JohnTeee

Thanks Ed! Back together we go, then. Cheers! John

Rebuild on the carb is going well, seems like I did one MANY years ago. I'm ready to put it back together and on, but have a question about the "Tube - Main Vent" in the bottom of the bowl. Part # 36; covered by plug #35 in the diagram below. I've pulled the plug and, from the looks of things, expected the vent tube to drop out. There does not seem to be anywhere to access the 'upper' end I can see it up in there, but can't get it out.. Soaked bowl in carb cleaner for two hours, sprayed carb cleaner in the opening and tried a little compressed air. Tapped the sides, top and bottom with the wood handle of my hammer, reached up in with a pair of fine pickups and tried to pull it out, nothing. Do I have a problem? Can I just leave it alone? Air from the compressor comes out in the throat someplace, so it does not seem to be plugged. Cheers! John

Morning 54Illinois, Thanks! You want to see something impressive, check out Bob Toft's engine bay pics. I'm envious. As for mine, that was kind of a cheater shot. This has been in-chassis valve work. The block is ratty, with the remains of paint that had been brushed on 50 years ago; same thing the manifolds had. Pulled them off and you could see drip marks where the paint ran from the top. They were basically painted where you could see. <grin> Everything I had out: manifolds, head, thermostat housing, valve covers, oil filter bracket, air filter support got cleaned up and shot. I hope it holds up. The head and manifolds were painted with Rustoleum 500F Engine Enamel, Color 'Aluminum'. Same for the black parts with semi-gloss black. I'm going to have to try to touch up around the bolt heads after my repeated re-torques. Tightening down the head tore up the paint around the bolt heads. Sigh. Cheers! John

@LittleMO - It's not very pretty right now, hood off, right front jacked up to get at valves and dirty in general. Manana! @54Illinois - this will look impressive, nice shot of the parts I've just had off and repainted. The rest of the bay is a little ratty. Cheers! John

I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Valves are hand lapped, retainers in place and cold adjustment done. Head torqued and almost all the hardware back in place. Manifolds installed, exhaust connected and fuel pump heat shield back in place. Decided that while I was doing as much as I was, and as much trouble as I had with the gas, might as well rebuild the carb. Good choice! It was full of lacquer crap. Parts are soaking now. Finish that up tomorrow. Now, if I only don't forget how everything went back together. The darn printout/exploded diagram that came with the carb kit was NOT of the best quality. Then I have to finish running down my laundry list of little things to finish up . . . maybe we'll be running this week. Cheers! John

@martybose - will definitely get the re-torquing in. @Young Ed - I was concerned that it might be a little 'light'. There has been some discussion on lubricants and torque in the forums, which led to my question . . . Head gasket sealer Re installing the head Stud Question U.S. BOLT TORQUE SPECIFICATIONS Maybe I'll split the difference? <grin> Cheers! John

Thanks Kevin! I'm hanging other files in the cloud, so, just sharing those. Cheers! John

Well, color me surprised! I was hoping to bypass the eSnip sign-in process! This is a new service for me, so I'm learning. Guess you'll have to set up a free account. Downside is, you'll get 10GB of free 'Cloud' storage. Matter of fact, if anyone is interested in an account, use this link to CX.com registration and we'll both get an extra 300MB of storage. Cheers! John

Robert, I just bought a set to put on with my recent explorations, but would not mind having a spare set. I see more engine work in my future! <grin> Cheers! John

While going through various threads here in the forum, I found a link to a four-part series called "Engine Rebuild", dealing with disassembling a flathead six, with downloads on a file sharing site called eSnips. Googled the files and did not find them anywhere else. I had a hard time registering (it kept telling me the CAPTCHA data I was entering did not match) on eSnips. Once I got the files, I thought I would share them in a format that was a little easier to get at. The articles are from "Auto Restorer", December 2001 & January, February and March 2002. Plymouth Flathead Six Engine Rebuild - Part 1 Plymouth Flathead Six Engine Rebuild - Part 2 Plymouth Flathead Six Engine Rebuild - Part 3 Plymouth Flathead Six Engine Rebuild - Part 4 FRANKIE47 has pointed out that you will need to set up a free account with CX.com to access the files. Downside is, you'll get 10GB of free 'Cloud' storage. Matter of fact, if anyone is interested in an account, use this link to CX.com registration and we'll both get an extra 300MB of storage. Cheers! John

