TodFitch

This is really close to being over the line for politics on this forum. This has been going around a number of old car sites for the last week or so. I have read the actual questionnaire that was sent to some collector car owners older than the 1975 model year (i.e. before evaporative controls for fuel systems were installed on cars) and I have read the response to reporter’s questions to the air quality management district. The questionnaire is pretty short and asks how many miles/year the car is typically driven, is it typically parked inside or outside, when parked is a gasoline stabilizer added, etc. The management district says that it simply data collection to update its computer modeling of air pollution. The questions seem to back this up as they are all directly about use of the car that would effect the release of unburned hydrocarbons. The general reaction to this on the Internet seems to be hysteria.

How big a hole and what year the block? On the 33 & 34 blocks there is a large threaded hole where the mount/pivot stud for the automatic clutch.

That 6v starter worked fine when everything was in good shape. Slow cranking is often due to incorrect battery cables but can also be due to worn bearings or other issues in side the starter. My guess is that it will be cheaper for you to rebuild the original starter and install the correct battery cables. And, for what it is worth, 6v starters stand up to abuse pretty well. There are lots of people who converted to 12v but continue to use the original 6v starter. The Bendix (if so equipped) can take a beating but apparently it works pretty well.

There are two close by auto supply stores, one an O’Reilly the other an AutoZone. O‘Reilly is slightly closer so that is usually my first try. I much prefer to buy at a “brick & mortar” local to me as I think having local businesses is a good thing and the way to keep them in business is to give them business. For my normal maintenance items I give them a call in the morning and they can usually have the parts available for pick up that afternoon. It helps that I have built up a cross reference list so I know the part numbers to order as they definitely won’t be listings for a 90 year old car in their computer.

Pretty easy. 1. Remove distributor cap. 2. If so equipped, disconnect vacuum line. 3. Remove wire from coil to side of distributor. 4. Remove screw on plate holding distributor to block. 5. Note location of rotor so you can put it back in the way you found it. 6. Pull distributor off. Install is reverse. When you drop the distributor back in there are two ways it will sit down. The correct way and 180° off, look at the rotor to see that you have it correct. If not raise the distributor up, rotate the shaft 180° and drop it back in.

Second question first: The service life is indefinite. The coil in my 90 year old Plymouth is, near as I can tell, also 90 years old and working fine. First question: Yes. There is an oil or wax material in the coil and if it is leaking you have a bad coil or one that will be bad shortly. Here is a bit of a long story. . . Way back in the 1970s my daily driver was an oval window '57 VW Beetle. I purchased it in the winter and occasionally on long drives it would act like it ran out of gas. I'd remove the air cleaner and work the throttle and see gas spurting in the throat of the carburetor from the accelerator pump. Got gas. I'd pull a spark plug wire, lay it near some metal on the engine and bump the starter motor and I'd see a spark. Got spark. Hmmm. With spark and gas it ought to run. I'd poke and prod things around the engine compartment looking for loose hoses or wires and find none. Then I'd try starting it and it would fire right up and I'd drive off. As the weather warmed up this roadside ritual became more and more common. I got pretty fast and running through the checks and never found a "smoking gun" and the car would fire right up after the ritual was performed. Finally, on a warm day in June while coming home from work it happened again. This time while cleaning my hands after performing the ritual, I noticed wax on my hand. I had no idea where I could have gotten wax on my hands from inside the engine compartment so I started looking very closely at everything I had touched to see where it had come from. I found a small crack on the tower of the coil with wax seeping out. I picked up a new 6v coil at the local auto supply and never had that mysterious "it seemed to run out of gas" failure again. In retrospect, I think if I had checked the spark before I checked for fuel I might have found the problem earlier. But it always felt like it was running out of gas so I always checked the fuel system first which gave the coil some time to cool down before I checked for spark. A bit shorter story. . . A number of years back we had a multiple day tour from the SF Bay Area to Tucson for a Plymouth Club meet. One car on the tour, a P15, was having issues climbing hills. From outward appearances and from the driver’s description it seemed like a fuel delivery issue. Turns out it was a weak coil. Once I found that out I did some research and found that the more pressure there is in the cylinders the more voltage it takes to initiate a spark. With a weak coil the car would start and run fine unless or until you needed full power. With the throttle wide open you get more fuel/air mixture into the cylinders which means a higher pressure on the compression stroke which needs a hotter spark to ignite. So the engine would lose power on the steeper uphill grades and it felt to the driver just like it wasn’t getting enough gas.

