James_Douglas

Adam, I have thought of that. It is also a PITA if you are on a cross country run with a flat. Although I do have AAA and they carry several jacks. When I went over all my books again I found references to the 1946 to 1948 Long Wheelbase cars showing the following wheels all 5 holes on a 5-1/2 inch bolt pattern: 16 by 4.5 inch 15 by 5 Inch 15 by 5.5 Inch 15 by 6 Inch These showed up in the 1946 to 1948 Desoto Mater Parts Book, the 1940 to 1954 MOPAR Master Parts Book, the Canadian 1949 Master Parts Book and the Hollander Interchange. So, all the above wheel sizes were used on this one make and model or so the documentation shows. Diamond Back makes a 16 inch tire in their new Auburn series that is a 600R16 that is 28.1 inches tall, tread width of 5 inches for the nice steering, section width of 6.4 which would help with the rear fender issues, uses a 4 to 6 inch rim and has a 1609 pound load capacity. If I used that with a 16 by 4.5 inch steel wheel that is being made by ( https://www.wheelvintiques.com/all-wheels/gennie-bare-finish.html ) with a 2.75 inch back space then I would need a 0.85 inch spacer which is not too much. Between the spacer and the 16 inch wheel it should clear the caliper. It MAY fit without the spacer. The center hole would have to be cut very carefully. I would take it to a machine shop with a lathe large enough to lathe cut the hole with the wheel rim perfectly centered. James.

To get the OD in and out there is a very fussy procedure where you have to pull the cable arm out of the case a bit to get it to come or on. Do to the Imperial Website and read over all the repair booklets. James

The main shaft if different between the non-OD and the OD units. You would have to gut the old unit no matter what. If it is out, just rebuild the 1953 unit with the OD and then put it in. See my long threads on the rebuilding of my units both in the last few months and around 2006. I have another on the bench that that to put together in the nest few weeks. I also posed a week or two back a spread sheet with all the bearing and seal numbers. James

I may have come up with a solution. I found a company that makes custom wheel spacers. I may be able to use an existing steel wheel and use a custom spacer to deal with the backspace. The fly in the ointment may be the left hand thread. They make pug bolts to attach the spacer to the hub and the spacer has lug studs on it. The question is can I come up with left hand thread lug bolts long enough to go through the adapter and the disc brake rotors. The other fly in the ointment is will I be able to get the rear wheel off due to the fender hanging down so low. The other interesting question is on wheel width. My various books show a wheel at 15x5 for the long wheelbase cars (12 inch drums) as well as 15x5.5 and 15x6. No agreement at all. Interesting is that the early production LWB cars used 16x4.5 inch wheels. A 16x4.5 can take a DB Tire that is a 650R16. If I can find a steel wheel that size I may be able to get the rear tire off. These custom adapter's open up some possibilities. I just need to run them down. James

Thanks! What I wanted to see is if my Desoto frame was wider at the approximate point where the steering box is. Unfortunately it looks about the same. The P15 that got a slant six fit and cleared the steering box. But, the steering box on a Desoto Suburban is much larger, due to the weight of the car, than the rest of line up. I am going to have to find someone to measure their p15 steering box from the frame rail to the max distance from the rail and check mine and see how much more mine sticks into the engine bay. A slant six many or may not fit. James

Well, Spent the day in the engine bay and under the car. All the wires go exactly were they are supposed to. I spent several hours taking apart the kickdown switch. My spare may be up in Winters as it is not here in San Francisco. I have a spare solenoid, rail lockout switch and relay in the car...but not a kickdown. I pulled the wire at the relay from the "A" side of the kickdown and put a VOM on it and when I wiggled the switch I got a inconsistent reading (sound). I pulled the switch and took it to the bench and tried it and it felt and sounded, with the VOM attached, a little "flaky". Since I do not have a spare here, I pulled the little metal tabs and took the switch apart. What I found was interesting. The gasket that sits between the bakelite bottom and the shell has shrunk so much that it was crowding the actual switch mechanism. I then cut a new gasket, but my material is a little ticker and it did not make really positive contacts when I pushed in the plunger. I even stretched the two springs a little that push up to the contacts. So I took out the gasket and put the switch back together nice an tight. I then used a little silicon to seal the case to the bakelite from the outside and wiped off the excess. I checked all the connections and wires. Everything nice and tight. I also took the cap off the solenoid and although I had cleaned it well when I had the trans out and bench tested it, I hit all the contacts with elecro-motive spray cleaner all the same. It is busy here in SF on a sunny Saturday so I could not extensively road test it. I did manage to get it to shift into 2nd overdrive then kick it down hard and race the thing for a block. The AMP gauge read normal. No big draw. So, I still do not know what it was. A sticking relay? The kickdown was somehow causing a problem? I do not know. I will take it out on Monday after the commute up to Sausalito and drive it back up Waldo Grade and see what happens on the long hill. Odd. Very odd. Thanks for the ideas. James

