TodFitch

The ball & trunnion joints are actually a form of a constant velocity (CV) joint. There is no particular need for a CV joint on a driveshaft that has a limited range of motion but I suspect that some old time engineer who thought they were better kept them in the design until he was retired out. With respect to vibration on a ball & trunnion setup, I believe there are three possibilities: The housing being worn. The shaft being bent. The pin being mispositioned. Barring some extreme off roading bending the shaft by contact with boulders, etc., I think vibration developed in service is likely due to the housing getting worn. That, in turn due to a bad boot letting dirt in. The pin is a really tight fit and the only way it could be mispositioned is if it was not installed correctly.

Looks like you got some head gasket cross references from my website. I don’t have a reference that shows what a McCord 5766 fits. If it is for 1935 or later Plymouth it will not work on the 1933-34 engine. The 1933-34 is a narrower block than the 1935 and later. . .

My RPM calculator is on a page giving my thoughts about how fast to drive.

Why? Your car came from the factory with hardened exhaust valve seat inserts, etc. About the only thing a lead substitute will do is empty your wallet a bit faster.

To the best of my knowledge, there was never a DeSoto branded truck sold in the US. For Canada I believe they used the Fargo branding.

Maybe. The '63 D200 had the same front sheet metal as in the photo. But the '68 D200 my parents had revised the grill, headlights and rear window. Fairly small changes all things considered so it could well have been done as a running change during one year.

In the old days you used a special water pump grease. I believe its prime quality was that it would resist being washed out by water if the seal was not perfect. I think chassis grease might be a better match than old fashioned wheel bearing grease. Old fashioned wheel bearing grease is “high fiber”. Not fiber in the sense of actual fibers but in the sense that it is sticky and stringy which helps it adhere to the rotating ball or roller bearings. Our old water pumps use bushings (“plain bearings” in engineering speak) rather than roller or ball bearings and I suspect the stringiness of wheel bearing grease may not be good at providing lubrication in that environment. Chassis lubricants seem to be designed for sliding and rubbing surfaces which is why I think it might be a better replacement for water pump grease.

I use basically that method when tightening the rear axle nut. Spec says 142 ft-lbs minimum and my torque wrench does not go that far. But I know what I weigh and can measure the length of the wrench. Torque is simply force (my weight in this case) times distance (length of my wrench’s handle).

If you are finding driveshafts in swap meets with the ball and trunnion style U-joints you can find ones just a little smaller than what Plymouth used. Don’t know what the one I found was intended for, undoubtedly a non-Mopar make, but it fooled me out of some money. So I’d say there are at least two sizes used by Mopar but maybe more used by other companies. My experience in following the the procedure for rubber boots found in later FSM manuals (only leather originally shipped on Plymouth for 1933) is that the boots I bought had apparently been sitting on the shelf for many decades. Even if I got one on without tearing, it would fail just sitting on the shop bench for the week it would take me to get around to putting the driveshaft on the car. If there were a source of newly manufactured boots sized for our cars I would consider the them a better option. In the meantime the leather boots I put on the car about 10 years ago are still in good shape.

I wonder how much that specialty tool to expand the boot for installation costs. . . Pretty neat technique if you have the tool.

The pre-WW2 cars used the SAE five hole mounting standard which is still in use today for some boats, RVs, custom gas tanks, etc. But by the 1950s they changed the mounting to a using a lock ring around the top of the plate on the top of the sender. Apparently that plate has, or should have, an alignment notch on it.

If you were able to use 3rd gear before you put the new clutch in then I suspect that the issue is in the alignment or adjustment of the shift linkage rather than in the transmission.

For cars from 1924 through 1974 see the look up tool at: https://www.ply33.com/Misc/vin For trucks from 1936 through 1980 see the look up tool at: https://www.t137.com/registry/help/decode.php

On some point sets there is a separate spring piece to provide proper tension. If that was left out or not installed correctly then the points can float at higher RPMs and the ignition will cut out.

Only time I have used acid to remove rust was for small parts that were easy to thoroughly rinse. How do you assure all the acid is neutralized, especially in the nooks and crevices, before you start applying primer?

No. Offer of parts and requests for parts need to be in the classified ads section. The owner of this forum doesn’t have a huge number of rules but he does have that one.

Do you have ball & trunnion U-joints on your car or the type shown on the splash image for that video? If ball & trunnion then that video will not help you.

Yes, the heater valve on the back of the head is the hot water supply to the heater. And the heater fitting on the water pump is the return. If you look at the design of the water pump you can see that the heater fitting is on the suction side pulling coolant into the pump.

I haven’t tried to do any serious painting in years but one thing I noticed way back when was that the pressure at the gun end of the hose is lower than the pressure at the compressor end. I made up a tool consisting of a male disconnect, female disconnect, a "T", and the most accurate pressure gauge I have. I insert that between the hose and the gun then while running air through the gun adjust the pressure. Once the regulator is set, I remove that pressure gauge tool. Remember that the first little bit of trigger on the spray gun will have higher than desired pressure until the flow stabilizes.

Probably not the first thing to cross one’s mind in that situation, but there probably was a working ignition switch in that car.

Should be only a 80 dollar damn. Save your expired annual passes, the federal website says each one is good for $20 toward a new life time pass.

There is a $20 senior one year pass listed: https://store.usgs.gov/senior-annual but if you plan on going for more than 4 years you might as well get the $80 lifetime senior pass and be done with it: https://store.usgs.gov/senior-pass Edit: I should read the stuff on the websites I link. Looks like you can use your old expired 1 year senior passes to pay for a lifetime senior pass. So if you are not sure you will be going to parks for four years, just buy the annual pass but save the cards when they expire:

If you visit any federal land areas with entrance or parking fees on a regular basis you might want to look into the senior lifetime pass. It is good for entrance to all lands managed by the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service, Army Corp of Engineers, etc. If you are into camping, it often gets you a 50% discount for the campsite too. I got mine a few years back for $10. The price has gone way up to $80 now. But it only takes visiting a few of the bigger national parks to pay that back and then you are in for free for the rest of your life. For instance, a year or so pre-covid my wife and I visited Cedar Breaks, Bryce Canyon and Zion in southern Utah. That one trip would have recovered the recent higher cost of the lifetime pass. In Southern California the national forests usually require an “Adventure Pass” fee at the developed (i.e. have toilet and trash) trail heads. $5 for the day, $20 for a year for that pass. The federal national passes, including the senior lifetime pass, covers that too. We go hiking in some USFS fee areas at least twice a month so that senior lifetime national recreation pass has saved us money there too.

Looks like you are progressing nicely on this car. A joy to follow along! I doubt it: That early DeSoto block was sort of the prototype that evolved into the later 6 cylinder engines introduced for Plymouth and Dodge in 1933. The Plymouth and Dodge 6 cylinder engines did not get the water distribution tube until 1935.

I re-invented the wheel the first try on setting up a cell phone charger on my '33. What fried my homemade attempt, a simple 5v voltage regulator, was that while the phone had a non-conductive case the shield on the charging cable’s microUSB connector was metal and it came in contact with some metal within the car and fried the regulator. All fused properly so no fire or visible smoke. But the regulator was dead. So I decided to go with a commercial product and got this: https://customautosoundmfg.com/product/power-inverter I have it hidden under the dash and powered off the ignition switch. I have the output wired to a 12v accessory outlet mounted on the bottom lip of the dash and then I plug in a common 12v to USB adapter. When I moved my old dash cam to the Plymouth I also hooked the “hardwire kit” for the dash cam to the output of the power inverter.