That worked for my parents until age related health problems started. Then it was an hour drive to the nearest medical and none of the home health care services were willing to go that far out into the sticks. My siblings and I ended up with a lot of short notice trips to help them out. That involved flying into the nearest city, renting a car then driving for over an hour. Those trips made me realize the downside of a very rural retirement. So we picked a location where we can walk to pretty much everything: Grocery store, drug store, hardware store, auto supply store, post office, library, etc. If/when we are no longer able to drive there is a chance we can still be independent. And equally important, good medical is pretty close by. More expensive so many probably couldn't do it. But as long as you can pull it off with out a mortgage it can still work.

Me neither. That is the key. I can’t imagine being retired and still having a mortgage to pay. All other debt too. Interest can make a pretty big hole in anyone’s retirement plans.

The spark may not be quite as hot and your points may wear faster with reversed voltage. But basically there is very little in a 1941 vehicle that does not have a radio that is voltage sensitive. Your ammeter will, however, read backwards unless you reverse the wires on it. There can be an issue when switching polarities with getting the generator “flashed” (i.e. getting the residual magnetic field in the field iron cores setup).

Way back when I used a phosphoric acid based rust remover and it worked well. But I am leery of potentially dangerous chemicals so was always keeping my eyes open for alternatives. About 20 years ago I found out about removing rust via electrolysis and haven’t looked back. You already have almost everything you need to do it: A plastic container or bucket large enough to hold the piece you want to de-rust, some scrap metal you are willing to sacrifice, a battery charger, and some washing soda. If you do it indoors you will want good ventilation but everything is safe and the process is very effective. Lots of instructions and videos on the web: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=remove+rust+electrolysis&ia=web

In the old days a good set of points would have tungsten for the contacts not copper. I don't know of any place there might be a date code on the cap, rotor, points. But the nice thing about those parts is that you can tell with a close examination if they are still good or not.

A lot of old literature called it a “hand brake”. And other old literature sometimes called it a “parking brake”. I am not sure when people started calling it an “emergency brake”.

The “mechanical” gauges work by having the bulb filled with ether which in the closed system pressurizes the capillary based on the bulb temperature. As long as your poorly reading Chinese gauge actually has ether in its bulb it should be suitable for use as a donor regardless if the dash unit works or not. The pressure in the line, as long as it is sealed, is simply a matter of the working fluid and physics. A crappy set of mechanical parts in the dash unit has more things that can go wrong. There is the possibility (actually pretty likely) that the outside diameter of capillary tubing is different between your original and the donor but it is pretty easy to drill out some brass tubing to make a sleeve that will work.

I could have sworn that I had at least one extra in my collection of parts and if I did I would have just sent it to you. But either I don't or it is in a mislabeled box. Sorry about that.

If we are talking about the brake shoe return spring, Plymouth used part number 301477 for almost all applications from 1929 through 1942 (exceptions being the 7 passenger and limo versions of Plymouth) so there are likely a bunch of possible sources. Following up on the Bernbaum suggestion, the illustration show at https://www.oldmoparts.com/parts/g_service_brakes/brake-return-springs/ looks pretty close.

There is a template/pattern for making your own in the downloads area.

