msawdey44

MrBill--thanks so much for the photo of the block--that exactly agrees with the one in the shop manual, and with the location of the oil stains on the backs of the old bearings. Apparently the original bearings were drilled to line up with the holes toward the bottom of your picture, while the replacements line up with the upper hole, but both are connected, so it should make no difference. The bearings came from Bob Walker, and he said he thought this was perhaps the case--nice to have confirmation.

More on TR Waters: he is trwaters.com, e-mail is info@trwaters.com

About TR Waters--he sells on eBay, so one could always use an eBay message to find him.

The bearings are from Federal-Mogul, and, from the look of the boxes, are from "back in the day"....

I'm currently doing some work on my 1954 Dodge 241 hemi and have encountered something that nobody seems to know anything about--hope someone can enlighten me. I got a set of NOS main bearings to install, and find that the oil holes are located a bit differently than on the original bearings. The new ones have the oil holes about 1/4" offset toward one end of the bearing, while the originals have the hole centered. In the second picture I have attached, I think I can see the outline of an elongated hole in the block, sort of a shadow to one side of oil hole. The illustration in the 1954 shop manual seems also to show elongated holes in the block. I'm installing the bearings with the crankshaft in place and really don't want to do a complete tear-down to see if the holes match. So, any experience with this? If the oil holes in the block really are elongated, then perhaps it doesn't matter, but I'd surely like to hear from anyone who has actually observed this. Many thanks!

My 1950 Wayfarer is 196" long, but I think your Coronet will be longer than that, perhaps 210"--the wheelbase is 7" longer and I think there's rather more sheetmetal past the rear wheels....

My sense is that gas tanks for 6-cylinder Mopars from 49-52 are pretty interchangeable. I had to replace the one in my '50 Wayfarer and found one for a '49 Chrysler six that was identical. I did have to use the filler pipe from the Dodge, since the Chrysler pipe was a bit different, probably due to the different shape/size of the rear fender.

Started digging off the remains of the door weather seals on my 1950 Wayfarer sedan today. When I got to the bottom side, I noticed that the regular rubber seals stop at the edges of the door and the seal across the bottom is something different, with a metal backing that has "fingers" to go up into the drain holes across the bottom of the door. None of the usual suppliers of weatherstripping appear to list this separate seal for the bottom, and I'm not sure I see it in the 1950 parts book either. Anybody had experience with replacing this bottom seal with a length of the regular seal material? My concern is that that would likely block off all the drain holes, unless one managed to glue the seal material to the original metal strip, which is rusty but not totally disintegrated. Any thoughts or experience on this?

Just looked at Steele, and they do have them--about $470 per pair! Bernbaum has them for a bit less, but still over $400. So the junkyard route could make sense. The rubber seems to last pretty well, but the steel backing rots away--might be able to fabricate a new steel strip if necessary.

Try an eBay search--they show up from time to time, from a couple of different suppliers. I have also seen urethane versions offered.

I did a Scarebird installation on my '50 Wayfarer and have had no problems with it. The instructions left a bit to be desired, but after a couple of readings, I got the job done. The main advantage is that no modifications are required to the original suspension parts. One suggestion to anyone doing this conversion (not sure whether it applies to the Rustyhope installation as well) is to replace the grease fittings on the king bolts with 90 degree fittings. Otherwise its necessary to remove the calipers to get the grease gun on the fittings.

Be interested to see how you re-join the crossmember pieces--will it be necessary to use reinforcing pieces across the joins, or will the welding be strong enough?

Don't know whether other states have laws like that in California, prohibiting sale of used seat belts--but prudence would suggest buying new ones in any case. They are, afterall, cloth, and they lose strength with age--just like the rest of us. Besides, the mounting hardware on a factory-installed belt is designed to go into the built-in mounts in the car floor. To install in vehicles in our age range you'll need a set of hardware that includes reinforcing plates that go under the hole you drill in the floor.

Tom Langdon (Stovebolt) has a heat plate available for Mopars. I'm not sure it is listed in his catalog, but he does sell one--not that it would be very difficult to make one....

I've been happy with Rotella-T 10w40 in my '50 Wayfarer. It had sat for 16 years when I got it, had huge amounts of crud evident in the valve lifter chambers, and a great deal of smoke once I got it started. After a couple thousand miles of running and a couple of oil changes, the smoking is completely gone and it seems very healthy. I gather the reason for going with diesel oils is to get the zinc for the flat lifters--not to say but there is a good deal of "discussion" about whether this is necessary. All I know is it's running well.