knuckleharley

I have honestly never seen anything less than Grade 5 sold in any of the local hardware stores. I had never even heard of Grade 3 before your post.

Grade 3 to 5 should be fine for a thermostat housing. It has no real pressure on it to speak of. Providing it's not a Chinese bolt,that is. Grade 3 in China means Grade -3 BTW,for those who don't know,you check the grade of a bolt by looking for straight lines on the head of the bolt. All bolts start at Grade 2,so the heads on these are unmarked. I am assuming a Grade 3 will only have one mark but I have never seen one. Grade 5,which I have always called "hardware quality bolts" will have 3 marks on the heads. Grade 8 will have 5. Grade 8 are machinery bolts like head bolts. The threads fit much tighter,and they are made from harder steel. It does you no good at all to use grade 8 bolts if the bolt goes all the way through to the other side and you use grade 5 or lesser nuts on it. Always try to match the nuts with the bolts.

If it were me,I'd just cut it to the same length as the one that came out,and use it. Put a nut on it all the way up to the head before you cut the bolt,and then cut it and grind a slight bevel on the end so it's easy to start,and unscrew the nut. That will almost always clean up the thread where you cut and ground it so the bolt will start like it should.

I'm really glad to hear he's not going to restore it. Not everything needs to be restored,and there is nothing wrong with a little bit of honest wear. I hope he just does the best he can to preserve it so it doesn't rust and the wood doesn't rot away,and that he takes it out occasionally and drives it. IMHO,for 10.5 he got a bargain.

That's probably the safest thing to do. Especially since most shops won't allow customers into the shop area to make suggestions any more.

Found a guy with a 33-34 Plymouth coupe body shell for sale in SW Florida. No chassis or any other parts,just the body shell. I am considering buying it,but it would be nice if I could get someone from the Mopar board to check it out for me before I start shelling out any money. What I know about the car is that it is a empty body shell with no floors,but it doesn't have the doors and the decklid. PLEASE PM me if you are willing to go look at it for me.

What is owatrol?

10 K for a full body-off restoration,assembly,and paint was a freaking bargain!

You are going to be screwed,like the rest of us. I just bought an "Auto-Twirler" http://autotwirler.com/ because neither my knees nor my back bend worth a damn,and I have a hard time getting down on the floor without falling down. If I am going to fix the rust out in my 51,42,and 33 cars,I am going to have to arrange to do it while sitting or standing. Tried going to a few local body shops that have good reputations,but I used to do body and fender work myself at independent body shops and at one dealership,so I know what I am seeing,and that is shoddy work. Even a couple of shops the "rod run/parking lot show" people like to go to in order to socialize. What I see is cars with full coats of body plastic because they either don't know how to remove the dents,or just don't want to spend the time to do it right. I saw one shop that actually had rolled up newspaper in the well of a trunk so the body plastic wouldn't fall through the holes in the quarter panel before it hardened. Keep in mind that I was NOT trying to bargain anyone down on price. I may not be happy about it,but I would be willing to pay a good price for good work,but it just doesn't work that way. I actually had one shop foreman brag to me that they agreed to use lead filler in welds and small dings on a car,and then just used plastic after promising the owner they would use lead,and giving him a labor estimate based on using lead. He said "The guy will never know the difference." He was probably right about that,but that is not the point. The point is he had promised to use lead and the owner was paying for that labor and skill set. I took my 39 Ford to two different body shops to have it painted before giving up. Both times it just sat that for months with no work being done,and it seemed like every time I went there to check on it there were people screwing with it. One time one guy even had the trunk lid opened and was looking inside it,while his idiot child was standing on the seat and twisting the steering wheel while hopping up and down and making motor noises. Neither the father nor the child was ready to hear what I had to say to them,but they heard it none the less. I know of one man that took the 56 Buick his father bought new to the highest rated body shop in this area to have it restored,and this guy is a millionaire that has the bucks to spent. It sat outside for 2 years out back with the grass growing up around it,so he just gave up and towed it back home without it even being touched. As for the construction trades people,it's a damn good thing for most of them that a license isn't required to buy a hammer.

