MattWalker

Well we made it within 100 miles, on the side of 16 right now. The headlights started to dim and then went dead. Battery or generator I guess. Battery is 1 year old so I'm guessing generator. AAA is on the way and I have 100 miles free tow so we r getting there anyway!

Thanks for all the input guys. I will try to get all that stuff together. The flexible fuel hose just went bad and I replaced that so there is one less thing to go wrong. Me and a couple friends are going down to hit the bars and fish hopefully. we are staying at two old hotels, the 1790 house and the Marshall house. Should be a good time. I think all your input has changed my wife's mind about the trip, she asked me what moron would possibly attempt this? Now she knows it's not just me. She has put up with my victrola, my 1940 philco radio, my touch tip lighters, my 1950 Magnavox tv and all my other old stuff so she deserves some credit. Thanks again.

Back roads, 55 the whole way. Maybe go on the highway at night if the traffic light.

So the plan is to drive from Atlanta to Savannah in my p15 with three friends in a couple weeks. What are the chances it will make it there and back? It is 250 miles each way. Besides the brakes which are now great, the car hasn't had many problems, although I've only driven it about 500 miles in the past year. Have you guys done that many miles on a trip in one of these cars?

I have a wildwood 1" master with remote reservoir, after adjustment, it is working great. I would stick with a 1 1/8 bore if you can get one. I believe the 69 vette master is 1 1/8 and there is a kit to convert to remote reservoir. Whether it'll fit under the floor with the adapter kit I don't know. That is the master eci recommended to me when I wasn't sure if the wildwood one was going to work.

Problem solved...bought an ammco 1750, worth its weight in gold. I only adjusted the two front wheels so far and the Plymouth stops on a dime now. I did the worst case scenario test and slammed them on coming down a big hill and I almost ate the steering wheel.

So we are all on the same page this is a 2 chamber 1" mc with a firewall mounted reservoir. 3/16" lines all around. New shoes, new drums(front nos and rear repro) I adjusted the brakes by hand and when the mechanic did the mc he did as well. Maybe I just need to get ahold of one of those tools and do it right.

his theory was the shoes have broken in and need adjustment but only 200 miles on the shoes isn't that much...is it? I was wondering if the issue is more fundamental, I mean losing the 1/8" of the bore means each stroke pushes less fluid so there is less margin for error in pin size, shoe adjustment and so on, right? More pressure but at the cost of less movement of fluid to the cylinders? I mean I suppose I lose pi* 1/16 ^2 * cylinder length?

Well the new master is on and I've put a couple hundred miles on the car. Fixed some electrical items and I think everything is finally working(except the heat riser) Planning a trip to Savannah in the p15 soon! I like my p15 again. One thing on the brakes I did notice is that there is alot less feedback when pressing the pedal now. I don't have to press hard to get the car to stop, not nearly like the old mc...which is cool except I did a worst case scenario on a steep decline go in about 45 and jammed the brakes on and well, the pedal went to the floor and the car thought about stopping and then finally did. If it was a real emergency I woulda plowed right through. I hope this is just an adjustment issue on the shoes... thoughts? Thanks for all the help guys, I love this forum.

I have learned quite a bit about cars working on this p15, I have enjoyed it at times and been more frustrated than ever at others. He's installing the new MCon tuesday, he showed me the plan and it looks pretty cool. The bracket bolts to the existing bolt holes so it is completely reversible. I was against it at first cuz I wanted to keep the car all original configuration but it does seem alot safer. I already lost brakes completely in this car once, I don't want to experience that again. Anybody got any cool ideas for a reservoir? The ones it comes with are these white plastic ugly things. I was thinking a Plymouth gin bottle or some kind of cool mason jar? I know some cars back then had a jar for washer fluid right?

We I suppose would be the correct pronoun as I have many, many hours on this car and these brakes as well but in frustration I took it to a mechanic. He's actually a great mechanic but had never done Plymouths before. I misunderstood what he was telling me about the relief port, it was working after he tool slack off the push rod which gels with everybody's posts here.

After talking with the mechanic, the push rod adjustment might have been the problem. It seems the bore in the first part of the piston was too large and not pushing much fluid until the latter part of the stroke, to compensate he adjusted the rod longer so the pedal was further in the stroke when fully up but in the better part of the cylinder. This was probably causing the relief port to not be hit most or all of the time. However to adjust it with enough play the pedal is much too soft and scary to drive because of the cylinder being worn out....at least this is my interpretation of what he said...... anyways it seems like a new MC was in the cards and it looks like this will resolve the problem. I can't wait til its done I just want to drive the stupid thing!! I've had it for a year and driven it 200 miles. The electrical is the next thing to go I'm sure, I'm already seeing signs. Anybody ever have a new wiring harness installed professionally? What was the cost?

the brake fluid has been changed, not kidding, 4 times in the past year. When I changed all the cylinders, once. Changed the front hoses, twice. Rebuild the master, three times, changed the rear hoses and brake lines, 4th time. The only original brake parts now are the mc housing and the front steel brake lines.

in response to the brake lines - yes mine are brand new, I have never heard that new ones as well can act that way, I had assumed if they were not old that couldn't be the cause... hmmmm. To the brake light question, yes they do and that starts very soon even before they lock up. Well I pulled the trigger on the mechanic doing the dual chamber conversion. He's mounting it behind the current mc and making a longer push rod. I don't know if anybody has used this mc for this purpose on a p15 - he is using this one I believe - http://www.summitracing.com/parts/WIL-260-7563/. has a 1" instead of a 1.125" but we're thinking it should be ok. Would be a bummer if it still happens after the upgrade but it will be a good move either way for safety.

