Eneto-55

Painting before it's all really ready: I followed the progress of a 2-door 51 Dodge custom (chopped, sectioned, channeled, hood opening reshaped, top rear corner of the door reshaped, etc.) on Rat Rods Rule, and he often painted an area he had just started on. He said that he couldn't really see how it was going to look until it was all one color. But he also did the same with structural areas, partly because he always put the car outside over the winter, when he worked on a wooden boat. (He was from Michigan, too.) When we were doing the body work on my 46, we also sprayed a coat of sealer over the primer, to be able to spot any problem areas. So, maybe just paint it anyway. (I think I've heard of some kind of paint that is 'weldable'. Probably pretty expensive. As I recall, it is used in areas that will later be inaccessible.) But you probably know all of this already.

I thought that was a reorganization, on a new platform. (But then we had no internet 20 years ago, so what would I know about that?)

This is from the Dodge books you have, correct? ('46 - '48') At a difference of .09375, that is a quite significant difference from the size of the pins I removed from my 46 P15. (3/32". I realize that my car may have been reamed out for over-size pins over it's long years of service, but 11/32 is a LOT bigger. The Plymouth may have been different - - my understanding is that the Dodge bodies were new for 1946, where as the Plymouth was basically a carry-over from '42, not getting it's completely new body until early '49. Or did the new Dodge design come out already in '42?)

My brother was given a 47 P15 that had previously been nose down on a creek bank (to prevent erosion). We took off what parts we could get, and I really wanted that transmission (thinking that the grease inside might have prevented the gears from rusting), but no way was it going to separate from the bell housing. So our dad eventually scrapped it all. (Now I can think of some other parts I would have tried to get off, but it was already long gone.)

Back when I worked in a plating shop (late 70's through early 80's) cadmium was the go-to for rust protection. (We also Cad plated stainless roofing screws, not to protect it from rust, but as a lubricant.)

I have certainly made this same error in the past, but this time at least, it was someone else (the guy with the '38 Richards body - I don't know what that is, to be honest - An Australian vehicle?). I haven't decided for sure how I'm going to fix my hinges. I could look for used ones, but they're bound to have the same type of wear. I have thought of making a jig to get everything aligned correctly, then cut off the 'bulge' that forms the pin area, and weld on larger diameter round stock that has been machined to accept a larger bushing than what I have, so that I can possibly even install grease zerts. But the zerts would be over-kill I know, and I try to resist going over-board like that. (It's my tendency to go to extremes. The zerts would also have to have extension tubes that pass through the curved part of the hinge tongue in order to grease them w/o removing the entire assembly from the door pillar. So I should be able to resist that extreme 'solution'. Hopefully.) I was hoping that I would be able to read the technical pin size description on the Dodge parts manual page that Aussie Dodge (the original poster on this topic) posted a picture of, but unfortunately I cannot make it out. I reckon not everyone has an actual scanner for that sort of thing. I saw a Plymouth Parts Book like that on Ebay once, but it seemed rather high priced, I was short on cash at the time, and so I didn't move on it right away. Then someone else got it.... As they say, "You snooze, you loose." I need to check there again.

I had to go back and make sure it wasn't me that made that error "again" - writing 11/16" when I meant 11/32"..... (11/32 = .34375". Sometimes I have to do that calculation/conversion to make sure I'm getting it right.)

I did the bushing route (one-piece sintered bronze), but so far on only one hinge, the worst one of the 6. But I was attempting to return to the original size (or what I understood to be the original size from what info I had). So I have a different problem with the holes in the hinge frame - the holes are now too large for the pins I planned to use. I have considered various ways to build up the area INSIDE the holes, and created a discussion thread about this on Rat Rods Rule as well. (This was several years back already, and I got some good feed-back from the guys there as well. I haven't yet followed through with anything, because my car is still dismantled, and as I say, "My work gets in the way of my hobby." I also do not have a shop yet - the car just sits in one side of our 2-car garage, here at the house. But no room to work on it.)

