Loren

I would draw your attention to a thread titled "Improving Plymouth Brakes" You might consider adding a brake booster to your brake system. I received the remote booster I ordered from Walmart ( yes that Walmart ) for $63. I have to tell you it's a real value and a lot less work than installing disc brakes. Some Chrysler models had a very similar remote booster mounted behind the Master Cylinder so it's not a new idea. The one I got is a Taiwanese copy of an American design, VH44. As is noted in the thread disc brakes require more pedal pressure than drums so you might end up adding a booster anyway to get their full potential. $63, how can you possibly go wrong?

On my quickie pressure bleeder I used two metal valve stems I salvaged from old wheels. One to slip the remote reservoir hose on to ( with the valve removed ) and the other to use a tire chuck on. You could drill a hole in an old cap and use a tire valve stem with the valve removed and a radiator pressure pump to pressurize it. Got to McGiver it. lol

My two cents: Vacuum Brake Bleeders on Drum Brake cars are iffy at best. You never seem to have enough vacuum...but that's not really the problem. What happens is air leaks past the cups in the wheel cylinders. They actually work well with disc brakes because of the design of the seals in the calipers. Pressure bleeding works better on Drum Brakes because the cups are always in their operational mode. I had to make my own pressure bleeder for my forklift the other day. I used 2 inch plastic pipe fittings and a C-clamp ( I didn't glue one of the fittings so I could refill it and I needed a way to hold it together. A little air pressure would blow the thing apart ) All you guys with Mighty Vacs can switch them to pressure mode and they will work fine. The key to success is mounting your reservoir to the master cylinder fill port. That's a little tricky. If you want to really get Guru, Earl's Supply makes a brake bleeder nipple with a check valve in it. All you have to do is crack the bleeder and pump the brake pedal a couple of times. They can be found at Summit Racing dot com. A little pricey but you could buy one and move it around to get the job done. if you crafty you won't get air in the system.

My 49 has a Bendix-Stromberg BXUV-3 which was the after-market carburetor for the car. It is period correct for collectors. I have found them on eBay NOS. I have had very good service from it and can recommend them. They have the fuel inlet on the side so they are much better on a dual carb manifold. Otherwise they are a direct replacement ( if you find a new one it will have the required 90 degree fitting in the box. The box label identifies the cars they will fit ). That would be my first choice. You can get new manufacture carburetors which will work fine but they are around $360.

Henry Ford was a lot of things but communist wasn’t one of them. He admired Hitler, financed him and supplied him with anti-Semitic propaganda, so you might say he had fascist tendencies. He sued a newspaper for libel and made the mistake of testifying in court. The defendant’s attorneys had a fun time embarrassing him by showing how astonishingly ignorant he was. He could not say when certain events happened in American history such as the year of the revolutionary war. He won the suit because he had been libeled, however the jury awarded him $5. Henry Ford was a tea totaler and he used to break into his son Edsel’s house and pour out all his liquor. Edsel died of an ulcer that became cancerous and Henry knew he was the cause. I visited the Henry Ford museum and in back of his collection of steam engines is this enormous steam powered twin cylinder double acting generator set. It’s easily as big as a house! It took at least two men to operate it. When you look at it and then read the card that describes it you find that this was in the powerhouse of the Highland Park factory and there were 8 of them! If Ford was the master of this beast and 7 of it’s siblings which powered his factory then it’s no wonder he became a little nuts. His wasn’t success it was megalomania. When Ford’s grandson took over things changed quickly. The flathead took 46 cores to produce and the Ford engineers were so proud that “Y-block” OHV V8 ( 1954 ) only required 26 cores. Of course the Chevy V8 only required 9 cores ( 1955 ). So Ford had a lot of ground to make up and it was mostly from Henry’s stubbornness. Ford’s initial success can be directly linked his use of the best machine shop in Detroit, namely the Dodge Brothers. They knew what they were doing. So why am I not surprised that another guy who knew what he was doing, would buy their company when he got the opportunity. I grew up being told that Henry Ford was an American hero. The truth is he was a very flawed human being. But then people in glass houses…..

