Dan Hiebert

I'll also suggest that the squeaking alternator and water pump may be the belt, since the car was sitting for so long. They make stethoscopes for mechanical use that would help narrow down the source of engine noise. A much less expensive alternative is to use a piece of garden hose, hold one end to your ear, move the other around the suspected noise locations. I keep a short piece handy for such adventures - handy tip - blow the spiders out before you use it.

So - not really an ignition part, then. Albeit in the ignition circuit. FWIW, I cleaned it up, the plate with the curved edge that can be seen in the top picture is a standoff to keep the coiled part away from the distributor and is made of bakelite. The bar between the rivets that the wire is wrapped around looks like a heavy copper alloy and likely contributes to the resistance, the edges of it are grooved to accommodate the wire. Looks like when manufactured, whoever put the wire on had to adjust the number coils for whatever resistance was called for. I'm guessing vintage aftermarket, still can't find any markings, and I haven't found anything even remotely similar in any of my tomes or online.

The critters seem to stay away from the cultivated stuff in our yard. But we do have wild raspberries and strawberries all over the place that the birds and other wee forest creatures scarf up. When those get ripe, it takes me an extra hour or so to mow. I'll be mowing all biff-and-happy and come across a strawberry patch - "ooh, strawberries!" Turn off the mower, sit in the grass, and eat strawberries. Itty bitty things, but they're the strawberriest tasting strawberries I ever recall eating. The raspberries stick around longer, but we have to watch for bears in the raspberry patches, especially later in the summer.

Got it, thankee kindly!

A couple photos and measurements of the stud in question. The threaded ends are 10-32. This one off of a D24 attaches to the fuel pump in place of a screw directly above the outlet.

Speaking of which, does anyone have a template for the heatshield itself? Or, point me in the right direction? I used to could find one on the Forum fairly easy, but I can't seem to locate it anymore. I acquired one of those studs recently, it's loose so I can go get a couple photos and measurements and post them later this AM. May help with fabricating one. I was gonna start roofing our shop today, but Mother Nature decided to rain on that parade, so I have some unplanned free time.

I'm a tad jealous, love me some good homemade salsa, but don't get enough ingredients here to make enough to put up. Which is kind of a misstatement, because veggies grow very well up here. Just can't get the fresh peppers. BUT, the missus gardens just enough peppers to make a few fresh batches of salsa or pico de gallo every season. Something to look forward to. We've got six acres here, but it's just about all forest, not much room for other than some raised beds scattered about. I wouldn't call us avid gardeners, the wife plants stuff, then barely pays attention to it. I have to tend the gardens, and lean more towards flowers (I grew award winning roses when we lived in NM). This year we signed onto a community supported agriculture program that the Amish are running. Getting some really good and varied veggies every other week, just picked up a couple tomatoes that are almost as big as dodgeballs!

Makes sense. The distributor is mounted low and to the rear of the engine (PIA to work on), which puts it pretty close to the radio, as within inches, and the plug wires are all routed over the rear of the engine, again mere inches from the radio, and I don't think there was such a thing as static suppressing sparkplug wires back then(?). That never occurred to me, it had a Hudson radio, but it was not original to the car, and I took it out shortly after we got the car. Do you think it is an aftermarket item, or a factory one? There are no markings on it at all. I'll keep it, but I won't put it back on just yet.

We've had the '37 Terraplane for almost 25 years now. Until this summer, I've never had a problem getting it to start. Fuel system is good, it's got good compression, and a strong starter. I'm pretty sure the problem is in the ignition (Autolite), I get an arc with the secondary from the coil to a ground, but no spark at the sparkplugs. Something in the distributor. But, in chasing that down, I realized that I don't know what the pictured part is, or if it may be contributing to the problem. I'm thinking it is some kind of vintage resistor, but I cannot find it in any of the parts manuals for Terraplane or Hudson (for any year), nor is it in any wiring diagram. It is made to be attached to the side of the distributor, that big hole in the base is attached to an insulated post on the side of the distributor that goes to the points, and the condenser lead is bolted to that. The primary wire from the coil is attached to one end of the spiral wire with the screw, the other end of that spiral wire is soldered to the base, so this thing is in the primary circuit from the coil to the distributor. It has .5 ohms resistance from the screw to the base. I have no idea if it is an OEM part or some aftermarket whiz-bang add-on, it was on the car when we got it. Could it be intended as a ballast resistor? I have a new condenser on order, and am pondering whether or not I should put this part back in the circuit, leaning towards "no".

My Terraplane had the same set-up. Also touted for anti-theft properties.

Too bad I'm a few thousand miles too far east. Always cold beer to be had here, and/or hot coffee ("usually fresh"). Perhaps you already know of it, but there used to be a nice auto museum / collection in Van Horn, attached to a restaurant. On the main drag towards the western side of town. It burned down many years ago when I was still working in Fort Hancock, but not all the cars were stored there. I'd heard it was rebuilt, but I haven't been back that way in forever to verify. It was always worth a stop if I was in the area.

The Carburetor Doctor in Tulsa, OK is a good source for carb kits, and some parts, too. I've got a slightly different Stromberg in the D24, not the usual BXVD but I don't remember exactly which right now. Couldn't find a kit for it, but sent the numbers to the aforementioned and they had what I needed on the shelf. Had it in hand within a week. They also had a kit for the Carter W1 in our Terraplane in stock.

I have the same "hole" on my generator. It is where the oil cup used to be. Before I had the original and as yet untouched generator on our car rebuilt, it had that oil cup. The rebuilder replaced the rear bearing with one of those "lifetime" lubricated thingys, and that hole how has a sealing cap in it - same as yours. Come to think of it, I don't recall if just the bearing was replaced, or if they replaced the whole rear cover. I have not lubricated it since it was rebuilt in 1995, and I have had no issues. In Roofus' post, the very end cap has a spring cover (not an oil cup) over an oiling hole, I can't see if yours has that or not. Mine does not.