So, on torquing head bolts and factoring lubricant (Anit-Seize, thread sealer, etc.) . . . Put thread seal on all of the bolts except the three that extend into the intake ports. With 65-70 Foot Pounds called for, I planned on a 70% torque of 49 (used 50), versus 70; set the three in the intake ports at 65. So, now I've seen reference to using 70% of the normal torque with lubricants vs. 'reducing torque by 15-20%' using lubricant, which would yield 56-60 Foot Pounds. Is that 6-10 Foot Pounds going to make a difference here? Is re-torquing the more critical thing? Cheers! John

Damn. That's funny when you come up with pictures of my car. I kept looking and looking at that picture, thinking it looked familiar . . . Cheers! John

Love those wide white walls but I have to say . . . "I like big butts and I can not lie You other brothers can't deny" Cheers! John

Well, I was camping from Friday until about noon today . . . but, as of dinner time, the head is back on and torqued down, most of the hardware is installed on the head and new manifold studs are in progress. Torquing the heads tore up some of the paint around the bolts, dagnabit! Gonna get this puppy back on the road yet! Cheers! John

Ah, a picture is worth a thousand words! The manual pics are good; Tom, yours nails it. Thanks guys. I do have both a maintenance manual and a parts manual and try to refer to them often. Would have figured out the flanges when I put it back on, but was just not 'seeing' it with the manifold in my hands. Don, I have already done as you suggested and picked up standard hardware, with brass nuts. I have some of the thick washers left from disassembly, so will use those in appropriate places. Trying to make 'next time' a little easier. I'm getting closer in my 'snowball return to the road'. Most recent, finally pulled the hood to make working on this a little easier. Forward tack weld of the hood to the bracket on the left side is broken. I may sit on that for a while, but will have to address that too. If I could just quit coming across 'just one more thing' as I do this . . . <grin> Cheers! John

Starting to plan reassembly of the head and manifold. I've got new studs for the manifolds. I've seen Don's picture and counted 13 studs. Maybe something will come clear when I go to reassemble, but I've been looking at my manifold and driving myself batty trying to find where 13 studs go. All I can find are 9 holes. I can see where the manifold might have been setup for 13 . . . is this common? The exhaust manifold is period correct (46-48), from the for what-it's-worth department: MOPAR 62095-13, Cast 4-30-48. The intake is 1120002-26, which was also period correct, if I remember that parts search. Is there something I forgot? Cheers! John

I'm thinking I just might replace manifold studs while I have everything apart anyway. In searching through old posts referencing manifold studs I've found: Dorman 3/8" 24 x 16 x 3-1/2" (2) Dorman 3/8" 24 x 16 x 2-3/4" (11) But also found a reference to: "Manifold Stud, Long" - two required, part 103203. "Manifold Stud, Short" - seven required, part 51561. "Manifold Stud, Exhaust" - four required, part 623369 for all the later years. The 103203 studs are 3/8-16 on one end, 3/8-24 on the other and 2 3/4 inches long. Looking at the Studly Pic that Don Coatney posts of his engine, it appears that there are indeed, two long and eleven short studs, so I'm confused by the second. I'm at work, so don't have my engine to reference. VPW has a sets of manifold hardware for $60. I can get a brass nut and washers for $0.99 each at the autoparts store and reuse my studs, for $12. I'm sure I could add studs pretty cheaply . . . BTW, I have a handy bookmark that makes searching P15-D24 (or any website) REALLY easy. Instead of using the forums built in search function, create a bookmark with the code below (Windoze - you can 'Right Click' on empty desktop; choose 'New'; choose 'Shortcut'; paste the code below into the box; at the end name it something like 'Google Site Search'; save): 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 Put it someplace you can find it easily. When you are on ANY website you want to search, click on the bookmark. You will get a pop-up box. Enter the text you want to search on that website and go. You can use all of the Google modifiers to fine-tune your search. This is different from doing a plain old Google search, as it does a SITE: search. But, it also does a SITE: search from where you are, through a pop-up box. Really handy. Cheers! John

