Dan Hiebert

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...

These can be lots of fun! We had our D24 in a remake of "Lolita" (with Jeremy Irons and Dominique Swain). In that case, the producers went through the local theatrical guild to find cars registered for props/background/etc. The guild advertised the opportunity, then once they had built a list, the movie scouts went and looked at all the cars and decided which they wanted in their movie. It was fascinating being involved in the process. That was different than this opportunity, because the production company rented the cars, and hired some of the owners to drive them (and many other old cars) - imagine that! There's a lot of "behind the scenes" tales I could tell on that adventure - the point being (without making this story longer) that movie making is an interesting process, and anyone who can should avail themselves of the opportunity - it'll be fun!

Thankee kindly for the info, guys. That is an interesting and informative site that Oldguy posted the link to - company even has the right size speaker for our rides. I think I'll save myself some hassle and order one in the near future. Interesting that the speaker cone is supposed to deflect in some applications (although it sez may-or-may-not with Chrysler radios), and the direction it does lets you know if your wires are reversed or not. After dinking around with it again last night I figured out that according to the shop manual's test procedures, my radio may not be working anymore after all - no "pilot light" and no hum, although the speaker was getting "power". I'd forgotten that these old radios with tubes and vibrators are supposed to be "noisy". Naturally I ran out of time again before I could delve into the radio itself. Endeavor to persevere.

Greetings all! The speaker in my D24 has been shot for quite some time. I've noticed through searching the Forum and Technical Archives that I can use a modern speaker with some fitting modifications. Does anyone know many watts to to use? I did find 4 ohms impedence, but not how many watts will work. I hooked up a spare 4 ohm/25 watt door speaker just to see if it would work - it doesn't. Maybe it's too small (not enough watts) for our radios? It "thumps" when I turn the radio on and I can see the diaphram flex, then relax when I turn it off. My radio (802) worked quite well before the original speaker went south. I hooked up the green and yellow wires since those looked like the ones attached to the diaphram on the old radio, but the bare braided wire was attached with the green one. Should I try it again with the green and bare-braided wire? (Only other reference I could find was to attach the braided wire and the blue wire - but I don't have a blue one, and that was after I had quit for the night.) I haven't resorted to the handy book of expletives, I just ran out of time last night, and figured I'd ping the elite before I hit it again tonight.

Aha! We've got one of those in the "old tools section" of the office's garage. Knew it was electrical (duh) but didn't know just what it is for. We've still got some tools from back when our Buffalo Sector HQ was first in a facility with our own auto mechanics - 1936 or so. No idea what we'll do with them, but I won't let the mechanics get rid of them.

Steering can certainly be "improved" by the various modifications, but I don't think we'll ever get away from needing a 40-acre field to turn one around...

...in other words - yes, there are freeze plugs on the back of the block that are covered by the flywheel housing. Only remedy is to access it/them and replace them. You can either leave the engine in the vehicle and remove the drive train all the way to the flywheel (removal and installation of new plugs would still be a bear), or remove the engine/tranny combo from the vehicle, break it down and replace them when its out. To me, it would depend on what equipment I have available. There are a lot of "while-your-at-its" that can be done with either process, but it boils down to the freeze plugs really should be replaced, the alternative is to wait until catastrophic failure, then you'll have to do it anyway. Freeze plugs have been discussed quite a bit on the forum, if memory serves me right, a couple others have had "issues" with the freeze plugs on the back of the block, too.

I'll throw my lot in with Rustoleum. I've used the primer for rusty metal everywhere from uber humid coastal south Texas to the pickled winter roadways of the northeast. Get a good base, allow the primer to cure properly (amazing how much better results can be when you follow the manufacturer's directions ) and viola. I've never had any follow-on issues with rust, and I used it on some pretty sorry looking metal. I haven't tried the Eastwood stuff simply because I don't need to find something better.

Cool thread. My maternal Grandmother was 100% Finnish, but not quite fresh "off-the-boat" - the Linn family started in America with her parent's arrival at Ellis Island. Grandma and her second husband spoke the language amongst themselves pretty often - I think more to not let us you'ungs know what they were saying. Grandma visited relatives in Finland (Helsinki) every couple of years, and I remember that she'd have relatives from Finland and some Finnish friends visiting fairly often. Probably the one thing I'm miffed at my grandparents about is that one pair were fluent in Finnish, and the others in German, but they refused to teach us those languages - but I do know what "sisu" is - that's how everyone described my grandmother.

I think Tim Adams is onto it here, kind of hard to isolate the noise from the video, but sounds like a bushing/bearing to me. By your description (only when at idle or changing gears) it sounds like the "clutch", as in pilot bushing or throw-out bearing. Could even be as simple as a clutch adjustment.

No problems with using stainless steel. As others noted, you just have to make sure you use the same grade as the fastener's your replacing. I've picked over heaps that were falling apart - but all the stainless stuff was still in excellent shape. Polishes up nice and purdy, too.

I use Duralast from Autozone. About 100 more CCA than a "plain old" 6v.

