TodFitch

No but we can correct it.

I strip the wire and feed it through the hole and then flare out the strands around the unthreaded portion of the brass. Once done with that I screw the cap into the coil. I've never bothered with putting a rubber boot over the wire and terminal. Been doing it that way for over 40 years now. Only if you want to damage the bakelite and never want to change the wire again. Screwing in the cap makes a good connection between the wire and the metal that is inside the coil tower with no need for solder.

Paper gaskets seem to stay good, the ones I have problems with are the cork ones when they get old. On my car both the water pump and fuel pump gaskets are paper so old gaskets should be okay. I don't have an interchange for the fuel pump gasket but it seems that should be pretty standard. I have a note that the water pump gasket is CarQuest CTH-20963. But both are easy to make from gasket stock (available at any decent auto supply) so you can make your own from fresh stock if you desire.

Car side or truck? Assuming car question, the '46-'54 factory service manual says: It is a good thing to have a copy of the factory service manual.

Back when I had a pickup truck I had heard that. I measured gas mileage carefully with the tail gate both down and up and there was no difference. If the mileage does not change then I'd expect that the power requirement did not change.

Sounds like he may have access to one as an aircraft mechanic where cleaning spark plugs is apparently standard practice.

Factory tested the designs at max BHP in 50 hour tests. Seems like if the engine can't run at max throttle for 50 hours then something is wrong.

Not much. But I don't think it is too big a deal to leave the grease fittings off: With the greases they had available 80 years ago they called for adding a bit of grease every 10,000 miles. If you put modern CV grease in there and have good boots on you can probably go forever without having to grease them. How often do you grease the CV joints on a modern car?

Yes, zinc has been reduced to about the level it was raised to in the 1950s to deal with issues in the then new V8 engine designs. That is far higher than the zinc content that was in the oil when the L-6 engine was designed.

There is a tolerance for how close the pin needs to be centered. Don't recall it off the top of my head, but if it is off you may have balance and/or wear issues. Your garage/shop area is entirely too neat. You are loosing credibility points for that.

I doubt that there would be enough current coming out of the gauge to run a test light. Probably need a voltmeter for that test. On the other hand, a short piece of wire and a sending unit can be attached and you can see if the gauge reads correctly for the different float positions.

Looking at his link the photo shows what looks like a pressure regulator and the specifications say "yes" under "uses argon gas" and "uses argon/carbon dioxide mixed gas". Am I missing something?

Weak coil? It is my understanding that it takes a higher voltage spark to jump that gap on your spark plugs when the pressure is high in the cylinder. So a weak coil might be strong enough for the engine to idle fine but not be strong enough to properly ignite the charge when under heavy load. Checking the heat riser per MBFowler is probably a very good idea too.

Gear type is older. Rotor type can deliver more volume than the gear type so they switched to them sometime in the late 40s or early 50s. From the parts book it looks like Plymouth switched to rotor with the P15, the P14 looks like the last of the gear types if the illustrations can be trusted.

I agree it is a good read. But I haven't seen dots on the 550-17 tires I've purchased in the last twenty or so years. By the way, I mount my own tires as I had a very bad experience with a local place putting tires on for me when I first got the car. Joe, I'd probably have to swap the tube out with a different one. I've never seen a tubeless tire for that 80+ year old wire wheel and even if it existed I'd harbor doubts about the wheel itself being leak free.

If you crimp on your own metal terminators then there is no need to mold and vulcanize rubber. But then you have to purchase bulk spark plug wire, the spark plug ends, the distributor ends and distributor boots. In the end, it will take longer to find the parts and they will probably cost more. So I agree that the cheapest and easiest way to get a good set of high tension ignition wires is to buy a copper core universal set like those Don pictured. On a slightly off topic question, what is the best way to clean spark plugs? I had AC R45 plugs in the car but I was having some loss of power issues and when I pulled them they needed cleaning. Good color and all that, just some build up that could contribute to less than perfect ignition. Local store did not have enough R45 or R46 plugs in stock for me so I got the Champion J11 plugs you see in the photo. Between various adjustments and new plugs the power seems to be back but I'd like to clean up the AC R45 plugs for reuse. I see on the Tech film strip about performance over at the Imperial site that Chrysler told their mechanics to use a spark plug cleaning machine but cautioned not to leave them too long as it could damage the porcelain. I've seen other recommendations saying never to use a media blasting type cleaner as it not only can damage the porcelain but leave debris in between the insulator and the shell. What do you do?