Light snow here in Holmes County Ohio. Too warm to stick, however. Our entire family will be with us for Dinner, at noon. (Where I come from - Oklahoma - the big meal of the day is called 'Dinner' regardless of whether it is at Noon, or in the evening. So if it's at Noon, then the evening meal - if there is one - is called 'Supper', and if it is in the evening, then the Noon meal is called 'Lunch'.) Anyway, it'll be all of us, but that ain't a lot. Only our daughter is married, and they have 4 boys, 10, 3, and twins at around 19 or 20 months. Our two sons are still holding out for the perfect match, I guess. (36 & 31.) Thankful to God for the family He's given us.

I have run into the same confusion on the P15s. My hinge pins come out to 11/32", and a forum member had told me that he has a Dodge book that lists them as 5/16". The idea is that as the pins wore into the hinge tongue, the solution was to get over-sized pins and drill (hopefully actually using a reamer, but that probably didn't happen) out the holes for the larger diameter pins. On my four-door P15 (1946), ALL of the pins are this larger size. I can understand that on a car with over 90,000 miles on it, that the driver's door hinges, and possibly also the front passenger door hinges, would have been replaced that way, but it seems less likely that the rear doors would have required that to be done. By the way, I would appreciate it if you could post a scan of that page in your parts book. (I only have Service Manuals, no parts book that has the descriptions for each bolt, etc.) [I have posted quite a bit on this topic, and I thought that I have a document with the post information - how to find it all again - but cannot find it now.]

We had a '98 S-10 as well. I think that's the only one I ever sort of made up a name for - Esse Diess, which is really just an 'Englishification' for S-10 in Portuguese.

There were a number of fiberglass bodied Model T's at the 1973 Hot Rod Nationals (Tulsa), some being really wild customs. That was, I think, my first car show. I was just 17, getting close to 18. I remember that we thought the fiberglass bodied ones were "second class" to the real ones. I wish I had been more interested in the post-war cars then - the salvages around north Tulsa were full of them. I wanted something older, something from before the headlights were incorporated into the fenders. I didn't get my first P15 until nearly 7 years later. EDIT: I just looked it up. The next time it was held in Tulsa was 76. I was living in Nebraska that Summer, so I didn't attend.

I'm a lot more open to changes now than I used to be, but I'm reminded of what Tevya (in Fiddler on the Roof) says when his youngest daughter marries a Russian Orthodox guy. For the older daughters, he bent his Jewish traditions to increasing degrees, out of love for his girls, and a changing attitude toward romantic love itself. He went though his process of "On the one hand", and "On the other hand" wrangling with himself, but in that last case, he ended with "There IS no other hand!" It all just went too far. That's where I am with some really drastic changes to antique vehicles. Others can do it, fine by me - It's their vehicle, but for myself - my own vehicle - "There is no other hand." (Now if someone builds a complete custom body, I'm "all eyes", watching with interest and intrigue.)

That's been my mind-set as well. But I got my 46 back when the the federal speed limit was 55, and who would have thought that it would be changed back? (I started driving before that change to 55 MPH, but I don't recall when it was instituted.) But I'm becoming more and more challenged on that idea that it should be reversible (to be able to go back to strict stock). It already wasn't original, as I got a 55 model 230 engine with it (the original block was not included). But here's where it relates to the speed limit. Not really related to my own top speed, but back then there was still such a thing as "the wide open highway" (without traveling hundreds of miles to get there). So I start thinking more about turn-signals, because how many drivers on the roads today know about hand signals? And the tail lights and the single brake light aren't very bright. So now I'm thinking of designing a custom combined tail/brake/turn/backup light bezel that would look as much like the original as possible (to still not look out of place), but one that would allow for an actual reflector inside of it. (There's a shop near here that does aluminum casting, some guys I have known for 10 years or more.) To do that w/o having it stick way out in the back like a "premature Forward Look light assembly" the reflector needs to extend into the trunk compartment, which means cutting larger holes in the rear quarter. (Not that I don't like the Forward Look MoPars, but those are two different design concepts. A car's lines have got to 'flow' for me to like the appearance.)

Yes, for the preservationist it can be a "bitter-sweet moment" - get the now un-wanted parts to complete or improve one's own vehicle, while "mourning the loss" of another "original".