Dodgeb4ya

Have seen many Optima's, some are great as stated by others. Some are a piece of crap-Mexican made. I buy BIG Napa group 4 wet cells now for all my Mopars. I have made custom battery hold downs and modified in a factory way some of the trays. I'm tired of weak cranking/2 yr maximum life group 2's. I do have one Optima left-I'll see how long it lasts. They are great for swapping into different cars if you have many as I do. That is as long as they work good. IMO Optima's now days are a gamble. Bob

I was going to say a cracked cylinder but pulled back not wanting to make it sound terminal-well now it is. Thats awful! Sorry Jim.. Bob

The most important suggestion he said was to carefully "Press" the seal into the cover and with a large flat plate-size of the seal, so the Thin-"Cheap" steel seal won't deform and cause the inner spring to come off or warp the seal, then it would leak. The other suggestions were also 100%.

Typical modern cheap(Thin metal shell) replacement.

Drive in? Haven't seen or been to one of those for many a moon now. I think they are all gone by now. Last movie I saw at one was the Blob.

Wow- this kinda sounds serious? Once had a 61 Caddy that the guy said froze up so I put soft plugs back in filled it and filled it up-let it run-filled it up again and heard a loud pop and saw the oil filler cap shoot off and hit the hood and a 1-1/2" tube of milkshake goo started quickly coming out of the oil fill pipe. Ended up having a cracked intake from freeze up. The crankshaft whipped up a nasty coolant/oil mess! Bob

A note of caution on the 2 styles of front cover seals. The one seal is flat on the rear side. The other style has a raised curved lip/oil slinger on the back/chain side of cover. The t/c picture shows a later style slinger type oil seal. This one was rubbing against the crank gear because of a slightly caved in timing cover! You can just see the metal shavings in the cover pic. It was making a slight rubbing noise. Took it out of a "Overhauled " engine. The pic of the timing chain is a modern replacement chain ( narrower) than original DPCD chain installed on the old DPCD gears-WRONG! Always replace all 3 pieces as a matched set. Bob

1/2 to 1 ton 4 speed input shaft splines are all the same 1" X 10 spline, same as the 3 speeds. 4 spd and 3 spd case mounting bolt holes are different though.

Nope. The input shaft is a 1-1/4" or 1-1/2" X 10 spline count. The light duty up to 1 ton trucks use a 1" X 10 spline input except for fluid drive trucks. Also the brake drum U-joint flange is bigger on the heavier trucks.

I heard 440's get 18 -19MPG too.

Bell housiings are different as are throttle linkage,header pipe, radiator, shift linkage,front motor mount,clutch linkage, u-joints are bigger than the 6 too. Trannys are the same except for the u-joint yoke. Friend would have to custom make a front motor mount, move the radiator back 6-8" or make a weird looking shroud. IMO too much work. 323 8's are a really good engine. Is this a really nice or rare model of car? If it is and he likes it a lot he needs to properly rebuild the 8. The 8's do have exhaust manifold issues-they crack and are really expensive, they don't weld up well are hard to find as well as water pumps cost a lot of $$$$$. Straight 8 parts are just generally expensive. If the car is just a tired old 4 dr maybe he should move on. If it's a convertible or hardtop 1950 he needs to fix the 8. Bob

I always get my steel and misc. metals from a steel/scrap yard in Seattle. I have not seen any copper backer bar in a LWS store. I use misc. scrap pieces of copper I form/curve for the welding job.I have several pieces I re-use when needed. Bob

I use a 1/8" copper backer bar -(have several for different welding situations) pressed up firmly against the backside of the hole I'm welding up. Then jusk set the machine correct and weld around the hole to center. The copper bar pulls the excess heat away and the wire won't stick to the copper backer bar , also keeps the backside of the weld flat. The copper backer bars makes welding 1" holes and lots of other sheet metal jobs much faster and better too. Much less warpage. 1/8" can be formed to match the metal surface for good heat transfer. Thicker piece-1/4" pulls heat away better on flat panels. Bob

I agree that these seals are very cheap/lightweight and way too pricey for the quality. The lip to hold the spring on is extremely thin. You have to very carefully tap the seal into place otherwise the spring will pop off. Grease will not hold the spring in place either if you bang the seal a little too hard. I don't know of any other manufacturer that provides current stock usa seals for the axle/hub grease seals for our cars and 1/2-3/4 ton pilot house trucks. I use to be able to get National/victor seals at the local parts stores.. They were heavier much better quality seals. Less demand- Lesser quality parts I guess. Bob

Here's a pic of the groove for the special snap ring that holds in the 2 bearing halves on the engine side of the clutch torque shaft.

There is supposed to be a snap ring on the pivot ball stud end of the clutch torque cross shaft. It keeps the 2 split bearing 1/2's in the clutch torque cross shaft. This will keep the assembly from pulling off the frame mounted ball stud. No snap ring is used on the bell housing side of the cross shaft. Bob

If bolt "A" has a overall length of 1.460" X .440" shank Dia. it's most likely a std. flywheel bolt. Bob

"B" could be the rear motor mount spacer/washer tube that has the welded washer broken off. Inner Dia. of .470" Sizes are approximate.

Maybe if I bought a better beer it wouldn't freeze up on me out in the shop? Like maybe Animal beer?

"B" might be a tough one....

I'll identify one item-E horn mounting insulator pieces.

The problem here is I have to keep all the brewski's in the fridge. Cannot leave any out in the unheated garage or they will freeze up. 10 degree's this am. Thats really cold for around here- the outskirts of the Seattle area.

These steel dollies are what I made to hold / move my MoPar engines.

I had a 1942 DeSoto I had to force the trans out of the bell housing with long studs and nuts to get the tansmission out because of a frozen inner pilot bushing frozen to the input shaft-wouldn't pull through the release bearing. I got it out though with no serious damage to the trans or clutch fork. Damm old junk! Bob

Your car dash looks like it once had a very rare P-23 (1951-2 Plymouth) clock at one time in the dash? Kinda looks like the pot metal clock surround is all that is still mounted in the dash. Otherwise there would have been a plastic Mayflower ship emblem in that rectangular hole. Bob