BobT-47P15

Right.......what he said. There might possibly be a bolt holding the bottom cushion clips in place. Get a nice bright light and look at the front bottom edge of the seat.......see if there are two metal tabs or loops with bolts. If not, just apply pressure to push the cushion to the rear and up......it is held in place by spring type pressure.

OK......thanks. I wasn't sure which it had..... my 47 Plym convt has the vacuum system. I have sent a personal message to a certain old Plymouth parts vendor I know asking if he might have those rocker chrome clips. Hopefully will receive a reply fairly quickly.

Beautiful car Shawn. Glad you have gotten it restored. Is the top operated by an electric motor or the older vacuum system?

The frame serial number (which is the same as the number on the original engine) on my 1947 Plymouth is on the driver side frame rail, toward the top edge of it, about six inches in front of the gas tank filler neck. It is stamped into the frame, so you will probably need a wire brush to knock off accumulated road grime and perhaps paint. It should start with the model designation of your car...........mine begins with "P15" followed by more numbers.

I think there is a company doing the plastic chroming in or near St. Louis, MO. At one time, they were a regular metal chrome shop, then made a change to plastic. I can't now recall the business name or exact location.....probably a google search might locate someone there.

Technostalga does offer a complete LED P15 tail light unit .... which in my opinion looks real good. It is all plastic but only comes in 12 volts. Definitely brighter and easier to see. For a while they also made a 6 volt light, which is what I have....but have stopped making them due to low demand. I don't think they made them for any other models. If you have questions, you should be able to contact Todd at Technostalga. Should be a phone number on their website.

Attended the Springfield, MO swap meet on Sat Aug 18......I would say it's the largest swap in the state, held at the Ozark Empire Fair grounds Admission is your $5 parking fee. Went through the car corral and took pictures of things I saw that interested me and hopefully a few others. Unfortunately, as with most swap meets, 1947 Plymouth stuff is not easily found. I found a couple guys who had restored a P15 for someone and had some assorted pieces left over......bought a few things that interested me for $20 and left the rest for someone else. Hopefully this link to my PhotoBucket online album will work so anyone can look at the cars I saw at the swap. http://smg.photobucket.com/user/BobT3/media/Spfld Swap Meet 8-2018/DSC00500.jpg.html?sort=3&o=38

Yes......you can find usable plastic clips nowadays, plus there are some metal ones that you break off the bar to the desired length. And, I think, some with metal "whiskers" that you kind of twist into the piece of trim. There are some fellows selling reproduction trim clips for our old cars also, if you can find them. I didn't realize how different the Dodge stainless is from the P15 trim. Your photos helped.

Radials will definitely improve the ride and more important the handling. My old bias ply tires wanted to follow the ruts and grooves in the road......the radials will remove most of that. They are harder to turn at very slow speeds or while stopped. If there is some play in the front end, they will probably help lessen that.

Hi Kirk. I went to the hotel about 10:30 tonight (Sat) and visited with a group of folks for a while. Sorry I missed you. Thanks for the pictures.....a lot of nice vehicles.

Finally have the new aluminum radiator painted (around the edges) -- left the core unpainted. Have it installed and hoses attached. Replaced the top hose with one about an inch longer than the old hose.....reused the bottom hose. Used the ridged hose because the angle of the neck on the tank was still not quite in line with the neck on the engine. Tried a smooth hose and the only preformed angle hose I could find kinked too much. This ribbed hose is tough stuff and will bend a bit without kinking. I know some fellows on here do not favor the ribbed hose as it was not an original style. But....sometimes you gotta do different stuff. Have not driven the car yet to see how it performs on the heat gauge. Will have to do that in a few days. I did notice my fan is farther away from the back side of the new radiator......on the old one you could just barely insert a finger between the two. Now you can insert a couple fingers between. I guess this new unit is a bit thinner. I had to purchase an overflow hose at a local auto supply.......it was a pre packaged thing about 36 inches long.... which is just right.....but it was very flexible.......so I had to make a couple guides to run it thru to keep it in place. Even though the manufacturer sends a 14 pound pressure cap with the rad, Mr. Coatney advised me to replace it with a 4 pound cap from NAPA........which I did. They had to order from the warehouse and it arrived the next day. I covered the cap with my lovely chrome Cal Custom dressup cover. Have had it a long time.....looked for another on eBay and discovered one just like it for sale for $99.99 opening bid. Sure didn't realize they had gotten that valuable.