Especially photos of the interior and the dash.

I would be willing to bet we all have had that trouble. I take mine to a shop when something needs to be done I don't have the tools to do,or when I am unable to do the work due to illness or injury. 9 times out of 10 it's done half-assed,and I have to end up redoing it later on. The mechanics of today aren't used to having customers that know mechanics,and too many of them are used to doing shoddy work because they can get away with it in the short term,and a few months later it will be someone else's problem to deal with. Nowhere is this more true than bodywork and paint.

Good luck finding one. I knew ONE family that owned one when they were new. They were rare then,and worked so hard they were beaten to death and had mostly disappeared in just a few years. I bet I haven't seen one in 30+ years.

Looks like you scored a nice one to start with. Compared to bodywork,paint,glass,chrome,upholstery,finding missing parts,etc,etc,etc,a rod knock is such a simple fix it's barely worth mentioning.

That's worth bonus points,I don't care who you are.

You were lucky if you found it in that condition,and fortunate if you could afford it. What is the model number? Is it a 6,or a 8?

" The Commutator didn't appear to have any insulating material on it" Sounds like you did discover the origin of the problem. All the wingdings in the armature are supposed to be coated with what I have always heard called "shellac" to coat it to keep it from shorting out. Remove the shellac,and you have a problem. " Of course I am not much better all I could do was try, and in so doing I think it would have been cheaper to just buy a restored one to begin with/" Yeah,but then you wouldn't have learned a lesson,just spent money. This way you still spent money,but also learned a valuable lesson you may benefit from in the future. Win/win.

I am no expert on this,but it seems to me the field coils have to be shorted and need replacing. I had to go through this with my 51 Ford. Took it to a starter and alternator repair shop,and they replaced the field coils and the armature. Cost me 96 bucks. The car had sat for 26 years before I bought it,and the genius I bought it from evidently took the starter apart to clean it,and wire-wheeled the armature,removing the coating sprayed over it to keep it from grounding out the field coils. It eventually got hot enough it fried them as well as the armature.

Sounds like it. Did you replace the field coils also,or just the brushes and bushings? Sounds to me like it is grounding out. BTW,PLEASE tell me you didn't wire wheel the armature to clean it up.

Those sure are pretty tires/ Coker?

Don't kid yourself. They are all that way. Some are just better at hiding it so you can't get a running start.

Buy a can of Dyken Blue (or red,if you prefer). It's what machinists use. It is a very thin dye that dries quickly,and you can make a few laps and then look and immediately see where the high and low spots are,and see when there are no more high and low spots. A small can will last you forever. You can buy them anywhere machine tools are sold,and probably from amazon and ebay.

If you do go with modern plastic coated wires,you need to keep in mind that 6 volt systems draw a LOT more amps than 12 volt systems,so make sure you tell the people you are shopping with/buying from that you will be running a 6volt positive ground system to make sure the wires they provide are heavy enough. This probably sounds worse to you than it really is. No,your dash wiring won't be useful for arc welding leads. The heavy loads are on your battery cables,so make sure you get the correct ones. Any vendor that sells new and reproduction wiring harness will know exactly what you need and quote you a price for it. They are a little more expensive because there is more copper in them,but nothing to be afraid of.

Are you restoring the car and looking for a harness with cloth-covered wires,or just fixing it up and looking for a generic wiring harness?

Looks good,but if it had been me,I would have tested it before I painted it. BTW,you can test it with a 12 volt battery. Won't hurt a thing as long as you don't keep it connected long enough for it to get hot. It will spin up some serious RPM's with 12 volts.

If it were me I would be temped to run something like 205 or 215's up front. Radials grip much better than the old nylon tires,and you don't have power steering.