Loren

My experience with S10 pickups has colored my opinion of the choices the General has made for me. This I admit. One truck I had to use from time to time had an automatic and this was the worst! During the 55 mph speed limit era this thing could not be driven 55! You went 50 or 60 but not 55. With the song "I can't drive 55!" playing on the radio the frustration level was to the max. It would bog at close to 55 then shoot past when it down shifted. Lifting the throttle and you were back to 50 and the cycle continued to your destination. When offered the use of the company truck, I always declined as it was pure torture. In my Model A, I found the T5 just as frustrating. The catastrophe is compounded with a poorly designed kit which removes the torque tube and depends on the original radius rods to locate the rear axle (something they were never intended to do). The ratios are just terrible and make no sense at all unless you plan on never using certain gears which kind of negates any reason to have a 5 speed and the butchery involved with putting it in. There is a very nice kit available that uses an S10 4x4 transmission with the torque tube....BUT it's still an S10 T5 with its crappy gear ratios. Thank you NO. I will be installing another excellent kit for a 1939 Ford V8 transmission with Lincoln Zephyr gears which will work much better. If I still feel the need for Overdrive that is still an option. There are two one mechanical and one that uses a Studebaker R10 mounted on the torque tube. Now of course one could change the gear ratios to a Mustang or Camaro but doesn't that jack the price up? Then you have to deal with a shifter coming out of the floor. All things considered I think the Mopar 833 looks pretty good by comparison to a T5. I have an R10 in my Coupe and I really really like it! I have a spare I bought which I am going to put a 1940 Plymouth cluster & 2nd gear into. If that works out I'll change the first Overdrive to that gear set for my Suburban. Again my thinking is colored by my experience and your mileage will vary. Life is way too short to put up with stuff that just does not work for you. I always get the best combination for me.....after I've tried everything else! lol

The T5 is a floor shifter. I don't like them. I have one in a Model A and I hate the doggone thing. Most are sourced from Chevy S10 pickups because the shifter location is better and they have a mechanical speedo drive. The General must have been on crack when he choose the gear ratios in that gear box. I am going to replace the T5 in my Model A with a 1939 V8 transmission. Now all I need is a sucker to take the T5 off my hands. In praise of the Overdrive, they use the stock column shifter. In fact on the long wheel base cars an Overdrive is a bolt in. The P17s require shortening the drive shaft 6.25 inches and making an extension for the hand brake cable. That's it except for adding the electrical system, which is easy too.

I have some experience with that particular Toyota differential (except the one I dealt with had a locking differential). Toyota found out that they had undersized the rear axle for the vehicle and uprated them to the next size bigger later on. The failure I repaired were the bearings, everything else looked good. Horrible noise. The dealer did not stock any parts, only complete assemblies because they had no technicians capable of rebuilding one. The beauty of the Mopar axle is the removable differential carrier. It is so easy to pull it out for a ratio change or a rebuild. If my memory serves me it is called a Hotchkiss design after the French car that first used that type. Yes, it is an old idea. In point of fact it has been found that all things (automotive) mechanical had been tried before 1905, including Turbocharging! The only reason manufacturers use the integral design (such as a Dana 44) is that they are cheap. The Ford 9 inch is also called a "Straddle" mount type, referring to the way the pinion is lower than the usual hypoid gear set. The pinion gear kind of straddles the ring gear. They are very strong because of the greater tooth contact BUT because of that they not very efficient. The Mopar 8.25 (such as used in flathead 6 Plymouths) and the later Mopar 8.75 (1957 on) rear axles are hypoid and therefore are more efficient than the Ford 9 inch but not as strong. The 8.25 axle served well into the V8 era so it is plenty strong enough for any flathead 6. At issue are the ratios available. The lowest commonly available is the 3.54 (I believe there is a 3.36 but haven't seen one). It is my opinion that the stock Mopar axle is a very good design well executed. You're not going to get an improvement by changing it. If you want an alternate gear ratio there are several between 3.54 and 4.3. Lower numerical ratios also create a new problem. With each step lower you create a taller mountain for the engine to climb every time you let the clutch out. So your highway engine speed might go down but it will take longer to get there. The stock ratio delivered a quarter mile ET of around 20 seconds so there's precious little room for further degradation. The most elegant solution is an Overdrive which drops the engine rpm 30%. That gives you all the gear ratios you have now plus one more. A T5 gives you one more up and one more down. Instead of three to get to 1 to 1 (high gear) you row through 4, then a fifth gear which is a 28% overdrive ratio. The beef about Overdrives is expense but that is not necessarily true. As an example: a reproduction Overdrive relay is around $129 but a 6 volt modern relay is $5 to 8 and 12 volt relays are half that. NOS throttle switches can be found as low as $29 rather than $129. They should be only $5 to 10 but I am still looking. If a person were to feel the need to change the rear axle for strength reasons, my first choice would be the Mopar 8.75 (1957 and later) rear axle. It has a well earned reputation for strength, lots of ratios and limited slip differentials and the fact that it even looks like the stock axle is a plus. You can even get keyed tapered axles if you want them! lol

