builtfercomfort

I've got a 39 Chrysler and the inner and outer seals are worn away/missing on all the side windows. The inner was a thin 'fuzzy' or 'cats whiskers' type, while the outer was a thin rubber wiper type that fit flush against the window. The bottom of the door windows is straight with the usual curve up at each end. I know about Steele Rubber but their catalog is not as informative as I would like, and they are pricey. Does anyone know of a modern car or other brand that would have things that would work? They make a lot more old Ford /GM stuff and it's easy to find. I don't have access to a good junkyard but from an internet search Jeep stuff might be close in size? Hard to say from just pictures. I'm just wanting it to seal properly, not restoring things, so non-original is fine. I just don't want water getting inside the doors any more than necessary. My next step would be to get some heavy plastic sheeting inside the door to direct water that did get in down to the bottom and out the drain holes, and I'd feel better about surviving the occasional rainstorm without getting the interior wet.

Also try "Simple Solution" which is a competitor of "Nature's Miracle" - enzymatic cleaner available at the pet store in a spray bottle. It may be a part of your overall solution; if you know a Cat Person they may have some you can borrow since you won't need much.

I'm coming to this thread late. I love the progress and attitude, keep up the good work and humble progress! Not to hijack but... Rock, there are mounts for AC for small block Ford (at least) that sit high on the driver's side - see http://www.nostalgicairparts.com/air-conditioning/universal-ford-compressor-mount-driver-side-190.php - the same place has "center mount" mopar brackets which don't look as useful to me. Or Google for: "sbf upper driver ac mount" I would imagine that something like the SBF mount could be bought or built for your 360?

I'm thinking you could get a propeller, and then add some gears too, and a way of spinning it from the engine, and provide an extra bit of propulsion to your car. Okay, not a lot extra propulsion... unless you went to an oversized propeller. And at that point I think they call it a plane... or a meat chopper, not sure which.... I did see one of these that had a tiny motor that spun the propeller very slowly, you would turn it on at a car show I guess.

I wrote a Fantasy / Action / Adventure book, people seem to like it, if you like that sort of thing... I'll email it free (EPUB format) to any forum member who PM's me their email address. (And dropping nice reviews on Amazon would be nice, if you like it :-) Description and sample chapters are available at my website: http://www.wizardconstable.com --Tom

A friend of mine is talking about using Delrin (machinable dense plastic) and a small bench-top lathe to turn his own dash knobs. That way he can get whatever profile he wants. But he hasn't figured out how to get clean-looking inset printing on the face yet - he wants the letters machine cut, not hand cut. He may put a recess in the front so a separate label part can snap in. (I'm not sure he's ever going to get to it, actually. Still, it seems feasible to me.)

The white ABS stuff is not quite up to spec for cars. It is thin and shatters in time when it gets vibration and temperature extremes. It's made for showers and such. I helped take apart a '23 T interior with this behind it, the owner was cursing a lot. Tim's got a good idea, the pasteboard can take heat/vibration. There is a heavier grade black ABS available from plastics shops that is also thermo-moldable. Also other people have had some luck with plastic corrugated signboard. That's available at sign shops, or free sometimes just after an election (though finding signs big enough for a door panel is not always easy). Anyway, just passing along experience - don't want you to redo work.

I made him an offer, I told him I thought he'd missed a couple of decimal points... <j/k>

Disclaimer: I've never done this on a Mopar, but it works on old GM products and I think the Mopar works the same. If you can round up some spare lock cylinders, take one (or more) apart. They have different height pins that are a negative copy match the height of the different areas on the key. When the correct key area matches the correct pin height, it will not prevent the cylinder from rotating (other pins may still prevent it though) - get all the pins the right height to match the key, and the cylinder will rotate, and you've just rekeyed the lock yourself. With a few locks, you can usually mix-and-match the pins and get an existing key working. (Dirty little secret is that you don't really need all the pins put back in place. So instead of matching 5 pins, you can leave one out and match 4 pins height, meaning a wider variety of keys would work for that lock, any key height would match the missing pin.) The pins are tiny, fiddly things, and there are tiny springs under them - it's a bit of a pain, but it can be done at home on a clean flat workbench (no little crevices to hide the pins when the springs eject them) and hopefully on a tile floor (no carpet to hide things either). I used a little PVC water pipe with a slot cut in it, a couple of inches long, to stand in for my cylinder so I could swap pins.

