Uncle-Pekka

Bob, The problem is quite the opposite: I can measure the hole in the light housing: It is 1" diam. - The problem is to find out the exact outer diameters of the reflectors for sale by various sellers 'round the 'net. 25mm reflector may be refered as 1", however inch is 25.4mm. One listing subject called it 3/4" reflector, however attached dim.dwg. measured 1" outside diameter, then which it would be? Reflectors are inexpensive, but with postage to Finland I would not care to experiment with too many pairs... Robin, Your friend's Nash is an Ambassador: Bigger OHV six to my L-head unit, longer wheelbase, more chrome and better class interior. It also looks like concours restored. Mine is a fair survivor (could be "driveable dream" as the unrestored cars featured on Hemmings Classic Car-mag.) Eneto, Would your brother have a bigger car, you could see in spite of the distance! (Sorry my twisted mind just could not resist the temptation)

Mackster, Captain, Cool looking skirts & fog lights - I vote for you to wear all those period accessories. I have the same taste for 40's-50's add ons: I have found me so far a Fulton sun visor, Unity fog lights w. yellow lenses, curb feelers, Unity spot light, tail light w. blue dot, chrome visors for head lights, beauty rings on wheel rims and fender skirts. Unfortunately the skirts are of glass fiber... when I bought them I thought it would be as good as steel ones, but the fit is no good, also surface is kind on bumpy, looks like poorly mended with lots of bondo (thus it calls more bondo...) I just received original Foxcraft skirts for my Nash and I am astonished of the quality. I will consider buying a set of steel repros by Agape Auto Parts for the Dodge.

Yes Sir, It does! However, that feature should not be considered scandalous, because the car is in possession of a middle-aged respected (?) gentleman (= being yours truly uncle), rather than of a reckless girl-hunting rascals.

May be a dummy question...: - Is the mopar 15" rim steel wheel more difficult to find than the furd wheel? (in the States? - I know that here in EU we need to grab whatever is available) What I know D24 rolled on 16" rims from '46 to '47, but changed to 15" for '48.

Thanks, Reg! I'll check tonite will these 3/4" buttons fit in the Nash mouldings. /Pekka

First some "breaking news": Unkka is no longer a purist mopar-man(*: I bought me a 1951 Nash in early summer this year. Found the car at eBay, it came from Phoenix AZ. Good decent rust free west coast Statesman with small 184cid L-head, 3-on-tree & OD. I had a finnish owned Texan transportation company to haul it to Houston and sea freight to Finland. I am very satisfied with the car, being obviously run ca. 50 000 miles only. Interior is in poor condition, but not too bad being all over factory original. Paint is typical AZ sun kissed & faded away and I intend to keep it just like that. You really do not see that kind in Finland. *) Yet still a good 75% of my heart belongs to Walter P. C. "daddy". Ahem - back to the topic: The subject line is taken from Chris Bamfords thread "Great Hershey Trip", day 13, where he tells of his finds at Hershey swap. (I did not want to mess up that wonderful thread by asking my question:) - What size those little red reflectors for license plate would be? The Nash has little red reflectors on top of rear lights, see attached pic. - those are unevenly faded, thus would be nice to replace by new repros Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Justin, Actually I am surprised positively $275 is VERY reasonable for thorough spring job. However, I am afraid it will cost me double that money here in Finland. Andy, Your ride looks great! I am running 215/75 R15 radials all over, thus with 2" blocks rear should be a bit lower. My front springs are a bit tired, thus I will consider cutting only after I see how the stance looks like with the rear blocks.

What a great road trip, indeed! Really beautiful landscapes - Looking at the photos feels like a time machine took us 50 years back... Best of luck for the travellers! The P15-D24 reference page tells P15 4D sedan weight ca. 3100 lbs and D24 ca 3280 lbs. I recall my D24 was scaled to be ca.1550kg, tank full gas.

Fred, Andy, Ok - I surely will post pictures once I get it done. However, I am afraid it may take time. Looks like a busy autumn at work. If or when I get to the garage I have to first finish some primer paint job I started in summer... Justin, I guess I'll try the blocks first to see how much I want to drop. How much appx. a such spring job did cost? Thanks, Pekka

Fred, I got me a set of new bushings, plan to install them at the same time. Tony, Good point, will check this. Can imagine what will happen with flat tire... Andy, I just found 50mmx50mm RHS profile tube, a tad smaller than 2"x2", should be fine for my blocks.

Thanks fellows, With that information I'll get started. The hole and the locator will wait until I'll get to drop the axel and get to measure. Fred, I probably try with 2" block. Yet another question: When dropping for instance 2", will there be issues with drive shaft, u-joints?

Would someone tell me dimensions of a lowering block suitable for D24? I have long u-bolts and planned to drop rear some 2"..3" this winter. However, it would be great to be able to do the blocks before taking the std. u-bolts apart. Blocks could be welded by using heavy steel profile. I suppose there has to be hole in bottom and notch or bolt head on top, which size? Before you recommend me the nightprowlers blocks, consider the freight to Finland will be 2-3 times the price of the parts. Thus do-it-yourself may be reasonable for me.

Not a bit of truth - I would say that was a big load of bulls---. Nash had their own flathead six from the 30's, which they carried on until the bitters end. The Nash design incorporated intake and exhaust manifolds in the block. Mopar never did that. Nash obviously thought, that there would be benefits in warming the intake. Some old folks say they produced vapor lock easily. We all know the Mopar flattie to be one of the most reliable and easiest to maintain engines of all times. We also know the modern OHV engines have better mileage and efficiency, but if you go that road you will end up holding a wheel of a Toyota... "Life is too short to be spent driving a dull car..." Keep the chin up and stiff upper lip! There's no head like a flathead.