I would do an examination of your cap, rotor and wires. If there is a crack or a chip in the cap or rotor, the high voltage will follow it to ground. Dirt will "carbon track" to ground. The center electrode can have crud behind it as well. A bit of modeling clay would tell you if the center electrode actually touches the rotor. The plug wires should have no more the 10,000 ohms resistance. The coil wire where it plugs into the cap or the coil could be bad. WD40 is a good cleaning agent for ignition secondary parts. Finally make certain somebody hasn't miss wired the coil. On a 6 volt positive ground car the point side of the coil is positive and the ignition switch side is negative. Wiring it backwards drops the output of the coil 40%. Back in my misspent youth in San Diego, the first good rain always brought cars in on the hook which needed tune ups. The mechanics would be gleefully singing Queen's "Another one bites the dust!" with the lyrics altered to: "Another one rides the bus! And another one's down, another one's down! Another one rides the bus!" WD40 which was created in San Diego should have been in the trunk of every car because a few squirts would have kept them going. Just sayn'

Years ago when they sold real Italian FIATs in this country the dealer I worked for sold a lot of the 124 Spiders. The truck that brought them in held 9 at a time. When the FIAT guys saw the truck pull up they all ran out to help unload them. The driver always needed help. I overheard one conversation with the truck driver, "How many of them run?" "5 sort of, the rest we pushed on." As each car was assigned to a mechanic for it's pre-delivery inspection (PDI) they were handed 4 NGK spark plugs and a set of bumpers. It seems from the point that the car left the assembly line till it got to the dealership, the choke was never pushed in. Each time the car was moved the choke was full on and no one could tell how many times it had been moved and never fully warmed up. Once the mechanics pulled out the factory Champions and installed the NGKs they ran well indeed. The bumpers....well every one of them were replaced at the dealership because sitting at the port in Italy, then sailing across the Atlantic to Panama, through the canal, then up to Long Beach harbor and sitting there for a while caused them all to turn green. The SAABs however always ran like brand new watches because they were fuel injected and years before so did the carburetor versions. The carburetors had automatic chokes that were reliable. The point I am getting around to is that the automatic choke was a real technologic break through that Chrysler pioneered. A savvy driver may prefer a manual choke but to the average driver an automatic choke has very real benefits. I consider myself "a savvy driver" but I like the fact that when I want to launch on a journey to the market warming the car up is one less thing I have to worry about. The automatic choke on my 49 works very well and my car starts very well because of it and you know what they say: If it works don't fix it. I was talking with a Mopar buddy and I was describing the idea I had for putting two of the electric choke controls on my exhaust manifold for dual carburetors. There's two spaces for them and Plymouth at one time or another used both. He said I only needed to use one choke. That one choke on one carburetor would do the job. Hmm That simplifies dual carburetors a great deal! I'll try it with one first. I've never had a choke cable that I liked so that is one reason I am loathe to use a manual choke. I am not saying you can't have a good one made, because I know you can. I've just never experienced a good one.

