martybose

Just out of curiosity, are oversize lifters even available now?

I'll be the naysayer on this one. Even though my car was converted to 12V eons ago, I stayed with the vacuum wiper. Had the vacuum motor rebuilt, and installed a good size vacuum reservoir with a check valve. Rarely drove it in the rain, but the few times I did the wipers worked just fine. Marty

My 47 spent a couple of months with the nose of the car jacked up real high so that I could get the steering box out to have it rebuilt. When I got it back I reinstalled it, let the car down and went for a drive. What I didn't notice is that a lot of the oil from the OD section had drained out through a bad tailshaft seal. I made it about a minute in overdrive before there was a load bang and the car started jerking badly. I stopped the car, locked out the OD by pulling the cable, and drove home. Found a place that could fix it, cost me over $1000. Le$$on learned. Marty PS Even with the OD blown up I had no problem engaging reverse.

Way back when it was still a 6V car I installed new halogen 6V headlights. They worked great, but the problem were that the original headlights were only 30 watts, and the new ones were 55W, so the wiring was too small, and the dimmer switch was also getting hot. Solved all of the issues by installing a headlight dual relay and running larger gauge wiring to the headlights. Marty

Are you saying that you bought the OD tail section and bolted it to a standard 3 speed gearbox? That would be a problem, because the 3 speed box was modified for use with the OD unit by extending the shifter shaft through the the rear bulkhead into the OD unit so that if you shifted into reverse the extended shaft also locked out the overdrive so that it wouldn't freewheel. So an OD unit should only be used with the 3 speed that was mated with it. Marty

When I bought my first car (a 1958 Volvo 444) I had no idea that it had been run on non-detergent oil, so I promptly changed the oil and filter with detergent oil. I was back three days later wondering why my oil pressure had dropped; they showed me the plugged oil filter. So for the next couple of months as soon as I saw the oil pressure starting to drop I would replace the oil filter and top off the oil. I must have changed it 6-8 times before it stopped plugging up. But I think that the sludge must have been holding the rings in place, because it soon started burning oil. I eventually had to put a fresh engine in.

I used 00 when I had my custom cables made. But I moved the ground connection point to one of the starter bolts, and I had pigtails added at that end to additionally ground both the frame and the body. I never had a ground problem for anything electrical on my car after that. Marty

With the vacuum hose removed and plugged I only had 6 degrees advance at idle on my HEI. Marty

20 years or more ago I ran across an eBay ad for a factory conversion kit that MoPar evidently offered back in the day. It consisted of a new driveshaft with U-joints on both ends and a splined section for the length movement, and the adapters for both transmission and differential. They bolted right up in my 47 Plymouth and the driveshaft was the correct length. I've never seen another one, but it was sure a nice setup. Marty

When I was looking for a 230 for my Plymouth I found one in a Dodge that had been sitting in a rural wrecking yard for 30 years. Bought it and took it home, expecting a fairly original motor. Got a big surprise when it turned out to be a very worn out .060" over motor. I had to jump through some hoops to come up with a workable piston setup, I eventually had some forged pistons custom made with a modern ring set from a Toyota. As far as I know it's still running, even though it was built about 15 years ago. So it might be a good idea to find out what size and condition the bore is on any core. Marty

It seems to vary a lot. I had a USPS package that was shipped from Florida to mid California via Hawaii, and a bill that was mailed to me from 11 miles away that spent over a week looping 3 times through the local distribution center before it was returned to the sender. (It was addressed correctly.) I currently have a package that disappeared in Wisconsin on June 7, and hasn't turned up for the last 19 days. Of course there was the UPS wine delivery of a dozen bottles that arrived in a giant plastic bag with wine sloshing around. I refused it, they took it back to a local facility, took out the wine-soaked 10 bottles, put them loose in a different box, and sent it to me again. My driver wouldn't give it to me, we opened it to see what was going on, then he refused the delivery. We won't even talk about the On-Trac delivery that was handed to a non-English-speaking field worker a mile away from my house. He gave it to his foreman, who was nice enough to deliver it the next day. They all make mistakes. Marty

