Rusty O'Toole

One good way is to take a couple of old spark plugs, knock out the porcelain and weld in bolts and a steel ring on top. Good for pulling engines and heads. On cars the factory manual recommends removing trans first then pulling engine and bellhousing together. This is on Fluid Drive models. With your sheet metal off you should be able to take engine, trans and all.

What about reusing the old lock washers with a drop of Loctite for insurance? Tom not only are we a lot older so are the motors. More corrosion, more wear, metal fatigue etc. It can't hurt to be meticulous about cleaning chasing threads checking for warped heads etc.

That is excellent. 120 psi is the spec for a new engine.

I've seen worse looking engines rebuilt. If the block is not cracked or the rod sticking thru the block they can be rebuilt in most cases. You will have to see if you can free up either engine, or take the head off and inspect. I know a guy not far from here who got a 318 V8 from the mid sixties that had been sitting with no carb on it in a junkyard for years. He had to dunk the block and heads in a plastic garbage can and give it the electrolysis treatment to get the valves and pistons free but everything came apart and he is rebuilding it now. The electrolysis treatment involves a solution of water and washing soda, a battery charger and some bits of scrap iron (besides the parts you want to derust). You can look it up online.

From my 1951 Plymouth - Dodge - DeSoto - Chrysler owner's manual, here is what the factory recommended: Not lower than +32F - SAE 30 As low as +10F - SAE 20W As low as -10F - SAE 10W Below -10F - SAE 5W About this time (1951) multi grade oil became available for the first time. It quickly became the default choice in all gas stations, service stations and dealerships. Chances are your car has never used anything else but 10W30, multigrade, detergent oil. Shell Rotella 15W40 is another good choice especially in hot weather. Thick oil will not cure a sour motor. PS This answer is correct for a FLATHEAD six. If you actually have a Subaru, Porsche or Corvair with a FLAT six, it may be incorrect.

The Carter you have now is the right carb for your car. If you get it rebuilt properly you should be in business. My book also lists the Stromberg BXVES-3 and BXVD-3 for your car. I suspect the BXVES-3 is for the semi auto transmission models.

Ah jeez that's too bad. Wish I could say something to make it better.

It's doubtful a 2 stage master cylinder will make the brakes any better unless the old one is defective. What will make a difference is returning the brakes to factory specs and adjusting them correctly especially the front ones. If you want the brakes to work right you need to arc the shoes to fit the drums when you put on new brake linings. Then do a major adjustment so the shoes make full contact with the drums. If you do this the efficacy of the stock brakes may surprise you. Not as good as 2012 disc brakes but as good as the best drum brakes of its time. Once the brakes are set up correctly you only need a minor adjustment every 5000 or 10000 miles to take up wear. By the way what transmission do you have? If it is the Fluid Drive semi automatic it won't work correctly with the Rochester carb. The original carb had 2 electric switches that were part of the transmission controls. If you have a manual transmission it must have been changed because 47 DeSotos had Fluid Drive as standard equipment. Or is it Fluid Drive with a manual 3 speed like a Dodge?

Chryslers had the most complete gauge package of any car back then. Gas gauge, ammeter, oil pressure, engine temp, speedometer, that was all anybody had and most made do with idiot lights for ammeter, oil pressure and temp. There just wasn't that much going on. They had less wiring in the whole car than the door locks on a new car.

That wiring is a disgrace. If I seem testy it makes my blood boil to see someone imposed on the way you have been when fixing the car properly is so easy. The wiring should be as shown in the diagram Lug Nut posted. There is 1 more wire, it goes to the Sisson choke. The choke is on the exhaust manifold. There is a screw on top, a wire goes from the screw to a terminal on the starter. There should be a square box on the starter with 4 terminals, one is for the choke. It may not be as bad as it looks. The under hood wiring wears out fastest due to the heat, and gas and oil fumes. If you replace the wires one at a time according to the diagram you should be in business. But check the wires on the transmission just in case.

My Motor Repair Manual lists the D6M1 model Carter B&B carburetor for the 1949 - 1950 Dodge. As you have a 1950 Dodge this should be the exact right carburetor. I don't know why your car does not run right. It sounds like your so called mechanic doesn't either. Don't go back to him (except to get your old carb back). If there is an antique car club in your area you could ask around for someone who knows how to work on the old cars. If you brought the car to me I would start from scratch. First do a compression test. If it has bad compression don't waste your time trying to make it run right until this is corrected. If compression was good or at least halfway decent I would do a complete tuneup. Adjust valves, clean or replace plugs, points, rotor, cap, check plug wires. Inspect and clean the air cleaner and refill with 50 oil. And finally clean and adjust the carburetor. If the wiring is bollixed up of course that would have to be seen to as well. I know it seems like a lot of work. Unless you are remarkably lucky there is no getting around it. In most cases it is actually quicker and cheaper to check everything and know it is right, than to flail around at random hoping to hit on the magic solution. Incidentally keeping the car for a year and not fixing it is ridiculous. If I had it in my shop it would be eating out of my hand by the end of the day or I would know the reason why. .............Later.................... I'm wondering if your so called mechanic has bollixed up the carb so bad you might as well send it away for a rebuild. That would be the one way to know for sure it was right.

Evidently a custom job, probably built for a posh hotel or dude ranch (who else would pick a Cadillac chassis?). Probably the same chassis Cadillac supplied for funeral coach, ambulance and limousine duty. Then bought by the studio's transportation or prop department as a used vehicle. Still it's an interesting example of a one off vehicle. It may still be around somewhere, movie studios kept stuff like that on hand for years, then most of it got sold off in the seventies and eighties. Could be in a private collection today.