Big Diesel engines use them. They work just like by pass oil filters, just filtering a small amount at a time. Some come with additives in the cartridge. They rattle when you shake them. Not a thing wrong with the idea. I would use hard tubing like the diesels do. Less hoses to have leaks in.

My Dad had been going there since before the war. He said lots of guys got killed on the way up there and his Mom really didn't like him going. In those days he said he'd take a Model T up there, set the steering wheel in a gentle circle and crawl into the back seat for a nap. The car would turn circles for hours because there is no self centering in a Model T. You have to turn the steering wheel both directions! I got a driving lesson from the late Tom Beatty (P38 Drop Tank, last seen at the Henry Ford Museum) that I used to great effect and pissed my Dad off good. When the race cars drive over the lake bed at speed, they tear it up and put up a "Roaster Tail" of dust as they go. So all this horse power leaves a layer of dust and marbles on the course. The later you run the greater the amount of loose stuff is under your wheels. The "slippage" can be around 12%! We'd drive the same car on different runs and I would always let him drive first. When I drove I would pull away from the start line and when there was a goodly amount of dust behind me I would move over as close to the cones as I dared. Nobody drove that close so it was like getting the first run of the day and I always went faster than he did. He never did figure out how I "cheated"! The first couple of times he chalked it up to a Tail Wind but after a while he knew I couldn't be that lucky. After that I had to be Cheating. I just told him I knew a shortcut. Which of course is non-sense, so then I told him it was driver technique...which it was.

According to automobile-catalog.com the theoretical top speed was 85 mph. However, a July 1949 Mechanix Illustrated test by Tom McCahill said, "When I was through with the ruff stuff we headed for some open stretches and speed runs. The Chrysler is fast and has a top actual speed of 96.5 mph...." (He was referring to the 1949 model of course but I can't imagine there was much difference and he said as much) "These cars are not radically different from the former Chrysler models in any important way." So who ya gonna believe? You just might have to do an experiment, he he he! In my younger days we'd head to El Mirage Dry Lake for an SCTA meet and get a real honest to goodness Timing Slip from my buddy Julian Doty. Which was much cheaper than a speeding ticket! If you joined a club, paid dues and performed a duty at the Lakes, you'd get a Brass Timing Tag to screw to your dash board! The black enamel ones were just the speed you went and the date you did it. The Red ones indicated you set a record.

Aren't we glad that Chrysler engineering was advanced enough to produce engines like the Plymouth/Dodge 23 inch and the DeSoto/Chrysler 25 inch? Over at Chevrolet they were still using Cast Iron for their pistons! I seem to recall that the first Corvette had cast iron pistons. I heard one story of a Corvette entered in the Mexican Road Race that didn't make it to the first turn before scattering the engine. Ford stopped using cast iron pistons after the Model T, two and a half decades before Chevrolet. In an engine that was designed to turn 3,600 rpm at peak hp, I really don't believe there's much to worry about in the piston dept. We have better motor oil that can serve engines that routinely turn twice the rpm of a flathead Mopar with few problems. The only issue that seems to be troubling for the modern crop of engines are low pressure piston rings. The idea being that low pressure rings lessen the internal friction of the engine thereby improving fuel economy. The problem is they burn oil at a rate of 1 quart every 600 to 800 miles! Older engines don't begin to burn oil like that until they're pretty worn or neglected. The splits in the skirts of old pistons were designed to allow for expansion. As the pistons wore they developed "piston slap" which was a kind of clicking sound as the pistons rocked in the bore. Tool suppliers actually made a tool that used car lots could use to expand the pistons by wedging the slots open with a kind of chisel and an air hammer. The parts manufacturers made "piston expanders" which could be driven into the piston. The best solution seems to have been Knurling the skirt of the piston to take up the loose fit. I would not use pistons with slotted skirts. They are hopelessly antique.

