey-dos this afternoon. It's really tempting to lay down the 100 bucks just to buy the handle in this set, and save myself the cutting, drilling and tapping, but I think I'm too cheap.

Oldodge41, sure you weren't just looking for an excuse to post a pic of that fine automobile? ? Hate those little buggers. I've got my car on stands right now, and I was poking around at the rockers. Found a soft spot, which was paper thin and gave out quickly, and let down a shower of half munched acorns. They had a rager in there at some point, now I'm going to have to do some bodywork. I found their skeletons when I did the initial clean-out of the car, frozen in heroic poses. Serves 'em right.

Thanks, Merle. I think this might be the kick in the butt to get my lathe up and running, it'd be easy to fab up something that'd do the job. Or, an excuse to make the drive to the metal wholesale place, and pick up a big hunk of round stock. So, it sounds like your big drift is big enough to cover the front area of the seal, from the outside edge to the outside edge where the hole begins, and not under that size (if that makes sense). If that's the case, I have a hunk of 3/4" shaft that might do the trick. I used a drift the first time, but it was maybe 3/8", too small, causing the seal to collapse inward. I'll learn to be a decent mechanic yet ?

Hi- I'm rebuilding the rear axle in my '48 DeSoto, and attempting to install new inner seals. I'm up to two mangled seals. I'm using a piece of black pipe as a driver, as close to the o.d. of the seal as I could find, and I'm using very judiciously applied taps from a hammer. I had better luck on the second try, but I still managed to deform it slightly. I don't want to find out it leaks later, and have to dig it out again. Dodgeb4ya (can't message directly, hope he sees this) posted a pic of a rear seal, installed, in this post: https://p15-d24.com/topic/51665-rear-axle-bearing/ In his pic, it would appear that the cupped side of the seal is facing out, the opposite of what I'd expect. However, it'd seem I'd have a fighting chance of getting the seal to drive in without collapsing if I did it this way, with the lip facing out. My question is, is there any reason I wouldn't want to put the seal in this way? Thinking out loud here, maybe if I shaped a brass drift to a profile like a concave wood gouge, I could be sure I was touching only on the very perimeter of the seal. The original seal, Victor 49143, is much more robust looking, solid on all three sides, and looks like it'd stand up to some taps from a driver. The new seal is pretty flimsy. Unfortunately, I don't have the Miller tool, and not seeing the Miller C-413 on ebay at the moment. Thanks, Art

I rigged a 12v wallwart to provide power to my Sears 12v engine analyzer, did the trick.

I'm very far from having to worry about seatbelts with my project...it's pretty hard to have a collision sitting in my garage, making motor noises. But, I've collected a few articles. Here's Juliano's tech post on installing 3 point front belts in a VW, which would be not far off from dealing with our wimpy B pillars: https://www.julianos.com/Articles.asp?ID=247 Good discussion here, with good tips from Plymouthy Adams: Finally, here's a guy who actually put in 3 point belts in his project, NickPickToo. I can't find a post where he actually talks about it, but there's lots of pics. Back seat belts are attached to the package tray, and he uses bucket seats in front. I agree with the idea that the seat belts are most likely only going to be helpful in a minor crack up--anything major, I'm probably toast. But, my grandfather died from injuries sustained from a pretty minor (by today's standards) collision, a few years after the fact. His chest impacted the steering column, damaging his heart. He was 42. We have a photo of the wreck, it was salvageable, and my mom drove it all through high school. So, that thought, along with a bad collision that my mom, sister and I was in and survived, motivates me to have at least some kind of protection which will include 3 point belts.

Pros...their only two jobs is to stuff acorns in tight spots, and make more rodents.

Sounds good. I did some reading over at the HAMB, another suggestion is to shim it and/or use loctite. It seems that freezing up a bearing is the most likely cause of this...never happened to me with all the junk I've ever owned, but it's seems pretty common.

Hey Folks, During the process of stripping down the rear axle on the '48 DeSoto, to get ready for new brakes, I decided to do some preemptive maintenance, have a look at the bearings, and toss in new oil seals, etc. I got the brake backing plate off, gave the axle on the RH side a tug, and it came clear out, bearings, cup and all with no effort. I’ve never tackled this job before, but I knew that wasn’t supposed to happen. The LH side needed a slide hammer to break the bearing cup loose from its press fit, as it’s supposed to. I did some comparing. Both cups from either side measure identically, about 2.880, close enough, I guess, to the 2.876 listed in the parts book. Measuring the cylinder that the cup presses into on the LH side, I get +/- 2.865. The RH side, however, is +/- 2.910. The cup can be placed in the RH hole easily, no effort, and sits in there really sloppy. So, in the parts book, the cup listed for normal cars measures 2.876. 7 Sed., Limo and Sub. Sed. takes a 2.9385 cup. I’m looking at the drawings in the parts book, it looks as if the axle housing could be pressed into the pumpkin. Is it possible that I have a limo axle housing on the right side, and a normal one on the left? Or, is it possible that the bearing froze up at some point, and the PO kept driving it, wearing the hole out bigger? I guess the main question is, how do I deal with this? Should I get the 7 pass. cup and see if it presses in, or am I shopping for a new rear end, or what? Thanks…

I've got a bunch of posts, with helpful links, on my adventures in starter rebuilding. If you've got the time and inclination, it's worth doing...they're dead simple devices, over-engineered, and I'd imagine it'd take a lot of abuse before one can be completely destroyed. A Hollander book from around the year of your truck's manufacture is indispensable for finding out what parts cross reference.

Wow, Jonathan, that car is an absolute beauty! Living vicariously through your driving experience--I don't have a lot to do on mine to get it roadworthy, but life and responsibilities are unfortunately dragging things out. Regarding locks, I have two single keys. The older one works fine in the ignition and door, the other, only in the ignition, and not well. They appear identical, but they're not. I think whoever did the key cutting was not so good at it. Is your key a newer copy? Maybe the doors never got locked, and the ignition tumblers wore more than the door? It's not difficult to get the lock cylinders apart, and poke around with a micrometer, just don't lose the springs, or mix up the tumblers. I don't know if you have same or similar lock cylinders as my '48 DeSoto, but 1/4 turn to the right locks it, 1/4 to the left unlocks. Also, when the lock cylinders are removed, the square drive part that engages with the locking mechanism needs to be oriented correctly when they're reassembled. Maybe if someone replaced or messed around with the cylinders, they didn't put it back together correctly? I can't remember the details of getting it right, maybe someone else can chime in, but it took me a few tries to get it correct, taking it out, reorienting it and replacing it to get it to lock correctly. I gotta get me one of those visors!

They make cool little GPS locating devices now, but they have a pretty limited range, something like 250 feet. I also wonder how they'd react to being spun while stuck to the inside of a hubcap at highway speeds.