Interesting. I have read about it but as captden29 wrote, it seems too easy. It is good to have a non-advertiser give a testimonial that the concept works. My reason for interest is that even though my wheels are straight and balanced the moment I put a tire on one the balance is way off. At least that has been my experience with the last three sets of tires I've purchased. Seems that the available 550-17 tires are not as uniform in weight distribution as tires manufactured for more common wheel sizes. I've got access to a very good bubble balancer (1950s or earlier commercial shop tool) but it usually takes a couple of ounces of weights on each wheel to correct for the tires. I would be nice to have a magic solution to that.

There may be a DOT tire manufacture and date code on the non-whitewall side. However it turns out that the suppliers of tires antique and vintage vehicles have an exemption from putting the DOT code on the tires so some tires don't have it. I think the issue with tires deteriorating with time varies with construction and environment. The old cotton cord tires probably went bad regardless of how well they were stored. Newer tires with nylon or polyester cords might not suffer that same fate. But exposure to ozone, sunlight, etc. will degrade the rubber regardless of the cord material. But I consider tires a safety item and figure I should replace a tire if I have any doubts about it. Sounds like you have some doubts, so in my book you should replace them.

Might also have been fast wearing plastic on the cam follower on the points. Seems like my points setting gets off faster nowadays, even with the adjustment screws tight, than used to be the case. And I do use the points cam lubricant that is supposed to help on that.

Maybe a Central Valley thing, but not a California thing.

Sounds like someone tightened them too much at least one time in the past. I have not seen a torque spec for those. I don't have a speed wrench so I just choke up on a 3/8" drive and get them a bit more than wrist tight. I also skip around with tightening them up and take it in several passes to that everything has time to find its place without distortion or excessive force. On the other hand I am, at best, a shade tree mechanic. So if someone with more experience chimes in they should probably be listened to more than me.

Only thing I can think of alignment related that you can use a tape measure for is toe in. And if that is the only issue that your front end had then it could well be enough. But if you have issues with camber or caster I don't see how a tape measure would be a sufficient tool.

The side gaskets on mine extend over the end gaskets too. The pan gasket set I installed last week I got from my local O’Reilly Auto Parts. Called one day, picked up the next for $11.99. See no reason to use a specialty supplier from the other side of the country for this. The gasket set I got was new US manufacture and seems to be good quality. Of course they did not have my 82 year old car in their computer but if you come up with the gasket set part number they will have it. http://www.ply33.com/Parts/group10#10-24-01 Big issue for me is having the side gaskets stay in place while I got the pan in place. I did it by tying them on with sewing thread through several holes. Enough to hold it in place and my hope is that the very thin thread that remains between the block and the gasket will not be an issue (doesn't seem to leak along the sides so I think that is okay). Don't over tighten the pan bolts or you may create more leak issues than you solve.

For what it is worth my '33 Plymouth has a tubular front axle. Pretty much like a solid front axle but a bit less unsprung weight. If the caster is different from one side to the other then you'll need to cold bend the axle to fix that. If it is off on both sides then you can use wedge shims between the axle and the springs. If the camber is off on either or both sides you will need to cold bend the axle. Toe-in is easy, just adjust the tie rod length. On my car, centering the steering wheel is hard as the drag link is not adjustable. Anyway, big truck still have solid axles and there are shops around with the equipment to deal with them. Won't be your standard neighborhood tire and alignment place but will be easily found in the phone book (assuming you still have an old fashioned phone book). In my case, about 17 years ago when I got my car back together one of the local truck alignment places was more than happy to fix the alignment issues on my slightly bent front axle for a very modest fee. If you remove spring leaves, I would expect that the alignment item most likely to change would be caster. And it will probably be the same amount on both sides so shims might work to fix it. However a trip to your local truck alignment shop will assure that all the geometry will be as good as it can be. One further note: The place that did my car had all the equipment and skills but not the specifications for my car. So take along a copy of the specifications when you go there.

For that the gas would have to go up hill from the level in the carburetor float bowl to get to the inlet for the tube from the fuel pump. Isn't going to happen. +1