The spray-a-gasket is made to seal those head bolts, too. Says so right on the can, and I use it for that, as well. Not necessary to seek out more than one product.

I hear ya. I paid $36 for a new fuel pump for the ol' Dodge in the '90s (...late 1900's?). Put a new one in (from the same vendor) that cost almost $200 this year. For whatever reason, I had "$30 or so" on the brain when I went shopping and was stung by the "new" cost.

For head gaskets I use Permatex's "Copper Spray-A-Gasket". It's for high temperature applications and has excellent heat transfer and sealing. "High temperature" doesn't necessarily mean it withstands heat, it also means it facilitates even heat transfer between the parts that the gasket is sealing. As per Sniper, it's also what at least some of the gasket makers recommend. When my Dad was learnin' me about working on engines, we would use silver spray paint for head gaskets. Three reasons; one is that when he learned there may not have been a specific head gasket sealant and I don't recall there being any until I was older; two, they used to put aluminum in silver paint (he told me you had to look at how the paint was made because "they" were starting to use other than aluminum in silver paints); and three, it was inexpensive. My Dad's not cheap, but he is frugal.

One thing I get a kick out of is when I stumble on vintage photos of our era MoPars, more specifically D24s. I don't actively go searching for them, but when I find one, I copy it if I can. I rebuilt a Cool Spot table/desk fan, made by the Signal Electric Manufacturing Company of Menominee, MI over the weekend and wanted to get more info on the company, and while looking, this photo came up. Not a picture of the Dodge, but of the company's building that just happens to have a D24 in it. FWIW - our fan was made in 1950, and Signal Elec. Mfg. ceased operations in 1954. The building is still there, but it appears to no longer be in use.

Beryl technically ran right over the top of us here in northern Maine, but it was "only" a line of thunderstorms by then. I can't even say we got more rain than usual. My older brother lives in Willis, TX, in Montgomery County, just north of Houston. They still don't have power.

I'm unsure of how much anti-freeze would be effective in "preserving" the little victims of a camp trap. I had a pan of 50/50 (the green stuff - glycerin?) under the Terraplane for several months a few years ago, when I finally got around to pulling it out it had well preserved dead mice in it. No way to tell how long they'd been there, but it was about three months past the annual autumn invasion, and I hadn't seen or otherwise eliminated any mice by other means for quite a while. I've heard and read as a precaution to protect pets, that the green anti-freeze attracts animals, which would of course include rodents. That pan wasn't set up as a trap, I had emptied the anti-freeze for whatever reason, it wasn't in my way, so I didn't bother to empty it for a while.

FWIW, what Kieth (in Canada) describes in that last post is what was happening with our daughter's '63 Falcon (yeah, yeah, not the right car, but same context). I had installed an electric fuel pump close to the fuel tank and kept the mechanical fuel pump. Car ran fine for a few years then experienced the same problems Doug&Deb are having. In this case, the electric pump was kind of self destructing, something breaking up in the pump clogged the system just enough that the mechanical pump couldn't keep up by itself. Removed the electric pump and had to replace the mechanical one (the fuel pump for that model Ford, 144ci I6, has an integral fuel filter that can't be serviced). So, not the electric fuel pump itself per se, but obstruction in the system that the mechanical one couldn't get past. I'm thinking that may cause the mechanical one to work all that much harder and "find" leaks (hence the bubbles) that are otherwise undetectable. Just a thought.

The ground cable on our D24 is to a stud (5/16) on the generator mount. The cable is routed under the generator to a built in (ergo - "factory") wire clamp on the inner fender, then forward and upwards to the positive terminal of the battery. That is not where it was when we got the car, it was straight from the terminal to one of the thermostat housing bolts. I don't like that look, found that stud on the generator mount, and changed the ground to that location with what to me is a cleaner routing. As noted, don't over-think it. Theoretically, the shorter the cables the better, but with 1 gauge cable the length isn't a concern in these cars. Use the right gauge cable, and route it where you like it. NAPA can build battery cables for you, too. They do here, anyway.

The Great Race came through Maine several years ago when it ended in Halifax. I didn't have to travel far to watch the cars on the road, which was interesting because despite all the stickers and such they still have to be original except for safety upgrades and such. It is certainly not a parade of old cars, since it is a rally course, kinda boring after a while, and it's mostly the same cars every year. It is ending in Gardiner, ME this year, after stopping at a couple of Maine's automotive hot spots. The weather isn't supposed to be all that good here, either.

I discovered unintentionally that if you use anti-freeze in those bucket traps, you don't have to worry about checking them quite as often. It'll still tally up the critters, but the anti-freeze keeps them from decomposing and stinking the place up if you can't clean them out every day.

We have a plethora of wee vermin to deal with in these parts. The snakes here don't cut it, I grew up in the southwest - these aren't snakes, they're worms with scales. As noted earlier, just another thing you have to keep after. There's no "fire and forget it" way to keep the mice at bay, I tend to the mouse traps regularly, and use a variety, 'cause them little squeakers are more intelligent than some people I know. Poison bait, camp traps (the bucket/water/roller/ramp thing), snap traps, sticky traps, and a big fluffy cat. We have a lot of owls, but that only means we have a lot of mice. Odors don't keep mice out, they just keep them from setting up residence.

Looks like you've got a good car to start with! That indeed looks like a really nice interior. Also - (que angels singing while the sun breaks through puffy white clouds) - you have a Custom, as opposed to a Deluxe. The Custom being the higher end model. Trim spears on the rear fenders, and stainless trim around the windows are external giveaways. I forget what that entails otherwise, other than an electric wiper motor and some fancier trim inside.