I'm guessing your seats are original.......probably made of an early version of vinyl or some new (at that time) synthetic material on the light portion. There are some vinyl materials that look like leather with a grain in them. The problem is some things are not made nowadays......so where do you find a suitable replacement. I think my son in law got my seat material from a supplier in Kansas City that was going out of business. You may need to visit with an upholstery shop in your area and see what they know about various materials. Some shops that have been in business a long time have kept remnants of old fabrics tucked away on a top shelf and might accidentally have something you could use. If you have several shops, you might visit them all.

I looked for some plaid material for a while in past years. Yes.......SMS is high. So I checked fabric stores......and learned that a fabric used in a car, especially a convertible, should be UV resistant. And most if not all home use fabrics are not UV treated. Someone suggested material used on boats and outdoor furniture......but I could never find a source of such material around here. (There has to be some place to get it.) So my son in law purchased some vintage fabric from a supplier in Kansas City....solid color tan and solid maroon.....which is very similar to what came originally on my car. My door panels and rear side panels were leather but seats were cloth. Leather was an available option.

I just replaced my original radiator as the local radiator shop said he could not fix mine..........got a Champion aluminum for about $235.........masked off the core.......and painted the top, sides and bottom gloss black. I also had the upper tank neck reconfigured from a 90 degree angle, to one of approx 45 degrees. That was done at a local welding shop by making a pie cut in the top of the neck, removing some metal, pulling the neck up to a lesser angle, and re welding it back together. Probably a simpler way is to order the radiator with a straight upper neck. Had to get a new top hose (due to angle of that top neck and the fact the new rad is a little thinner than the old original) ... longer by about one inch, but the old bottom hose was usable. Haven't driven the car yet to see what it does in the temperature department. The radiator was a good fit.......but you need to replace the factory cap with a four pound cap, available from NAPA stores (they will probably have to order one in),

I think, if I remember correctly,, I didn't want to take my vent apart so I simply cut the new gasket right in the middle of the rear side, then used some trim cement to make sure it stays in place. So far, no problems and it is not really very noticeable.

Looks great. Nice color. With the trim rings, the wheels appear like original.. Are you using radial tires? They help to take up play in the front end and do not follow ruts and grooves in the road......make steering better. However, they are harder to turn at stop or very slow speeds. I have 2.15x75R-15 wide white radials on mine.

I wonder if some outside company made a handful of those El Camino/Ranchero inspired conversions. They probably did not appear in Chrysler literature.

Dodge made a regular pickup that looked like this.......which is obviously not the same as the one you posted.

A few years ago, son in law bought some outside pipes.......we propped them up under my car to see how they would look. Didn't do much for the look in my opinion.

Yes......I noticed those old custom touches too...........and perhaps fender skirts........along with a pretty original color scheme paint job. Please add a few more pics when you have time. Welcome to the forum.

I think these days the deal is............use any number you can find that the state licensing bureau will accept......such as the number tag on the door frame. It is pretty permanent and should identify the car OK.....even though not how it was done in years gone by.

And........I just remembered I found a date on a Plymouth block......on the driver's side below the distributor......which probably is a casting date of the block, and may not coincide exactly with when a specific car was actually built. The number shown is 6-2-53.......so it probably is not too far from when your car was built. Don't know how far ahead they stockpiled engine blocks.

Hmmm.......interesting. Does look a bit better than home made versions. Looks like a 57 or 58 body style. The curved top tail gate looks rather professional. This is the first time I've heard about such a vehicle.

I was looking thru some pictures in my online photo album and ran onto some pics I took when locating my serial number.....also used as a VIN in some places.......on my frame. It is on the left rear side, outside, about six inches in front of the gas tank filler neck. You will usually need to get out the wire brush to knock off paint, rust and whatever. On a Plymouth, that number begins with "P15" followed by additional numbers. These will be the same numbers that were stamped on the side of your original engine. If they don't match.....the engine has been changed/replaced with something.....be it from another car or a factory rebuilt. Since those numbers appeared on the original title as a serial number (they had not yet invented the VIN) many states used them on the paperwork. However some states have not used a title, so I don't know what numbers they used to ID a car. Nowadays with motor changes and such, some are using the little metal plate on the front door frame since it will not change with motor swaps. I don't know if this tidbit of information will be helpful to anyone, but thought I would post it anyway .

I actually did use a stock shock on my 47 P15 after adding a Ford pickup mount to the frame. The other models of shocks, numbers given me by other members, were too long and bottomed out quickly. Actually I would like to find a different shock about one inch longer than my old one, but it has been working fine. The shock mounts I used look like this......