James_Douglas

Norm, What is the center line spacing of the carbs on your duels manafold ? James

:confused:Hi All, I friend called the other day who I sub-contract from now and then. He needed me to step into a company that just fired their CTO (Chief Technical Officer). This will be for about a month or so. The problem is that it is south of San Francisco. So I have been running the Desoto down there every day. Yesterday a noise started that sounds like it is in the engine. It could be in the fluid coupling, but I don't think so. It sounds like a few playing cards, clipped onto a bicycle. {With 4.11 gears} It starts at about 30 MPH and gets faster as I go faster. By 50 MPH you can not hear it as the period between the “clacks” is so short that is fades into the louder engine noise. It seems most pronounced in 4th gear at about 40 MPH. I have disengaged the clutch at this speed and let the engine idle and the sound stops. You can hear the sound stopped if you rev it up, but I have not had time to open the hood and take a listen. What do you folks think? Best, James

I just moved 3 sheets of 1/2 plywood with the roof rack last week... I love it! James

Don, Send me an email and I will reply with my phone number. Give me a call if you are serious about this car and i will give you the details on the Suburbans. Best, James

Hello Everyone, I am sending George a Deposit for him to build me a 3-speed with overdirve and retain the fluid drive. It will have one of his fast 2nd gears as well as the HD bearings. I am sending George my large Desoto e-brake so he can fit it to the OD unit. The OD units all had smaller e-brakes than the desoto-chrysler. The one item that I need to nail down is the proper length and shape of the linkage. Could folks with the 3-speed post some photos of the linkage. If anyone has linkage off the car, some photos with a tape messure along it would help as well. Now, this is not a need it now item as George is heading to Florida for a month or more, so I am not looking at getting the unit from him for a couple of months. Thanks everyone. Best, James

Hi Don, Tomorrow Night is Open, Just let me know...James

Hi Don, Drove 12 hours round trip yesterday to pick this thing up. Are you ready for this. When I walk into his garage he also has a Sun Scope like mine and is willing to sell it also. Looks a LOT better than mine ...hardly used. I am thinking of going down and gettting it and selling mine. Best, James

Gary..."...and move to Mexico City"... Is this work related, or do you have family down there ? James

Here are a couple of new tools I just picked up. Should be a good addition to my bag of tricks. James

For me, it would be a long (1700 mile one way) hot trip out US 40 in the summer! James

I have a remote MC on my Desoto. The end plug of andold MC is the same thread as the top. See photo. I used a Tildon remote that is used on a race car. You can get them new for about $50. WARNING. After I purchased my Desoto, I put in a NEW rear wheel cylinder. About a year later the seal in it fail and I had a total loss of braking on the single MC system. The problem was that the new cup in the cylinder had a manufacturing flaw. Something was in the mold when it was made. It was a ver small indentation along the outside part of the cup that does the sealing. It was a little "channel" that once the cup wore just a bit connected the "channel" to the fluid and the failure occered. Therefor, I warn everybody to check with a magnifine glass all the cups on new cylinders and any rebuild kits. If one came out of the mold that way, you can bet that other are as well. Best, James

Reg, Was that fluid drive with semi-auto, 3-speed, 3-speed/w/overdrive ? Also, coupe or 4 door? Best, James

Don, In the hills around here you find a very tall odd looking plant.... James

All Northern California Listers: Don Coatney is in town (San Francisco). I have cleared my weekend to do some things with him. What exactly at this point I don't know as there are very little happenings on the car show circuit in January around here. I could drive the Desoto up to Sonoma, or to Rio Vista to the electric railway museum, or ? If anyone in the Northern California Region wants to hook up with us this weekend, then send me an message and I will try to co-ordenate. Best, James

Everyone should note that in the MOPAR Master Parts Books for 1946 -1948 (and no doubt others) that the hub and the drum could be ordered as separate items. Now, I doubt very much if a local dealer had the tools to preform a hot rivet operation. I ran a drum on a hub on my Suburban with button head hex grade 5 (don't use grade 8) bolts for over a year without any issue. The suburban out tips the scale over all the other cars on the forum for this period by the way. Frank. If your brakes happen to be 12", give me a call. Best, James

Frank, This a 11" or 12" drum ?