Who rebuilt your damper?

After the Model K disaster Henry shied away from sixes. The implication was that sixes were not good. The truth was HIS six was no good. The fact that the Ford Motor Company could engineer and build a good six if Henry stayed away is all the proof you need that he messed things up. It’s said the company was run by a “Mad Hatter” before the war. After the war the government stepped in and installed Henry ll to save the company because it was too important. The Ford 8N tractor was a candidate for an engine swap with the flathead six. You can still find them once in a while. An outfit called Funk Brothers put them together. Needless to say I have flathead six Plymouths but no Ford V8s.

Just to add a little clarification, the V8s Simca made were V8 60s, which replaced the “Model B” 4 cylinder. The flathead usually found in Fords and Mercurys we are most familiar with were V8 85s. ( which is what they were called when they were both made at the same time ) We are familiar with the Duntov designed Ardun hemi heads for the V8, but did you know the Brazilians produced the Simca V8 with similar heads? I have no idea ( and I am not suggesting it ) if the Chrysler engineers were influenced by the Ardun V8 heads. Duntov went on to greater fame helping the Corvette become a performance sports car ( his major contribution was putting Ed Cole’s Chevy V8 in them ). If you’ve been around them the Ardun heads are also known as “Over done” heads. Another V8 factoid is that the French military had a vehicle designed around the Ford V8 and contracted to have them made long after Ford phased them out. The Simca wasn’t the last Ford engined car made by Chrysler. We recall the Sunbeam Tiger V8, but that’s another era.

I’ve talked to guys that had a Ford flathead 6 ( yes they made them ) and they said they could out run a V8! One of the telling facts is that while Lee Petty was winning NASCAR races against the new Olds Rocket 88 overhead valve V8s, the Fords and Mercurys were nowhere to be seen.

It is expensive to rebuild an engine, there’s question about it. It is expensive to restore a car as well, no question about that either. Museums do not restore cars ( unless it is very special one ) they go out and buy the very best example of the one they want to display and when they find a better one they sell the first. I grew up with Ford products and around Ford V8 race cars. I even have an autographed picture of Henry Ford in my office. So I’ve been around them all my life. Any restorer who knows their stuff will tell you the V8 block is way too complicated, way too heavy and came from the factory with cracks as standard equipment. They pick up more in time too. Henry Ford was such an authoritarian that he dictated what his engineers would do. A lot of the problems the V8 had were designed in by Ford himself and not corrected until after he died. It has been said that the Ford Motor Company hadn’t made a profit since the Model T. Because it was not a stock company it didn’t have to report profit and loss ( until 1956 when they finally sold stock….because they needed the money ) Henry Ford did whatever he wanted to do whether or not it was any good. For example Henry dictated that the water pumps would be in the cylinder head and since the V8 had two heads it would have two pumps. Why? Because he said so. And of course they overheated…a lot, until Henry was dead and they moved the pumps to the block and then they got rid of the flathead altogether. Chrysler actually had engineers who did engineering. Walter Chrysler didn’t try to engineer his cars, he had professionals do it. Thus if you want to rebuild a Chrysler made flathead six you won’t have to pick the best block out of a dozen candidates. They already had features like exhaust valve seat inserts which pre-unleaded fuel cars need now days. The water distribution tube everyone hates, directs coolant right to exhaust valve. The guys who designed these engines did us old car nuts a real service. Even my Dad who loved Ford products said ( from experience and observation ) if you drove a Plymouth within it’s limits it would last forever. I would needle him a little and ask him how Lee Petty ( and others ) could be so successful with a flathead Plymouth. He gave me an honest answer they were lighter, they got better mileage in fuel and tires and made fewer pitstops. Petty just drove and stayed out of trouble. So would I put a flathead V8 in a Plymouth? In a word, no. A Chrysler 251 or 265, of course! ( Ford V8s were only 239, even the smaller DeSoto 237 would be better ). That is my humble opinion on the matter.

A beautiful example of a Special Deluxe! You notice the only reason the coin fell over was the torque of the engine when it was revved up.

