Loren

I don't know for certain but I am betting it does. In fact I am betting a Plymouth Bell Housing will fit. The IND 33 I bought didn't have the right backing plate behind the timing cover, so I put a Plymouth part on, it fit. The flywheels have a few versions, number of bolts, number of starter ring gear teeth and depth of the starter snout, but generally I believe you can mix and match. I ended up buying an NOS flywheel for a Power Wagon. Since I didn't have a clutch yet I didn't mind that the new flywheel was drilled for a 10 inch instead of a 9 1/4 inch Plymouth clutch. I am still in the HOPE stage if the Plymouth bell housing will fit but everything else has.

The technical name for those in the picture is "E clip". I am sure you could use snap rings in stead, which might even be preferred. Snap rings go on and off with special pliers and so are not as easily lost or sprung. Any bearing supply can hook you up such as Motion Industries. True Value Hardware stores sometimes have bins for E clips and snap rings. Tractor Supply might have them. For my needs the closest is a True Value Hardware but Tractor Supply is usually cheaper. If you can take the shaft it will be easier.

Okay just a personal preference. If you want HEAT in 90 seconds after you start your engine, you might consider a Stewart-Warner South Wind heater. They made 3 million of them from the 1930s clear up to the late 1950s, so a South Wind is period correct for your car. It was invented by a Canadian who was dissatisfied with coolant generated heaters. Too slow and not enough heat. I found a guy who rebuilds them and has the parts. His name is Larry Lewis and he'll sell you a complete kit to install one for $250 plus $60 for shipping. email: llewis5411@rogers.com What I like about them is they don't take up so much room under the hood and they are small under the dash. They made several versions of defroster and even had a booster fan available, I assume for big cars or buses. They are still used on aircraft. VWs had a version which was safer and a lot more pleasant than the hot oil smell (and fumes) from the exhaust heaters they came with. You can see what the look like on eBay, but I've never seen an NOS heater or all the parts there. To operate you start your car (they require engine vacuum) and pull the knob out. The fan goes on automatically when there is heat and off when there is no heat. On the bottom of the heater there is a flow director. Very simple. Underwriter's Labs approved them so you know they are safe. Just an idea.

I rarely drive the cars I like to drive. I value my driving privilege too much! Jay Leno never fights a ticket, he just pays the fine. I can't do that! I will say he has some of the cars I like and have. I am like Howard Hughes...He loved Plymouths! Not a race car with a license plate but nice to drive within their place. Comfortable and reliable. Perfect for me!

I follow another car group on facebook. One of the members alerted us to an auction on Bring a Trailer for some wheels. Four nice and rare (in this country) wheels. I happen to have a set I was going to use on my first car of that marque when I get around to restoring it. Well the online auction closed today....$5,000 was the winning bid! To tell you the truth I wouldn't give that much for those wheels if there was a running car attached! Hmm I think I am doing this car hobby all wrong.

After my Dad passed away, three different sets of thieves broke into my old shop and his house. I caught one of them in the middle of stealing a truck. The sheriff arrested him and then...crickets. I had called the sheriff twice reporting the break ins and mentioned I felt like shooting the bastards. They warned me that was a bad idea. After they took my tools and bunches of stuff that had value, I realized I had more crap than I'd ever be able to use. I changed my mindset and decided to down size, dramatically. It's been a good idea because now I am deciding which projects have merit and which don't. I am ditching the less promising ones and happily moving forward on the good ones, where I had been doing nothing. Unfortunately the thieves failed to leave their phone numbers....I wanted many times to call them and say "Hey you forgot something!" There's never a thief around when you need one.