I believe I answered that question at least twice. Replacement pistons are made to factory standards so you could run one piston from every source you can think of until you filled all 6 holes and the engine would never know the difference! Pistons and rings are commodities, especially for 70+ year old Plymouths. Which means there isn't a dimes worth of difference between any brand of standard replacement piston. They are all made to replace the original equipment directly. That being the case, buy the cheapest available: NOS, Government Surplus, or whatever. New Pistons are (and were) available singly which means you can replace just one if you need to, without even knowing what the other 5 were. They would not do that if what I've said weren't true. If there is someone out there who can tell what brand of piston is in an old Plymouth by driving it, I'd like to meet them.

I think the government buys good stuff even if it is the commercially available stuff. NOS stuff is very likely American made and very likely good stuff. They buy NOS stuff at clearance prices, regular stuff at regular wholesale prices and they could be foreign made. Piston rings are like the pistons, they are commodities. Which means there are not a lot of variations even between brands or countries manufacturing them. For the street NOS stuff is plenty good enough and I'd look for it. If you want premium stuff and are willing to pay big bucks for it there are any number of custom manufacturers who would love your business. I'd say have a look at the beautiful pistons and rods offered by Tony Smith. At least one of my treasures is going to get a set. Hold on to your wallet cause they are $2,600+ and worth it! Everybody wants a 230 23" engine because of the torque (or a 265 25") but that longer stroke comes at a price. Piston speed goes up with the longer stroke. Tony's rods & pistons are lighter so the driver will want to rev higher which makes the problem even worse. You will note that he has had the piston skirts coated and lengthened the rods to accommodate the piston speed. (longer rods have a smaller angle of pivot at the piston and therefore less piston rock at the top and bottom. Piston speed is the speed of the piston in the middle of the stroke. Lengthen the stroke and the piston speed goes up) More information than the average person can process I am sure. For the street keep it simple, these cars have been around a long long time because as the ads say "Plymouth builds Great Cars". They aren't over-powered but you can put a lot of happy miles on them.

Silv-O-Lite pistons used to be made in Carson City, NV (just like Mallory Ignition) but they are now made in Mexico. Keith Black is a brand of their's. The KB pistons are a cast type made with an advanced alloy which supposedly approaches the forged alloys for strength. For my money, for a street car I don't think you can do much better than the government surplus pistons from VPW, provided they have your size. Same thing with the rings. As odd as it seems I've seen engine parts made in India that were first rate quality. If you will pay for quality you can get it there. Remember they have the bomb so they are capable of very high standards. I've seen pistons being made and it's not rocket science. The alloys are well known and there isn't enough difference between brands to worry about. Your machine shop is going to hone the bores to fit each piston anyway. In the old days machine shops used to get "semi-finished" pistons then grind them to the size they needed. Which allowed to them "recycle" used ones as well. I had two Van Norman model 101 piston grinders which had a rocking table and a cam master like a camshaft grinder to put the oval "cam ground" shape to the skirt of the piston. I rebuilt one of them for use as a "between centers" grinder when I manufactured turbocharger turbine wheels.

Okay on the sector you are adjusting the engagement of the gears. Too tight and they bind too loose and there’s slop which causes the car to wander. on steering shaft you are adjusting the roller bearing preload. Again too tight and the steering effort is too high too loose and the car really wanders! Seems the bearings are more important than the sector. To get the best fit you do the bearings first with sector out. Then put the sector in and fit it. As I said while you have sector out you can change the seal.

I haven’t had a Plymouth box apart but have done a 1952-54 Ford F 100 Gemmer box. I modified it to fit a model A then totally rebuilt it with all new gears & bearings. When the bearings are new the bottom bearing ring extends beyond the housing a little, that’s how you preload them. You select a number of gaskets (thick and thin) till there is no slop in the bearings and just the slightest drag. To check an existing box you tug on the steering wheel to see if there’s any slop. Next you can drop in the sector and adjust it up and down with the adjustment on top. If you dial it too tight they bind so just less than binding. My steering box is leaking from the lower sector seal, so my procedure will be to pull the pitman arm then take sector out the top with the cover. The seal can be changed and the steering shaft bearing preload checked. drop in the sector and give it a feel and adjust as needed.