My love of old cars started with the Model T. I have a 27 Roadster and a few others. The Model T driving experience is not one I’d offer to just anyone however! I sold a 27 tudor to a guy and gave him the whole driving lesson. A week later I got an email describing how he pressed down on the low pedal thinking it was the brake, drove into another car then took his foot off the pedal. I am glad he didn’t send me a photo. My philosophy of old cars is we are stewards of them for the time we have with them. They can certainly out live us if we are careful with them or we can destroy them in a split second. When you consider the history of the world since your 26 was made it is remarkable that it is still here, let alone the human race. When someone goes on about how they want to put their Plymouth body on an S10 chassis, I cringe. That ole Plymouth could live on for decades and still be a nice car. Once someone “modernizes” it, it has taken a big step to the scrap yard. Consider the car magazines of the 1950s. Where are all those “Customized” cars that graced the magazine covers now? Survivor cars got that way because of the stewardship of a chain of owners. In some cases it was just benign neglect that contributed. Cherish your old car and it may out live you!

In my mad mind there is only one way to operate an Overdrive, that is as the factory intended. The thing is called Automatic Overdrive for a reason. It works so well without drama when installed properly I just don't understand why anyone would jury rig one, except ignorance of how to wire one properly. I've never stopped looking for easier cheaper cleaner ways to do it right. Throttle switches are way over priced from suppliers who think they have you over a barrel. At $125 I think that is obscene. I found a seller on eBay who had hundreds of military surplus bus door switches that do exactly the same thing as the reproductions and even looks the same for $6.50 ( I bought 10 for gifts to friends ) The reproductions are really floor switches for Ford products anyway. The MoPar switch is smaller and fits on the carburetor. Those can be had from the Studebaker guys for around $35 but you need to make a simple bracket and rig a lever on the carburetor throttle ( or find an Overdrive ready carburetor ). My latest and greatest find is a small switch with a pull cable from a Nash/AMC for $21. I really like this one as it is so clean and simple. Since you connect it to the lever that comes from the foot pedal its action is really smooth and effortless. You can change carburetors and manifolds without re-engineering how you trigger the switch. Then there's the relay, another obscenely priced item at $125. If you have changed to 12 volts one of the little Bosch style cube relays will work nicely for about $2.50. I like my 6 volt cars and found the same thing made in Germany for 6 volt for $18, but I am told the 12 volt version will work with 6 volts if you get the high amp version. The last thing is how to wire it. If you have a shop manual there's a description which also has the color the wires should be in there. Seems to me the only valid reason for not having a shop manual is illiteracy ( trust me I am not joking on this. Literacy is still a major problem especially in auto repair ) I have found that sometimes the Plymouth manual is short on an explanation and photos so I have all the MoPar manuals for the era of my Plymouth. But then I love shop manuals. I am the person your Mom told you about who reads technical manuals for entertainment. lol Anyway that's my two cents. If it works as intended you are not dependent on "Driver technique" and you can let anyone drive your car ( but why would you let anyone drive your car? )

Hmmm I've never seen those. Here's a photo from the Walmart site of what I am talking about.