On fluid extractors: My usual ride is a Mercedes GLK 250. I am not keen on the dealer and use them sparingly. The last time I couldn't reset a limp home situation and neither could they! Finally they had M-B USA call Germany for the "Super Secret Reset Procedure". Which fixed a lot of annoying characteristics I didn't tell them about. Anyway, the fluid they use in the transmission HAS to be changed every 70,000 miles and the closer you get to that mark the more it SLIPS. Both the dealers and the independents NEVER drain the torque converter, which means the transmission will slip at 50,000 miles and they charge $800! There is no fill tube/dipstick in these cars. You have to use a "fluid extractor" to fill them from underneath. SO what I am getting to is if you're sucking lube oil out of something get a nice cheap one from Harbor Freight. If you're filling something, you won't want to have anything but clean fluid in it....So I guess you need two of them! I bought a really nice one for the GLK and still saved a ton of money on the next service...oh and I drained the torque converter. The bastards. Since diesels have fallen out of favor, I may have bought my last new car so I am keeping this one till the wheels fall off. I started thinking about it and it made me wonder how many HyDrive Plymouth owners got screwed by lazy mechanics who didn't bother to drain the torque converter. Ugh!

You're right 5/16ths, I said 7/16ths. I knew it was in 16ths. If memory serves it is off the bottom on the passenger side. (got a 50/50 chance there) My "True Value" hardware store has Key stock in 5/16ths (or Tractor Supply). You can use a key with a Crescent wrench or they may have the tool. 3.73 is good ratio I am glad you don't have to go on a hunt for one. The 3.53 I have came out of a 1956 Plymouth with a V8 and automatic (I think). The bits from amazon are too small. I looked at what they offered and found one but they don't tell you what size it fits and the others are all metric. If you want a tool I think Tractor Supply would be my first choice.

Sounds like a great time to swap out that 3.9 ratio 3rd member for 3.73 or a 3.54. It's the old "All I wanted to do is drain the swap, now I am up to my butt in angry alligators!" You just wanted to change the oil and now you're rebuilding the rear end! lol What ever you do, do not use an original style pinion seal. The modern ones (like from NAPA) are so much easier to put in and cheaper besides.

274 cid! I want one! How did they get that much? I can't imagine more stroke a 265 has a 4 3/4 inch stroke already and they had to notch the block and work the rods over.

(Tongue in cheek) See how advanced Chrysler engineering was! It took the rest of the industry till the 1980s to omit drain plugs! lol Sometimes the pinion seal has leaked enough that dust and oil coat the axle so you need to clean it to find the plug. Not the fun job you might expect. How do I know this? An axle I was going to drain looked like it didn't have a plug til I removed the 3rd member and found the plug location from the inside.

Actually I am using Bendix-Stromberg Model WW carburetors, on a 25 inch Chrysler Industrial (IND 33, 265 cid) engine. They are much shorter than a 97 but use many of the pieces (like jets) and flow more. They are also "period correct" and many MoPars came with them. The 1954 Plymouth "Power Pack" 230 had one. The main reason I am using them is that I had a lot of experience with them and find them forgiving and easy to tune. Besides I found the correct bracket for my Overdrive kick down switch in the box of one I bought on eBay. lol Here's a photo of a mock up. 71F46950-A6FA-43DA-87CD-CC9EC07346FA.heic

Well yes and no. The 25 inch head I got (which was the last one they sold) is pretty much the same. The 23 inch head has a Navarro inspired chamber design with the step over the exhaust valve. Otherwise I agree with Frank. I think if you're going for reliability an iron head can't be beat. The 25 inch Edgy head I have may sit on the shelf for a while. When you look inside the water passage there are all sorts of "divots" and craters which worry me. The sides where the pipe threads are for the temp gauge and the heater outlet are scary thin.

Now this brings up an idea. In every industrial area I've lived in there are Industrial Oil suppliers who will custom blend whatever formula you need. Apparently there isn't much magic to it. Locally (Carson City, NV) there is an Industrial Oil supplier who was only too happy to duplicate the Mobil DTE series for my needs. If you want 10wt with anti-foam additives I am certain anyone of them would be happy to supply your needs or specifications. They might even be able to analyze a sample and come up with suggestions all with a price competitive product. If James can get the specs from his contact at Gyrol, it's a done deal.

