Norm's Coupe

New tank about $250. New sender, if one wire about $95, if two wire about $30 to $40. Wheel cylinders about $30 each and you have 6 of them. MC will run about $20 for a rebuild kit and about $200 for a new one. Don't forget the brake shoes. Those will be about $30 or so per wheel to have them relined. That said, that's just the tip of the iceberg when buying an old car. I'm sure you'll have many more expenses involved after you get into it. This is a hobby and it's going to cost money to play. So.........if you don't want to spend money to do all the things that will come up, maybe you should not buy it. Old cars are money pits.

I have one of those bleeders, and it's not worth squat in my opinion. Puts more air into the system than it takes out. You don't need two people to bleed the brakes manually. One can do it easily and just as quick with a piece of hose and a jar, and you don't get any air in the system that way. Simply hook up your bleeder line to the wheel cylinder, place the line in a jar about half full of fluid (weigh down the line with a bolt tied to it to keep it below the fluid in the jar). Sit on the door sill of the car and press the brake pedal down about 5 times, then move on to the next wheel and repeat until you have them all done. Should refill the MC each time you start a new wheel cylinder. I know of at least one other forum member who will say the same thing. That's because I bought my bleeder from him. He tried it and said the same thing I did. But.........I wanted to try it myself, so I bought it anyway. He went back to doing it manually too.

Powerhouse, This year you should make the Smuker's Birthday list on the NBC morning show. I see you'll be 100 years old in August. :D

Greg, Pushing down on the pedal causes the fluid to go to the wheels as you mentioned. But........when you let up on the pedal, it causes bubbles and if let up fast enough it will cause the fluid to shoot up about an inch or so like a geyser, if all is working well.

Bill, Some Plymouth's were made in Mexico too since at least 1987. I bought a new Reliant in 87. Had a sticker in the trunk that read, "Assembled in Mexico".

Adam, If you still have a problem with it, bring it over to the house. I have an Engine Analyzer we can put on it to check the system out.

Jim, I had the same problem with my bumper when I replaced it. The problem is the bumper bracket off the frame. Those are spring steel so you have to finesse them a little to make the holes line up with the brackets.

Take a small nail or something else pointed and try to clear out the hole. You could have a small piece of rust or dirt in there plugging the port. If the piston is actually stuck, it's probably time to rebuild the MC. Outside of that don't know of any other quick easy fix. I don't think it's a problem of needing to bleed your MC since you didn't let it go empty. A piece of dirt could have gotten into the MC when the lid was off. If you pumped it, you should have had some movement of the fluid in there. Maybe you pumped it too slow too. Try it a little faster. If still no action check the above.

Jim, If your MC never went dry you shouldn't have to worry about that. There is something in there somewhere about doing that though if it did go dry, or when replacing it. You might want to check the plunger in the MC too. To do that, fill up the MC and leave the lid off. Then push the brake pedal down by hand and let up on it. After you let up on it, you should see either a bubble coming up from the bottom of the fluid, or it may actually squirt up about an inch or so, depending on how fast you let up on the pedal. If no bubble, you have a problem with that valve being stuck, or the plunger itself. Do that a couple of times at least, if no bubble the first try.

I have a pump style bleeder with the tank. Never had much luck with it though. Seemed to put more air in the system than it let out. Went back to the manual method and all went smooth again. That said, I would bleed all six cylinders. Usually you won't get much pedal and hold it until you get to the last wheel. If your master cylinder had gone dry at some point, you may need to bleed it also.

We have those idiots here too. Funny thing is, a lot of times they get stuck in another lane and you then pass them up again. Or, they are stuck at a traffic light when you pull up along side them. Glad you made it home safely.

When you fixed the brakes originally, did you put new oil light washers soaked in oil under the steel washer on the pivot pins? Or, felt washers soaked in oil under them? If not, the shoes could have stuck close enough to the drums to wear the shoe down fast. I can't think of anything else to cause all of them to be out of adjustment like that. It's unlikely you would have all bad return springs. Or, as mentioned the MC could have stuck and not allowed the shoes to return properly, again wearing the brake shoes faster and causing them to get out of adjustment all at once.

I can remember that happening to a lot of people back in the day when these cars were newer. Usually it was a problem of the brakes not bleed properly and air would build up in the system. You would see people go to the wheel that was locked up, loosen the bleeder screw to let the air out. That would release the locked brake so they could get home and fix it, or take it in for repair.

That's a good find for the money. Don't think I've ever seen one of those with a metal blade. Usually rubber blades. Maybe the rubber one broke like a lot of them did, and was replaced with a metal one. When I was just a kid in the early 50's my father had an overcab truck he hauled his plastering equipment and scaffold boards in. Had one of those fans on the dash in that truck.

Good point about all the leased cars Greg. But.........when it comes to people buying a new car of some kind for 0%, I don't consider them lucky at all. Have you read the fine print on the 0% financing in the car ads. Every one I've read says something like 60 months at 0% and none of the rebates are available with the 0% financing. If you take the rebates they say the interest rates are between 6 & 7%. So...........either way, you are paying the same price. That's no deal in my book. You are still paying the interest or more if you take that 0% financing.