I've got some reading to do before I reassemble then! <grin> Had not looked at torque for those and knew there was no way a torque wrench was going on all of them, even with a crows foot. I was cogitating on replacing the nuts and washers, had not done a search for what to use. Brass sounds like a good idea. Something that auto parts places will readily have, I hope? Read a post where Vintage Power has them . . . Had also intended to ask about the nuts and washers that were on it. There were four thick aluminum washers, four thick steel washers and one thin steel washers. Have to admit I did not pay close attention to how they came off and can't make any sense of order - aluminum with exhaust and steel with intake as the quantities don't match up. Also, found I have the 180F thermostat, so, one more thing to replace. <grin> Cheers! John

When I took it apart, the heat riser flap was frozen solid. A lot of work with PB Blaster, Propane Torch and a dental pick got it moving free and easy (carefully masked off for painting). Bushings are not wallowed out. The spring is in good shape and I have a spare from a donor to choose from. The little brass washer/keeper was trashed, but I had the donor for that too. Now that I am intimately familiar with it, I should be able to better maintain it. I was wondering about loosening the bolts through the riser for re-installation. Is it necessary to have a little give? Won't I lose my nice milling alignment? Guess I can snug it up to the block, then re-tighten the bolts through the heat riser . . . Cheers! John

Took my headers to the shop to get them hot tanked and a broken screw out of the heat riser assembly that I could not get. Turns out the guy in the shop used to work on these engines in the military and has built 15 of them, so he was very familiar with it. He suggested that I get my riser fasteners to him so he could assemble the headers and mill the intake/exhaust ports to a single plane. They're assebmled, milled, painted and ready to go on after I get valves back in. He told me, that on first assembly, they were way out of line. Looks GOOD now! He ground the valves and there were three intakes with bent stems. Same valves as were the worst stuck and took the most whack-a-moling. Go figure! I have three intake valves on order from NAPA and should get them this week. I'm going to start on lapping/installing the valves I have in hand, then will have the last three to go. It's getting there. Cheers! John

Bob, What's that round electrical component with the heavy cables up on the driver's side of the dash? Is it anything like the device next to my voltage regulator? I have engine compartment envy! Cheers! John

AutoZone FelPro 7564 C Dodge, Plymouth 6 281 (218???) Engine 1934-54 230 Engine (except Canadian built) 1949-59 Dodge Truck 6 218, 230 Enging 1937-60 Replaces No. 1326318 $25.99 It's the internal bybass gasket, so is backward compatible with the external bypass engines. Same type I pulled off my engine, which is external bypass. Cheers! John

Troy, You just reminded me that I had another part to paint . . . the fuel pump heat shield! Head is milled and painted, valve covers are getting coats of paint and now the heat shield has joined the headers and getting painted (black for the heat shield and silver for the headers). Cheers! John

I was reading some past posts about head gaskets and keeping a spare when traveling was mentioned. Also read some thoughts above about reusing a head gasket . . . The head gasket I pulled off was 'good', in that I pulled it to work on the valves and not a bad head gasket. Can you clean up and re-use a head gasket, or save it for a back up? Does having a backup for these old gals tend to be a good idea? I think on one hand, this engine has been driven without head gasket problems since sometime in the late 50's. I would hope to get a few years out of the new one I'm about to put on. On the other hand, guess it's cheap insurance - could just tape it up in the trunk somewhere. Cheers! John

Verving away from the original topic <grin> but I just saw this the other day: NAPA may have the part you are looking for: Part Number: NCP 2748850 Product Line: NAPA Chassis Parts Attributes: Dimension A I.D. : .503" Dimension B : .812" Dimension C : 1.26" Dimension D O.D. : .855" Cheers!