The front running candidate for when I get around to using my Edgy head is a tube with bushings in each end and a shaft to transmit the motion to the other side. The tube would be mounted to the head studs with tabs welded to the side and go over the top of the fins. I am using two barrel carburetors so the throttle shafts are perpendicular to the head as opposed to parallel as stock singles would be. Initially I am going to use a milled stock head until I work out other kinks.

I think by now we've all suffered from spell-check changing the context of our posts. What I hate is when you get in a battle with it and it keeps changing it back! I have a 25 inch block that I suspect is beyond re-building. I am thinking very seriously of slicing it up to check the wall thickness of the ports. With that information I could send another block to the porting service to get the max air flow. A Dry Lakes Racer friend of mine had a Ford Roadster with a Flathead V8 in it. He ran in a class that used fuel. To strengthen the block and side step the V8 cooling issues, he used heads that were carved from solid slabs of steel with no water jackets. The alcohol fuel did all the cooling it needed for a run of a mile and 5/8ths. Of all the engines you could do your analysis on the Ford V8 would benefit the most. Here's a feature of my garden and a subtile idea of what I think of Ford flathead V8s.

As many have said the value of something is what the market says it is. One of the nicest 49 Special Deluxe 2 doors I've seen in a long time was put up for competitive bidding on eBay. Two bidders took it to $9,290. The seller had other ideas with a reserve beyond that. I know he advertised the same car for $22,000 on his web site. As nice as it is I think under $10,000 might have been a fair price. A price a reasonable person who liked the car might have paid. With 4 1949 Plymouths on eBay at the same time (and 3 of them equally as nice) there seems to be no shortage so anything beyond $10,000 is simply not going to happen. I figure there are two tiers of pricing. Tier one are those that are actually for sale by sellers would for one reason or another want or need to sell. Tier Two are the dealers who have lots of cars to display and trade up to the best examples which they can afford to offer for sale at foolishly high prices. The thinking being that sooner or later someone will pay their price (or they can trade for something else) and in the mean time the quality of the cars they display does nothing to hurt their reputation. eBay has become the showroom for these dealers, like Best Buy is the showroom for Amazon. If you want it now, you have to pay up.

What we forget while discussing this topic is the history of a particular car and a buyer's life experience. A friend of mine owns the Maserati which was mentioned in Joe Walsh's "Life's been good." My Maserati does one-eighty-five I lost my license, now I don't drive I have a Limo, ride in the back I lock the doors in case I'm attacked My friend was contacted by one of the "Accountants who pay for it all" to see if he could sell it. The Maserati engine of course was a dim memory and the Chevy engine that replaced it was blown up too and the pieces scattered among machine shops. My friend bought the car with a "treasure map" list of where the parts were. When he picked it up Joe Walsh was there and since My friend had no idea of who he was, the only thing he found remarkable was how drunk he was. They gave him the Nevada License Plate "Does 185" to go with the car. After trying to get the engine pieces back it was found that they had been mishandled and weren't worth the effort. So he updated to an LS engine and a 6 speed transmission. Once he got it running and actually drove it he found out what a crappy car they are. In the film "The Adventurers" (Candice Bergen's first film) there was a red roadster that I thought was the sexiest car ever made. I was rather deflated to hear his opinion. Then I started looking at it. It had an American DANA 44 rear axle just like my IH Scout ll. What I am getting at is the value of a Maserati isn't its performance, its the exterior beauty of it. The value of my friend's car isn't the Corvette running gear (you could buy a real Corvette that would drive better for less) it is who owned the car before him and the "cultural icon" of the song. A car has value to a buyer based on the buyer's personal history and "what floats their boat". It has nothing to do with the functionality of the car.

