knuckleharley

Click on the Store and the Classified links at the top of each page and see if there are any radio vendors there. If not,go to Hemmings Motor News online,and look there. There are lots of people converting old radios to 12 volt,FM,and even putting USB connection in them for modern music,while leaving the radio looking original. IF you go this route,you MIGHT want to guy your radio before sending it in so you can sell or give the tubes and other parts to restorers on the board. Be VERY specific when you talk with the people who do this because they make them in both 6 and 12 volt,and in both positive and negative ground. IF you decide to go 12 volt,this might be a good time to look at switching your car over to a 12 volt negative ground system. I personally like using 12 volt generators and have had no problems doing so,but most people today seem to like switching to alternators. I don't like alternators because you can't push a car with a dead battery and start it if it has a alternator,but you can if it has a generator. Plus,a 12 volt generator looks exactly like a 6 volt generator,and IMHO,alternators are ugly enough to be members of the Society of Women gang. Your actual mileage may vary.

What you are seeing on your finger may just be a result of condensation if it hasn't been started and ran down the road several times long enough to get every part in the engine up to normal operating temps so the heat could evaporate the natural condensation from starting and cold running. Plus,remember,the old straight 30 and 40 weight oil everybody used to run in these engines tends to trap water in it,anyway. That is almost certainly the wrong term,but I have never seen the base pans of modern cars look all crudded up with black and gray like is typical with the old cars. I suspect that once you get it all cleaned out it will stay clean if you drive it enough to get it to operating temps before shutting it down,even if you use modern non-detergent straight 30 or 40 wt oil. Oil is a LOT better than it used to be.

Since you have to buy a rebuild kit to get a new accelerator pump,rebuild the carb using a kit designed to work with ethanol. Make sure any rubber gas lines or plastic fuel filters you have in the line are rated for use with ethanol,too.

Damn! This is a tough year on his kids and grandkids. I just hope they can find a way to focus on the good to help ease the pain of the bad.

That's not the point. No one ever said he couldn't do what he wanted to with it. The thing is he ASKED FOR ADVISE ABOUT WHAT TO DO. Some of us gave our opinions and he liked them,and others gave their opinions and then he and several other posters here seemed to take offense because they didn't like the advise given. Given some of the original posters responses since the original post,I am fairly certain he didn't intend to offend anyone,but it sure looked that way at first. Asking others for advise is a good thing,but you might not always get answers you like.

I know nothing about Snyder cams,but I have bought,used,and had good luck with 2 different cams bought from Delta Cams in Tacoma,Wa. They not only rebuild cams and grind them to spec,but they also rebuild tappets. Best if all,chances are they will have a cam in stock and you can get a credit when you return your old cam in the box they use send you the new one. Last time I checked they do custom grinds and can and will create old 3/4 race grinds from the 40's and 50's. http://www.deltacam.com/

ATTEN: ALL I screwed up on the Ford water pump. You can buy one from any Ford dealer,and it comes from their SVO (Special Vehicle Operations Division,which means off-road and racing parts). I have already edited my earlier post to show this correction,but since you have an immediate interest in this and so may some others,I decided to post the correct division in this post so it can be seen.

Who said you had to buy a rust pile? It is a LOT easier to find these cars with no engines or bad engines than it is to find one running and ready to enjoy. There are so many stripped or non-drivable cars out there,I just really hate to see one that is 90+ percent original and driveable modified. They are only original once,and you never get it back again. BTW,if you insist on using the 5.0 Ford,buy a water pump from SHO and you won't have to recess the firewall. I forget how much shorter they are than standard water pumps right now,but IIRC,they are at least 2 inches shorter. Be aware that the water outlet at the bottom in on a different side than the standard 5.0 water pump,so plan on either modifying your radiator or buying one for a Chevy engine.

