Dan Hiebert

When I did mine many years ago, I used an old metal shoe-horn. I flattened out the wide curved end, and left the "hook" on the narrow end to help pull it out. Just had to be careful that the bushing stayed centered.

Big concern here is saturated ground, and strong winds from the north/north east. Supposedly the root systems of the trees around here have grown to withstand south/southwest winds and the combination of wet ground and winds from the north may lead to a lot of downed trees - and power lines. There's still a lot of leaves in the trees to catch the wind, too. The in-laws live in South Amboy, NJ, which is where we were when Irene hit. They're on high ground, so their main concern is power outages. Hurricane Sandy herself isn't the scourge here, its the two cold-fronts that are meeting her. Not supposed to hit here until 5 or so, but the winds have already shifted and are picking up. The Ol' Dodge should be safe, but the Terraplane is in the back garage with a whopping big oak tree hovering over it. Its south of the garage, so - theoretically at least - if it falls it would be away from the building. I used to tease my brother, who lives north of Houston, that living up north might mean cold and snow, but at least we don't have to worry about hurricanes. So much for that.

VW Ghost Gray. Got it, Thanks! The trim rings Bob shows are the same as mine. I don't think I'd monkey with the clips, either, or you may end up chasing your hub caps.

Mitchell Motor Parts (MMPAR.com) may be a good source. They seem to have a lot of inventory and were quite helpful in my case. They're no prouder of their inventory than anyone else nowadays. I was looking for a NOS steering shaft w/worm gear and sector shaft (48 D24), and they were the only ones that had them.

Perhaps it is the 3-passenger business coupe, vs. the 5-passenger club coupe. The business coupe would not have the rear seat, the club coupe would.

Those look to be later than 48. I have the orgininals that came with my D24, and they don't roll over into the center like your's do. That lip in the center looks like it'd interfere with the hubcap attaching to the clips. The ones on my car come to just short of the crown, just enough to be covered by the hub-caps. There may be subtle differences in the rims, (that I haven't figured out), too. I have a rim for my spare that fits on the car, but none of my hubcaps will snap on to it, with or without the trim ring. BTW - what shade of gray is your car? Mine is "Fortress Gray", very light. I'm thinking of repainting it in the next couple of years and really like the hue of your car.

Welcome! You've certainly picked the right forum, a wealth of knowledge (and opinions, gotta love 'em) herein that I've found more helpful than any place, or anything else I've tried. Take some time to explore here, there's technical archives, pot-hole remedies, links to virtually anything you need, etc. Just about every topic has been covered at one time or another, so starting with a search is often the way to go.

I'll chime in; I "rattle-canned" my rims 20 years ago. Had to re-do them after 10 years due to fading from the west Texas sunshine (they're red, red fades fast out there). Otherwise I've had to touch them up every other year or so, which is a piece of cake (and much cheaper) with spray paint. Same rules, preparation and patience will pay off.

Ooh-rah! I rather enjoy having something to putter around with on the car - when I want to, not because I have to. Every once in a while a "have to" pops up, which more often than not are "have to" to get the wife to open the purse strings for something

One year project has turned into about two... My "one-year" project is going on twenty - one .

I'd find out how much the insurance company will cover. If you have the means to make up the difference, then have the insurance pay their share, and you pay yours. That's a very common fix - but its not the "easy" way for the insurance companies. This harkens back to the thread a couple days ago about customer service, sounds like they're taking the easy way out and just flat-out totalling it so they don't have to work with you to get it fixed. And I'd agree that the price is rather steep, perhaps the body shop doesn't want to work on it either - it'll take up too much of their time that they could spend on easier fixes so they can make more money, so they quote an astronomical price (that's what I'm guessing from your description of the owner). I'd heed the advise from others and shop around a bit. "Totalled" in my book = beyond repair, which your car certainly is not. "Too expensive" is a lazy business decision - not a service one.

Ditto - on a 41 Chevrolet

When we bought our 2009 Avenger, it took almost six hours. But it was what my wife wanted, and it was the first car we bought in NY, thought maybe it was a NY thing. Traded it in for a 2012 Durango in June after calling the same dealer where we bought the Avenger, not getting a reply, and going to a different one. We were out the door with our new ride in an hour flat. Just got a return call from the first dealer a couple weeks ago. So it wasn't a "NY thing", it was customer service.

The wife and I were in Joisey over the weekend for her elementary school reunion (St. Nick's in Jersey City). One of her classmates is the parish priest in Monroe Township (didn't catch the name of the parish), we spent Sunday down there. Wish I'd known about the show, would have preferred seeing that over putting the In-law's pool and lawn stuff away for the winter on Saturday. The show sure dodged a bullet, weather was awful on Sunday. Great looking Plymouth, I think its pretty awsome you got it in amongst all them high-fallutin cars!