Wow! Three posts in a row that taught me something! I agree about the Model A advice. If you don’t pull the cable all you have is neutral. I don’t believe you can harm the O.D. That’s why it’s best to maintain your handbrake, parking in gear won’t keep it from rolling. Back in the 1960s my Dad had a business partner who favored Plymouths (not Howard Hughes unfortunately) and he had just washed his car and went inside to get ready for a date. When he came out the car was gone. About a block away he found it upside down in the middle of an intersection. Note to self always set the hand brake! I have a bunch of those cheap Chinese Bosch knock off relays, so I will try one. The thing I like about them is you can get sockets for them so in the dark you don’t have do wiring by the Braille method. The sockets come with 14 gauge pigtails so you have to change the load two to 10 gauge. I am going to find a source for the throttle switches, thanks for the information!

One has to remember before the war torque wrenches were not that common, so there was no need for torque specs. lol And a few years earlier measurements were given in factions of an inch because micrometers were not common. Between Henry Leland (Cadillac & Lincoln founder) and Henry Ford “Armory Practice” was brought to automobile production as it had been to the firearms industry. They had to for mass production to work. Highly stressed aircraft parts were the only things that needed carefully torqued fasteners. If you go back to the mid 1950s car magazines you will start to see advertisements for torque wrenches, not so much before.

I just got an email which said I needed to refresh my account on this website. Of course it had a button for you to click for your convenience. Never, ever click on a button in a email! This triggers the installation of malware on your device. Just delete it!

I have an Overdrive apart right now and another member is having issues with his. He believes it is a noise that is coming from the planetary gear set. Those small gears can fail and tear up the sun and ring gear. If you catch it before it fails you might save the other parts. the main difference (in photos) between an R10 and an R11 is an extra planet gear. 3 vs 4. so the thought was how about making 4 planet planetarys for the R10? Today I went to a friend with a machine shop who makes complicated parts like that. Other than a helical cut (matching the sun gear) he didn’t see much of a problem. The gears of course can be made. We are looking at whether an improved part might have a market. on another matter. We have all noticed the outrageous prices for Overdrive relays and that has been given as a reason to not bother with installing an Overdrive properly. I found that the Bosch style” cube relays can be had in 6 volt and with a fuse plugged into the top! The relay comes with a 30 amp fuse which you should change to a 20. I’ve only found one supplier so far out of the UK but even so at $19 the price is very attractive. This type of relay has a huge verity of uses plus there are some heavy amperage relays available cheap too, all in 6 volt. Next on my hit list are throttle switches. One joker has a mopar branded switch and it’s bracket listed for $265! What he doesn’t know is that the carburetor has to have the proper lever for it to work. I bought a new carburetor that had everything but the switch for less than half what that guy wants and then found a switch for a Studebaker for $30. There’s no reason for price gouging.

The quickest easiest way to determine what donor car has the ratio you want is to go to oldmoparts.com and look at the range of mopars that use the same 3rd member gasket. Then google the question “what final drive ratio does a 1956 DeSoto have?” Or something like that. Then go to ebay and search 1956 Desoto rear axle. I found 4 candidates in 5 minutes and all you had to do is ask if the car had an automatic. BTW I was looking for a 3.54 to 1 ratio.

So this thread got me thinking about turn signal switches. I started looking at what the suppliers are selling. Speedway Motors, Mac’s Auto Parts, Summit Racing are not selling genuine Signal-Stat turn signal switches. They are selling clones. I couldn’t get the napaonline site to show a photo but the description says Signal Stat. Amazon sells all of them, good and bad. Ebay has both the good and the bad too. Snyders Antique Auto is still my favorite supplier of this item. Their online catalog takes a while to find it if you go page by page. So I typed “turn signal” in the search bar and got there in a moment.

