Art Bailey

Can't wait to see the video! I'm half glad I don't have to rebuild my engine, and half wish I had to ?. You must be feeling pretty darned proud of yourself...

That starter is a heavy sucker! I misjudged just how heavy it was when I pulled the last bolt, about to drop it on my face. I had a few quiet moments of reflection there under the car, thinking to myself, "Well, how could we have done things differently, Art?"

Hey Marc! I just did this job, and the only thing I had to remove was the bell housing support. Here's a pic of the bottom bolt location--clutch linkage shouldn't be in the way. I was able to do it (if I remember correctly) with an open end...slowly. Chasing the threads first helped. I supported it on a floor jack...I've been slacking on my dumbbell presses, couldn't heft it up into place.

I have a feeling I'm not getting enough clamping pressure or seal around the perimeter of the diaphragm, and that's where it's leaking. The glop I put on was pretty impermeable looking.

I picked up one of these, because it was cheap and looked close: https://www.ebay.com/itm/380474489530 I opened up my original vac advance, tried sealing the diaphragm with a shmear of gasoline resistant gasket compound, then put it back together using JB Weld. It was a failure. I haven't pursued the new vac advance further, but my plan is to either rivet the old arm onto the new unit, or crack open the new unit, and put the new diaphragm in the old body. The new one doesn't allow you to adjust the tension on the diaphragm, as the old one does. The frustrating part is that the old diaphragm is made of tough cloth of some sort, impregnated with rubber. If you could figure out the right glop to smear on it, you could probably reseal it---there were no tears in the diaphragm, the rubber had simply degraded and become porous. Yes, I know this is a colossal waste of time. This is my idea of fun. In the meantime, I have one from Bernbaum that is NOS and just as leaky as the old one.

I'm super impressed with the Sisson--my car has plenty of bugs still to be worked out, but it starts dependably, even in near freezing temps. It likes one pump of the gas pedal, and fires right up after 1.5-2 seconds of starter. I don't feel the need for a manual choke.

Yep, you nailed the symptoms. In spite of it, the engine starts right up, even in cold weather, and smooths out as it heats up, but it's definitely not right. Should be an easy fix, with a big payoff...my favorite kind of problem.

Great write-up on the EV-1! Simple and yet they're tricky little suckers, for sure---I rebuilt mine at least 4 times in 2 months, not quite getting it right each time until the end. I have parts from three of these things that went into making one functional carb, and I noticed that on all of them, the throttle shaft holes in the base are all worn, causing a vacuum leak around the throttle shaft. When I squirt water at the throttle shaft, it sucks it in, sounding like a kid with a straw at the end of an ice cream soda. I don't know enough about vacuum leaks to say if this is causing enough of a problem to contribute to my engine's rough Idle, and difficulties in tuning the carb, but I'm definitely going to ream out the holes, press in some correctly sized bushings, and see if it helps. Seeing this problem on three separate bases make me think this is an inevitable problem on all 70+ year old B+B carbs, so you may want to check into it, if you find yourself chasing gremlins. Looking forward to road stories from the race!

Here's a question: did Mopar paint the rims only one color, or did they paint them to match the color of the car? My DeSoto rims got squirted all over with the body color, when the P.O. did a sketchy dust-in, so I don't know what's going on underneath. The guy with the paint gun even managed to get it on the tires themselves.

Sorry to glom onto your post, Bryan. Thanks Loren, Bryan, and Dodgeb4ya for pics and important info that was not in any of my repair lit, much appreciated. I'll bet the reason mine is crooked is that during engine "rebuild", some jackalope pried at 90 deg., ripped the rubber, then gave up. Here's where I'm planning to send my balancer for rebuild: http://www.hbrepair.com/ There's also these guys: https://www.damperdoctor.com/ No first hand experience with either. -Art

Huh...so, the balancer is held on with the six bolts, not the crankshaft nut?

Watching this with interest--- pretty sure I have to send mine off for rebuild, somehow it's sitting on there crooked. I've read Mopar used two different sized nuts on the crankshaft, so if you're like me and don't have huge honkin' sockets laying around and have to buy one, measure first.

Both of the companies I linked to sent me samples of the napped cotton, which looks just like the fuzzy headliner material. One was better than the other, to my eyes, but I can't remember which, and the samples are hidden away somewhere.