I've been round and round on this topic, not that I think Plymouth brakes are bad or inadequate. They work when in good repair. I don't believe in scrapping what the car came with just to be modern. In my years of experience I know that disc brakes CAN be better but seldom are. I have gone to the trouble of swapping the Plymouth 10 inch drum brakes for Chrysler Windsor 12 inch brakes. This is something I've seen several old timers do and I find it appealing as the car is still all MoPar and period correct. The idea being that I want a car that a dealer mechanic of the time would have built for himself using the best of the MoPar parts bins. An article in the Cascade Pacific Plymouth Club April 2024 news letter caught my eye headlined, "Consider brake booster instead of disk conversion?" by Robin Will. "A young man just across the aisle from us at Portland Swap Meet told me something I didn't know and its worth passing on. He was selling add-on brake booster units. He said that drum brakes themselves are not usually problematic in old cars; the problem was more often with the pressure that could be delivered to them with original equipment hydraulics. Getting a booster on the system can bring old brakes up to current standards without the expense of a disc brake conversion for folks who love to drive their cars every day." What was not mentioned in the article that I know from my experience is that bigger brakes do not lower the pedal pressure required to stop a car. In fact disc brakes don't stop any better than drums because to reach their full potential they require a brake booster. I know I'll get some heat on that statement but I have examples of cars that evolved over time and had drum brakes one year, front disc brakes another year and finally disc brakes with a booster later on. The boosted brakes certainly were better, while the front disc only brakes weren't noticeably better. Bigger drum brakes will have better heat rejection capability and thus less fade. Great for mountain driving or towing or racing but not a dramatic improvement every day. To reach their full potential they need to be boosted as well. Back to what would a period dealer mechanic have on his car? Well Chrysler used a "Remote" Brake Booster on some models. The brakes were all the same except they added this remote booster. The first time I saw such a thing was on a 1968 Volvo P1800 which had one for each brake circuit. I can tell you that car had brakes that worked very nicely indeed. Finding a vintage Chrysler remote brake booster might be an expensive challenge ( not saying it would be impossible but... ) However the aftermarket has substitutes remarkably CHEAP. When you google "Remote Brake Booster" they pop up all over the page for as low as $65 from Walmart of all places! They are imported of course for that price ( China perhaps ) Units that swap out the original master cylinder for an integrated booster/master cylinder are like $500 to $1,100 and I can't imagine they provide as much bang for the buck ( Perhaps "Bang" is not the right word to use when talking about brakes. lol ) If you dive deeper into the suggested usage for these devices they seem to work for similar weight cars like a Plymouth. Since they are small they will fit in the same place as the old Chrysler booster on the left frame rail behind the master cylinder. So there's an idea for discussion.

My point was that O.D. cars had final drive ratios in the neighborhood of 4.10 ( some places say 4.30 ) and the speedometer pinion that went with it. Thus no matter what gear you were in the speedometer would read incorrectly. Which is true even if that line was unnecessary ( my bad ). All transmissions that have speedometer gears measure the driveshaft rotation speed. Some exceptions are for example VW Beatles measure left front wheel speed and SAAB 99/900 which have the gear on the differential. You can buy speedometers that measure GPS signals and the are dead on with no connection to the wheels or driveshaft but they are really pricey. What I was trying to get across was that you can correct your speedometer reading with an easy swap of the speedometer pinion gear. If you want an O.D. transmission ( R10 G1 ) you can change the speedo pinion with the one in your old transmission. However if you swap differential carriers to get the ratio you want, you need to score the speedo pinion from that car. There is an exception here in that the 3.54 ratio is usually in an automatic transmission car and that speedometer pinion is not the same design as the manual transmission. Slight changes in tire size can get you closer as well.

I have an admittedly tight focus on the KT Keller cars, so that's what I research and play with. It's all about having fun after all and those are the ones I like. I am a huge fan of Overdrive transmissions because they don't really change the charm of the cars and actually add to it. When you put one in your car your speedo will be off at all speeds because the speedometer pinion gear was selected for a 4.1 ring and pinion. The good news is you can swap out the pinion from your old three speed to the O.D. and all will be back to normal ( assuming your speedometer doesn't need service ). But what if you changed the rear end ratio or the tire size? I don't advocate changing rear axles because I don't see much to be gained there. You can easily change the differential carrier ( aka 3rd member ) in a Plymouth if you want another ratio. Where I live there's lots of open road with highway speeds of 55 to 70 so optional ratios, tires and O.D. go well with my Plymouth. My P17 Coupe came with 6.40-15 tires ( modern equivalent 195/75/15 ) and a 3.73 final drive ratio so the speedometer pinion would be a 17 tooth gear ( p/n 652-848 ) for an example. Chrysler designed the pinions to use the same 6 tooth gear on the output shaft so you only need to change one gear to correct the speedometer. One thing you find out right away is selecting speedo gears is not an exact science. You can get close and you might hit it right on the button but you more likely will be over or under by 2 or 3 mph. That's why the Highway Patrol has an enforcement tolerance. So let's look at tires first 6.40 15 = 195/75/15 standard tire for a P17 6.70 15 = 205/75/15 standard tire for a P18 7.60 15 = 225/75/15 an optional size tire Final drive ratios 3.90 very common on long wheelbase cars 3.73 standard ratio on many optional on all 3.54 optional Chart of ratios & tires vs speedometer pinions 3.90 6.70 15 17 tooth pinion 3.73 6.40 15 17 tooth pinion 3.73 6.70 15 16 tooth pinion 3.54 6.70 15 16 tooth pinion All 7.60 15 16 tooth pinion So you can see you're not going to get an exact reading but you can get close enough to avoid a ticket. The part number for the 16 tooth pinion is 652-846. I have found that if you have the number for an obscure part the parts house will look to find it in their inventory but they are likely to blow you off if you just say "I need a 16 tooth speedometer gear." Happy hunting!