Well guys, if we keep bashing the American cars they will most defiantly keep going down the tubes. A lot of people seem to want to bash Chevy for example. But........I've always had good luck with them. Also have had many Fords and also good luck with those. Right now I have a 95 Chevy Lumina APV that I've owned since about 96. I haven't had any major problems with it either. Just a oil pressure sending unit, alternator, heater fan and electric window motor replacement, other than regular maintenance. Have 82,000 miles on the car. With all those years and that small amount of problems this van doesn't owe me anything, even if it died today. Keep in mind, all cars are a mechanical machine. Any mechanical machine needs to have parts replaced from time to time, regardless if it's a machine in a factory or a automobile. And, regardless of who built it. It's just a fact of life. The real problem with an automobile is the fact that people are so dependent on them to get from point A to point B. So..........when it does break down, all of a sudden we think it's a catastrophe and the thing is a piece of junk, simply because now we have to spend money to fix it and you can't do what you wanted to do now, until it is fixed. When it comes to foreign cars someone mentioned the high quality of Toyota. Well.........here again it's a machine and it has an owner who is human. I only know a few people that own a Toyota, and they bash it also because they have to have it repaired, just like the American cars. When my wife wanted to buy a new car in 2002 she looked at all cars. Then she said the Kia Spectra she found on the internet looked "Cute". I had wanted her to buy an Impala but she liked the "cute" Kia. At that time I had heard nothing but bad mouthing about Kia cars, so wasn't too happy about her decision. So.........in an effort to switch her back to the Impala I went on many internet searches to find bad stuff about the Kia cars. Well........I did find people bad mouthing the Kia cars. However, every one of those complaints were about something stupid about having to replace an exhaust system after about 90,000 to 100,000 miles. Don't know about you, but I call that normal maintenance, as was the other problems I read about. But.......here again, the owner had to spend money to fix it, so they were upset. I didn't see any complaints on model years after about the year 2000. So........she ended up buying the Kia. We have had absolutely no problems with it in 43,000 miles now. But.........I'll still bet there are some Kia's (like other cars) out there that have had many problems. You get bad and good in every marque. It's just the luck of the draw when you buy any car, simply because it's just a machine, and not all machines are perfect. So.........let's stop bashing the American car industry and start supporting it. Even if you don't buy one don't be negative about them. Be positive. And, if you don't like something in particular about one make or the other, sit down and write that company a letter and tell them. While doing so, make it a positive letter of complaint. To do that, give a suggestion on how to make it better. That will help them make the negative a positive. And remember one thing. Your suggestion may not be done or even sent up the ladder. That's simply because you don't build them, you just drive them. Disclaimer: No I'm not in any way connected to any American car maker. Know no one who is, or works for them.

I owned a 52 Dodge back in 1963 with a gyromatic, which is similar to the fluid drive. I had no problems with it. I put about 40,000 miles on the car and it was just flipping over to 100,000 miles when I traded it in. As for the 12 volt battery in the car. Just to start it and run it briefly probably would not hurt anything as long as you don't use the lights, radio and other electrical accessories in the car. However, you should do it right which is explained in the main section of this site. As for working on the fluid drive. I really don't think it would be any more difficult than any other automatic transmission, as long as you have a book to tell you how to work on it.

I'm agree with that. That's also what I said in this thread. However, he never did say if he ate all that.

Well....how a day or two makes a difference. Just heard on the news tonight that in fact GM has verified that the Pontiac will be no more. So.......I guess Dennis had the latest news.

Could it be a bad MC? I had a MC go bad on me all of a sudden while stopped at a light. Brakes were fine when I stopped, then the pedal just went to the floor while sitting there. Pumped it a few times and the pedal came up again, but then slowly went down again. That was on a more modern car though, but don't remember which car it was that it happened in. Don't remember what my book says for my coupe about adjusting the brakes, but it seems like it was a pretty regular schedule that they recommended.

Greg, I gave that a little thought too. But.......if you enlarge that picture you'll see the whole back cushion looks like it's water stained. Has a slight brownish tint to the gray cushion cover. Plus do the same to that engine compartment. At any rate, I was only interested in that car for two reasons. First, I like that body style (sorta the same as a 53/54 Chevy). Second, I thought it was a car that didn't need any work to look and drive good. I don't want another car that I have to replace the interior and do a lot of engine work on. I want one that I can just get into and drive and enjoy. This car looks far from it when I saw the back seat area and the engine compartment. Looks like one of those slam bang, thank you mam, slam dunk, make it look good to make a fast sale to the unwitting.

Well Don.............I was ready to at least go look at it until just a few minutes ago. Then I found these two extra pictures. Looks like this car was in a flood to me, so no. I'm not even going to try and find the guy now. Check the engine compartment and the rear seat area of the car. Looks like water stains on the backrest of the back seat. But...........if those things had looked good, it's a good possibility that it would have replaced my coupe. Couldn't get that second picture to post, so go to the link on craigs list for a look at the rear seat area. http://milwaukee.craigslist.org/cto/1137848227.html http://images.craigslist.org/3o13pf3l2ZZZZZZZZZ94q3fb1f24d703d1585.jpg

I'm trying to find the owner of this one. It's for sale locally but I don't have the contact information.

Easier yet. Just take the clamp off the original air cleaner. Use it to clamp the new air cleaner on the original carb.