Anyone have a P15 frame sheet they can scan and post? Thanks, James

Well, I took and hour this afternoon and pulled off the relay for the first time in 15 years. I pried the little flanges back and the inside looked as good as new. I ran a relay file through the contacts, but there were fine and then cleaned with elctro-motive cleaner. I let it dry and put some electrical corrosion spray on an the contacts and closed it up. I doubt that was it. That would have been too easy. In the morning, I will jack the car up and check the wiring. I am hoping I just switched the wires on the solenoid. But that would be odd if it can work with them switched. Anyone have any other ideas? James

Thanks Sniper, interesting video. I noted that at 3500 RPM it looks like they loose 25 foot pounds of torque and 50 foot pounds of HP. That works out to 6% on torque and 14% on HP. For a 265 of 120 HP that would shave off about 16 HP. Of course this is more or less as the torque curves of these two engines is so much different. But the fan RPM is the fan RPM so it should be close. That is why I am interested in taking both the fan and the water pump off and going all electric. James

I just use a rubber line over the top of the head. Size does not really matter much. I put a slip barb on the vacuum advance and at the carb. Just slip the hose one and route as one wants. James

I am wondering if there is something wrong with the relay and the points are sticking...or something... This is stumping me. Later today I will take a couple of hours and see if I can run it down. The odd thing is otherwise it is running fine. Keep tossing out ideas folks, the more the better. James

As long as the throttle is pressing on the kickdown switch, the relay has no path to ground and the high amp wire should be dead. See photo attached.... Am I reading this wrong? James

After sleeping on it, and thinking about it, all night... For reasons not known when the kickdown switch is used the relay is supposed to open and keep both the governor circuit and the high currant circuit which is active as the car is over 25 MPH. I will check the relay and see if the points look like there is a problem. Anyone have any other ideas? James

That is what is odd. For 15 years I noted that when the governor does its thing and the high current circuit comes in and pushed the pawl into the blocker ring that there is a momentary move of the needle of the AMP gauge. I have not paid much attention since I put the rebuilt trans in. It still does the above when it is going to allow a shift into OD. But today coming up the a small hill when I used the kickdown then again a few minutes later when I was climbing Waldo grade to the GG Bridge I noted the amp gauge up at 20 amps or so. When I crested the hills and the unit re-engaged the amp gauge dropped back to normal. Somehow when the kickdown switch opens the low amp holding circuit of the solenoid and the then grounds the coil which allows the the spring in the solenoid to pull out the pawl the high amp circuit is coming on. What I do not know is why? Will the thing work with the wires crossed on the solenoid ? Is the pawl the wrong one as I think I have a couple or three and they are a little different in length. I know that there were a couple of different length solenoids and I wonder if I played mix and match and created a problem? It would not be good to have that circuit that hot for a long time. I need to figure this out. Anyone have any ideas? James

Can anyone confirm or not that when you press your foot down and kick down the BW Overdrive that the solenoid main coil stays "hot" as long as you hold it in direct drive? I just do not remember. I was heading back from out of town and coming up the long grade to the GG Bridge and noticed the AMP gauge was drawing 20 AMPS. As soon as I rounded the top of the hill and the OD engaged it stopped. When you drive down the street and hit 25 MPH there is a momentary blip of the amp meter and that is it. I thought that it did the same thing when you used the kickdown but now I am not sure. Everything is working as it should. I just do not think that the thing was drawing a full load going up a mountain or big hill. My little voice is telling me something is wrong. I just went through the books and it says nothing. \ Anyone out there with a BW OD that is working fine that can take it out for a drive and tell me if yours show the draw while the kickdown is engaged.... Thanks, James

I decided to pass on the car. Just too much work! I still need to rebuild the '47 Desoto. I almost purchased a 1956 Windsor T&C this morning. She wanted $20K I offered $17.5K. The average of four price guides is $15K. A basic no deal. No counter. I am still hunting for a 1958 or 1959 Desoto 4 door hard top. The only ones I have found were over priced junk. James