knuckleharley, I wouldn't be so sure about the non-detergent oil. Mine had sat for almost as long a decade or two ago, but the sticker on the door said that it had a 20/40 detergent oil in it. Unfortunately there isn't any good way short of pulling the oil pan if there isn't an oil change sticker on the door frame. Having made the mistake of putting detergent oil in an old non-detergent oil car (my first car, a 1955 Volvo) I can attest to the joys of replacing oil filters twice a week until all of the junk filtered out. It's a royal pain, but it might be worth pulling one of the side covers off of the engine to look at how clean it is. Marty

My feeling is that most of the jerks blinding you with LED's had been blinding you with their OEM bulbs before they switched. Most people these days don't have a clue about aiming headlights (or proper use of foglights, a concern of mine when driving my BMW 2-seater M Coupe.) A properly designed LED will display the same beam pattern as the stock bulb, everything else is the subject of aiming. In my BMW I installed 20W LED; much improved light but no one flashes their headlights at me. Same with both of the pickup trucks. Other people with the same BMW put in 50W bulbs, which worked much better until the high heat started discoloring the internal plastic lenses in our headlight assemblies. Buyer beware. Marty

Dates like that are usually the date that the block was cast. I'm not sure what the other number is, but I would hazard a guess that it identifies the mold that was used for the casting. Marty

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that this could simply be a non-functional accelerator pump. Your description is exactly what my car felt like with the original carb until I put in a new accelerator pump piston. Marty

It should be fine, although you will have to get the nose of the car pretty far up in the air to get the steering box/shaft out. I did this on my 47 Plymouth. Marty

The first thing to check is your ammeter; is it moving the correct direction, ie discharging at idle and charging at higher RPM? If it is working correctly, then someone knew enough to switch the leads on the gauge to correct it. Then you should check the leads on the coil, as they should be reversed as well. The starter doesn't care which way the battery is, as the starter uses windings instead of a permanent magnet, so it turns the same direction regardless. The stock radio will work fine, unless it has had the vibrator upgraded with a solid state one, since the solid state ones are polarity sensitive. Heater motors can have the leads swapped to correct rotation. Marty

I'm not having this problem. I wonder if it is browser related? I'm using the latest version of Firefox. Marty

You missed the different differential ratios, 3.73 versus 4.375 Marty

I don't know what head you have, but if my Edmunds is any indication they may have gone from a 1/2" thread length to a 3/4" thread length. You should measure the length of the threads in the head to be sure. I used an Autolite AP 646 in my head, but had problems with the gap being closed because the sparkplugs were over the valves, had to use indexing washers to move it out slightly. Hopefully yours aren't! Marty

Worse comes to worse, you can always add sparkplug indexing washers (available at any hot rod online store) to back out the plug a little. Had to do that for my Edmunds head, which would close the gaps on my Autolites without them. Marty

I just took the stock stud out of my iron head and screwed it into the provided location on my Edmunds head. Marty

Loren, sounds like you might be using either Carter-Webers (what I had) or "normal" IDG Webers. You should be aware that not only are the throttle levers at right angles compared to the stock one barrels,but they need to be pushed open instead of pulled open. Be sure to check which way they need to work. In my application I had to make an intermediate shaft that mounted to my Edmunds manifold to reverse the direction of the linkage to the carbs. I found an old photo that shows it clearly; the rod from the stock bellcrank goes to the arm on the bottom, and two arms on the top of the shaft open the carbs. This only worked for me because the Edmunds manifold is tall, it wouldn't fit if it was an Offy. Marty

Both times that you have mentioned the brake adjustment you said "the brake adjuster", singular. These shoes have a separate adjuster for each shoe, that is what makes them so difficult to get right. Marty

The place I bought my cam from went out of business about 15 years ago, so I can't help with that. Marty