Dan Hiebert

On ours, the one with the oblong holes is on the rear/cowl. I am assuming this is because the rear of the hood being much wider than the front needs more wiggle-room to sit down in the opening correctly, and there is no trim piece on the cowl that the center trim/hinge piece needs to match up to . BUT, the holes in the other one are still large enough for plenty of adjustment to get the front matched up right, too.

Very nice progress. Although I may be a bit weird in that I kinda like the disassembled look of works in progress, I can hardly wait to see it when it's done. Not that I'm partial to D24's or anything...

My wife is a numbers wiz. She can do math in her head just as fast as I can with a calculator. I am not a math wiz by any means, even with a calculator sometimes. When our daughter was in school in Texas, she was in a special program called "Numbers Sense", where the kids competed in intramural math competitions. They had to do all the math in their heads, and she apparently inherited my wife's thing for numbers. When we moved to New Mexico, they didn't have anything close to that, and our daughter would get zero marks on her math tests because she didn't show her work, although she got the answer right. The NM schools refused to believe kids could do math in their heads.

When we lived in Wheatfield, just outside Buffalo, we used to visit the "Golden Horseshoe" (the western end of Lake Ontario, the area from Niagara Falls to Toronto) of Ontario on a regular basis. Very pretty, with a lot of "touristy" stuff to see. Somewhat nicer than western NY.

We live in a rural location. We were house-hunting in the March of a very snowy winter and noticed every single mailbox on the road was knocked into the snow bank by the plow, so we opted for a Post Office box instead of USPS delivery to our residence. Next town over from our Post Office, but same zip code. Junk mail volume has dropped a little over past month or so, which does not concern me, I celebrate it a bit. All it does is generate trash on my part. I'm no bunny-hugger, but I still do what I can for the environment. My uncle retired from the Postal Service, he was the Postmaster in a small town in southern Illinois. He's told me a few things over the years that are "Oh, Ok" moments about USPS, like all that junk mail is indeed revenue. The folks that generate it pay USPS to deliver it, so they have to. If that has lessened, it's not the Postal Service's doing. Our service is really good here. The USPS employees at the PO know us by name, even though we don't go into the lobby very often. Even though they don't have to, they'll post stuff to our PO Box that was mailed to our street address, and they'll warn us when we ship a package that will go through a particular area service center in Ohio known to them for theft issues, and they'll recommend UPS or FedEx instead.

Yes. Originally, there is a small loop stamped into the lip of the inner fender, where it rolls up under the outer fender along the top. Between that first and second fender bolt, from the front. Above the battery on the drivers side for reference. Not very obvious, it's only just big enough for the end of the spring to fit in, and that end of the spring should be installed before you put that cross bar on, to save on aggravation. I vividly recall NOT doing that way back when... Not a very good photo, but you can just make out the attachment point.

Here ya go. Driver's side. The passenger side is just mirrored from these. From the firewall towards the front. Latches mounted behind the flanges. Other than lubricating them, I haven't messed with these for at least 25 years. But if I recall correctly, it is easier to mount each latch separately, install the crossbar onto them, attach the release cable to the crossbar, then install the return spring. Hope this helps.

I'll head to the shop once the thunderstorms clear out and get some photos for you, that may be a little while, though. (Don't let that stop any of you who may have some readily available.)

Welcome to the Forum! You will indeed find a wealth of information in these pages. One recommendation is that you post pictures of your project whenever you can. We all enjoy them immensely, and sometimes they'll help us help you. Coker is not really the only bias-ply game in town, but I've noticed that most of the places that sell vintage style tires sell products from Coker anyway. I have Coker wide whitewall radials on our D24, which had Coker's reproduction BF Goodrich Silvertown WW bias plies on it before. We've never had a problem with them, product or company wise.

Casper50 is correct, your photo shows the correct orientation. Fat side down.

I use metal valve stems on all five of our D24's wheels. Only the spare is the Milton 476. That was mainly because it, too, has an oval hole. Unknown just why, it's not worn out or anything. Been so long I don't recall what brand is on the others. "Suitable color" is in the eyes of the owner, of course accompanied by the opinions of beholders... Our D24 was originally Fortress Grey, the original rims (there were two left when we got it) were a dark red, the spare was black, but I don't know if it is original. I believe there were various options on wheel colors - contrasting with car, matching car, a few shades different than the car. I've seen all of those represented as original, and they all look good, but I prefer contrasting wheels. ("Ho red" as one esteemed contributor calls them, "Crack rims" as my brother, a retired State Trooper, calls them...)

I heartily agree. When we need sandpaper, and other painting supplies for that matter, I have to get it myself. I get 3M whenever possible. The missus always looks for the cheapest stuff on the shelf, even though she agrees with me on quality considerations, I think spending the least amount possible on anything is in her genes or something. Sometimes that's good, sometimes it's not.

I'll chime in with buy it...regardless of how rare some parts are, especially if the car is in the 90's percent complete. Yes, some parts may be a challenge, or impossible to find, but you'll have a relatively rare car, in what looks like really good original shape. I'm pretty sure you'll regret it later if you don't get it. You can always unload it later if it turns out not to be your cup of tea. I've got a '37 Terraplane, although not rare, per se, it is still a challenge to source Terraplane specific parts. But it's also a car I spent a good 10 years looking for, and knew the challenges going in. That Airflow is just about falling in your lap.