Well, Monday was a 14 hour day of car driving to look at two cars and pick up some parts at a auto bone yard. First a look at a car on the Dark Side. A 1956 Chevy 4 door hardtop that looked good in photos and description. Crate 350, 700R power rack and AC. The only problem is that I found fiberglass in the trunk pan, a lot of it. God knows what is under the pain on this car. For $30K it should have been near perfect for a 4 door. We then went and picked up some parts for the '47 Desoto. Next we drive a couple of hours and looked at a extremely tired 1954 Chrysler. This one is a eight passenger sedan. It will need everything. Most of it is there. But there are some missing rear fender trim. That could be hard as the long wheel base cars used different trim. This car is basically my 1947 Desoto with the updated box body of the first half of the 1950's. Same 139.5 inch wheelbase. I looked up some of the parts in the master parts book and it looks like the spindles and drums are the same part numbers. I suspect that all of the low production LWB cars share a lot of parts. I have found only one other of this model in the internet. A black one. That one had factory AC. This car does not. My only question is given my space limitations and my bad back, do I really want to take on this behemoth? It would sure look nice in a 2 tone pain like the Chrysler dark red with a off white top. A red leather interior and darkened windows from the back door back and the thing would look cool! Decisions, decisions. James

You have the small bolt circle...mine are 5 x 5.5 with a 3.8 inch center hub, much larger. James

I do not remember if I posted this or not. The forum guys may want to post it to the repair section. It is my list of bearings and seal part numbers for the three speed with overdrive. One can direct order a lot of it from SKF on the vehicles aftermarket website. I cleaned them out of a few items yesterday, but in a month they should have more in stock. Best, James bearing_list2.pdf

It is great to see someone putting in such effort on a long wheelbase car. Rarely happens. I had to get a new rear end pumpkin and the only thing I would find was a 4.3 gear set. I have tried to find a NOS 4.1 without any luck. In the event that you rebuilt your pumpkin as apposed to just swapped it out...and you have your old gears sitting in a box...I would love some detailed photos of the ring and pinion. I suspect that the the 12 bolt long wheelbase ring gears MAY have been used from the 1930's all the way to 1954 in the long wheel base cars. The Chrysler Parts Books sort of hint at it if you look them all over. But Chrysler did change part numbers sometimes because they changed suppliers although the gears were functionally the same. Since the LWB cars were such a low production item, a lot of the documentation is weak on parts. Great work! I am going to look at a 1954 New Yorker 8 Passenger next week. It is very rough. I am also going to the dark side and looking at a done 1956 Chevy Bel Air 4 door hard top. We will see...I really need to take the 1947 Desoto Suburban off line after 20 years of using it as out primary car. It just needs everything, although so far the rebuilt trans and BW-OD is working ok. Keep it up, I look forward to seeing it on the road. James

The three big issue is the back space. To clear the caliper it has to be about 1.9 inch. VERY few wheels have that kind of back space. The only ones I have found are the Rocket Racing Solid wheels and outside laced wire wheels. DB Tire has a new tire that is 16 inch with a diameter of 29.4 inch. The old DB tires I am using (yokohama) are 29.3 inch. It MAY be that I can find a steel wheel that has a offset more than 1.9 that will clear due to the larger diameter. Maybe. The size of the hubs are not to be dismissed. They are much larger than the standard sedans. NOBODY makes a kit for these cars. That is why I had to work with someone to custom make it. He made one set for myself and one for a guy in Texas. He then told me that it was so much work that they were not going to put it in their catalog. James.

The disc brake conversion was done by ECI brakes. The problem is a very poor execution of the build of the steel wheels. Unfortunately the folks that did the wheels are no longer around and there are not any 5x5.5 centers that are a "weld all around" style being made just the 4 flange geni type and the edges of those flanges is what is flexing and digging into the hoop causing the failure. The disc's were sourced from a dodge pick up of the same basic curb weight as the Desoto. The uprights, the spindles and the hubs are all much larger then the sedans, couples and convertibles. That is why we used the stock hubs. Unless I want to cut off the front end there is no other solution. Either I go back to drums or I need to find a wheel that will fit. Cutting off the front end is not a solution I am interested in. Nor is getting into milling custom hubs. Instead of some snark, how about some creative practical ideas? James

Thanks guys for the leads. I had the "larger 15 inch wheels on the car (factory stock) that are the same as the larger T&C. They do not clear the calipers. I emailed the guys at bassett. I did find a Rocket Racing Wheel called a solid has a 1.8 inch back space in a 16 inch wheel. That may work. If I can fit clips for a hub cap it may work. I am looking into that. My other option is wires with an outside lace. I just worry about coming out of a motel and having the car on mike crates if I go with wire wheels... James

Sniper this was a all custom job. The discs are from a dodge truck but they are machined to increase the size of the center hole. James.

I have a pile of them from dorman. But, they are a few thousands smaller in diameter than the steel ones and if that hole is at all opened up due to rust and the like, they may well not hold. I too use JB weld on all of them now, steel or brass. But like I said, I am going to machine the block to take the cup style. I could care less on the '47 if it looks stock or not. On the 1949, I machined the "correct" tool to pound or press the disc plugs down as specified by one of the manufacturers. It has a step that stops the plug for being driven too far and the nipple of the tool creates a wide pressure across the entire face. James