One thing is for sure, prices that are out of line come down and sometimes very hard! Years ago a Ford 1963 1/2 Galaxy 500 Fastback with a 427 and a 4 speed would bring $150,000. I knew a guy who had one who had bought it new (the late Charles "Kong" Jackson). By the time they had settled his estate, everyone who wanted one had bought one and the price fell to a more reasonable $60,000. Then there are the "Tribute" phony cars built to cash in on the bubble. You know the ones, "One of the 300 built out of the 900 still in existence!" A flathead Plymouth is not by any means a "Flash Car" like the Galaxy it was just a good value transportation car for a workingman and his family. Why would one ever sell for 20 times its original price? First of all they are not that special. Second of all they are not that rare. Third the prices I've seen are the average price for a new modern car. Now I am not saying I wouldn't lavish that much money on a car that was special to me....I am just saying I'd be loath to buy someone else's car for that much.

When I bought my 49 I paid $150 for a nice running example. They were considered a "Transportation Car" too old to be fancy and too new to be classic. People bought 20 year old Plymouths to get to work reliably not to impress people. You could find them on the back row of a used car lot. Most of the time you really had to look for them. A very nice shiny one could bring $250. I got mine from a classified ad in the L.A. Times. Later on: When 70s Cadillacs and the like were 20 years old they were called "Leavers". You bought it, changed the oil once then drove it till it died and left it where it died with a signed title and the keys on the seat.

In my old machine shop we used the Mobil DTE products. One of the machine manufacturers changed their spec for oil from a thicker product to a thiner saying that the thiner product had less heat build up. They claimed the spindles would run 20 degrees cooler. In my not too scientific test I found that to be pretty close. A fluid drive unit does not engage in torque multiplication so it doesn't generate the kind of heat a torque converter does. All things considered I wonder how much heat an FD unit does generate in hard usage. Certainly it would be more if you used a thicker oil medium.

There are three very nice 1949 Plymouths on eBay right now. The prices are very steep. $39,500, $38,500 and a car that I know the seller wants $22,500 for (the reserve is secret. I know what it is as the car is listed on his web site). If you think those are grand theft prices you should see what the asking price for a DeSoto is! What is going on here? Is that really what you have to pay?

The base plate of the steering box has somehow fractured. What you're calling a poppet valve is supposed to be part of that base plate. The function of the tube that the horn wire passes through is to retain the steering box oil. When the box is installed the tube goes up the steering shaft past the oil level. I am sure it can be brazed back in place. The base plate is where the adjustment for the steering shaft bearings is. Any play there gives you the sensation of slop in the steering. If you get them too tight the car steers hard and the wheel won't return to center. The adjustment on the top of the box (in this case the side) is for the sector engagement with the worm, too tight there and it will stick at the ends, too loose and the middle will have slop. Adjustment is a compromise of those things.

There was a Craigslist ad in my area for a stack of early MoPar axles, they asked $100 a piece, then $100 for what looked like 10 of them. Finally they went for FREE come get em! I am not sure if anybody did and they might have been scraped. With the "Third Member" design a person could have an assortment to chose from. If you are a "Tinkerer" like I am, you like working out little issues even if it means repeatedly taking stuff apart and putting it back together. Of course with an assortment of gear ratios you could really Dial your ride in. Every time you turned up the wick under the hood you could change final drive ratios to take advantage. Of course the spline issue is a consideration but I haven't run into it. My 52 Suburban seems to have the same splines as everything I've checked. I found a 1956 pumpkin with 3.54 gears that I will use with an Overdrive transmission with a 1940 gear set (lower 2nd gear) and I figure that is what I'll be using. However, I am always looking for other ratios.

Swapping the "pumpkin" is one of the beauties of the MoPar rear axle. After you pull the brake drums they are very easy to work on. A real drum puller makes the job so easy! Take a good look at the design. All Timken tapered roller bearings and the axles necked down in the middle to spread the torque load over a larger area. This is really good stuff! Then take a good look at the Ranger axle. Enough said. The MoPar has lots of ratios too. From 3.36, 3.54, 3.73, 3.8, 4.1 and I think I've hear of a 4.3. If you can break the MoPar axle there is an upgrade path to the 8.75 axle which is highly respected for strength. And for the purists it looks just like the original to the average person because it's the same design only bigger.