Hi Guys, Survived x-mas. Don, send me an email with your schedule so I can set time aside for your visit. Charlie, just let me know when you are going to be in town. We are continuing work on the airfield project. I have had a face-to-face with the FAA and California Depart of Transportation -Aeronautical branch…interesting conversations to say the least. Go take a look here HTTP://www.PursuitFoundation.org All the best, James

Hello Everybody, I have been busy and sick the last few months and have not had much time to drop by and talk cars. I hope everyone is having and will have a very Merry Christmas Season. The 47 Desoto is running fine except for the vibration at idle (in gear) and at some point I will put in my completely rebuilt fluid coupling. Until then, I just clutch the thing if it is annoying me. I did get a treat a couple of hours ago. A friend, for his 60th birthday, was given the use of a BMW Z8 for a week. I got to take it for a spin. WOW is all I can say. The Z8 makes my old 1962 Vette feel like chopped liver. I hope my XKE is 1/2 as good as this thing. Again, thanks to everyone for your thoughts an comments over 2006 and I look forward to another year with this forum. All the Best, James

Lou, The only way to get a specific CR and know it is correct is by using the dreaded math. Get a 6x6 1/4 thick sheet of Plexiglas and drill a 1/8 hole in it. Use a rose to bevel the hole on the top side to help prevent meniscus from forming when dropping liquid in. Get a graduated cylinder with burette. Have the shop build the bottom end. Then, have them tell you exactly what the CC is of the cylinder to the top of the deck. On my engine the piston was 0.0 meaning that it was flush with the deck at TDC. When it was all said and done my engine came out at just a little below 8.0 to 1. Now take your head and set it on your bench. Put a little bit of Vaseline around the chamber and put down the Plexiglas with the hole at the very edge of the chamber. Slowly, and I do mean slowly, fill the chamber (use a cut off sparkplug in the sparkplug hole) with fluid. I use water with a few drops of blue ink in it. When you are done you can read off the burette how much CC went into the cylinder. Then you just do the math. Then you have the shop mill it again. Then you measure it again. You keep going until you hit the CR you want. I did about 4 iterations. Based on the milling chart and a couple of conversations with Don C, I figure that for approximately every 0.0034 milled from the head you get a drop of one CC. BUT, remember that the cylinder is not a perfect equal shape so that number will not hold up as you mill down. I think you need a head CC of something like 85 with a gasket (felpro 7256) having about 18 CC for a total of 103 or so for a final CR of 8.0. The best way is to get a sheet of paper out and measure it as the heads do have slightly different shapes and depths from the foundry. Best, James

I used the following folks to do a brass sleeve on my master cylinder. The work was done on time and was done very well. http://www.brakecylinder.com/sleeve1.htm A few people say that they like stainless as it does not ware. That is rubbish. The difference in wear between brass and stainless, for a cylinder with good fluid, would not become an issue for 50 years. Also, if anything foreign gets into a stainless cylinder it will kill it. In the brass sleeved cylinder a small particle will imbed into the brass and buy you more time. Stainless also has a couple of issue with it that few people know or talk about. The most important is its Rockwell hardness. A shop MUST have a special hone to do stainless and almost none of them do. I have checked. What you get at a microscopic level in a stainless sleeve are small rough peaks that will wear down the seal somewhat faster than if you use brass. You don't see people using stainless steel liners in engine cylinders for the same reason. It would trash the rings. This opinion bucks the conventional wisdom here on the forum; however, I do have science on my side. One last thing to be aware of, there are a lot of different kinds of stainless and some will in fact corrode. If you press several shops, as I did, for the exact stainless they were using, only one could tell me and only one had a correct stainless hone. I used brass and I would suggest you consider it as well. Best, James

Dennis, Any chance you can get a shot of the engine & trans mounting. In the event that at some future date I want to swap to a modern set up some detail photos would be nice.

Don, When you visit SF next year and see the garage space I have you will see why I have no sympathy for you on this one Don. Space to walk around your car! Hell, I have to move the car into the street just to open my tool box drawer all the way! In my case though the wife thing is not a problem. Sondra was born in NYC and rides the bus 10 minutes to work. So she does not get a car! Best, James PS. Though when she wants me to take her someplace I do have to put up with her saying “HOME JAMES”

GTK, I like the fact that I get a hover on a photo with the size of the photo... James

So far so good. The one thing I would do is kill the date of birth field on the profile. It is just too dangerious to have names, city location, and DOB online. test of URL: http://www.pursuitfield.com Test of upload, photos of Jimy's Picnic GG Park 2006