JohnTeee

Well, after a long hiatus, both from the forum and the '47 Plymouth, we are getting things going again. We 'blew up' a clutch a while back and experienced a some problems trying to replace it. Not sure if I brought the first set of problems on to myself . . . In looking at the flywheel, there are two sets of bolt holes: the 'inner' set matches up to my original Borg & Beck 9-1/8" Clutch and Pressure Plate, rebuilt by TN Clutch in 2005. The 'outer' set of holes match up to the 10" 6-Spring Borg & Beck Clutch I had on my shelf. (Clutch Pat. No. 2.277.555-2.448.079; 9-Spring Pressure Plate Pat. No. 1889939-1880590-2104982). I believe these came out of an early 50's auto. With a son in 3-On-The-Tree learning mode, I thought the 10" would be a good drop in. My Clutch alignment tool fit fine, the clutch splines matched up with the trani shaft splines, but was a bit of a tight fit. We tried multiple times to mount the clutch, pressure plate and trani and things sort of hung there. Last week we pulled the 10" clutch/pressure plate out and installed a spare 9-1/8" Borg & Beck that appeared to have some life left in it. Doing some reading, I realized that there was a gasket missing between the bell housing and trani - never had one there that I'm aware of. We made a gasket for that interface , got everything lined up with a little difficulty and installed. Possible problem - with parts lying on the garage floor for over a year, there was a possibility of the propeller shaft getting flipped end for end . . . any problem there? We've pulled it back out and reversed it without any change. Oh, that brings me to the problem I'm having, starting out in 1st or reverse or downshifting 3rd into 2nd, there is a horrible shuddering and clanging; actually shakes the front end. It is almost impossible to get a smooth start. Pulling the floor and watching while moving the car, you can feel the shuddering, but the bouncing of the engine on the mounts I expected was not there. Engine mounts are probably original. Looking at the propeller shaft during movement I can see it 'bouncing' back and forth as it turns. I have a video I'll post shortly that will demonstrate that better than my writing. Maybe this movement is normal, as I've never looked at the propeller shaft during start up . . . Any suggestions on locating the source of the vibration? I know this is hard when you can't put hands, eyes and ears on the car! John

And one more . . . John

Just for fun . . . John

That's from my Husky . . . John

I'm trying to remember it being in the snow before and just don't recall it happening.

A little snow in Southeast Missouri this afternoon . . .

Brilliant! Thanks for the post Old Rat. Cheers! John

Well, a rotten end of the year and some distractions kept me from getting things done, but finally got there. Ryan and I had dropped the tank back in a while back and I was working on trying to rebuild a gas tank sender unit. Unsuccessful with the unit I disassembled, but a spare in a box seemed to work. Replaced the old shellacked cork floats with a couple of synthetic wine bottle corks, so will have to pull that in the near future and see how they are holding up (actually, I think I'll just drop one in a mason jar with gasoline and see how it holds up). Got it back in and filled the tank on Friday. Knew the line was bone dry, so we put gas in a bottle and poured it in the carb to 'prime the pump'. Fired right up. Went through about eight ounces of gas with nothing coming out of the fuel pump, before we realized the fuel line was disconnected from the pump. Attached that and things got to whizzing. Went out for a drive and it was really hesitating on starts and experiencing little drop outs. Filled the gas tank (about 16 gallons total sound right? Must go check the specs up front on the site). Went back and checked the timing (new points and condenser recently) and had about 15° advanced. That might cause a bit of a problem. Pulled the vacuum advance, set it to about 4° and it ran much better. Still has occasional little hesitations, or drops, while driving, but had it on the Interstate doing 70 without any trouble. Still some troubleshooting to fine tune it, but it's back on the street. Hope to get to the satisfied point soon, where I can drive it the 68 miles to work, once in a while. Cheers! John

Just went out to visit my dad and we worked on his '48 P15. Turns out that whatever grinding was done on the fuel pump lever had done no harm. Did a little 'pee' test and it pumped several ounces out into a container in short order. Rebuilt his distributor, as it was not advancing correctly and replaced the vacuum advance he had removed years ago. Also not the problem. Problem actually turned out to be one of breathing. Dad had modified his air filter to accept a cartridge. The cartridge was a bit shy in height and there was not enough room between the base and the lower lip of the cover to let adequate air through. He now has a wood ring to lift up his cartridge and lift the top. So, no thoughts on storing a used fuel pump for a spare??? Cheers! John

I've been following the current fuel pump thread with interest. I have two, unrelated to each other, fuel pump issues. In the course of my recent exploits, I replaced the fuel pump. Turns out the problem was in the tank, which I just back yesterday and plan to put back in today. Now I have a fuel pump that still has some life in it, that I want to carry for a spare. What 'prep' would be good for long term storage to keep the membrane intact? Dad (out in SoCal) is getting his '48 going again. He replaced his fuel pump also. He and my brother were having some trouble getting it back in. I believe this is one of the NAPA replacements. The pump arm of the new pump has something of a 'shoe' or cap on it; saw that on my new one. They elected to take that cap to the grinder to reduce it a bit and got it to go in. I suspect that this is the root of his, now, not getting enough 'get up and go' and choking out. I'm going out there next week to visit and help with trouble shooting. I'm thinking they 'ruined' the new pump, but maybe we can swap parts between the old and the pump and make something that works. Any ideas on either of these? Cheers! John

That's funny! And at first, I thought this was going to be an "OT" posting . . . Cheers! John

