Kilgore47

A few years back I found an old emergency light in a pile ready to be thrown away. I was working at a pipe fab shop at the time. So I rescued it, cleaned it up and put it on a shelf. A few days back a friend's son was looking for a light for his room. Told him I have just the thing. We stripped all the old 6 volt charger, battery and lights out of it and plan to go back with LED lights. Turns out the lights are 6 volt sealed beams. They are GE 4510-1 auto utility bulbs. 4 3/8" diameter. In good shape. I think I can turn these into fog lights for the 47 P15. There are a couple of old antique tractor light housings in my parts bin. I think these can be cleaned up and used for fog lights. Just need to build some brackets.

I've never checked for leaking spark plug gaskets - Great - now I have to worry about that. Maybe not. ? I have a solution for rain water in the spark plug wells on the 47 P15. I try to not drive it in the rain. Everything leaks. Windows, doors, floor, hood. Got most of the oil leaks fixed so now it's time to work on the water leaks. This could take a while. I can fix that - I think

That's not a ball bearing to be removed. It's a plug. That's at the accelerator pump jet. Go to Sniper's link to see how to remove and clean that area. The link in Sniper's response above is a great go by for these carbs. The bent area is part of the spacer. Not sure if it's supposed to be there but I don't think it will be a problem.

I wear disposable rubber gloves when hand packing wheel bearings. Much cleaner. Also keep a roll of paper towels near by.

Your carb looks good. You should probably use a thin wire to clean out all the passages. There could be corrosion left in the small areas. I use small gun cleaning brushes where they will fit. Then use compressed air to remove the remaining dust. I would have thought that you were going to have to soda blast that carb but it looks like vinegar did the trick. Thats a lot of solder on that float. Could have been repaired at one time.

The last time I had the intake and exhaust manifolds off the P15 I blasted and painted them with high heat silver engine paint. It's been a few hundred miles and the exhaust has changed color and smoked a little at first but the paint has stayed on. Be careful with the intake. You don't want to get anything in there that could get into the cylinders and cause scoring. Time will tell if the paint will last. But it couldn't hurt

Yep - Came into a little extra cash and decided to fix the house before I spent it on more cars and parts.

I don't mind getting covered in grease while working on an old car but I just can't get motivated to work on a house. Not my thing. Guess that's why I put it off for too long. Give me an old car to work on and I will drift off to my happy place. For the past few months, I have had contractors working on the house. Replacing rotten wood, painting and re doing one of the bathrooms. Have used this group before and they do good work. But I am tired of having people wondering around here all day every day. It's almost done - another few weeks. What a mess and the yard is a disaster. It will be worth it when it's done. Really looking forward to having my home back when the work is complete. Venting done - - -

I have an Optima 6v battery. It's half the size of a regular battery so these hold downs don't work. I should make a hold down that looks good but I'm using the Road Kill method at present. Zipp ties. Doesn't look good but it keeps the battery in place. I have salvaged a couple of plastic handles from old gas powered lawn equipment that I think I can modify for a hold down. But other projects are more important for now so I'll do that later.

Stupid pizza pothole - It's always in the way

I was going to put this in the shop until I looked it up and found out that it's worth more than I paid for it. I picked this up at a garage sale for five bucks about 30 years back. Very mid century. Turns out it's by a well known artist and worth over a thousand dollars. If you could get someone would pay that for it. Someone will inherit it one day and it will probably end up in another garage sale for five bucks. That other thing in the picture is an antique coat rack. If you have seen the movie "Edward Scissor Hands". There is one just like it on the living room wall of the people that adopted Edward.

My what big cables you have. I have the same set up. Removed the generator and went with a six volt positive ground alternator and that fixed all the charging problems.

Yesterday I drove the P15 to brunch to meet several people I used to work with. One of the guys wanted to drive the car and I was happy to let him do that. After he tried several times to start the car he gave up and we thought it might be flooded. I had my friend get out and I scooted over and the car started right away for me. That's when I realized I was using a combination to start the car. Been doing it so long I didn't notice I was doing it. Choke cable in the correct position, throttle cable in the correct position and tap the foot feed at the correct time while the engine was turning over. When the car is warm it will start by just hitting the starter button but the car had cooled down while we were visiting and needed the combination to start. Brings back memories from my teenage years - I was the only one that could start the 61 Comet when it was cold.

