TodFitch

At least on my old Plymouth, if you get the pitman arm installed on a different spline the steering wheel will be off to one side or the other (there is no length adjustment for the drag link to compensate). Also on my old Plymouth the steering box is designed so that there is more slop when off center, so having the wheel off center also means more play in the straight ahead position. The end result is that I try very hard to get the pitman arm back on the exact spline alignment it came off from. I am guessing that the later(1940s and 50s) trucks like yours are similar to my early (1930s) Plymouth in that respect.

Not sure but I think you have to be an AACA member and have pre-registered.

It took me a while to find the issue with mine not showing pressure on the gauge... After pulling, checking and replacing lots of parts I found that the one piece of tubing on the entire car I had not replaced, the line from the firewall to the dash gauge, was clogged. Engine had plenty of pressure it just wasn't showing on the gauge. Don't need to pull the coil wire if you've pulled all the plugs to eliminate the compression so the dry bearings have no load on them and the starter has an easier time of it.

What, you want them to give away their trade secret that they buy the parts at their local NAPA and then just wrap them up together and ship them to you?

Yes. You should spin it the same way your see the distributor rotor rotating. The other way would try to pump oil from the engine and put it into the pan.

If you pull the spark plugs out there won't be any compression and the load on the bearings will be very low while you are cranking it over getting some pressure to show on the gauge. And there will be less load on the starter too.

Ditto. Except it was 1998 rather than 1999 for me.

Something like this? http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~zurawski/humor/Cold.html

This is the best answer I've ever seen to this question.

Imaginative and fun to read. I'm not sure all are false but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that most are false.

Jee. I clicked on this thread thinking you'd been burned and weren't going to buy from Andy again. It will be interesting to see how this new owner deals with customers.

Only 63? Hasn't gotten to full retirement age yet, so I assume Ruby is still working as a daily driver.

While many states have some sort of YOM law the vary widely by state. I believe that California was the first state to have a YOM law. And, near as I can tell, it is unique in that YOM plates are for all practical purposes the same as modern vanity plates and have no driving restrictions. Of course the cost for not having restrictions is higher registration fees than if you simply had a modern plate on the car. It seems that in many other states YOM plates are more akin to collector or antique vehicle plates with reduced cost and driving restrictions. And there are states where you need to have some other form of license plate in the car but are allowed to have a vintage tag with numbers unknown to the motor vehicle department mounted on the car. You just need to be able to show the official plates when requested by an traffic officer. So if you are considering putting YOM plates on your car you need to find out what your state laws are. Many states have their motor vehicle codes posted on the Internet nowadays so often that is pretty easy to look up and far more authoritative than the posts on car forums like this.

From experience I will add that a leaky exhaust manifold will cause backfiring into the exhaust especially on deceleration or using engine braking on a grade. That might have been exacerbated by a bit of a rich idle setting on the carburetor, but the problem was fixed by getting the manifold mating surface to the block machined flat so the gaskets could actually do their job.

Fascinating video. Thank you for posting.

Boy, the "made in USA safety glass" topic has sure diverged to something else....

http://www.merc583.addr.com/mopar/p15pages/P15D24_board_library.html

From the California Motor Vehicle Code http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d12/vc26710.htm Division 12 "Equipment of Vehicles" is an interesting read for people with older cars. Nice little tidbits in there like this You might want to spend a quiet hour or two reading up on what safety equipment is required by law.

That has always been the case. Do you think that Henry was considering future antique value when he built the Model A or Model T? My personal preference for old car ownership is 1940s or earlier so I haven't paid much attention to the newer cars. But I'll say this, the more plastic in a car the less likely it will be possible to restore it on a reasonable budget. The '63 Belvedere Suburban I learned to drive on hand almost no plastic and would be something that I could conceive of restoring. By the mid-70s there was so much plastic trim that I can't imagine trying to restore one. The only chance would be that it was something so popular with collectors that someone starts reproducing parts. Maybe someday when desktop parts printing from a computer becomes cheap that could change, but for today I don't see much hope for restoring an average make/model car built after the 1960s.

I can't find a "Campo Saco" in the Gold Country, but I do see a "Campo Seco" north east of Stockton. A bit south of Ione. Wells Fargo had both banking and express services way back then. Given the valuables that they stored and transported it makes sense that they'd have a pretty secure facility in each town they did business in.

I'm wondering how this thread is different than the one started a year ago.... http://www430.pair.com/p15d24/mopar_forum/showthread.php?t=25777

Yes, that is a quartz-halogen bulb. I've wondered about the heat and if it might crack the original glass lens from the heat. Never occurred to me to wonder about the temperature ratings of the contacts in the connector....

I'd have done what Don C and a few others have done: Run the engine on a test stand before installing. That way I would have known about and could have fixed an oil leak on the timing chain cover that is very difficult to get to on my car without pulling all the front sheet metal.

I think you are being conservative with that year range. It may not be 90%, but the first place I look for mechanical parts for my '33 is the local parts store too. I'd say I'm successful the vast majority of the time. So make that "1933 and up MoPar cars". Sure helps if you know a semi-modern cross reference number though as their books don't go back that far. For Plymouth, the 1933 model was a total redesign bringing in lots of stuff that was then used for many years after. So I don't know that you'd have quite the same luck with a '32 or earlier car. Wheel bearings and brakes would be about the same availability, but things like engine gasket sets, etc. for a '28 through '32 could be a problem at your local store.