I have never heard of crushed shells of any type of nuts being used to make brake fluid. Back when my '33 Plymouth was manufactured most cars on the road had mechanical brakes and there was a chance that the owner of a Plymouth might find themselves in need of brake fluid but have no local source to get it. The manual gives a recipe to make your own brake fluid, it says: I would guess that modern brake fluid is different than that available in the 1920s and 30s and that a simple mixture of caster oil and alcohol is pretty far from the current ingredients. Regarding the issue of DOT 3 brake fluid being an effective paint remover, one possibility is to use DOT 5. There are advantages and disadvantages to that with the paint removal properties being only a minor thing to consider and you will find plenty of ink (or digital bits) wasted on that discussion.

On the shorter 23" block the center of the rod bearing is slightly offset from the centerline of the rod. When installed the offset on one rod is forward or backward depending on which cylinder (thus “paired”). On the 25" block the rod bearing center is in line with the centerline of the rod. There is some thought that the offset on the rods on the shorter block may cause some issues at higher RPMs so the bigger block engine could be more durable than the shorter block engine. It has been enough decades since I took my statics and dynamics classes that I don’t feel qualified to give an opinion.

Huh? When did Chrysler put cast iron pistons into the L-6 engine? My '33, the first year for the L-6, came from the factory with cam ground aluminum pistons and it seems highly unlikely that Chrysler would have back tracked on that item for cost savings.

It is not clear from the original post what year Plymouth car or truck the question is for. Their info says they have a 1940 Plymouth truck. In 1940 the cars used a two wire fuel gauge. Not sure if the truck also used that or not (the truck and car part numbers are different for the dash unit). Your advise would be correct for a 1949 and up Plymouth. And backwards with respect to reading for the early 1930s Plymouths that used a single wire sender. And wrong for the era that used a two wire sender.

Certainly good for the 6v on our old cars, the 12v on current conventional internal combustion engined cars, or even 24v system found on some big truck starting circuits. I would not want to use that on the main battery of an hybrid powered car or an EV. So not quite “good for automotive” in the general case.

I am a little surprised that you did not check the gauge with some boiling water on the stove top before installing it. I like to check the calibration of any gauges I get before installing them.

Not quite. And it does not have to be a humid environment. tl;dr The crankcase ventilation system on these cars only works when the car is moving. When stopped the combustion by products, which include water vapor and unburned hydrocarbons and some acid forming stuff, will escape the block the easiest way they can which is usually the oil filler cap. The crankcase ventilation system consists of the road draft tube at the passenger rear of the engine and the oil filler cap. The road draft tube should extend into the airflow under the car. When the car is moving that tube will experience a slight vacuum due to venturi effect which will create a vacuum in the crank case to pull out the combustion products that make it past the piston rings and clean air to come in through the oil filler cap. To keep dirt from getting into the crankcase, there is a wire mesh air filter inside the filler cap which should be cleaned and oiled periodically to have it actually filter the incoming air. In any case, this crankcase ventilation system only works when the car is moving at a reasonable speed. If the car is not moving then the combustion byproducts (water vapor, unburned hydrocarbons, etc.) that make it past the rings will accumulate in the crankcase and slightly pressurize it. Those vapors will then come out, some through the road draft tube but a lot also through the oil filler cap. So it is not unusual to see some vapor or smoke coming out of the oil filler cap when the car is stopped. This will be more noticeable on engines that have more blow by (worn rings or cylinders) but will happen even on engines in very good condition. If this bothers you, then you can retrofit a positive crankcase ventilation (PCV) system. The military used it way back when on their engines because they did not want a road draft tube that could let water into the crankcase when fording rivers and those PCV parts are available from the people who cater to the Dodge military trucks. Or you can rig your own. It has been a while but someplace on the in this forum there were posts and threads on how to make your own.

A proper brake spring tool will work too.

Some vendors use stainless steel for sleeving, some use brass. I don’t know if one is really better or worse than the other and I don’t know if being sleeved makes a difference on the piston material. That said, when my cylinders were sleeved with brass they were built up with standard aluminum pistons. That vendor has retired with no one buying the business so I can’t recommend them. But the cylinders have been in use on my car for quite a few years now with no problems.