Um, I was thinking along the same lines myself - just not the restaurant....

....I see parts.....! In west Texas they used old cars to plug places in the arroyos where flash-floods would make unwanted ravines. Kind of odd to me that they would all be torched apart just in front of the firewall, then pulled off the frames and dumped. I found the Fulton sunvisor and quite a few extra trim parts for the D24 on those old cars. Especially the short cowl trim pieces - gold to me at the time because I couldn't find them otherwise. Most had been partly buried by weather, but perseverence with an entrenching tool paid off.

I've had a couple old cars/trucks do that to me. It was always a short in the line, usually someplace the insulation had worn off, and it was grounding out. Two old Ford trucks it was out in the engine bay, the good ol' D24 it was in the steering column.

Adjusted the clutch pedal free play the other night. Decided to get it done before the weekend so I could drive the ol' Dodge in to work and get it inspected on the way home. The connections are a little sloppy from wear, so I did my best to ignore that (thinking back, I probably paid too much attention to that when I installed the clutch) and just deal with the free play. A bit embarassing to admit, but there was none. Drove it to and from work through quite a bit of stop-n-go and over the relatively substantial south Grand Island bridges with nary a problem - well, 'cept for the cloud of blue smoke during rapid deceleration to take the exits - but I chalk that up as "character", not a problem . Thanks to all for keeping me down to earth on the fix.

Whenever I look to buy a "modified" car, I generally don't mind the additional stuff, as long as the seller still has the original parts and includes them in the deal. I've passed things up because the owner DIDN'T have the original parts available - so on my part, I'd agree with leaving your car as is, and just making the original parts available - maybe even charge extra for them.

I like it! The pinstripe is awesome. Very nice job.

I'd hang my hat on it being vapor lock. We had problems with that ALL the time when I was in high school in Presidio, TX ("Sunspot of the Southwest"). It'd get so hot that I once saw a coyote chasing a jackrabbit, and they were both walking. Nyuk, nyuk. Anyway, vapor lock is not the fuel "boiling" in the line, its when it gets hot enough to vaporize the fuel (but I guess that's technically boiling), and a vacuum based pump (its how mechanical pumps work) can't pull or push the liquid fuel through the gas - viola - "vapor" lock. That's why electric fuel pumps solve vapor lock problems, they use an impeller to physically move the fuel. Always happened with older cars and trucks with engine compartments that got really hot, regardless of whether or not the engine ran hot or not. Our fix while stranded on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, and still miles from anywhere was to either let the engine compartment cool (which took an awful long time when it was 100 degrees out), soak a rag in the ice chest and cool the fuel line, or in a pinch, pee on a rag and cool the fuel line. Knock on wood, I haven't had that problem with the D24, but my daughter's Falcon would act up occasionally in New Mexico. We put insulation on the fuel lines through the engine compartment and solved the problem.

Sanity check. I looked up the clutch free play adjustment in my shop manual - which brought back memories of making the adjustments when I installed the new clutch. First adjust the clutch pedal position relative to the floor (as close as possible without touching), then adjust the free play. The overcenter spring adjustment is a separate issue, but I recall that adjusting that (mine has the turnbuckle) changed the position of the clutch pedal. Problem is that I don't have the overcenter spring guage. (Any recommendations how to get around that?) I am thinking I should have the overcenter spring adjustment squared away first (all it really does is "ease the effort" of releasing the clutch - when "properly adjusted"), then address the clutch adjustment. The shop manual doesn't say which to do first, matter of fact, it says they're not related. I realize this is just basic mechanics, but I figured for once I'd ping a knowledgeable group for advice BEFORE tearing into something, even as simple as this. Can't hurt, and I always learn new things from you'uns.

Thanks for the recommendations, Gents! I feel kind of silly when I get the obvious back, but just wanted to be sure I didn't need to start running in small circles. Technically, even though I put the new clutch in many years ago, it really doesn't have that many miles on it, so its probably due for a "break-in" adjustment. Just wasn't thinking along those lines, so thanks for the rudder steer.

Greetings all, time to avail myself of the infinite wisdom of this forum - again . I've already tried a search for this, but apparently I'm dancing all around the right buzz-words. This is our D24 w/ fluid drive - When initially taking off or accelerating after changing gears, the engine winds up quite a bit before the drive train "grabs". Like there's no connection. Happens when going through all the gears, or when leaving it in 3rd. No issues when cold, this started after we had driven for a few miles. Once it's "grabbed" the car moves out just fine, and that "grab" is smooth, not jerky or noisy by any means. It was a fairly warm day (for here, anyway). We drove it to a wedding last month when it was considerably cooler and over a longer distance with no issues. I haven't left any puddles of fluid anywhere that I've noticed. I have not had time to check anything - Just figured I'd ping you'uns for thoughts and recommendations (and to keep me at K.I.S.S. level before I spin up and do something silly). Fluid drive level low / fluid foaming / that's what it does - get over it / clutch adjustment? I don't recall that the old girl has ever done this before.