My 49 has only 38,000 miles and steers pretty good without much wandering and I'd like to keep it that way. I have added oil to it and have determined that the seal leaks. Not unexpected for a 75 year old car. One of the benefits of the KT Keller era of cars is that they use a lot of off the shelf bearings and seals. My NAPA store found the seal CR Seals/SKF ( formerly known as Chicago Rawhide ) #12350 or MoPar 639-837 To get to the seal you pull off the pitman arm and I did this with a cheap Harbor Freight puller. It's a spline so all you have to over come is dirt and rust. The generator can be pushed out of the way to withdraw the sector and cap out of the top. As usual there's two ways to do everything of course and I tend to get it right after trying every other possible way. The top cover doesn't come off the sector until you back off the adjustment screw. My M.O. is to get the sector and the attached cover to the bench and then count the turns of the adjustment screw until they part company. I used 5 turns because it was easy to remember. The idea being if you put it back the way the factory had it, you have a better starting point than if you are guessing. ( especially with the steering gear in the car ) The next thing to do is to check the tapered bearings on the steering shaft. The manual says to push/pull on the steering wheel to detect any slop. I could feel a tiny amount so I took the bottom cover off the gear housing. As luck would have it one of the shim/gaskets popped up while the rest stayed put. The factory put a dimple in the frame to enable you to move the cover down a little but you can't take it off without unbolting the gear from the frame. So I snipped the gasket and bolted the cover back on. The up & down movement of the steering wheel was 2/3 less and the turning effort had not increased. All good signs and time to stop. The shim/gaskets are made in several thicknesses and this was a thin one. In my humble opinion, this is the most important adjustment because even a little up & down slop here moves the sector a lot. You can change the sector engagement with the worm till it's so tight you can hardly turn the steering wheel and the sector will still move if the bearings are not right. Now the problem becomes finding another gasket for the top cover. AMSNOS.com had MoPar 1142-262 for around $8 and when I called they had 15 in stock. ( 706 ) 337-4606 The plan is to put the top cover on the sector, turn the adjustment screw 5 turns and slip it back together with the new gasket. Since I detected no wear on any of the parts it should be very close to okie dokie and it won't leak.

Harbor Freight sells every thing you might need for sand blasting but.... they don't have any compressors capable of keeping up with their blast cabinets or Sand Blasting pots. Also note that sand blasting equipment wears out FAST so there's no need to pay up for better equipment. When I lived in high desert Nevada my Curtis 5 hp Master line compressor did just fine. However, once I moved to coastal Oregon the humidity became a problem. About a sack and a half of sand is all I can blast as water in the air plugs up the sand feed. I have to let the compressor cool off and drain it. For the bead blast cabinet I use 3/8 hose, for the sand blast pot I use 1/2 hose. The HF cabinet has crappy lighting and zero dust collection. You have to add their cheap plastic "cyclone" dust collector on a 5 gallon bucket AND their dust filter/vacuum. You'll find yourself at the glass shop getting new windows made from time to time and the gloves wear out too. SO bottom line: A quality 5 hp 80/120 gallon compressor helps get the job done. Harbor Freight can supply the rest. Like most of the HF stuff you might need to add some features to make it easy to use.