I'd also like power rack and pinion in my 39 Chrysler, so I'm interested if someone makes a kit - I know OldDaddy (Charlie) was working on a kit at one time but I don't know if he got it going. 1939 Chrysler seems to be what the post-war Dodge front end was designed from, but uses forged components rather than heavy stamped ones; the components are all the same name and function as P15/D24 but many look different. For example, Charlie's front disc kit worked fine, but not his shock relocation kit; the tie rods ends are the same (or close) but swapped inner-to-outer and side-to-side. So I know I need to do some customizing and such, and hopefully also get a kit with extra adjustability. Lots of late 30's to mid 50s Mopars have similar but not identical suspensions, so adjustability is important. In reading the linked posts above, the prospective kit may need to add shorter steering arms (or good instructions on how to shorten the old ones?), find a rack with longer travel (7+1/4 inch) -- otherwise turning radius will be sacrificed. In the big Chrysler I can't afford that, it's bad enough as is. I think you could maybe shorten the steering arms with the help of a GOOD welder and maybe some extra material for strength - it's just a guess of course since I'm not a pro welder. But knowing what the finished length should be - more importantly how to calculate the finished length - should be part of an ideal kit. I found Flaming River is making a 'universal' front steer power rack: http://www.flamingriver.com/index.php/products/c0014/s0005/FR40022PLN which advertises "More than 6" of travel for improved turning radius". But that doesn't seem to be enough with the stock steering arms. Mostly I'm wondering what other people think an 'ideal' power rack & pinion kit would look like - my (wild brainstorming) guesses are: 1. Rack / power rack (OEM preferred, Caviler or import) 2. Mounting for rack, with instructions to figure out exactly where to mount it. Simple measurements from frame aren't enough since it would need to go in different width cars - probably need to measure off axle centerline and / or off stock steering rod / tie rod position with tires straight. 3. Steering rod lengths - assuming you get the rack in correctly, how to calculate what lengths you need the steering arms to be based on how far the wheels are off the stops at full lock. Advise on getting new steering rods or getting the old ones modified. 4. Tie rods - either adapt to stock ones, or what new ones to get that fit the new and old components. Extra adjustability would be very welcome. 5. Info on supporting existing steering column, and using double-D u-joints to reach rack, when old steering box is gone. (Some parts not applicable if using aftermarket or replacement column) 6. Power steering pump specs to work with power rack - the Toyota MR2 electric pump seems to be the hot swap these days since it doesn't need an extra belt and can be put anywhere in the engine compartment. (Yeah, longwinded, sorry) Can anyone add to this (or point out where I'm wrong or crazy), and does anyone have experience in these areas? I know people have done some (or all) of these items but no one I can find has documented it all together.

The repeated-window-opening things come from poorly coded ad sites or malicious ad sites. So depending on which ad you get served, you may have this problem in some browsers. I browse with Firefox with the AdBlock extension and don't have this problem ever - I've seen it in IE several times.

One man, one trailer is the way to go. Brokers will make promises the actual driver won't honor. BenD did my transport & I was happy. 15 years ago I had a car delivered & the driver punched a hole in the oil pan & after the oil drained out, drove it off the truck, thus ruining the motor. Insurance covered part of it but quite the hassle.

I have a feul pump relay on the ignition circuit, and rather than adding an oil pressure switch I found a Ford rollover / collision switch off a F150. It shuts off the pump on impact. I forget the accurate name of the switch; it was $10 from eBay. (

I run my optima inside a boat battery box. Hides it, but does not disguise it.

I don't need a set right away, but I'd surely stockpile them at any of those prices - I'd like to put a 360 motor (or a 360 stroker ) in a 30s Mopar one day. If anyone wants to sell a set cheap let me know... but I somehow I doubt it, and they should go to people with current projects anyway. Tim, what sort of manifold did you run on your 383-equipped car? Or did the rack and pinion steering make the steering less of a problem?

The hard part seems to be finding the 273 / Valient driver side exhaust manifold. This goes up first, then down near the firewall, to clear the steering column. Otherwise you will need to make some custom headers. As for the rest, it's fairly straightforward - offset the engine 1-2 inches to the passenger side, go with a more modern rear end, and it should be good to go. Here's a pic of the exhaust manifolds from 273 Dart/Valiant cars:

Yesterday was my birthday so I made this cake. I like lime better than lemon, and you can sometimes buy a lemon cake but never a lime one, and most mixes and store-bought cakes are too sweet and too bland for my taste. So I substituted lime jello and limeade along with a lemon cake mix. Here's my review. - I needed to add a little more water (my mix called for 1.25 cups water and 3 eggs), I used 4 eggs and about a cup of water - I added some ice cubes to the melted jello to get it cool quickly, and had to add a little more water to the mix as well. - Adding sugar to the limeade concentrate seemed to be almost overkill - it wouldn't dissolve any more sugar, so some sugar went on the cake in slurry form. - The recipe does not say what size can of lemonade to use, I used a 12 oz can of limeade. It came out light green (due to the jello) and tasty. As described, quite tart, but it has so much sugar in it (cake, jello, limeade+ sugar) that it's not bad. If I had a blowtorch in the kitchen I might melt some sugar on the top for a slightly crunchy topping - the edges are the best tasting part to me. So now I have to get rid of it without getting too fat, it's loaded with calories... I'm giving some of it to my neighbors and such. We will survive...