You can get a finish like those black parts using spray bombs. You have to spray 2 thin coats of black, let it dry, wet sand, then 2 more coats. Do this 2 or 3 times and you get a beautiful finish. Finally wax it to preserve the shine. Yes a lot of work but does not have to cost a lot of money.

"Will it cause any damage if I run a tube from the ventilation tube out the back of the car to send the smoke out? " I've seen this tried. It seemed to result in more oil sucked out of the engine. Take off the road draft tube and clean it out. Put the ventilation system back to stock. Use 15W30 oil and keep the level a little low. Not below the fill line of course but don't fill it all the way. This will minimize oil burning but if your engine is worn I'm afraid there is no real cure except an overhaul or rebuild. If a full rebuild is out of the question, and the engine has good oil pressure and not too many miles you can do a ring and valve job with the engine in the car. You will need to take it to an auto machine shop to have the valves done, take out the pistons, hone the cylinders and fit new rings. At one time this was a standard overhaul procedure on your engine.

You don't need to remove the engine to clean and paint. If you are a glutton for punishment what you want to do is remove the front clip. This means, remove the hood then remove the front fenders and grille as an assembly. Safest place to store the hood is on the roof. Cover the roof with quilts or blankets to prevent scratches. This gives all around access to the engine, frame, and front suspension for cleaning inspection and repair. But it is a lot of extra work.

Your supplier is talking a load of rubbish. If all you want is to make the flasher work you don't need to change the whole car's electrical system. Take the flasher and isolate it. That means, mount in on an insulated mounting. Could be plastic, rubber, or any insulation material. Then connect it back to front, with the ground wire going to power and the power wire going to ground. That's it. Could be as easy as sticking the flasher in a plastic box or mounting on a piece of plastic sheet.

.......................................Later edit - this will work more or less but there is an easier way. See next post................. You will need to polarize the generator and reverse the connections on the coil. Then see what other problems show up. Pay someone 400 pounds to rip the guts out of your tube radio and stuff a 5 pound Chinese crap radio inside. In the end you may decide to throw the 24LED lights and flasher in the bin and go back to stock but think of all the fun you will have in the mean time.

The 39 came with a 217 cu in engine, the 50 came with a longer stroke crankshaft which gave it 230 cu in. It also has higher compression and a few other improvements. But basically they are the same engine. Rebuilding a flathead six is not very difficult as such things go, and parts are available reasonable. Vintage Power Wagons has good deals on parts like NOS pistons for $75 a set. It would be possible to rebuild your 39 block with the 230 crankshaft and rods, the pistons are the same, and use the newer head, milled down for more compression. Add a cam and a few other subtle tricks and you could have a "hot" 39 that looks completely stock.

The stock oil bath air cleaner is quite large and heavy. It is made to fit onto the tapered top of the carb. I don't know any other air filter that is made to fit that carb. The oil bath is an efficient filter, seldom requires service, and will last the life of the car. I don't know why anyone would want to change it for a cheap paper filter.

I was speaking generally. On a 4 barrel carb there are going to be more adjustments than on a 1 barrel. The point is, even a beginner can rebuild a carb successfully by just cook booking it together using the factory instructions.

Hotter plugs will help cure fouling by running hotter especially around town and on short trips. Under severe service, hiway driving, mountain climbing etc they may get too hot and cause detonation, not likely on a flathead Dodge or Plymouth. Are the plugs oil fouled or gas fouled? Black and oily or black and sooty? In either case you might want to look for the cause, either oil burning or carb out of order.

Trans will not shift right without the electrical switches. The idle thing is not connected to the switches but may be connected to having the wrong carburetor. You can have the old carb rebuilt for under $200.

Put in the proper thermostat the engine will run better and get better mileage. 180 thermostat I believe was recommended. They are a heavy engine with a lot of iron in them. They take a long time to reach operating temp compared to new cars. Yours is probably just getting warmed up when you reach the end of your journey. The Rochester is a good carb, whether it is better than the stock Carter B&B I don't know. Your mileage sounds about average, in fact very good for an Englishman. For some reason old road tests indicate that American cars in England get about the same mileage as in the US in spite of a 20% bigger gallon. May have something to do with stop and go driving conditions or the way the old road testers used to hammer every car as if it was a racing car. I wouldn't change the rear axle. I have no idea what axle you have, there is no such thing as a mid 50s slant six car, the slant six was introduced in 1960. They were used in compact Plymouth Valiants, full size Dodge Coronets and jumbo size Dodge Polaras so a "slant six" rear axle could be anything. If you think changing the rear gear ratio is going to give you better mileage you are kidding yourself. In fact if you think anything will give you better mileage you are kidding yourself. That is a big, heavy, luxurious car similar to a contemporary Rolls Royce, Humber, Armstrong Siddeley or Daimler and it is going to get similar mileage no matter what you do to it. If you want Austin Mini mileage, drive an Austin Mini. There is no other way. All you can do is pump up the tires, be sure the engine is tuned up and running its best and baby the gas pedal. O yes and put in a thermostat.

For some reason back in the 60s California Hiway Patrol insisted on using 20W20 motor oil in their automatic transmissions. Chrysler's were the only trans that would stand it. If I suspected motor oil in the trans I would change it as soon as possible.

Some heads and blocks have a bump at the front and an extra water passage. There are 2 different heads, and different head gaskets. This change took place about 1950 or 51 but not all motors got it. Something to look for, it will be obvious if they are the same or not.