Eneto-55

I hadn't heard this before - Where did you find this info? (I have been thinking of doing something like that myself.)

Greg, I was responding to the suggestion made previously to tape up the areas not to be painted - just wanted to clarify that this needs to be done with a special heat-resistant tape, same thing for plugs. I am not familiar with the process for ceramic, but I assume that it is baked after application, so the same caution applies, I would suppose. Personally I am not overly impressed with powder coating. I took a job working in that field because I worked in the electro-plating field years ago, had heard of powder coating, and wanted to get some experience with it. The paint IS much harder than the common wet-coat paints, but it has some problems of its own. I Cad plated my manifolds, but have not yet fired it up, so I don't know yet how much it will discolor, or burn off. I don't think it should burn off, as we also commonly baked parts that were cad plated at 750 degrees (farenheit) for several hours. Neto

Places that do powder coating will have the special tape & plugs necessary for covering or blocking areas you do not want painted. Take the part in & explain it to them in person. Nothing is worse than having the wrong type of tape, or plastic or rubber plugs melt all over the thing when it is being baked. (This from personal experience of working in a powder operation, and having people tape up stuff with skotch tape or electrical tape. Big mess if we missed some of it!)

Yeah, I missed that about the doors. They ARE definately different. So that would affect all of the side trim from the front door on back. (I was just thinking about the possible year differences, not about 2 door vs 4 door.) Rockers may also be different as well? I'm not certain about the rear seat either, but I think that the rear armrests are different - again, not sure. I'm pretty sure that the roof itself is the same, but the head liner is cut differently. Does anyone know about gearing differences between 47 & 48, when they switched to 15" wheels? If there is a difference, is in only in the rear-end? (I'm assuming that the trannie would surely be the same.)

If I remember correctly, the stats say that the P-15 lost around 35 pounds from 46 until early 49, but I have not identified too many places where that difference could be explained. (I have both a 46 and a 49.) One difference I've noticed is that the frame for the front seat seems to be built differently in the 49 P-15, but it is also a 2-door, whereas the 46 is a 4-door, so I don't know if those differences were already current in 46. Maybe some of the weight loss could also be explained in the smaller tire size adopted in 48 (switch to 15"). The parts you mention should be identical. Oh, if you come out with an extra right rear fender in nice shape that you would consider selling, let me know.

Joe, I don't think rust is as bad here on framework, fenders, and rockers, ect. The glass got broke out of this car sometime (a long time ago), and I think the jute, or whatever fibre was under the flooring led to the rust out over a period of time. The fender to running board connections are the same way. Other than those places it doesn't seem to have gotten too much. Joel I’m a “displaced Okie myself, & I’ve spent around 10 of the 35+ years since I got out of HS in the north and east (Minnesota & Ohio). The cars are in a lot worse shape out here than in the south west, and you don’t even see as many old ones. I think part of that may also be due to having steel mills close-by around here, too – I think more cars get scrapped here in the east.

I worked with I guy 30 years ago who painted his car with Rustoleum & a roller, and though it had a lot of orange peal up close, he did no sanding or buffing, either. And about 8 years before that a guy in HS painted his car with rattle cans, and he got about the same amount into it that way as with a cheap quickie spray job back then, and it looked terrible. My dad had a friend who painted his PU for him with a brush, and it was a very decent job. He used a good quality brush, and a slow thinner, and it flows out a lot after it is spread on (if you know when to leave it alone). I imagine it would be the same with a roller, although you should get an even better job with what you're doing.

I would think that as long as all of the needle bearings were there it would be fine, as an NOS part that old should be cleaned of old grease, etc., before use anyway. But if the package had burst open, then it would be very understandable for him to assume that some of those very small pieces might easily be missing. (I have had things damaged from poor repackaging in customs myself, where I had taken great pains in packaging something I was sending to myself, in another country, because of lack of sufficient luggage allowance. I think that this problem has gotten worse since the NYC deal in 2001. The same deal can happen when traveling to the US, with the TSA messing in your luggage.)

As far as getting sticker residue off, another product that works really well is Goo-Gone - I've never seen anything like it. (I don't really like the smell, and it leaves a residue of its own, but it does get some pretty stubborn stuff off, and soap & water scrubbing gets its residue off.)

Regarding home rebuilds, the first engine I saw rebuilt was the flathead in my Dad's 53 Dodge 3/4 ton. He did it himself in the yard (no garage), without even pulling the block. I was about 5 or 6 at the time (1960 or 1961), and he drove that pickup for many years. I don't remember now why it was finally parked.

Thanks for the additional input. I'm sure y'all're right - I was just hoping that that part of the work would "stay done".... It will also give opportunity to retrofit a full-time oil filtration system, as some have outlined here.