Make sure you have a good fan shroud - one that lets air out at highway speeds but around town pulls ALL the air through the radiator. Run 50-50 antifreeze / water. On that dual 6-volt battery idea... seems like it would be possible to charge each battery in parallel (using your 6 volt generator) and have a separate isolated circuit that ran in series to give you 12 volts? I wouldn't have any idea how to wire this myself, it would take some sort of heavy duty diode at least.

What does the back of your instrument panel look like - and why do the gauges have to be rectangular? What do the instrument faces look like - are the faces good or will they need replacement too? How close to stock are you trying to get? Options: 1. Find some "mini" gauges and take the guts out of them and put them behind your existing gauges. They would come with sending units. The problem is that most modern "mini" gauges are of poor quality - the good ones are usually the standard (2 1/8 ? I forget what the standard gauge size is). Sometimes the standard size gauges have guts that are a good bit smaller than the casing. 2. Find a newer car and get the gauges out of it - I seem to remember an 80s Chevy had rectangular gauges. You would probably need to change the sending units too. 3. Send the old gauges out for rebuild to modern specs ($500 or so last I checked). 4. Look for more popular aftermarket gauges - Ford F1 perhaps? 5. Look at a Dolphin 3 3/8 cluster gauge / speedo, and see if it would work if you removed the surrounding can at top and bottom - just grind it off to fit your opening - would it look 'custom' or 'hideous' ? You might need to cut some custom glass in an hourglass or figure 8 shape to fit across the two gauges?

Texas hill country, late 1960s, summer. I'm a kid, riding along with my grandma and her friend to a restaurant in the next county. It was a 'dry' county but you could order 'setups' which was a highball glass with 4 cubes of ice, half full of the mixer of your choice (7-up, Coke, soda water, or tonic water). You then pulled out your liquor travel case (you DO have a liquor travel case don't you?) and used the jigger glass to measure in your hooch. Only my grandma's friend didn't have a travel case, she had her travel case built into her '62 (or so) Caddy, like this one. (In Texas at the time it was legal to drink and drive, as long as you weren't drunk, so this sort of thing was a dealer-installed or aftermarket option.) So after the 6 or 8 old ladies drained my grandma's liquor bottles (in their defense, the bottles were not full when they started), I had to run out to the caddy and find the liquor. Heady stuff for a boy of 8 or 10, being given the keys to a Caddy and sent out alone...I spent a little extra time exploring the car of course, but made it back okay. They drank gin and tonics until about 4 or 5 pm, and my grandma drove home a little slowly and wobbly, then took a long nap - these days God knows what would have happened, but we lived to tell the tale...

With a column shift 3-speed, it is usually possible to adapt the existing shifter to work with a newer automatic transmission - find a factory or aftermarket shifter for the new transmission and stare at it and your manual shifter for a while and see what you come up with. An Ididit shift indicator (P R N D L plastic for the column) may help, and a shift indicator needle attached to the shift arm.

I'd suggest a fan shroud too - AC puts more cooling strain on a motor. With a good shroud (there are some good posts on the HAMB on how to make one from fiberglass or Walmart baking pans) and a good fan blade you should be able to keep it cool even stopped. Assuming the other components are ok of course.

My grandpa had a buddy who changed his oil ever 500-1000 miles. His truck, an old Plymouth pickup of some sort, lasted over 100K miles on a dusty ranch in central Texas. But he was an exception - he was a 'gentleman rancher' who was basically semi-retired, just ran a few cows and drove into Kerrville most nights to socialize at the VFW hall, Elks hall, Masonic hall, etc. During the day he'd putter around the ranch house and when he got on his wife's nerves, go out and change the oil... I was a kid at the time, but I remember the tale because it was the talk of the town when his truck "turned over" on the speedometer. (Well, not quite the talk of the whole town, more like his drinking circle; I was the kid bartender for the old guys.) It became more common in the 1960s for a car or truck to last over 100K miles.

I got one communication that the first year or two of the column shift transmissions MAY have been easy to convert back to floor shift by changing the top or side plates and swapping in floor shift parts. I don't know if this is fact, hope, or wishful thinking - has anyone heard this, or have actual information rather than vague rumors?

Ditto on the "lots of pictures" request. As for the trans, see if you can get some acetone / AFT mixture onto all the shifting forks and joints. Does anyone know if this model has the 'standard' Mopar flathead motor, or at least the same transmission bolt pattern -- or is it specific to the older models?