Ricky Luke

I'm looking at the fender mounted lights for my 40 Chrysler. Just search on Google for 1940 Chrysler and look at the images tab. They may not suit your Plymouth, so the twin filament option is a good idea. I'd change to LED bulbs to make sure they're bright. Rick

Welcome Aus What Andy said... Not an easy job putting an auto in, but I appreciate the reason you’re doing it. Rick

G'day Trav, welcome to the site. I'm assuming the 40 body was imported by Mick? Cheers Rick

Oooo, I'll take the rear fender for the 40 Chrysler at $16.60 thanks Rick

Try this - mount it under the dash or in a hatbox on the parcel shelf or rear seat. Sync it with an old or cheap phone that either streams your music or has a lot stored on it. https://www.kmart.com.au/product/portable-bluetooth-speaker---grey/869301 It has the tinny AM sound we're all looking for Rick

Just a heads up if you use a click type wrench with the settings on the bar - my dad had one which started to undo at the point arrowed. It meant his settings were about 20 lbs out. Blew 3 head gaskets before we figured out the problem. Rick

Actually, try just removing all the plugs. It should turn over easily by the fan. Rick

Here's the detail on my Chrysler 1940 C25 wheels. The car's black with a green interior. Not sure where the wheels were painted, but I assume they were shipped from the USA plain black and the detail added here. Rick

A trap I recently fell for... My dad has a torque wrench similar to the photo. He tightened the head of his rebuilt 29 Plymouth as above to 40 ft/lb. It kept blowing head gaskets. When we checked the tension for the 3rd time I noticed the silver handle had unwound from the black nut, meaning the head was only tightened to about 15. Going strong since we fixed that little issue... Sometimes you can blame your tools - until you figure out you're the goose that should have looked a bit further into the issue. Rick

The grey could also be bearing material. I'd take a couple of caps off and make sure there's a decent amount of white metal on them. I'm sure it's condensation, but while you're in there... Cheers Rick

This actually happened to my dad's 59 Triumph Herald convertible, but I thought I'd post here because it was an unusual problem. Dad gave me the Herald recently, as he now cant in and out of such a small sports car. It's had issues which I was working through. I've been driving it to and from work over winter (on sunny-ish days) but eventually it became very hard to start then refused to start. Plenty of fuel - no spark. Poor spark out of the HT coil lead. Ok, either the coil or condenser has died. Replaced the condenser in the distributor with a NOS one. Hot spark from the HT lead, nothing at the plugs. Hmmm - only thing left is the distributor cap. Put a multimeter across the coil lead connector and the carbon brush - open circuit. There should be some resistance.... Carefully removed the brush and its spring as I didn’t want to stretch or damage it. The spring looked burnt, and the hole it sat in was black. After a squirt of WD40 in the hole and cleaning it out with a cotton bud I could see the metal the spring sat against. Cleaned the spring and brush and pushed it back. I used a flat punch to carefully push the brush until it actually clicked in place. I checked for continuity with the multimeter and I had a reading! I turned it over with all plug leads off and one aimed at No. 4 plug. Damn thing tried to start! Put it all back together and away she roared – well, as much as a 948cc engine can roar. It actually feels like I’ve gained a couple of HP. Moral of the story - when you have eliminated the obvious, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the problem. I’ve had a brush spring break and a brush crumble, but this was something new. Dad’s 82 and been mucking around with cars for most of that time and never had that problem. Rick

My first vehicle I drove by myself (as an 11 yo) was a T model Ford. That was interesting... My 16 yo niece is really keen on getting an older car for her first driver - and she's looking at a mid 60's Chrysler Valiant To get her prepared I'm borrowing dad's 29 Plymouth for a couple of days, and then into my 1959 Triumph Herald convertible. She thinks that's cool. Rick

Hi Bluefox As other people have mentioned, Chrysler have very good standard brakes - as long as they are in good condition and set up correctly. However, they can catch people out who are used to power assisted disks. I installed a vacuum brake booster to an all drum Morris Minor when I was a Uni student. I pulled the booster off an old Austin and it really helped. It doesn't solve brake fade when the car is driven hard though. There are a number of companies in the UK (eg Rimmer Bros, Canley Classics) who can supply a new booster. You may need to get different connection pipes made. If you haven't already, replace all the hoses with new ones. I fully understand your issues with the registration authorities - a booster is much less conspicuous than a disk brake setup. Cheers Rick

Yes and no. In theory with the right master cylinder you could push the right amount of fluid through a hypodermic needle, or use a 1/2" tube. It's an engineered solution based on cost, ease of manufacture, material availability, and at the time probably common sense. Rick

Also has to to do with fluid volume. Larger wheel cylinder pistons that need a lot fluid to move the shoes need the larger line to deliver the volume of fluid required for the same push of the pedal. Rick

LOL. I've spent 10 years combing through swap meets looking for 40 Chrysler parts, and only came up with a gearbox gasket kit. BTW Brent, I'm in Portland - Victoria... Rick

LOL, it looks like you have a fuzzy caterpillar crawling over your hand. Hope the recovery goes well. Rick

I'll say this upfront - like anything, it depends on the medical provider... My right wrist is not good due to CTS combined with flying over the handlebars of a motorbike. Probably other things as well, but anyway.... I've seen a lot of people about mine over the last 5 years. Surgery was always down on the priority as nobody would suggest it was better than 50/50. I went to an acupuncturist, and it's improved. Not perfect, but enough improvement to be worthwhile and put off surgery. Good luck Rick

Take the plugs and pour a little engine oil into the bores and redo the test with the plugs out. Unless there's a hole in the piston you should a noticeable rise in pressure. Rick

I'm very lucky my wife Chris shares some - not all - of my interests. She happily rebuilt the carby of her 68 Toyota Corona, we are both CAMS motor sport scrutineers, and when I told her a friend had the Chrysler up for sale, her reply was "I really like the art deco style of that car. How much is he asking for it?" On the flip side she hates wandering around hot, dusty or wet swap meets looking for the non existent parts. Rick

I used a PBR VH44 booster on a Morris Minor with Holden Torana (Vauxhall Viva) front disk brakes. The Morris has an under floor master cylinder like the Plymouth. I mounted the booster in the engine bay, but had to make new brake lines to reach the original master cylinder and brake line connections. It worked well. Rick

The http://www.imperialclub.com/ is a good resource for these giants. It covers all Imperials from 1926. Rick

54. As a family we spent many weekends and holidays with another family driving around Victoria, South Australia, and New South Wales looking for a T-model for dad to restore. His friend, who was a boilermaker, was looking for a steam car... After many years of chasing dead end leads, dad heard of an old car that was put on blocks in a shed in 1943 about 20 miles from us. Turns out it was a 1929 Plymouth tourer in pretty good condition. The owner went to war and never returned, and his wife never went into the shed again. My dad was going to turn it down as it wasn't his dream Ford, but mum threatened him with divorce if he didn't but it as it was in way better condition than anything he'd looked at, and she was sick of driving around back roads chasing rumours. I was about 8 when we brought it home. A basic clean up, re-did the brakes, and she was a driveable barn find. I've been a Chrysler fan ever since. Rick

I suspect GJ-424 was a personalised plate as NSW had the 3 letter / 3 number combination up until 2004. Wikipedia says the APD plate was probably issued in 1954, which fits the purchase date. I'd like to do the same with my Chrysler, using a Victorian period ID. BTW, welcome to the forum. Rick - lol, tripped over Andy's post...

Very nice Uberchin. I'm jealous. Rick