Dan Hiebert

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.

Welcome to the Forum, and welcome to old cars (especially '48 Dodges!). One thing that may also help, but takes a little time, is to peruse this Forum's threads. There are many that sort out exactly what you're looking to do, and also create more questions - but that is what a forum is for. This site and the folks who haunt it are a wealth of information, ideas, and support.

Yeah, the color of zinc chromate is "surprisingly" similar to the "sage green" that the Fulton folks determined was the best non reflective color for the underside of their sunvisors. Growing up an avid model airplane builder, I always thought zinc chromate was an actual color - all the models of US made WW2 airplanes called for visible interior surfaces to be "zinc chromate", and that's the color you'd find on the model paints shelf. Didn't find out it was actually a preservative coating until I worked for an aerial crop dusting company when I got out of HS.

I saw a carbon copy of the tool keithb7 is using on one of the Mopar parts sites recently. $95! I usually start a little leery of procedures that outwardly only appear to be for less work effort, but I keep in mind that the way cars are manufactured, even our old ones, is not for the ease of maintenance, it's for the ease of manufacturing them. I notice none of the auto makers advertise easy home maintenance, anymore. Heck, I know dealerships that use bad words to describe working on their own company's products. Many "workarounds" actually overcome engineered maintenance difficulties, such as adjusting brakes that need a special manufacturer only tool to accomplish.

You should order by the engine, not the car. As you noted, you do not have the original engine in your D24. Someone else will have to chime in on what your engine came out of based on those numbers, and then you can order what you need. The pump arms should indeed match, there are internal differences in these engines ("improvements") that call for different configurations. The cam that runs the fuel pump only moves that arm a relatively small amount, and while a cam arm that is only slightly off may work, the difference between the two you show will not work. AB has always been good to me with returns, and there's a good chance they'll have the right fuel pump for your engine.

Very nice work you are doing, I'm rather enjoying following along.

Not quite. After removing that screw, you have to slide it up about 1/8 to 1/4 inch before it'll come off. There is a tab on the inside of the ring that fits into a slot on the headlight bucket at the top. Sometimes getting it to move enough is a bit of a challenge since the headlight itself might impede the movement of the ring.

...and if that doesn't work, use a bigger hammer.

That's what I did when we first got our D24. That was over 30 years ago when I was much more flexible, I would not attempt to do that nowadays. I had all the body forward of the firewall off already, which made it a tad easier. Same basic procedure if the engine was on a stand, but you'll also have to get anything crossing under the oil pan out of the way, which isn't much.

Ditto FarmerJon's response, but you may still need to pry the head up a tad to break the seal. Be patient and don't get overly aggressive. I've been pleased with Duplicolor's aluminum engine paint as well, and I've heard good things about POR15 engine paint. If you're worried about originality, silver is the correct color, vs. aluminum. "Silver" is not as bright as aluminum.

We've tossed around naming our old cars, but it never sticks. The D24 is "the Dodge", regardless of what else is in the stable, even other Dodges. Our daughter calls her '63 Falcon "The Green Ghost", now it's obviously green, but when we first got it for her it was some funky blue-green color, only green when you squinted one eye just so. So the "ghost" was the green.

Our '48 D24 has the Stromberg carburetor. If I'm remembering correctly, Carter bought Stromberg at some point (?). The service manual for our car indicates Stromberg as the "correct" carburetor, but that doesn't mean a Carter wasn't determined to be appropriate at a later date and added to some manuals. Ours has the BXUV-3, which isn't listed in the service manual, but is a variant of the BXVD-3. On our car, there is no electrical connection from the carb to the fluid drive, '47 wouldn't have that either. As noted earlier, the carb needs the dashpot / retarded throttle return so the car doesn't die using the Fluid Drive feature, there's no electrical wizardry involved with the '46-'48 Dodges' fluid drive.

These flathead sixes in our cars are heavy, but not that heavy. I've had a 230 on an "older" HF 2K lbs. stand with no issues, it was only a tad challenging to get the rotation part to work to my satisfaction.

Continuing 2024 adventures. After this last winter's work, aside from still running a bit rough before it warms up, the ole Dodge is in finer shape than it has been since we first got it back on the road way back when. We went to a friends' place in Hammond for an afternoon social yesterday. He's a sculptor, not necessarily "famous" but his bronze bust of Joshua Chamberlain is in the U.S. Capital building, and Maine commissioned his work for the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial and the Maine State Peace Officers' Memorial at the State capital in Augusta. They have his works scattered about their property - hence the bronze moose in the background, there are two, one on each side of the driveway. Their property is a photographer's paradise, but not necessarily for automotive themes.