Gillettealvin, I have been following this thread all along, and am intrigued for several reasons – mainly because I have a 46 P-15 project I started years ago, and had overhauled the engine now about 30 years ago. The car has sat ever since. It has never been run after the over haul – I have just turned it over a couple of times (by hand, with a crow bar) every 3 years or so when I would be visiting my folks again. (Shortly after the over haul I met my wife, we married, and served as mission workers overseas until moving back 7 years ago, but “back” to a bit over 900 miles from my folks, where the car is. Expect to move it here sometime this summer, and revive the restoration.) It was a frame-off restoration, so I knew that the engine would not be run right away, and so we oiled the top liberally during assembly, and also poured ATF in on top of the pistons. During that time I worked in a plating shop, and since we moved back to the US I worked for several years in a powder coating operation, so I can follow the changes in cleaning methods you talked about. I’m wondering specifically about the type of acid used in the chemical strip you mention – I would guess it is phosphoric, not muriatic? Talk about steel rusting before your eyes – Muriatic acid is fast at stripping rust, but steel also begins rusting the minute you take it out. Phosphoric, on the other hand, is really slow, but it produces a coating which protects the steel from rust almost indefinitely. (I have an extra P-15 front engine mount which I had stripped and never painted. It has been like that for these 30 years, and it is not rusted at all.) But my question is – could a person not just flush the engine, with say, ATF, before starting it, and then change the oil really often, or perhaps reflushing from time to time? I’ve got the blues to have to do so much of the work over w/o ever running it….

I got mine off with an old wheel with an off set bumper hitch piece bolted on to it. (Had to drill two holes in the wheel to fasten on the hitch piece.) I have an old black & white picture someplace, but not sure where now.

Nice close up pictures, but can't tell for sure where this stamped area is located on the block. The original numbers will be straight (in line), and will not be double stamped like yours. If it is in the correct location, perhaps it was rebuilt, and the mechanic shop ground off the original numbers, and stamped in their own code.

We always used ATF. (If we knew were going to leave an engine set for some extended time, we would run it while pouring ATF down the carb, then when it’s smoking real good, we’d pour faster till it choked it. We could come back years later and the engines treated this way would always be free and would always start.) I’m wondering if, since you probably didn’t have any reason to realize what was going on, you continued to operate under load. Would that make a difference? I have also heard this about putting in diesel, but have never done it. I did, however, fill the crankcase of my S-10 with ATF after I got it, because the oil was so black. I ran it at idle for 3 minutes (timed it), and with my hand on the key, in case I heard any change in the engine tone. The ATF came out really black, and the first oil change after that stayed like new oil (in color) for hundreds of miles. I don’t know about what extra wear I might have caused, but figured at idle I was safe, and maybe I prevented more wear by getting all that crud out. (We need some scientist types to do some sort of lab test on this question.)

Compare this job to the old one PatrickG posted a picture of. As others have said, the Ebay job is squarish in the rear window area. On the old chop job, it appears that the deck was also lowered (perhaps a bit too much for my tastes), and the rear fenders may also have been reshaped in the rear slope area. (It is difficult to tell for sure w/o more pictures.) The thing about any customization is that it dates the car to a certain post-production period not its own. If a car is stock, it belongs in its own real era. But even my own tastes have changed over the years. Back when I was in HS in the early 70's (when everyone was jacking up the rear), I like the lowered (leadsled) look of the 50's customs, whitewalls, fender skirts, no chrome, frenched headlights, etc. (And I had some of my own variations I've never seen on any custom.) Maybe I liked it partly because it had become a rare look in that era. But now there are so many like that, that I would shy away from it - I guess as far as customs go, I'd just like to have something different, personal. But my 46 will stay stock. I can appreciate the work that goes into a heavily customized car like this, but at the car shows it is the stock survivors that attract my attention.

My first car was a 62 Chrysler Newport, push button shift, an automatic with no 'Park'. The emergency brake was the same basic setup - only internal drum instead of external like on the P-15s (I have one too). I used to carry a wheel chock and would go up hill as far as possible (up close to the next car on a city street), then open the door and put the wheel chock out, and then ease up against it. People laughed at me, but hey, it worked fine!

As I understand the term, a "survivor" is an unrestored vehicle. Once restored, it can no longer be called a "survivor". It is no longer an authoritative example of how the car came out of the factory, no longer a reliable standard for other authentic restorations. I was just looking at the pictures again, and one of the inside shots shows a bit of the heater under the dash (pic # 37). Also, one of the engine bay shots (pic # 54) shows what appears to be the connections for the heater, but no hoses going to it. (Or maybe that's something else? It is in the middle of the firewall, not on the right side where the hose connections would normally come through.)