Eneto-55

Just one. And the other tire on that side was a new 10 ply. And when I was going 70 & the first tire blew, my 2010 Caravan was on the trailer. It handled fine, but that was the time when there was danger of the second tire on that side going as well, because it was the one that we later realized had small cracks. I'm just a poor boy, or I would have my own truck & trailer, or would have rented an enclosed one. This was just a flat bed. (We wrapped the car for the move, because the windows are out.) I guess I should have kept my mouth shut about the blow outs - now people think I'm crazy. Oh well, it may be true.... (It is also possible that the tire failures, including the cracks, were caused by the poor road conditions - I-70 is in pretty bad shape in some sections between Columbus & St Louis.)

My son-in-law supervised the loading (at both ends of this trip, and for the other P15 we moved to my brother's place inside of Oklahoma), and he has years of hauling experience, mostly with trusses on a semi trailer, but with cars and tractors as well. He obviously did a good job of it.

Yeah, speaking of trailer tires. We borrowed a trailer for this trip, and both tires on the left side blew out, one on the way to Oklahoma, and the other on the way back. We inspected them after the first one blew, and the later one already had some cracks. I was going 70 when the first one blew, with my 2010 Dodge Caravan on the trailer. I was actually surprised it handled as well as it did after it blew.

Well, the car has moved 900 miles from its former home in Oklahoma to Ohio. Moved the 49 P15 parts car around 100 miles west, to my brother's place. I actually didn't need any other tires. The old ones I had on it back in 1980 when I started this project still hold air. Aired up a spare that had been in the trunk of the 49 (sitting outside) since 80 or 81 (a wheel & tire that came with the 46) and it held air just fine. Good old tubes. Could you do that with a tubeless tire after that long?

Yeah, that's right. Both the 2009 Journey and the 2010 Caravan are the 5 inch. (The Journey runs 16s, and the Caravan runs 17s, but otherwise they would interchange, except I'm not sure about the offset. I think by the 2nd year of the Journey production they switched to larger brakes, so those require at least 17s.) Seem like now-a-days about every vehicle has different offset, or even different bolt pattern.

Thanks for all of the feedback. My wheels are the aluminum ones, so I don't really want to drill holes in them. But I do have one of those dummy spares (16") - that should be narrow enough to not rub, right? I would think that the salvages should have a lot of those, unless they scrap them as soon as they come in. (The wheels on my current drivers are a larger bolt pattern, so I can't use the spares off of them. - 09 Dodge Journey & a 2010 Caravan)

Does anyone know if I can use wheels & tires off of a 93 Chrysler Town & Country to move a P15? I know the offset is really different, and I doubt that it would work to actually drive it that way, but I just need tires that hold air to move it. (I'm thinking that the tires would hit the inner fender well in the rear, and probably hit something in the front, too, but thought someone here might have tired this already.) Thanks for any feedback. Edit: Oh, I know already. Obviously it won't work, because the wheels do not have the guide pin hole.

Not arguing, but when I cut up our rusted out 93 T&C minivan, I saved all of the wiring harnesses. The engine harness is hardened and stiff where it was exposed to the heat from the engine, and I also found quite a few places where the coating was broken, or even the wires broken. (Some of this damage I may have done in the process of removing the hardened wires.) I have reused some of the connectors, and the wire from inside the vehicle, but the wiring in the engine compartment and below the floor was pretty much all bad. (The vehicle was 17 years old at the time I scrapped it, and it had spent its whole life here in the "salt belt".)

Did I ever post this Dodge - JD picture here? (An Amish friend of mine saw it some place, and took this picture.)

This reminds me of something I saw my grandpa do back in the 60's. When the grain bin got a rust hole, he (brush) painted the area, then laid a piece of fabric over the hole, and painted over it again. Wala! Sealed! (What mouse wants to chew through paint?)

My brothers & I did that when we were kids - scrape together a dollar, and then get a roll of pennies at the bank. Sort through them, and try to keep as many of the wheat pennies as we could, and still be able to package back up a full roll to trade again the next week in town. (This was in the early 60's, and what we were really looking for was the valuable ones, or something we didn't have already. I never did find a 1955 S, the year of my birth, and from California, where I was born.) Stamps, too, and baseball cards, both the ones you bought for a nickel, and the ones that were on the cereal boxes, Raisin bran, I think. Anyone remember?

I still have the Flandria 10 speed 27" racing bike I bought from my Freshman college roommate at the end of the school year in 1975. (It was one year old at the time.) I have replaced both tires, and one tube, and wore out the chain as well. (He had already replaced the seat, as it had one of those really narrow hard ones on it originally. I finally got one of those "old man" seats made for kindness to the prostate. I'm 62, and have to see the doc about it every 6 months or a year, sometimes it's been every 3 months.) It is also a tall frame - I'd have to measure it to be able to say. But last year I bought a used 18 speed with the higher handlebars. My wife has a multi-speed bike as well, and we take them along on our church group camping week-end every summer. We don't get out with them very much otherwise, but they have quite a few miles of bike trails here - Rails to Trails. These bike paths follow the rail way line that has been abandoned. Most of this is for bikes & walking only, but parts are open to horse drawn vehicles, and the Amish use them quite a bit, to stay off of the highway. There is an access point right at the local WallyWorld, so there is a good deal of buggy traffic there. (Horse piles, too, of course.)

