Loren

Yes those old parking brakes are suspect! They hold real good when you leave they on! ( After a couple of blocks ) On a dark foggy night in San Diego, my 49 started to slow down on a flat road. I gave it full throttle and it did a sudden nose dive. I restarted it and let out the clutch and the engine died again without so much as a wiggle of the car. As I sat there looking at the dashboard trying to figure out what was going on, tendrils of smoke drifted up between me and the dashboard! I opened the car door and leaned down to look under the car and there was a bright orange glow on the ground. Once I released the hand brake I was able to proceed on my way like nothing happened. I knew a guy who washed his old Plymouth for a date, then went in to shower. When he came out the car was gone! He heard a commotion down the street and saw his car upside down in the middle of the intersection. In those days a 1949-54 Plymouth was a "Transportation Car" and you could buy a good one for $150. ( 1964 ) By Monday he was driving a 1953 and it was nicer than his late lamented 1950. Those days are long gone so be real careful with your "Survivor Car".

If you are in Europe you might be familiar with the old SAAB freewheeling. The B-W R10-G1 has a sprag clutch which works just like the SAAB freewheel, in fact if you took one apart you'd see the familiar rollers. As in the SAAB you can let off the gas and down shift. You can up shift by allowing the engine rpm to drop below a certain threshold. Remember that any speed above 27 mph, when you take your foot off the gas the transmission will try to shift into Overdrive. One thing to remember as with the SAAB you can not park the car in gear and expect it to hold it from rolling. You have to lock the Overdrive in direct drive and set the parking brake. Some folks carry wheel chocks, which is the smart way to go. The old MoPar parking brakes are usually not in the best of shape and they will fail at a most inopportune time.

Vintagepowerwagons.com has dip sticks and the tube they go into all brand new. The tube just pulls out.

The way the shifter works inside is the shift forks on the rails have the detents. The levers on the outside do not, so they kind of flop around. While you have the linkage off, check the shaft lever. If it moves tight up and down then the bushing at the steering column needs some lube. It’s made of a kind of webbing ( cotton maybe ) so go easy on it. You can take the two screws out of column and pull the lever away from the column a little to double check and lube it. A shot of PB Blaster will limber it up.

Wow! You do drive your car a little hard! The governor enables shifting into O.D. at approx 27 mph. With a 3.73 axle ratio it takes some practice and determination to shift into 2nd O.D. 1st O.D. Is theoretically possible but the engine doesn’t have enough useful rpm left to trigger the governor. Seems to me your governor might be out of adjustment. If you are working with a 4.1 final drive I would be changing that right away! Although the mid year 1952s were spec’d with 4.3s. I have several 3.9s I would donate for the shipping. It would be a small improvement but worth the effort. As a rule cruise speed would be determined by 80% of peak horse power which is 3,600 rpm, thus 2,880 rpm. If you’re wringing more than that from it you’re off the power curve needlessly because the engine’s pulling power drops off.

For my 49 Bus Coupe I have acquired a 230 engine with an aluminum head and a two single barrel Thickstun manifold with a set of Red's tube headers. So I expect some additional H.P. The newly rebuilt R10 I put together has the 1940 gear set. With some extra power under the hood I feel the engine can handle a 3.54 gear ratio, which I have on hand. Remember a flathead Plymouth was good for a 22 sec 1/4 mile, so don't be expecting to out run too many modern cars. They will cruise nicely as described above at 65/70 all day, however. 2500 pounds sterling is rather steep even for the other side of the pond! Which is about $3,175 in U.S. dollars!! I don't know what shipping and duties are but you could probably get a really good one from someone in the U.S. for a good deal less. I've been collecting them and I like to pay around $250 for a used one of unknown shape.

My first choice always would be a Plymouth R10 G1 Overdrive. I feel the stock rear axle is a good design with standard off the shelf Timkin Tapered Roller bearings. However finding 3.73 or 3.54 ring and pinions new is difficult. Finding a 3.54 carrier from say a 55 or 56 DeSoto or Dodge V8 with automatic is much easier. Back to the Overdrive All the gearbox parts are the same as a 3 speed, except for the Overdrive parts and they are nearly all the same as the 11 other makes of cars that used the B-W R10. So parts are not that hard to find and while a R10-G1 ( the MoPar version ) might be priced pretty high others are much cheaper and you can harvest them for parts. So taking an Overdrive and rebuilding it is not out of the question. On the road the Overdrive transmission performs just like the 3 speed you already have, except when you get up to cruising speed it automatically shifts into another gear dropping engine rpm by 30%. A 55 mph car suddenly becomes a 70 mph car with no performance loss in the lower gears. If you change rear axle gears to get higher hiway speeds you will lose acceleration. It’s that extra gear that makes it worth the effort. It should also be mentioned that if you’d like a closer ratio transmission you can install a 1940 second gear and cluster gear to raise second gear. Since the 3 speed Overdrive transmission is a Plymouth, it will fit with no modification. I’ve done it.