What Don said. And Tim. I use a Bluetooth mouse with my laptop. Dang pad is so sensitive when I type, I always end up jumping around a page of typing. Turn the pad off and use the wireless. Makes life easier. I would attach some type of external mouse and see how it works. Borrow it from your desktop to test. If it's USB you can unplug and plug it in without a restart. Cheers! John

I had this done six or seven years ago. Have not put a LOT of miles on the springs, so hard to compare it to before. No problems. Funny thing was, I got the old steel wraps back - hmm, maybe they asked if I wanted them back . . . don't remember anymore. Also put new front coils and new shocks all the way around. Front end had been bottoming out on bumps, so that was the biggest change I noticed. Cheers! John

Todd, These other guys are too polite to mention it, but dude, where's your radiator?! Cheers! John

Hi Dodgeball48, I went to my local, small town, single guy muffler shop. He put a new exhaust, muffler, tail pipe and chrome tip on for $114.87. I thought that was pretty reasonable. Cheers! John

Hell! I was thinking I'd provide the sunscreen, spread it AND bring my convertible to give them a ride in!!! Otherwise, I'll just have to say a prayer for you and tell you to play 2, 9, 16, 1 & 8. Cheers! John

Well, SH*TE Don. I'm sorry about that! Could have sworn that it measured longer. Tell me what you want to do. John

Hey Gow, Don't know what you're looking for . . . components or rebuild. I used Tennessee Clutch & Supply in Nashville for rebuilding my P15 clutch and pressure plate. Think Don C. gave me their name. Something that will make searching ANY web page, especially forums, a little more friendly is to use the 'Google Site Search' from a short cut. Create a shortcut link to put in your Favorites, or, even better, Bookmark Bar. Copy and paste the following code into the 'location': javascript:q%20=%20""%20+%20(window.getSelection%20?%20window.getSelection()%20:%20document.getSelection%20?%20document.getSelection()%20:%20document.selection.createRange().text);%20if%20(!q)%20q%20=%20prompt("Search%20terms%20[leave%20selection%20and%20box%20blank%20to%20list%20all%20pages]%20...%20",%20"");%20if%20(q!=null)%20location="http://www.google.com/search?q=site:"%20+%20escape(location.hostname)%20+%20"%20\""%20+%20escape(q).replace(/%20/g,%20"+")%20+%20"\"";%20void%200 Now, ANY web page you are on, you can do one of two things: 1) Click the link while on the page. A box will pop up and you can enter your search terms. It will search that entire website for your search terms. 2) Highlight text on the web page. Clink your new link. It will automatically search that entire web site for your terms. If you don't like how the search came out (too much, too little) you can always modify your search results by removing the quote marks to expand it, using the "OR", "AND" and "-" modifiers. Welcome to the forum. There's a lot of good information floating around. Cheers! John

Got my copy of Tom's book and I'm thoroughly enjoying it; great story. I'm up to Jarac and Hox's second adventure and they are just taking a side trip to look for the old wizard. Good plot that flows well; action scenes, are well written; good character development. Do you have more books??? P.S. Just explored your link and realized that you wrote for Baen's Grantville Gazette. I enjoyed that original series of stories, but have not read any of the fan fiction. Cheers! John

A little bit of nostalgia . . . I like those! Cheers! John

Jim, we'll have to try to hook up sometime. I'm about 100 miles south of you in Cape. Road trip in the '47! Cheers! John

Dropped the fuel tank after draining it and found it to have rusty goo in the bottom. Gave it several good rinses with soap and hot water and cleared some of the junk out. Still have some clean steel on the floor of the tank, but still have plenty of scale built up. Blew the fuel outlet out with compressed air and I don't think I have an oilite strainer any more; never found anything large enough to detect in the tank. Decided to take it to the local radiator shop to get chemically cleaned. They are going to clean it and send it out for coating in the inside. $140 and I should not have problems with the tank after this . . . I'm tackling another common complaint with these old girls - the non-functioning fuel gauge. Two bolt sender had been replaced in the past, but was now a frozen solid unit. After searching the forums I decided to have a try at disassembling one of two old senders that no longer worked. Drilled the rivets and it actually looked pretty good inside. (The resistance coil looks very dark, but is actually pretty clean and lighter colored) I guess these things are open to gas sloshing about inside? There's a little not-a-rivet in the bottom of the bowl, that appears to be designed to allow fuel to flow back out. The old shellac around the coil base is mostly dissolved. There was little corrosion, but I gave it a good spray with electrical contact cleaner and gently brushed with an old toothbrush. I measure about 25 Ohms across the two terminals, instead of 30. The contactor makes pretty good electrical contact with the side of the bowl, but has a couple of jumps when the arm moves. I did not find a lot of information on messing with the guts of these things. Found Tod's instructions for rebuilding single bolt units (however, J.C. Whitney does not appear to carry that replacement unit anymore). Did not find much about rebuilding the two bolt units. Other than cleaning up the contacts, is there anything else I should do before reassembling the unit? Cheers! John P.S. I'm toying with replacing the cork float with a brass float out of a spare carb, or try the Ford float replacement I found in another thread. I think the cork has gotta go!

I'm just upset to learn that you are not including a nice Chianti . . . Cheers! John

Heh! Looking for that to show up any time! Then there's that nice looking turn signal mechanism . . . My housing is a little worn, but should be serviceable. I probably need to take it apart, clean with electronic contact cleaner and, even better, maybe run some new wires. Cheers! John