FarmerJon

Young and Vee pretty much got it covered, but incase another angle would help....

Looks like a good start! Hard to really tell how much you blended the casting flaws in, but if you have them fairly well knocked down, you may try a couple different shape coarse stones to blend it all into the port walls. I might try a large round one. Usually these move iron so slowly, that there is minimal risk of cutting too much. You always have your broken exhaust manifold to experiment on, to get a feel for how much you are cutting, or practice cutting and blending a certain shape or area.

I think you are looking at the wrong numbers. I have a pic someplace with the right areas to look marked, I will try to post it later tonight, I think lowest numerical gear made was 3.54 or so, all the way up to 4.11+

Yes. Sometimes the stamping gets filled in with paint, you may need to take some sandpaper to it to read the whole number

Are you running a thermostat? What is your ignition timing set at? Are you burning 100% gasoline, or the 10+% ethenol blend fuel? (Not sure if that is thing in Europe)

When water pump was off, did you check your water distribution tube? Have you flushed out the sediment out of the block? Are your overheating problems at low speeds, or at highspeed, high load conditions? If at high speed, it could be a issue that would be counter intuitive, with the pump spinning "too fast" and creating cavitation, effectively not pushing enough coolant. I am not sure how I would try to determine if I needed to spin the pump faster or slower. Several companies make "water wetter" that changes the surface tension of the coolant, to make it more efficient, this would be easy to try. I recall someone posting about how to "T" in a bypass circuit into the heater hoses, so that when the heat was off they system didn't dead end at the back of the block, maybe that alone would help. Have you looked at your distributor timing and fuel mixture? Both can contribute to engine temperature under load. Also, some feel that the stock exhaust set up, with one outlet at far end of the engine causes so much restriction that it can add heat as well.

Good work! Should help make for a nice looking engine, once painted and assembled! Are you thinking of using glyptol or some other paint to seal the inside cast surfaces?

Thank you Bryan!! Seems doable. So I need to find an orphan DPCD key to make my locks match? My ignition has the pentstar keys, must be a replacement? Are there any particularly cool Mopar keys I should hunt for?

If you get car up to operating temp, spray it with PB blaster, tap on it, and lightly tighten it several times before trying to remove it, you may find it comes out with little trouble. I will often spray bolts down several times, a week or more before trying to remove them.

Yes, he recrimps the can. Looks pretty good to me. He doesn't replate any of the parts, although if your unit is particularly rough, I would think something could be worked out.

Terril Machine in Texas will rebuild them. Nice guy, good clean work. Ran me around $85 for the one I just had him do. Took a couple months.

So it looks like Chrysler had the shorter lock also, so my best is they are from the '49-50 cars. Anyone got a spare they can take a picture of? While we are talking locks, what is supposed to hold the lock in the door? Some sort of sheet metal clip? Mine is an older restoration, so many things aren't done right. It had nothing holding the lock in the door, just gravity and paint over spray.

Trying to install them is how I found out they are too long. There is a locksmith near me that ha been in the same spot since the 1920s, and has a lot of old stock. I will talk to them to see if they can get me straightened out

My car came with a couple boxes of spare parts, new and old. It did not come with door or trunk lid keys. It did come with a pair of NOS door lock cylinders with DPCD marked aluminum keys. They came in a Briggs and Stratton box, part number 85921, with '1948 door' hand written on it. I went to install them last weekend and found that they are significantly different than the locks in the car. Both the body and the stems are too long. What do they fit? Must be something similar in year, due to the face of them being identical, but with thicker doors. Maybe DeSoto or Chrysler? I would like to identify them, so I can send them to someone who can use them, and afford to have mine rekeyed or replaced with the correct ones.

I think rock auto still has water pumps for fairly cheap. The service manual details how to check and rebuild the original one, I kept my original to do "one day". Hopefully you will have less problems finding the correct thermostat, with all it's pieces, correctly made, than I did, but I suspect it is a problem with ALL parts store brands. As far as the loose steering, there is a large rubber pad on each side of the steering box mount. As they fail and fall apart the box is able to move more and more. There is also some adjustment in the box to take out some slop between the gears. Good luck

That "hot rod" style one is normally $15 at the parts store and the cheap Chinese paper elements are very restrictive. Your stock oil bath likely preforms better.

My car came with a 4" louvered chrome filter on it. Pretty quickly I swapped in a cheap oiled cotton element, seemed to help a lot. Recently cleaned out the oil bath and am trying it for a while. Not much change in performance, but got rid of the annoying sucking whistle that was present at certain times. Down the road I plan on using the tall "Edmunds" filters that O'Brien's reproduces. They are 4" but are double the height of the cheap chrome filters.

Sorry if you have already said, but when is the last time you know that it ran? Did someone else do work to it, only to have it never run again? How old is the fuel you are using? While you have the spark plugs out for the compression test I would verify that #1 cylinder has the rotor pointing at the terminal of the distributor when it is at TDC and that said terminal has the wire going to #1. From there I would verify the order of the other plug wires. Some resources show our distributor turning Counter Clockwise. This is wrong, and will cause a condition like you have now. To be clear, our distributors turn Clockwise. Good luck

Very nice looking car!!

Saw a motorcycle vs car wreck yesterday- both 40mph or less, rider in very bad shape....life is full of risks, best to have your affairs in order. By the math of the article, my P15 should be OK to cruise at 67 (3200rpm) to 71 (3400rpm) with reserve up to nearly 80mph. Only one Highway near me has a speed limit of 70, not sure many areas have limits higher than that. My car is nearly stock, except dual exhaust and aerostar springs, but needs the mount rubber replaced under the steering box, and passenger side suspension rebuilt, a alignment, and likely wheels need a better balance job. 60 is comfortable, although I have to watch myself, I try to shift "up" into second looking for the next gear.... 65-70 wheel balance starts to have some shake, and it feels too light for my taste. I suspect once my suspension is sorted it will feel confident up to the limits of the engine.

I believe I have heard of this issue with rebuilder grade pistons for all sorts of engines. I wonder if this is why several members have seen 217"s with pistons well below deck, and others have seen them with them near flush.

Ya got to be bold with the hammer to get the races out! There are usually 2 or 4 cut outs in the hub around the back of the race, I usually crisscross, hitting in one spot then the other to keep the race from 'cocking' and jamming. BUT I would clean the bearings good, and inspect for damage. https://www.timken.com/pdf/5892_Bearing Damage Analysis Brochure.pdf Once clean, and if no flaws are found, I would test fit everything and figure out WTF is going on. Then pack with good grease and install with a new seal. If damage is found, I would replace the race and bearing together. I just sent a set of wheel bearings to New England Gear polishing for REM treatment, I will post a review when I get them back.

I don't know much yet about adjusting Lockheed brakes, but I do know that wheel bearing races should be seated in the hub, and, fully seated, you should have enough thread on the spindle to tighten the complete assembly well past "too tight" If they aren't fully seated, they will seat themselves sometime in the course of driving, and that is generally unpleasant. I am fairly new here, but know you have been having lots of problems with getting these brakes together, but don't know the history of how they came apart, it sounds like they were last together many years ago. Did they come to you as a basket case? Or did you disassemble them? Are you sure all the parts are correct or is it possible a previous owner mixed in some alternatives that might not fit? Are you including the 'washer plate' between the castle nut and outer bearing?

Even with modern cnc, rough areas like that can happen. Dull tools, aggressive cuts and high feed speeds help pad the bottom line, but make ugly parts. They are nicely finished where they matter. As a note, my '53 DeSoto spindles looks the exact same.

Just clocked 14.75mpg, driving around town, with a fair bit of idle time, and a carb that needs some love.