" It’s a shame though that people can’t simply keep their negative ************** to themselves. " The same applies to you,bubba. I was just trying to be helpful,but you are obviously wiser than me,so go for it. Spend money and months of time to do something that COULD have been done to a cheap core coupe you could have bought and had the work done on as you had the time and money,and you would have still had this coupe to drive while doing it,and to sell and get your money back afterwards. Also,a stock P-15 has no trouble cruising down the highway at 60 mph,and with properly adjusted stock brakes on disc brakes up front and a dual outlet master cylinder and seatbelts,your kids would have been just as safe as after you get through building/having built the car you want. BTW,I also have a P-15 coupe with a Camaro frame clip,engine,transmission,rear end,and master cylinder. It was like that when I bought it,and I bought it cheaper than I could have cut up an original car and made the swap,and didn't have to wait months or years to drive it, It is currently off the road while I completely redo it with a balanced and blueprinted 412 SBC with Dart 2 heads,350 rods,10 to 1 Keith Black pistons,gapless rings,7,000 RPM cam,and gear drive. The block was assembled and balanced by a NASCAR speed shop. It's getting a turbo 400 with a shift kit and high stall torque converter. My 42 Dodge coupe is getting a 55 Plymouth 230 with a Edgy head,3x1 intake,split exhaust or cast iron headers if I can find them,and a old-timey lumpy cam. My 33 Dodge 4dr is getting a 251 inline 6 DeSoto engine with 3x1's and a Edgy head. Otherwise remaining as I found it. My 33 Plymouth coupe that was stripped with no drive train when I got it and a total rust bucket is getting a 6 carb DeSoto 330 hemi with a push button 727 and 8-3/4 rear. Body is going to remain stock except for the 41 Plymouth taillights. Every major part in it will be Mopar,and none of it newer than 1962 or so. But what the hell do I know? After all,I am a stick in the mud restorer,right? BTW,correct if I am wrong,but you DID write that you were ASKING FOR TIPS,right?

You are not going to like it,but MY suggestion is to sell your all-original to someone who wants an original car to drive as is or restore,and use the money from the sale to buy a coupe with no drivetrain. Not trying to be impolite,but destroying a complete original car to create a non-original car makes about as much sense as staring into the sun. Chances are you will even make out financially if you follow my advise,plus you will have less work to do.

Just a WAG here,but is there ANY possibility your rear is from another year,or even another model Mopar,and this is why the seals aren't lasting? Like I said,just a guess. For all I know,all of them are the same in the 30's and 40's.

Guys,the reality is the Powerflite is a good transmission,and as good as a torqueflite for it's purpose. If you want a fast car,you are going to be building a flat 6 218 or 230 40's or 50's Mopar anyway. These are fine cars to drive,but they ain't Max Wedge Valiants. For a car like a 50 Plymouth their advantage is if you find one,you can buy it cheaper than you can buy a 727 Torqueflite. Best bet is to buy a whole parts car so you can get all the linkages,driveshaft,rear end,shifter,etc,etc,etc,and sell off the parts you don't use to get your money back. If you are lucky,you might even get a good 230 with more horsepower at the same time. I bought a almost complete 55 Plymouth Savoy 4dr with a 230 missing the exhaust manifold,carb,radiator,and seats for 250 bucks,and it has the old torqueflite in it with the dash shift rod,driveshaft,rear end,and rebuildable engine. For all I know,the engine may even be good. The guy I bought it from claimed it ran good and he had planned to restore it,but ran into money problems and started parting it out. I know I will put a manifold and carb on it and start the engine to check it out after running a compression test when I get to the point where I need a engine for my 42 Dodge coupe. Stock 55 230's have a lot more power than stock 42 230's. I already sold the front bumper to a board member and got some of my money back,and there is bound to be somebody looking for a trunk lid,doors,fenders,and glasses. At a minimum I will break even while getting the parts I wanted and helping someone else find some parts they need,too. You can also bet I will be pulling that beautiful dashboard to hang on the wall of my shop before the body goes off to never-never land,too.

Will it,or will it not bolt directly to the original engine with no modifications and no adapters of any kind? If he can score the driveshaft out of the donor car,even that will work if the wheelbase is the same.

The charm is there IS no "retrofitting",and since there is next to zero demand,the stuff is cheap if you can find it. It's a simple bolt it together and go riding" deal. That's why people want to do it. Simple AND cheap.

Another option for an emergency brake would be to just swap the complete rear brake assemblies including the backing plates and drums from a more modern car to your original rear end. That would be easier to do because you wouldn't have to remove and replace the rear end ,but would still leave you with gearing a lot lower than you would want for highway driving if your car car with a overdrive transmission. Either way you go,plan on pulling the drums to have them turned and to rebuild the brakes with new wheel cylinders and new brake shoes after turning the drums.

The good news is you found all these problems right now,and once you correct them and get your car back on the road it will drive like a new one,and your front end will be trouble-free for years. MUCH better to do this all at once while you have it apart than it is to keep pulling it apart to fix things one at a time.

