Big_John

My Grandkids were over for the weekend. Here's my Grandson on my Chrysler. BTW, his shirt reads "lock up your daughters"

The harmonic dampener does exactly what its name says, it dampens the harmonics (or vibration) that occurs within the engine. You have a lot of forces going on. The crank twists and bends from the power stroke and that sets up something similar to a sine wave, moving back and forth. The dampener helps to cancel that out. Without the canceling effect, you chance damage to the crank and/or bearings. The short answer is yes, if the engine was designed to have a harmonic balancer, then you should have one.

I don't know if this helps or not, but in the sixties, when Chrysler started stamping VIN numbers on the engine block, it was common practice for Chrysler to ship replacement blocks for warranty work with no numbers stamped on the block. The mechanics were instructed to stamp the blocks with the VIN number. Being flat rate guys, that seldom happened. It wouldn't suprise me if that had always been common practice for Chrysler to provide replacement blocks/engines with no serial numbers.

I'm an admin at a small car forum. If you want to "delete" someone, its pretty easy. Banning isn't any easier or harder but some admins/mods like to flex their internet muscles.

Well... If it makes you feel any better, I'm banned from a few forums.

I semi retired at 50 for a couple years, working part time a couple days a week. About a year and a half ago, I realized I was working just about every day anyway, so I went back to working full time. Its a little extra money, but I miss having the free time. If things go well, I may try it again next year.

Just to follow up on this... I've got some oil pressure issues. I've only run the engine a couple minutes since sorting out ignition and fuel problems and I verified the problem with a good oil pressure gage. It just starting to make more sense to pull the engine and do it right.

The engine in the car now is a 1950 with the Spitfire logo on the head. The ID number on the block is for a Chrysler. The car is a 1953 Windsor. But that brings up a question. If the stroke is the only difference, can the 265 rotating assembly be used in a 251 block? I'm assuming rod length is different because of the stroke. I'm not saying that is the way I'm going to go... just more to satisfy my curiosity. And I would say that the Spitfire head logo does make the car go faster...

Did you guys ever see this? http://www.imcdb.org/

A quick and easy fix would be nice and perhaps I was being naive in hoping for one, but then again... you do never know what others have done. I've been fooling with cars for about 40 years now and I get suprised now and again by simple solutions to what looked like complicated problems. I'm thinking this engine is a little worse for wear then I had hoped it would be and I'm going to end up pulling it this winter and either going through it or better yet, finding the proper 265 engine the car should have and rebuilding that. Mud in the cooling passages will be pretty easy to deal with then. That said, it looks like the short term solution is to pull the easy to get at freeze plugs and cleaning out what I can that way. I'm going to leave the water pump, distribution tube etc in place for now and worry about that later if I need to.

Yea, I'd use the air hammer to install them. One thing I note in reading is that most seem to be staying away from the harder to get at freeze plugs. That piece looks like the riser from when they sand cast the block. They just knock those off and I wouldn't be suprised if one ended up in the block.

Well, OK. It would have been nice to say that to begin with. As I said I would prefer not to pull the freeze plugs, not that I wouldn't if necessary. Acids or strong chemicals.... no way. I agree that will cause more damage especially in this case where the flow may be suppressed by the crud.

Not quite getting your inference here Tim. This is a car I just bought that wasn't running. The previous owner had given up trying and sold the car to me. I've gotten it running and now in the process of sorting things out so it will run well and reliably. I may try this first. If nothing else, it may loosen things up. It couldn't hurt. This sounds like what I will end up doing. I was really hoping there was a magic bullet fix that all you flathead guys had come up with, but it sounds like this is the real fix. As I said above, I may try running the engine with detergent first and if nothing else, it should loosen the crud up a little. Am I correct in saying there is no aluminum pieces in the cooling system that the Electrosol can react with? Thanks! They start salting the roads here in July.

I drained, filled, drained my radiator today on my '53 Chrysler. The water in the rad seemed clean and drained well. I opened the petcock on the left side of the block and no water came out. I removed the petcock, thinking it might be clogged with scale and discovered a lot of mud in the block. I removed the thermostat, lower rad hose and stuck the garden hose in the upper hose. I expected some water to pour out the open block hole, but there was only a little. Hooked the lower hose back up, and again stuck the garden hose in the upper hose. A little more water out of the block, but not a lot. Any suggestions? I'd rather not start knocking out freeze plugs if at all possible.

Just the other day I saw a '54 Chevy towing a similar trailer on the NYS Thruway.

I've done that myself and have seen many others do the same. I've handed people parts, even shipped them on my nickel to people I've never met in person and never asked for anything other then "thank you" in return. That said, I'm with you on offering up anything to someone that's out to just make money on the part.... unless of course they are upfront about it and are willing to pay a fair market price for the part.

I think a lot of the guys rodding cars understand that fellow car guys might need some of the stuff they are taking off their cars. If nothing else, they are now looking at it as a way to get a few bucks in their pocket for their project.

I happened to spot this on the HAMB this morning and thought it might be of interest to someone here. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=487735

Skanellus Drive In on Monday nights. I haven't been there this summer so I can't tell you what kind of turn out they have. The food and ice cream are pretty good though!

This is one of those cool forums where the the thread topic wanders around a bit... Oil leak to disc brakes to Roadrunners. I like it!

How did you mount the master cylinder? edit: Bebop answered the question before I asked it. LOL!!

Here's mine.

I'm on a few different forums. We use phpBB software for the forum I am admin on (69roadrunner.net). Nothing wrong with this, just takes getting used to. Having a new post show up in the middle of the thread got me confused. Yes, I found that out the first night I signed on and looked around. I'm using the "hybrid" setup right now, but I'm going to try the others again.

Where was that?

Does places like Inline Tube or Fine Lines make prebent lines for your car?