I think they would have originally been cadmium plated (and not anodized or painted), but it also sorta' seems like I've seen some painted on old cars, years ago. Can't say for sure.

I found your other thread, where you posted a photo of the car, and it's amazing how nice the car looks, as bad as that front cross member is. I did see a P15 in a salvage here in Ohio, though, where the upper sheet metal looked just about perfect, but the bottom 6 inches or so was just gone. I didn't try to get down & look under it, because their whole yard was one big mud puddle, but I imagine the frame was really bad, too. I commented about it to the guy working the counter, and he said that he sees lots of cars like that around here, said it's from leaving them parked (for years) on some sort of mining leavings - it's been quite a few years already, and I don't recall exactly what it was.

Cool. Shared on FaceBook.

I have a very dried up & broken one from my '46 that appears to be about 3/8" in height. I have a couple of taller ones that I brought back from Brazil, that were used on the Kombi. They appear to be 15 mm in height (+/- 9/16"), but they could be cut down. (The base appears to be just slightly larger in diameter, but since mine is so dried up, I don't know what the original diameter was. It also diminishes in diameter more than the original MoPar one does.) I haven't tried these VW Kombi ones on the Plymouth, because I forgot to take them along the last time I visited my parents, where my car is stored (900 + miles away). The Kombi is no longer being manufactured, but these bumpers may still be available in Brazil.

Almost immediately is no joke. Years ago I worked in a plating shop, and if someone stopped you to ask a question right as you took something out of the Muriatic acid tank, you could see it rust right before your eyes. (We plated a lot of stuff with cadmium, and that's what I did with the hardware on my car. I even cad plated the intake & exhaust manifolds, the head, the oil pan, and the bell housing, too, I think. I can't tell you if it burns off of the exhaust manifold, because over 35 years later, I still have not run it. My wife & I spent 18 years out of the country, and my car is still waiting for me to retire so I can finish it. Problem is that when we moved back to the States almost 15 years ago, we settled at a place over 900 miles from my folks, where the car still sits. I just don't have a place for it here, or a way to get it here, and my job keeps me too busy anyway. Self-employment does that.)

I also sorta' "collect" Bible commentaries, Greek Lexicons, etc. Weird, I suppose, but I was a Bible translator, and I often have questions about a given text, as to how different people interpret it, and if there is an unusual one, then also whether there is linguistic evidence for their interpretation. But my wife says I collect junk. (What is 'junk' to her is just stuff I haven't found a use for yet.) Also have a bunch of old 78's (records) that go back to the late 40's - Western Swing, etc., and a 1921 phonograph. But it isn't a collection, because I only have one. When I was a teenager I started a 'collection' of unusual brass doorknobs, but I only ever found 2 or so that I really liked. The only one I still have (and the one that got me started with it) has a non-symmetrical design on it - that's what got me interested in it.

Gardening. Recently have also developed an interest in what some are calling 'cyclekarts' - mini cycle cars with 6.5 HP one lungers as the power source. (The biggest problem is the cost of the wheels - 17" motorcycle wheels are specified.)

See, I didn't know about this one. (I guess because I don't have a shop at all.) I thought that "claiming it's part of the house" or something was limited to an attached garage.

Sky lights, if not too expensive. No lighting is cheaper than natural lighting. Oh, & I get why some would say no windows, but I would go nuts in a closed up space like that. (Maybe put bars on the windows to deal with the security issue.)

This is the same color as my 46 (after I got down through two layers of other colors, one of which had been brushed on - thick). I decided to put it back the original color, even though I didn't care for it, either, not at first. My personal advice would be to wait a while, and see if it doesn't grow on you. Did for me, and I love that color now. Don't know what I was thinking.

I know some will say this is not the right way to rebuild an engine, but this was how it was done at the Chrysler-Plymouth-Dodge-DeSoto dealership where my dad worked (parts man at the service desk) starting in the middle 50's up into the early 60's or so before he moved to Rambler. They were so tight after a rebuild that the starter couldn't turn them over. They would hook onto the car with a chain a drag it around the block a few times till it started the first time. (This was right in downtown Tulsa. The dealership name was FourStates.)

Yes, I suppose it means that a person should think about that potential later interest in the donor car as a part of the decision on what parts to use. It can be a gamble, sure, but by the time the donor cars are becoming available at reasonable prices, there might well already be indications of future demand. It might make the original outlay a bit higher, but in the long run may be the better choice.

My personal feeling about frame clip swaps is that after 15 - 20 years, you just have a non-original old car with a mix-match of parts, and with suspension parts that may not be available because they are old, but not old enough to be available as restoration parts. Disk-brake upgrades are a different case, because the changes are reversable, or later model parts can be substituted when the upgrade is no longer the best available. But the main thing I'd say is to document the sources for any upgrades, so that later you or another owner will know what parts are being used. How many times do you see posts on hotrodding sites where a guy is trying to identify a non-original part on a car someone else built?