james curl

When I rebuilt my engine in 2006 the machine work alone was $900.Dollars, then the new parts was another $900.00. Also had to have the clutch rebuilt and the flywheel resurfaced as well as having the harmonic balancer rebuilt and the cam re-profiled. Now I might have gone a little overboard as I replaced the fuel pump, oil pump and water pump with new ones. I used the crank after it was turned and the rods after rebuilding, straighten and re-bushed. Everything else was new parts. It might be cheaper to check with Jasper's for a complete rebuilt replacement.

What Mr. WR Story did turned out really nice, but entailed a lot if cutting and plate fitting of the frame spring pockets. The frame spring pockets have to be eliminated from the outside of the frame to use any of the Mustang II based kits on the market.

If you will go to the Tech thread and search for "Front Suspension Upgrades by James Curl 01 Aug 2008" page 19 technical Archives it references an article by hot rod web site where they do a late model ball joint front suspension using the old A frames with ball joints and later spindles. They are doing a Buick but if you look at what they are doing then look at the P-15 suspension you can see how it is done.I started doing just that with Chrysler spindles and made adapters for the ball joints for my 48 P-15. I installed the drivers side and was having trouble getting enough caster for my liking as it dropped the front over 3 inches which I had not allowed for. At that time I was 72 years old and too old to spend that much time on my knees under the fender so I reinstalled the stock parts thinking I might have the front clip off at a future time which has not happened and in the mean time I purchased Fatman dropped spindles which I have not installed and realistically never will.

There is a template on the home site that can be copped once you have set the scale. A lot of copiers will allow you to scale up or down in small increments to get a full size print You can glue the print to heavy cardboard and cut it out add the two bends and use it for the adjustment. I did this 15 years ago and still keep the template in the top of my tool box, you never know when you might need it again.

My 48 only came with one key and it fits the doors, trunk and glove box.

In 2007 a friend and myself drove my 48 4 door from Georgetown, Texas to Reno for Hot August Nights, then on to Grass Valley, Auburn and Placerville Ca to see friends, from there to Wendover Utah and the Bonneville salt flats for Speed Week. From there across Wyoming to Cheyenne then down I-25 to El Paso Texas to visit my brother , from there on I-10 to Us 290 and Texas 29 home to Georgetown. 4800 miles total without any problems except my new ,new port engineering, windshield wipers would not turn off after use. Had to pull the hot wire to stop it every time we had to use the wipers. I built the engine before leaving and made the mistake of not believing the manual on the initial advance, set it at 10 degrees thinking that it would not have any vacuum advance at highway speeds. After returning home with a click in the engine I could not locate and on "Blue Skies" recommendation I pulled the pan and discovered that I had extruded the piston pin bushings from too much advance. After rebuilding the upper end I checked the vacuum at 60 mph with a tee in the vacuum advance line and was still pulling 14 inches of vacuum. That translates to 14 to 18 degrees crankshaft for 14 inches of vacuum added to 18 to 20 degrees centrifugal plus the 10 degrees initial is at the smallest advance of 42 degrees before TDC which is too much advance for high speed long distance driving.

Redbay I would use caution on the 10 to 18 degree static advance. You need to mount a vacuum Gage to the line for the vacuum advance, go drive it 60 mph and see how much vacuum it is still pulling. Then check the vacuum advance chart for degrees advance at that reading, it might surprise you. Next check the centrifugal advance chart for degrees advance at 3000 rpm which should be close to 60 mph. Add the vacuum advance to the centrifugal plus the 10 to 18 initial advance to see how far before TDC you are firing the plugs. When I rebuilt mine in 2007 I set static at 10 degrees advance then took a 4800 mile trip. When I got home the engine sounded like I had some lifters clicking, turns out I had extruded the piston pin bushing. When I pulled the head I had broken the top ring on 5 and 6 cylinders. I had to have all of the piston pin bushings replaced and honed to fit as well as rings.

contact Plymouthy Adams as he has done several of these for himself and has all of the documentation required to do the front clip swap.

Louie Muller's BBQ, his son Jr. who ran the pits left the business and tried doing something else but came back to Austin and opened a BBQ food trailer. His old helper,Arron Franklin is listed as one of the best BBQ places, he has a brick and motor business in Austin where people line up starting about 10:00 in the morning for lunch at 12:00. Franklin's wife counts them down the line as he only prepares so much BBQ each day and if you are past that point you just go home. Muller's is in Taylor in the same old building but Jr's younger brother and sister run the business now. Still Good BBQ, and the walls are still almost black from the oak smoke, they never paint the place. It would lose it's character or ambiance if they did.

Does't help when I am so deaf that it would have to be in the front seat with me to detect the ping. Ignorance is bliss or it was in this case as we made to the top of Monarch pass in Colorado in second gear. Just two old friends doing a dream trip.

When I rebuilt mine in 2006 I set mine at 10 degrees before, ran real good. Took a 4800 mile trip in summer of 2007, when I got home kept hearing a clicking in the engine. Blue Skies convinced me to pull the pan and rock the crank back and forward and watch the wrist pens. Turns out that not only did I extrude all six wrist pen bushings but also broke two top rings, #5 and #6. I thought that I would be out of vacuum advance but after I got it running again I discovered that it still pulled 15 inches at 70 mph. Do the math for centrifugal plus 15 inches of vacuum advance plus the initial 10 degrees and see what you get. You get a broken engine that ran strong but broke in the end..

If you are using wet/dry auto sandpaper you can wet the backside and place it on a sheet of flat glass. The water holds the sandpaper in place and flat glass is as close to flat as most of us can get.

We had to go down to second before reaching the top of Monarch Pass in Colorado in 2007 in my 48 P 15 with 218 engine. Hit the slope going too slow, am still convinced if we could started at 70 mph at the bottom might have made it all the way in high gear with a 3.55:1 Dakota rear end in the car. These old flat head MoPar engines produce a lot of torque, I took .090 off of the head and .010 off of the top of the block which raised the compression and the car pulls hard in high gear. If you feather the clutch you can start off in high gear if you wish, I am always amazed by the torque they produce.

Kanter auto products list seat covers in their catalog, as well as carpet, headliner and windlace. You can get the seat covers in a standard kit, a deluxe pleated kit and a deluxe pleated mohair kit from $329 to $419 for front and back. I know you will have quite a wait before receiving them as they are vendors for a manufacturer and have to wait for them to custom sew them. They also clame to have rubber weatherstripping kits that will fit from 1939 to 1974 MoPar cars.

I tried by cutting the heat riser portion out of the intake manifold. I machined the top and bottom to add a closure plate to the bottom and an adapter plate to the top to adapt a small square body four barrel. Before I could finish it all the side broke out of the center chamber. The casting has a very thin section on the outboard side across from the center intake port. These manifolds were cast 70 years ago so one should not expect much.