Nice, thanks for sharing! Our local car club voted not to have our annual car show the end of August, we usually have between 150 and 200 cars show up, and a really good time is had. A good half of the attendees are traditionally from Canada, and that border has been shut down to non-essential travel. We couldn't convince US or Canadian authorities that a good ol' car show is essential...

Your coolant leak may be where the thermostat housing mates up with the head. A bad gasket or the mounting bolts not being sealed or torqued down can create that, and over time those mating surfaces can lose their "true" with each other so a thinner gasket won't work well. Our D24 had the same leak several years ago. I didn't mess with the head, but I did square up the mounting surface on the housing. Once I started, it was obvious it wasn't flat. Installed a good gasket, sealed the mounting bolt threads, torqued them down, and it hasn't leaked since. A thicker gasket would also alleviate bad mating surfaces.

Someone can chime in with other sources, but "The Plymouth Doctor" comes to mind, and of course, a good ol' Ebay search could be revealing. I'd research your State's laws on new VIN plates before monkeying with the serial number plate. May not be an issue with cars built before the Federal VIN statutes came about, but every State tends to be different. Usually requires some sort of inspection by a State official to verify you're not up to no-good.

That bag of dog food doesn't have anything to do with the recipe, does it? Those look rather tasty, I may have to get the missus to try that (she won't let me bake anything). Rhubarb is a big thing in these parts, but I'd never heard of a rhubarb upside down cake before.

Top plate is the serial number, which evolved into today's VIN (vehicle identification number). That's what should be on your title/registration, although there's past conversation herein regarding States using engine number vs. serial number before the VIN requirement standardized all that. The middle plate is the body number, or the serial number of just the car body not to be confused with the car's overall serial number. The bottom plate is the builder's plate. Each Division (Plymouth, Dodge, Desoto, Chrysler) had their own builder's plate. Basically another badge. That one's pretty far gone, they're actually rather nice looking. Reproductions of those are available. As to why so many? Who knows, but modern vehicles still have what amounts to the same data on them somewhere.

The original moisture wicking material. That's what we had for cold weather gear when I was in the Army in the early 80's, and the lumberjacks and more intrepid outdoors types up here all swear by wool.

Glad you're OK. My wife was hit by lightning umpiring a softball game in El Paso once, I'd say she hasn't been right since, but she's always been a half bubble off plumb. Didn't get any worse, anyway. Same prescription, no burns or anything that needed patching, defibrillating, restart, etc., so the ER Doc just said to take Tylenol. She's a good barometer now, too. She's also the reason Texas schools won't do sports outside if there's lightning within five miles of the venue. I've been close to a lot of lightning strikes, never been hit, though. I was in the original USBP station at Ft. Hancock, TX when lightning hit the radio antenna during an "Old Testament" level thunderstorm. What a noise! And it fried every piece of electrical equipment in the building, came out of the radio base unit and punched a hole in the tile floor.

Same up here, NAPA or O'Reilly's have the Standard and AC Delco but have to order from their warehouse downstate. Here in two days, no shipping cost. Our D24 has an AC Delco unit (don't recall the number or amps draw) that I got from Pep Boys about 25 years ago. No issues.

Paul, your lamentations on weather fall on my deaf ears ...I've been reluctant to get out and work on anything because we've been sweltering in the mid-80's up here the past few weeks...and you still get out when it's in the 100's! Kidding aside, still you get out and make progress on a regular basis, rather inspirational. When I get anxious towards the end of a project I catch myself looking for shortcuts, that's when I step back, take a breath, and go work on something else (or sit and have beer) until the shortcut notion goes away. Keep up the good work!

Alas, what gets me is that in that pile of cars, there are many that are in much better condition than a lot of what's currently out there for us to choose from...

I think my grandpa and uncle took it as a challenge to see how long they could keep the truck running and at least marginally useful without spending any money on it. While I can admire their ingenuity, I've also had to deal with older vehicles that I found I could make run and drive significantly better by re-fixing something that was shade-tree engineered. I tend to keep our "newer" vehicles fixed with good parts, but am not beyond engineering something that works when need be. I know what you mean with parts availability, we had a 2001 Dodge PU that I was having trouble finding brand/model specific parts for. We bought it new, so I took it kinda personally when the parts counter kid thought it was too old. FWIW - I've had good luck with AutoZone's Duralast electrical parts.

My uncle had a '68 Dodge pickup for the longest time. The ignition switch went out sometime in the '80s, shortly after the truck was relegated to only making trips to the town dump. So my grandpa, being the frugal type, didn't see the need to install a new switch on the family garbage truck and fixed it by using a two prong electric plug for the starter. Turn ignition on, touch the prongs together, and lo-and-behold, the truck started...every time. It was offered to me once in the '90s (my uncle finally had to decide, junk-yard...or nephew) and I ever so briefly pondered rescuing it, but I recall that it was way too rusty for my capabilities at the time, had too much "frugal engineering" by then, and it was too far away for my means.