Kencombs is right about the design. As far as keyed tapered axles are concerned, you do know they were used on midgets, Indy cars and are still used for land speed record cars. Yes you need a good Hub Puller and the knowledge of how to use one properly ( there is a technique for keys even with pullers ). For some of us one more tool is the charm of the thing! As some of us know there is a recurrent thread "Show us your tools". What I don't get is why anyone would swap to the axles that are most commonly used. Those have the differential carrier built integrally. Meaning if you want to do any repair work or change ratios, you either pull the complete axle or you work on it under the car. No thanks! At least with the stock axle you can pull the third member and repair it on the bench or change it for one with the ratio you want. As far as U-Joints and drive shafts go, if you don't like the stock one, change it. You don't have to change the whole axle to get Spicer U-Joints! Other MoPar cars of 40s & 50s had them AND they used the same axle. There's driveline shops everywhere that will be happy to make you anything you want. The other objection is the brakes. Another tool for your toolbox. I have seen home made tools and cheapie tools available, so I don't think that argument holds much water. The real challenge is to understanding how to make the Lockheed brakes work properly and then do it. If you can't be bothered then why are you driving an Antique Car? Same with the parking brake. The most popular axles for hot rods are the Ford 9 inch ( very strong but has considerable parasitic drag ), the Dana 44 ( integral differential carrier ) and the MoPar 8 3/4. The MoPar axle is strong has lots of ratios and limited slip differentials. It has a removable third member for easy service and ratio changes. It is the same design as the stock axle but has a 1/2 inch larger ring gear so it is stronger for the heavy horse power later V8s. "But I want performance!" Guess what? An axle does not make horse power! Engines make horse power. Bigger stronger axles can take away horse power and they do not add it. Considering these factors there's nothing to be gained by changing the rear axle. If you can generate enough power with a flathead to break the stock axle...well I'd like to see that!

No generally they are a resister type. The one you showed is a step up type. You have to mount it in a spot which has no chance of anything combustable touching it because they make a lot of heat. As I recall there's four levels of Windshield Wipers, Vacuum, Vacuum with a dual chamber fuel pump, single speed 6 volt and 2 speed 6 volt electric. The parts book isn't a lot of help. It shows one speed and two speed motors for 1951-52 Plymouth or Dodge and they seem to have two suppliers with variations based on where the car was made. What a mess! I think I'll stay with my vacuum wipers and add a dual chamber fuel pump, that seems to be a whole lot simpler and cheaper. There were electric vacuum pumps back in the day for wipers. The aftermarket pumps today are designed to produce enough vacuum for power brakes so they are over kill and pricey. Another way to supply vacuum would be an alternator driven pump as used on diesels for power brakes. If you are going to change to an alternator anyway that option has merit. The last one I bought came from eBay at a reasonable price.

Yes the push/pull movement is not good. Once fully assembled you can really see just a little movement yields a lot of slop in the steering wheel before there’s any movement in the pitman arm. Going down the road you’d have a real see saw battle to keep the car going straight. So you want it with some preload on the bearings. With the sector removed you should feel a very slight drag on the wheel. Lastly, the sector engagement with the worm should be left at the factory setting. This adjustment can be used to take up wear in the gears BUT and it’s a big but, if you get in tight in the center, it will be really tight on the on the right or left. ( as the worm wears in the center ) Thus I’d leave it alone. You would not want the steering to lock at right or left.

The reason for doing it is the cover won’t slide off the sector. A full turn will do it and it’s easy to put back to the original adjustment. I can’t stress this enough, the sector adjustment will not take the slop out of the steering. It only controls the engagement of the gears. The main culprit is the tapered rolling bearings on the steering shaft. The manual says to grab the steering wheel and see if there’s any movement. If you can feel any it really makes a difference if you can adjust it out. Do that check with the sector out of the box. Tapered rolling bearings seem to like some preload so don’t be shy about taking some shims out. Just make sure the steering doesn’t get heavy without the sector.

I asked about this too. The 49 P17 has a P18 engine number which I am told was normal.

Do a search of the topics, there are a number of posts on steering gear adjustments or send me a PM and I will walk you through it. Most of the time the slop is in the tapered roller bearings, which can be adjusted if they are not too bad. Because the seal is on the bottom the lube runs out over time and things wear. It's real job to remove the steering gear but you can replace the bearings in the car if needed, but even that is not fun.

The 230 Dodge engine was in a car and running when I first saw it. The owner drove it on a 1900 mile trip and had zero problems. I got the engine with the flywheel, the bell housing and the starter he used. The only issue is the number of bolts in the flywheel vs the crankshaft. The shop manual is pretty clear about keeping the bell housing with the engine it was made for. They do tell you how to check it however. The Plymouth 230 engine block is cracked beyond economical repair so I plan on transferring the crank and rods to a 218 engine in my Suburban. This engine has a 4 bolt crankshaft. So I need to drill both the crank and the flywheel.

Before you do anything, check the brake adjustment. If your brakes are out of adjustment you'll have to pump them to get them to work. Get a shop manual if you don't have one and follow the directions.