TodFitch

I guess I am just used to looking at things for older cars: The A.M.A. came into existence in 1934 (apparently the N.C.A.A. reorganized). So my "Instruction Book" does not list a A.M.A. value but it does list a N.C.A.A. value.

The A.M.A. or A.L.A.M.? I don't recall hearing of a A.M.A. horsepower rating. A.L.A.M. (Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers) was a trade group setup in the late 1800s or early 1900s to collect royalties on the Seldon patent. Basically a patent attorney filed an overall patent for a automobile in the late 1800s then used a number of procedural tricks to keep it from being issued until there were actual cars being manufactured then he went after them for royalties. Henry Ford fought that and eventually won. That did in the A.L.A.M. as a controlling entity in the automotive industry. But in the meantime the A.L.A.M. had setup a technical committee which came up with a formula for estimating horsepower based on the technology of the era (very slow piston speeds, etc.) The A.L.A.M. horsepower calculation was adopted by the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce (N.A.C.C.) and was used in literature about cars for a lot of years there after. My '33 Plymouth lists a N.A.C.C. horsepower rating of 23.43 and also a brake horsepower (bhp) of 70. I believe that in some states N.A.C.C. horsepower was considered the "tax horsepower" and licensing fees were based on it. Edit: It looks like the A.M.A. was a successor to the N.A.C.C. (which was a successor to the A.L.A.M), so I guess something could have had a A.M.A. horsepower rating, probably with the same 1900 vintage calculation as the A.L.A.M. and N.A.C.C. used. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_Manufacturers_Association. And it appears that the calculation used for that was the same as was used in the UK but there it resulted a generations of long stroke engines built to reduce the tax burden to the owner. I don't think enough states in this country used the tax horsepower enough to have that effect on manufacturers.

The rear seat ash trays were wood grained on the '33 Plymouths. At least the PD (DeLuxe) version, I'd have to check about the standard (PC) version.

I don't know about that black tape bit: With my car, in both cases were the fault light came either the car would not run (bad crank sensor) or would have sustained very expensive damage (inverter coolant control failure leading to total heat related failure of the drive electrics) had it not been attended to. Black tape does not sound like an option for either of these. Having a sensor (I assume, all things considered, a fairly failure prone part) built in to a manifold (a fairly expensive part) sounds like a bad design to me. But I guess that type of thing is pretty common nowadays with all the electrical stuff on cars. A bit curious about why a cam cover. . . Unless there was a failed sensor in it or something what is to go wrong with one of those?

Keep up that type of posting and I'll have to move this thread to a "on topic" area. Beautiful work there!

Our “new” car is a 2004 Prius which we took delivery on in the fall of 2003 and we now have nearly 190K miles on. Until recently it has been very trouble free with only scheduled service and new tires needed. Last February on the way home from an errand the engine fault light came on, so I stopped at the dealer (happened to be on the way home) and found that the inverter coolant control valve had failed. Not a super expensive repair but still a repair. Last November a bunch of fault lights came on, but by then I had acquired a ODBII Bluetooth dongle and an app for my smart phone. Lots of error codes but the top of the list said one of the motor generators had failed. An Internet search indicated that this might mean I'd need a whole new transmission at a cost higher than the value of the car. It was not drivable but I figured I might was well see what the dealer had to say about it. Turns out the top error code was wrong: The problem was with the crank position sensor. That kept the gasoline engine from starting which had the side effect of having one of the computers deciding that the electric motor that starts the engine was bad. Turns out it was a $70 part and a huge bill for labor and diagnostics. On New Year's Eve on the way back to the hotel I noticed the outside temperature wasn't showing on the center “multi-function display” (MFD). The next day, filling the tank, the trip and mileage information on the MFD did not show up. And on the way home the radio and climate control systems started acting weird. So on to the Internet where I find that this is/was a pretty common problem with my era Prius and that Toyota actually had a unannounced (now lapsed) policy of replacing the MFD with one that has slight manufacturing changes. But if you did not get yours for free, they wanted something like $4000 for one back in 2007. That is more than the current Blue Book value of my car. Yikes! A quick look on ePay shows a number of them, in unknown condition, at prices around $200 to $300, a much more reasonable price. But more to the point, way back in 2005 someone with more electrical chops than I dug into one of the MFD failures and found it had to do with a bad solder joint on a connector joining two boards together. The best part is he posted his findings and it seems that others have taken it from there and found that many/most of the failures are due to a bad solder joint on one of two pins on that connector. And there are also detailed instructions on how to remove the MFD (you have to take the whole dash apart). A process that is not obvious just looking at the car. If your are curious, instructions can be found at http://www.techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/chris-dragon-dash.pdf Seeing a YouTube video showing a young fellow swapping out a MFD in two minutes indicated the removal and install might be fairly easy. I have a soldering iron and while my hand is not as steady as it once was and my eyes are not as sharp this is starting to sound like a project I might be able to do. So about 10:00 this morning I went on out to rip the car apart and see if my problem could be fixed. I was done in 1.5 hours with zero cost in parts or material (I used an insignificant amount of solder from my stock) and my initial testing suggests the problem is fixed. At least it was not working before I ripped into it and it is working now. How long it will last is another question. I had to use a magnifying glass, a steady rest for my wrist and a little copper wire held on to the tip of my soldering iron to reduce the size of the tip: The leads on that connector are tiny and very close together. And I only had one unexplained screw and snap tab thingy left over. Hurrah for the Internet: I'd never have attempted this without detailed instructions. Unfortunately, this is the third failure on this car in the last year which is getting me worried about how reliable it will be going forward. I was hoping for another 20K to 30K more miles before I retired it. That is beginning to seem a little optimistic.