Wells are "luck of the draw". The well on my Dad's place near Caballo, NM is "only" 200 ft. and produces good water, his next door (1/4 mile down the road) neighbor's well is same depth but has high alkalai content. A friends place near White Oak, NM has a well that makes good beans, but lousy coffee. His neighbor's well makes good coffee, but lousy beans (them's his descriptions). Some places in the area have to go 5-600 ft to get to "sweet" water, some just a hundred or so.

Personally, I don't see enough info in the article to draw any conclusions. Intersting tho, that I was in Mac's Antique Auto Parts in Lockport NY on Saturday picking up parts for my daughter's Falcon, surrounded by Model A subject matter experts when the topic of Model A brakes came up because there's a Model A in their showroom that's "modified" with hydraulic brakes.........The word "prayer" came up every time someone mentioned hitting the original mechanical brakes.

Yes, that is the horn wire. Your speedo may have a simple fix, disconnect the cable at the back of the speedometer. If the needle drops to 0, the cable is binding somewhere. That was the problem with mine way back when. I just cleaned and lubricated the cable and haven't had any problems since. If it doesn't return to 0, then the problem is in the speedometer itself. Since I haven't had to monkey with that, I'd have to leave how to fix it to someone else.

I've always had Condon & Skelly. I initially went with them because they allowed up to 2,500 miles of leisure driving, and everyone else thought our cars were just for decoration - that's when we had to report mileage every year. No problems with "agreed upon" value of my cars, either. Same thoughts from me, never had a claim to gauge their service, but they sure are happy to take my money. A friend of mine has Hagerty, he backed his 68 GTO into stuff in his garage, and he had absolutely no problems getting it fixed. I don't know if he has a mileage limit, but he drives the car a lot.

The bodies between the four Chrysler products are pretty much exactly the same, particularly for hardware mountings and such. I.e. D24 Deluxe came with vacuum wipers (electric were optional), and D24 Custom came with electric, so it stands to reason electric and vacuum wiper set-ups were interchangeable. I'd have to get a sanity check here, but electric wipers may have been an option on P15s, too. In other words, that electric wiper set-up from the same model year Chrysler should bolt right in to your P15. You'll just have to figure out the wiring.

A 1966 Ford Fairlane station wagon, plain-Jane but solid car. Bought it for $650 in 1979. I'd probably still have it if it weren't for a cowdestrian wandering dark south Texas roads one night.

The news called it a "rare" disease. Its not rare, its one of those afflictions that goes unoticed until it shows up in a place like Yosemite or a lot of people come down with it at once. More common in drier climates because of the dust. When we lived in New Mexico, it cropped up every summer. Was usually associated with old barns or houses and caves. Some people were being lazy harvesting pinon (a type of pine tree) nuts and gathering them from rodent dens, others were cleaning out houses or barns that had rodent nests in them. The virus is in the critter's feces and urine and gets mixed up with the ever present dust - which is where people contract it from - inhaling the infected dust. You would think that the stuff has to be "fresh", but if I recall, the virus can be dormant in the dust for quite a while and reconstitutes once it enters the nice wet lungs of a "host". Its been discussed on this forum before, when cleaning out your new barn or desert find you should wear a particulate mask, hose out whatever it is your cleaning, or otherwise use lots of water, and use a HEPA filter in your vacuum. The virus is in the dust, so any "anti-dust" measures you can think of are a good precaution regardless of how "fresh" you think the rodent nests may be.

Ditto. "It's better to be silent and thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt."

I'm thinking u-joints as well. Clunks when the bad one is at front, bad vibration when its at the differential. I've had a few experiences with exactly that. I'm laughing myself silly over the trailer fender - because I've done the Dukes of Hazard thing ("grace" or "charm" having no place in a sentence describing those endeavors) a few times myself - and only now with this thread am I enlightened.

Ditto. That's a common scam theme with Graigslist listings and such. There are many out there with different stories, but the same basic "process". I was selling a camper trailer, too, and got the exact same story. There's also one where the buyer is out of the office, had his "assistant" or whomever write a check and send it to you. But "Oops", he/she added a zero or two too many. But they're accommodating because it was their mistake, so please cash the check and send them the overage. Their driver will pick up the item. There's no rhyme or reason to what they're buying (tried to pull that on my wife when she listed a case of "Bio-Freeze"). But the results are the same - your out money, and you still have the stuff your trying to sell. Unfortunately, its become wise to question "easy" sales.

I like the ones that show up with bug splats on the fronts - driven...