S.g. Kapitän, Very Impressive, indeed! (* Tell my warm regards to your friend, he must be a gentleman and a wizard to create such a stylish and inspired kustom out of Soviet product. The M20 is actually so true to old school kustom, that it is almost beyond the real thing. I mean in a good way. That is without a doubt most american Popeda in the universe and it is build by a german! I am so inspired, that I would try to find me a Popeda of my own if I only knew how to beat sheet metal (what I do not). Keep on the Good Gospel! Cheers, Unkka-Pekka P.S. *) It will take me a couple of weeks to read through all of your friends web-pages by my high school german, but I promise to do it... ...before Xmas.

Hallo Herr Kapitän Fred! Great pictures, great video - must have been big time fun race party. The Popeda (not spelled Popieda), is certainly a wild thing. Has your friend chopped the roof among other modifications? Originally GAZ Popeda sits high as an off-road vehicle. Alone the dropping of the body and axels has made a major difference in the car appearance. The bosy features are recognable, but when sitting that low it does nor look like a Popeda. Cool job. Along with the flat head six it is like an odd american car (compared to European styling of that era) Keep having fun! MfG., Pekka

Robert, Congratulations - You did the right thing. Where do you keep your fleet? I've got the same illness. I got it at young age, fortunately I did not got money back then, thus only bought small cars easy to work, easy to keep in old barns & tent garages. Now I do have five small renault cars from the sixties, a 1964 Peugeot, big 1956 German Zündapp scooter, the 1948 D24, 1977 Chrysler and latest 1951 Nash Airflyte - and my daily driver 1999 Renault Scenic. What I do NOT have is a garage... That is a problem in Finland. Summer is 3 months and climate quite humid. In summers I work the cars in my drive way, fields, my fathers garage (that's 180 miles from my home...) Do I have to tell I do not do show car quality? All the best to You & your fleet, Pekka

Fulton visor is aluminium sheet, pressed to shape in a die. Way over common man's skills. What would be possible, is to make a copy in glass fibre by laminating with resin. A fellow sells remanufactored center clamps in eBay,her's a link: http://cgi.ebay.ca/Fulton-Sunvisor-Center-Pinch-Clip-clamp-New_W0QQitemZ300437477128QQihZ020QQcategoryZ42606QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp4340.m444QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DCRX%26its%3DC%252BS%26itu%3DSI%252BUA%252BLM%252BLA%26otn%3D5%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D7471849123264153580#ht_500wt_948 The side supports as in the 1st photo by Neil are stainless steel pressed parts. Quite fancy and hard to reproduce. Those show up in eBay time to time. Saved from crashed visors, I would guess...

No need to apologize, Tom. Some may say this is useless information, but some of us old-car-nuts know the by-gone brands better than the names of modern car industry. The names LaFayette and LaSalle do origin from historical persons, right? LaFayette was a french officer who server in George Washington's army, but who was LaSalle?

New discount code: 33760352773897 "This discount code expires on August 8, 2010 Enter the code above in the "How did you hear about us" line of the shopping cart. If you are using our traditional HTML catalog, please click the "Apply" button to the right of the field. Your discount will automatically appear, subtracted from your order total. Please note: We sometimes get calls from people who put the word "discount" in front of their code and do not get the discount. Please enter ONLY the discount code, no other words or numbers."

Careful out there! The car in the picture is a Nash. LaFayette was a model line of Nash in the 30's (I cannot tell, if the car in the picture is LaFayette, but it is definetely a Nash) That has NOTHING to do with the LaSalle, which was sort of entry level Cadillac in late 30's - a GM car.

Congratulations John, at $350 it was a steal deal!

I agree that most of pot metal brightwork for P15 & D24 can be found at eBay or swap meets at reasonable price, thus it does not pay to mend and re-chrome bad pitted ones. Personally, however, I will not throw away those bad ones, but save them for future. I've heard, never done myself: method they save pitted pot metal parts. You drill a hole and forge a piece of brass wire into the hole. After careful grinding of the contour the part will be copper plated, polished to mirror and chromed. Pricey job.

I like the middle one, was it Buehrig streamliner...? Flatie, Citroen introduced hydro pneumatic suspension in mid 50's with the "DS". Since that they have used the same concept in their mid-size production cars. There's no steel springs, nor separate shocks. There is a high pressure hydraulic pump producing 10 bar pressure for four independent vertical cylinders providing ride height control for each wheel. spring effect comes from pressure gas vessels on top of each spring cylinder. Same pump provides pressure for power brakes & power steering. Lots of thin steel pipes running under the car to distribute the pressure for each function. You can adjust the ride height by finger tip control whenever engine is running. Triumph of innovation and engineering but not very practical in snow zone climate. I owned one. When the rust got to eat the pipes it was a nightmare to maintain. In California climate it would have been a dream...

The taxi version (or actually public sale civil version) was P831 and P832. I do not think it shared a single piece of sheetmetal with the military version.

"Sugga" is swedish for a sow, it is common calling name for this fifties military Volvo four door sedan style. Not invented by the factory, of course. Volvo has always had most american influenced design and engineering of european cars. This military version is no exception. Cool car.