It kind of looks like the shifter bushing my 49 has. I wrote in about it a couple of years ago. My shifter was getting stiffer and stiffer and hard to shift. Pulled the whole thing apart looking for the problem. Turns out the “bushing” is a piece of webbing and it had dried out. So I lubed it up and it has worked fine ever since. Your steering shaft bushing looks very much like my shifter bushing. If you oil it, it might swell up and work fine. Lastly if your steering wheel moves up and down when you pull on it, you need to adjust the steering gear bearings. The seal in mine leaks so that’s a job I have to do as well. I’ve been through the shop manual prepping to do it. I have the front sheet metal off right now ( a rust prevention project ) so I can get good photos for a write up coming soon.

The gasket set and the seal work for OD and STD transmission. That is one of the beauties of the R10 G1 Overdrive.

From my view point it's a Hudson Hornet with twin H-Power intake manifold and two Graham/Kaiser centrifugal superchargers. Not sure how the carburetors work in the blow through configuration ( The Graham/Kaiser supercharger was made for suck through carbs mounted on the blower itself ). In the Graham/Kaiser they used the Continental 225 6 cylinder that could be found in forklifts ( and other cars ) that didn't have Chrysler engines. I am guessing the blower was driven from the camshaft side using the gear driven cam where the hydraulic pump was in a forklift. Here's a photo showing the Chrysler version of the cam drive. Of course that requires a reverse rotation cam and a different oil pump gear. Back in the early 1960s you could buy those blowers at swap meets for $5. lol But then that was a lot of money.

All ready to re-install. I bought this one on eBay for $400 delivered. When I changed the Counter Shaft Gear ( aka Cluster gear ) I didn't like the countershaft so I replaced it with a good used one. The reverse lock out switch was open so I replaced that as well. Other than those items it was in very good shape. If you are going to go through one of these, the service manual and a parts book will help. There's a couple of little secrets you have to know about. Example: the lockout arm must be retracted to take the back housing off and there is this tiny tapered pin you have to drive out with a pin punch to do that. If the transmission is covered in grease you may not find it. I got all my parts super clean and checked the movement and function at each stage of assembly. I did not however install the governor as the book says to do. When I rolled the transmission over on the bench the pawl slid into place and things wouldn't turn as expected. I took it apart once more and figured out what had happened. Not a bad thing as I am now really good at assembly and disassembly for the experience. lol Of course it happened again and I simply turned it over and the pawl slid back into its rest position. Since my Suburban has Back Up Lights I wanted to see if I could add the switch with the Overdrive. It does fit and it does work! The beauty of the B-W R10 G1 Overdrive is all the MoPar replacement parts fit. Most of the wear parts in the Overdrive unit are standard B-W parts common to the other makes that used it. The reverse lock out switch is different however. When you see them on eBay most sellers call them a "Neutral safety switch" because that is what they look like. If p/n 1370-462 ever becomes hard to find at a decent price an adaptor could be made to fit a "real" neutral safety switch. ( another note: there's a short little round part that relays the movement of the reverse shift shaft to the switch. If you remove the switch under the car it will fall out and you could lose it. Best to check it before you install the transmission )

Powerflyte 2 speed automatic?

I just finished putting my Overdrive back together. So this is fresh in my mind. 1) The Best Gasket Company gasket sets do not include the seal washers for the bolts on the main shaft bearing retainer ( where the throw out bearing is mounted ) 2) That same part sometimes requires more than one gasket to seal. ( because of variations in the bearings ) 3) There’s plug that fits in the end of the 2nd & high shift shaft. ( but not the first & reverse and I can’t tell you why ) 4) The counter shaft could be a source of leakage. I used some low strength Locktite for pre-assembled parts on it, then a dab of Permatex Right Stuff gasket sealer. ( the idea of using a penny as a plug is one I will investigate before installation ) 5) There’s gasket between the bell housing and the transmission. So there’s some ideas as a source of leaks.