I have driven the car a few miles now with the new pan gasket and that fixed the major oil leak. Turns out the rear main is not leaking. That's a good thing. There was a small puddle under the car after sitting for a couple of days. Put the car up on the end lifts today and that leak is coming from the transmission. Fixing the leaks in the transmission will be next. It's not a big leak so it may be a while until I get around to that. Cat litter works good for small leaks also.

Years back we had an office manager that had a habit of walking up behind someone that had their head down concentrating on a problem and toss a hand full of pennies on their desk. It was funny the first couple of times but people got tired of it and asked him to stop. He didn't. This guy always wore a nice pressed white shirt. One day I found some disappearing ink and put it in a couple of water squirt guns. The next time he did it we chased him down and covered his nice shirt. He got mad at us but after about 30 seconds the color went away. Then I told him the next time he tossed pennies at us that it would be real ink. Never happened again. That's good because I'm not sure I could have been mean enough to use real ink.

WOW the price has gone up in the last couple of years. I remember them asking about 75 dollars. DeSoto and Dodge use the same gauge (42 to 48). The face may be a different color but you can switch that with the gauge you have. I found an entire gauge pod minus the temp gauge for 150 dollars (I needed a speedo also). Also found a NOS fuel gauge for 10 dollars. Bought that one before it went away. And it was really NOS. It took many hours and days of searching to find these deals. Attached is a picture of the DeSoto gauge. Part number 974-636 is on the box.

Yep - that's what we did back then. On the dirt in the back yard. I jealous - you had a floor jack.

There is a video on line showing how to replace the boot without removing the pin. Just type in "ball and trunnion boot replacement" and you will find it. Not easy but it can be done. I destroyed the first one I tried. The other option is to use the leather boot that wraps around. The new rubber boots are not high quality. A couple of months after I installed the new boots they were already cracking. But a year later and they are still holding. Next time I have to fool with this I will have a new drive shaft built with modern U joints.

There is a bulb in the back yard that comes up towards the end of summer. They were here when I bought the place 18 years ago. When these sprout it's an indication that the dog days are over. Doesn't mean it's going to get cool - just means that the hundred degree days should be done for this year. Always look forward to the end of the dog days. The bloom comes up first and then the leaves. They are called Oxblood Lily. The bloom picture is from a couple of years back.

I saw an add for a T shirt the other day and this is what it said on the front of the shirt. IT'S WEIRD BEING THE SAME AGE AS OLD PEOPLE I need one of those!

I used a standard six volt wiring harness from Rebel Wire. Every wire was labeled every six inches with a note telling where the wire went. Came complete with a fuse block and is set up for turn signals. Good phone support. Not original cloth covered wire. It was less than 400 dollars. Install was easy. Just took time to solder all the connections. This was my first time re wiring a car.

The fuel line from the pump to the carb on the P15 has been re routed away from the exhaust manifold. No more vapor lock. And you should consider changing that plastic fuel filter for a metal one. The plastic one can melt and leak.

Here is a simplified diagram of how the ignition system works. And a color coded way to check the distributor for shorts that I put together in an earlier post trying to help someone with a similar problem. Maybe this will help. Orange - This wire is there to ground the body of the dist to the points plate. Check for continuity. Yellow - Check this with the points open. The wire from the coil to the points, the copper strap from the condenser to the points and the points should not be grounded to the body of the dist. The copper strap should be insulated so it will not touch the dist body. This could be done with heat shrink tubing. Purple - There is an insulating bushing here to insulate the points from the body of the dist when the points are open. Red - This is the wire from the coil to the points. It appears to be there but it is stuffed down in there somewhere. Reroute or replace this wire so that it does not ground to the body of the dist. Blue - This is where the wire from the coil connects to the dist. Check this through connection to make sure it does not ground to the body of the dist. You may consider replacing this wire also. It looks a little worn. Green - This area looks a little tattered. When you reassemble the dist I'm sure it will look and function better.

My car used to do the same thing. I would have to use the choke after a short cool down or it would stumble. After I adjusted the valves the problem was solved. I replaced the intake manifold at the same time so it could have been a leak on the intake. That is unlikely because I had replaced the gasket on the original intake a few hundred miles before that. But the car runs great now so it was one of those two things on the P15.

Check the end of your clutch fork rod. It may be worn. I had the same problem of the pedal not returning to the top. One picture below shows the rod and pin with excessive wear. The other picture shows that I was able to weld and repair both the rod and the pin. With the repairs made the clutch pedal returns to the top every time now. Check other areas for wear also.