I bought a Signal-Stat 900 from Syndersantiqueauto which was intended by them to go on a Model A Ford. I put it on a 64 IH Travelall which came with a Mopar turn signal switch which was unavailable at any price. I was pleasantly surprised at how robust it was and resolved that I would never put up with anything less. My 49 Bus Coupe has something that sort of works most of the time, so I will be replacing it with a Signal-Stat as soon as I can get around to it. I would not buy a clone. It has to be the real thing! Amazon has the real thing for $69 (seems high for just the switch) and the clone for $24. Snyders has a kit with all you need for $80 NAPA and your favorite truck supply have them too. I will be getting mine from Snyders. The Signal-Stat 900 comes in chrome or black. The four way flasher works by a chrome (not a red plastic button) pull under the lever. These things are really built! The kit from Snyders had a foreign made flasher that refused to work so I tossed it for the original IH unit and that was my only complaint. The Snyders kit comes with their instructions and should you lose them you can down load them from their site. Don't be a cheap skate get the good one, you'll thank me later. lol

Okay so all the recommendations say GL-1 gear lube for Overdrive transmissions. We know that. However, based on my experiences GL-1 gear lube may be fine but it's pretty dated and it's thick or heavy. Thick or heavy oils run hotter than thinner oils. I've read that and proven it to myself. I have an Overdrive transmission all apart on my bench and I have not found anything inside that would have a problem with any good lube save the sprag clutch and perhaps the balk ring. So where is my thinking going here? My experience with manual transmissions with sprag clutches (freewheeling) dates to the 1956-80 SAAB 93,95,96 & 97 models. The factory was all over the map on gear lubes. 90wt was the first spec, then it was discovered that it ran hot (or it was discovered 75wt ran cooler - pick one). Nobody had 75wt gear lube (it's like water thin) so the factory had to sell it and hated doing it. The last spec was 30wt engine oil which actually worked the best of all. The SAAB had a freewheel lock out, which many owners used and simply forgot about freewheeling. By doing so for extend periods (years) crud would build up in the freewheel unit and when someone wanted to use it, it would slip. A fix I came up with was to drain the gear lube and refill with ATF. Almost immediately the freewheel worked perfectly. I'd have the customer drive the car normally for a week then drain it and refill with 30wt motor oil. An added benefit was that if an overhaul was needed, the inside would be razor clean. I noted that Mercedes-Benz (at the time) used ATF in their manual transmissions. Okay back to Overdrive. The shop manual says NO Hypoid gear lube. I can understand that. The SAAB used an "on center" pinion gear so we never considered hypoid gear lube. For racing we used Redline Synthetic Transmission gear lube and we always used the freewheel. Never had any problems. So what if you used ATF to clean the Overdrive and refilled with say 10-30wt Synthetic Motor Oil (such as Mobil 1) or Redline? Would anyone's head explode if I did it?

You know I don't know about a cable shifter. I do know the 1940 was the first column shifter and the cluster and 2nd gear will fit in the 1941-56 transmissions (perhaps more years but my interest lie with the 1949-54 cars) The 1939 and earlier had a floor shifter and the transmission was different. My current project is an Overdrive transmission overhaul with a 1940 second gear. Report will follow.

If the wrecking yard car is a 1940, you might want to grab that transmission. 40s have the only optional 2nd gear ratio. The cable is nice but also get the relay and carburetor bracket and kick down switch. I always look in the trunk, sometimes treasures lurk there.

What gets me all "agro" (as my kids call it) are huge wheels with tiny brakes inside. If you are serious about giant brakes then the wheels should just barely fit. 12.1 inch rotors qualify because with the calipers you'll need 16s or even 18s. I know I rail on disc brakes but usually they are not much of an improvement because the ones chosen are too small, so why do it? And most folks have it in their mind that universally disc brakes will make you stop better, which is not always true. My logic has been if 10 inch drums work, 11 inch drums will work better and 12 inch drums will work better still. Mr Adams' project is certainly ambitious! And I will wager it works too. What I've learned is that 11 inch DeSoto drums will fit Plymouth wheels but 12 inch Chryslers will not. If you go shopping for 12 inch Chryslers get the wheels too. What I am trying to do with my ride is to put together not the most modern or even the best car but one a dealer mechanic in the 1950s would have built for himself. So far Tim Kingsbury has the best example of the car I want and it has a story behind it. It seems his Grandmother ordered it new with all the good parts! Now that's a gal I'd like to have met!