Sorry, don't have much of one other than none of that worked. The hole was clear, the fluid did come back in, there is alot of free play, also master was rebuilt within the last year. I was about to replace the master with a raybestos but decided to go with a dual chamber upgrade with a wilwood remote resevoir master. Im not doing it myself but will let u guys see the results. Thanks for the help.

I'm having a problem now where my brakes lock after about 15-20 miles of driving. The brake pedal gets stuck all the way up hard. I can feel it getting higher and higher as a drive until the car just gets stuck. After about 45 minutes sitting, it releases. I've read several threads and it seems the likely culprit is the master cylinder relief port being clogged or perhaps the wrong piston length in the rebuilt master? Are there any other possibilities? I'm thinking it is heat since it slowly goes away as it sits which I would attribute to the system cooling off.

So now I'm thinking I'm just gonna do little wood screws through the speaker and into those holes in the dash? That or under the seat but I want to be able to hear it. I mean Phillip Marlowe radio shows need to be clear to get a picture of what is going on. On that note, I am setting all this up just so I can listen to 40s radio shows on my car via one of these - http://www.rediscoveradio.com/ Has anybody tried one? I downloaded a bunch of radio shows from archive.org and relic radio. Some of them are actually really good.

Are these available anywhere? I'm guessing no.

The speaker I got has a bunch of holes for mounting so I'm pretty sure I can get them to line up, my problem is getting something to fit in those little holes, I tried every tiny little machine screw I had but they were too big or too small. Are those little holes threaded or am I supposed to somehow get a tiny nut on the other side between the grill and the sheet metal? Here is a link to the speaker I'm trying to shove in there.. http://www.pepboys.com/product/details/8567149/314/electronics/car_audio/speakers/

I bought a 802 radio on eBay and got it installed and running great with a speaker I got at auto zone. Now the speaker is just sitting on the floor cuz I cannot get it installed. Do I need special mounting hardware?

So the car was officially totaled at $4900 in repairs. The salvage bid came in at 2k so I will get a check for 5k and I can keep the car. Now I can take my time and fix the car up. I think that was the right thing to do according to most of you guys. The alternative was 7k and no car. I have about 6500 in the car so now my cost basis is basically reduced to 1500. If I can fix it up for a couple grand or so I'm ahead. Also the car DOES NOT have a salvage title and is still insured with Hagerty for 2k which means I get a refund on part of my premium which is odd. I can up the insured value after it is fixed. Apparently GA law allows no salvage title if no major component of the car is damaged and is still driveable. Now I need to start finding the parts to put this car back together myself. Hood, bumper guards, grill... So in summary I think it all turned out ok.

They will pay for it. Once my insurance company pays me they are going to turn around and get the money out of them. This all started because the tow truck company wanted to not file a claim and fix it themselves which his guy quoted 1500 bucks which sounded fishy. It is a little odd that my insured value comes into play though, it would seem irrelevant since it is on them. What I don't get is why nobody thinks I shouldn't just walk away. I'm sure, after looking around, that I can get a car in very god shape for 7k. I paid 5700 for the one I have now 6 months ago. It's not like this was my grandfather's car or something, in fact I know very little about it(other than the brakes). I just saw one in great shape sold in Seattle for around 6k. I asked the appraiser to rate my car and he said it was a B- and would take 12k in body work(before the damage) to get it to show quality. He showed me quite a few spots where there was bondo that I had not noticed. Now I don't want a show car but this might be an opportunity to get one a little less banged up. On top of that I might be able to get this car for salvage value as a parts car to use on the next one. And maybe, just maybe I can fix this one AND use the money to buy another one and have two decent old cars if I can somehow trick my wife into letting me do that.

You are right, his was based on the skinny bars only, not the whole grill. So that is going to total the car, good or bad. Thanks for the help.

appraisal for the repairs came in at 4500 which included an NOS grill for 100 bucks? Is that right? Anyways so the way it works is they offered me to take the check for that amount and in so doing, they are not responsible for anything after that. OR do a "tear down" which involves a shop looking for hidden damage. In the event there is some then appraiser comes back and inspects and adjusts the quote. In the event it is totaled(I'm 400 bucks away,70% of insured value) then the full insured amount is paid out. So I went with the tear down since I didn't want to get into situation where there was more to the repairs then it seemed. Also the shop I have it at initially quoted me 6k so it should be interesting to see the differences reconciled between the two. Good move, bad move? Apparently even if the car gets totaled and I buy it back from them for salvage value(not sure what that may be) then at least in GA, you can get a "rebuildable vehicle title" since no major component was damaged on it and after repairs but before paint you can get an inspection and a new clean title.

The woman at Hagerty's did say most likely it would be an option to buy it without a salvage title since no major component was damaged. I would love to make it a daily driver, that was my intention from the start, I just never realized how much work those brakes were gonna be. My commute to work is about 8 miles and I don't have to take the highway so I think it could handle that? Also I know the engine and transmission run fine, but I don't know really know how much longer they will stay that way. That was another reason for taking it to the mechanic besides to finish the brakes but also to determine the condition of the engine and tran. As far as a daily driver, is there any cheap way to put A/C on one of these cars? Atlanta in July is brutal. Stinky old car is one thing, but hot stinky old car is another.