I agree that William Davey's cabinetry is good looking stuff. Puts mine to shame. I guess I've had too many experiences of non-glued joints of other types getting loose over the years so I glue almost everything that I want to be permanent. Including the pieces joined using pocket screws. Those clamps that have a dowel on one side and a flat on the other are invaluable in holding things together in the correct position while you get the screws in. I could rig other type of clamps for some things but others, like installing a cabinet face frame, were a real challenge without those clamps. My kit from Harbor Freight had nothing like that and I ended up getting a couple Kreg brand ones at the local big box.

In addition to Dodge, Jimmie Lynch did similar stunts for Plymouth in the early 1930s. I think he and his "death drivers" were on contract to Chrysler Corporation for at least 15 years. Another Dodge abuse film: and one for Plymouth:

I have the Harbor Freight version. I am not a wood worker but using pocket screws makes it possible for me to fake it remarkably well and made it possible for me to make the drawers, workbench, etc. for the shop in the garage of my new (to me) house.

As noted by others and RobertKB below: After you press in the bushings you need to line-ream them to the correct size for your pins. A king pin reamer will have a long pilot shaft, and possibly some conical pieces to assure the pilot shaft is centered in the far end bushing, to make sure that the two bores exactly match up. If you haven't line reamed the bushings after install you will end up with a situation like you describe.

Doubt it but only based on speculation: I'm guessing the DeSoto would be using a 25" long block while the Plymouth definitely uses a 23" long block. And this is before the Windsor, Ontario engine plant came on line so there was no need for a Canadian "Plodge" (Plymouth with Dodge badging) that could hold a 25" long engine. Not saying it can't be done, but I'm guessing it would take lots of custom work to fit it. An easier fit would be a '50s Plymouth 6 with larger displacement, higher compression, etc. than the '31 DeSoto.

Last I checked there were still "mechanical" temperature gauges available in the bubble pack section of my local auto supply store. It would surprise me if that were not still true.

When I first got my car the pump was bad with the impeller loose on the shaft. Engine hated you putting a thermostat on it, would overheat if driven very hard, and no heat out of the heater. Fixed the pump and voila! Thermostat did its job, engine ran the correct temperature and the heater produced heat. Conclusion: These engines can limp along with Model T style thermo-syphon circulation but they really ought to have a working water pump. And for the water pump to work the impeller is fixed to the shaft and can't just fall off.

Chrysler was consistently inconsistent: In 1933 the engines were stamped with PC or PD depending if it was a PC or PD model car. Likewise in 1934 PE and PF were both stamped on engines. In 1935 they used one code (PJ) for both the deluxe and business versions. Wasn't until 1936 that they dropped the alphabetic second character and went to numbers and that was also when they started just using the deluxe model code on the engines for the business/standard/roadking models.

The machine shop behind your local better auto supply should be able to measure and get the sleeves. You might want to check with Winchester Auto. The inner seals are no longer available for my car, so I did not replace them. Other than that, the procedure is pretty similar so you can see my write up.

My opinion of the situation is the same as Robert's. This happened to me a couple of years ago and there was significant contamination of the brakes that had to be cleaned up in addition to fixing the leak. I do hope that Ralph pulls the drum and does an inspection. . . Too bad I moved a year ago. . . Until the move I was close enough to San Jose to drop by and give a hand with this, including load of the drum puller and Ammco brake tool.

See also a post in the "Plan B" thread

The original is basically tightly twisted paper that gets jammed into a groove that goes around the ceiling and the doors. Then the tacks or nails that hold the trim panels on are nailed into the twisted paper/fiber material to hold the panels in place. I'm not seeing a twisted fiber or paper tacking material in their PDF catalog. They have something they call "flexible plastic tacking strip" on page 117 that might work but no illustration to help confirm. Their PDF seems to be a scan so I can't just do a search by name or description and scrolling through that many pages I may well have missed it. Do you have a page number and part number for this item.

In the areas where the twisted paper was missing or deteriorated to the point where it would not hold tacks/nails, I cut strips of soft wood (pine, fir, etc.) from stuff I had laying around and jammed them in there. I was a bit worried about the strips coming out but they seem to stay put as well as the original paper like stuff. Seems to hold the interior side panels okay.

Parts book lists a seal piece that goes in there. It was missing on my '33 too. I cut a short piece of radiator hose to fit and pushed it in there. The top of the transmission is raised a bit around the opening for the shift lever and there is a depression on the cross member where they punched the hole above it. Between those, the hose is well captured and I haven't had it budge in the 18 or so years since I put that stuff together.

No problem, links are great! What I don't like are people/sites that copy the whole article and don't give a link or credit to the original. And I am glad that you were able to make the repair work for you.

Looks like the forum software got confused with the .a suffix and did not think they were images. I've downloaded them, renamed them to use a .jpg suffix. Lets see if they work this way.

Looks like a good resource and I've added it to my personal links. Playing around some, I found some part numbers in my database which (covers basically 1928 through 1948 with emphasis on the early 30s) that he did not have. But there were some that I thought would be missing that he had. All in all a good resource.

That is cheaper than NAPA and NAPA may be out of stock: https://www.napaonline.com/napa/en/p/ECHST11/ECHST11

Since Don’s photos don’t seem to be working well, here is a shot of my pressure bleeder inspired by his. My master cylinder is a bit different than later ones so the fitting on the hose end will need to be different for yours. It makes one person bleeding very quick and easy.