Chances are if it is in a box and a manual choke was installed,the manual choke was installed for a reason. If you want an automatic choke,you might want to look for a NOS one to install instead of putting the old one in a box on the carb. BTW,I would almost be willing to bet money there are excellent photos of your automatic choke and all it's installation and adjustment instructions in a Motors Manual that covers 1949-52 cars.

Of all the things you COULD be,"lucky" is the best of them all.

My family was from the Outer Banks of NC,and up until the 70's,if you wanted to go shopping for anything other than basic groceries,you had to go to Virginia Beach or Norfolk,Va. The quickest way to do this was drive up the beach. Most of the time that was ok,but you had to be REALLY careful after a big storm because the beach would change. You could be driving down it as easy as driving on a flat paved road,and hit a "washout" created by a rip tide,and fall into a hole big enough to swallow the whole car. What little sand was in the hole would be quicksand,so you had to get out quickly and if you were lucky,it happened close enough to a Coast Guard Station that you could run there and get back in time with a DUCK with a winch on it to winch it out of the hole. If you weren't,lucky,the car would basically disappear as the incoming tide would fill the hole with sand again. I grew up fishing haul nets off the beach,and used to see the roof of a 54 Chevrolet after a big storm would wash a lot of the sand away. A day or two later,it would be covered again, One of the worse things was to be riding along on what was normally a flat hard sand beach,and suddenly run into gravel beds uncovered by a storm. The minute you spotted that red gravel you started heading for the dune line as quick as you could get there because if you slowed down for anything,you would sink up to the chassis. The next high tide would usually bring sand back again to cover it up. I suspect this is what happened here because I can see gravel behind the car. I suspect what happened in this case was mom and dad lent the family Pontiac stationwagon to Junior,and Junior decided to go joy riding on the beach. I don't envy him having to explain to mom and dad what happened to the family wagon. I remember seeing a new El Dorado Convertible in the wash of the ocean one day,with both doors open,and the incoming tide just washing right through it as it took it out to sea. Every time a wave would hit it,it would rock and slide a little closer to deep water. The oddest thing was to see a new 4x4 Bronco of Blazer stuck in the wash of the ocean . Every time I saw one it ended up having dealer plates on it and was bought by a elderly couple that bought a 4 wheel drive "so we could enjoy driving up the beach.". Nobody bothered to tell them,and they never bothered to ask,how to put it into 4 wheel drive. They just assumed it happened automatically. It would embarrass them to see me hook a tow rope to my 2 wheel drive truck and pull them out of the ocean.

You don't really have to remove the peg unless the wheels are chromed. I just more modern Ford or Mopar wheels on the older Mopars all the time. I just drill a hole between two of the lug bolt holes for the locator pin to "locate". The first time I did this was when I went to Georgia to buy a 55 DeSoto with the 291 hemi in it. I was told the car had wheels and tires on it good enough to roll on my trailer,but when I got there I discovered it was sitting in a goat pen,and the wheels has sank into the ground and were rusted too badly to use. Had to go to a local junkyard and buy 4 wheels and tires,but you know they had no wheels with locator pins,so I just drilled holes in the wheels for the pins. Now I don't even bother to look for Mopar wheels when putting rims on a yard queen to move it around. If the Mopar wheel is bad,I just put a more modern 4-1/2 bolt pattern wheel on it after drilling a locator hole. Quicker to do this than it is to jack up and remove a Mopar wheel from another car. But to answer your question,one method is to remove the centers from your original Mopar wheels,and then put them in rims that are wider. You can set your own backspacing this way to make sure you have the clearances you need. We used to do this to put bigger tires on cars or trucks we drove on the beaches and across the sand dunes where I grew up.

I am guessing that is the Rinomobile limo that was custom-built for John McLunatic.

OK,thanks. I already ran a search on ebay before I posted to you,and had no luck.

Do you have any links so I can buy a set for my 42?

Another method to use is to just cut two blocks from soft wood with "legs" on them to fit semi-snugly over your vise,and then cut the top off flush with the tops of your vise jaws. Only takes a second to put them in or remove them,and they come in really handy for holding stuff firmly in your vise without scratching or damaging it.

Well,I guess I was accidentally right about my 33 PD coupe using the same chassis as the PU,anyhow. I have no idea what model number my 33 Dodge 4dr sedan is. Guess I will have to check the tags and maybe measure the wheelbase.