Looks close to me, but according to my wife, I'm color blind. And, who knows, maybe DeSoto gave us more than one choice for headliner colors? It'd be interesting if someone came up with some sales literature. The big difference between the sample and the original is that the original is a "napped" cotton or wool, fuzzy like a wool blanket. I had done a little research sometime back, and got some samples from these two places. You might check them out, no idea how good they are... https://wlsheadliners.com/ https://www.automotiveinteriors.com/napped-cloth-headliner-material-1-yard-p/hl-nap-1.htm

OK. I took the close-up of the headliner that was hidden under the window molding, because the entire exposed part turned a cruddy reddish color. As far as I can tell, the non exposed close-up pic is the original color.

Couple three more pics. Driver's door handle. The handle seems to be rubber. Headliner. My cellphone really couldn't capture what it really looks like (the part that was covered by the window molding is what I guess the whole thing originally looked like). My wife, who makes a living from her ability to discern between subtle shades of color, to a degree that I swear she's making it up, says that none of your samples look like the remnant of my headliner. I'd just go with whatever you think looks good, and resign yourself to losing a few Concours points Another hunk of headliner, along with some ancient maggot eggs. Again, the phone couldn't capture the yellows in it (the headliner, not the eggs). Package tray. Package tray close-up. Just noticed you asked for a pic of the whole door panel...I'll get you that tomorrow, and also the trunk mat. Let me know if you need anything else.

I've got what I assume to be the original trunk mat, in great shape. Black rubber, ribbed.

Cool, glad to help. Those samples look nice, I think these late 40s cars really look fantastic in wool pin-striped broadcloth. I've not heard great things about SMS, as far as getting the goods delivered on any kind of a timely basis, but they seem to be the only game in town for 40s interior materials. I'll get those pics in a few days... Also, do you have your kick panels? Mine have the heater vents built into them, and are some really cheap cardboard embossed with a leather pattern, and like the rest of my interior, are pretty nasty. The moths and the mice had a wicked raver in my car ?

It's possible that they were recovered, but I don't think so. The driver's side arm rest is in tatters and looks original (i.e., crusty and gross), and the arm rest is leather (pretty sure it's actually leather, but I could check) underneath. I've noticed in pics I've collected that a lot of folks just yank off the remaining cloth and leave them leather, so maybe your '46 was originally cloth? Unfortunately, the seats were recovered, so I have no way of knowing if the armrests matched the seats. The fake leather is the lower part of the door panel. I'm pretty sure the color was a chocolate brown originally, it doesn't look faded. I wonder if there were many options for interior colors and patterns in those years, or you just got what you got and liked it?

Here's a few photos of the crusty remains of my '48's interior. I'm guessing the seats might have matched either the door handles, or the back seat arm rests? The brown fake leather is some kind of paint impregnated cloth. I can't take a pic of the package tray now, if I don't start loading the van for Thanksgiving, my wife will kill me ?. I can also take a pic of the headliner cloth in a few days.

Seeing this post, I decided to tear into my dimmer switch, which was frozen solid with rust. An hour or so of light taps, WD-40, persuasion, cleaning contacts with a points file, it's good as new. It's such a robust, bombproof thing, I wouldn't hesitate to gamble and pick a crusty one up from ebay or one of the junkyards.

I replaced all of the lines to the oil filter and oil pressure gauge, and also replaced the fittings on my oil filter. Glad I did, it was a serious leaker. I also ran a bead of JB Weld around the seam that's at the bottom of the oil filter canister. No more leaks in any of those areas. The only fitting I wasn't able to source was the lower brass one into the engine. It still leaks the tiniest amount around the bubble flare nut, but I plan to put a blob of Permatex black gasket maker there, that should deal with it. Except for the one going to the oil pressure gauge, if it were me, I'd just cut the lines going to the engine with side cutters, and deal with the fittings on the bench, and hope that the fittings into the engine come out easily.

Thanks for this info, Sniper. It crossed my mind as I was reading about reassembly after repacking the wheel bearings that, geez, you're introducing some play by backing off the castle nut to the next available slot. People in the 40s lived life on the edge with their 3 packs a day, booze and bacon with every meal and loose front ends!

I'd be feeling pretty darn good about myself at this point...spectacular work.

Thanks, guys. Sounds like I have to convince a friend that they want a '48 DeSoto parts car on their property as yard art if I want 12" brakes.