Ulu

If someone really likes your car, it shouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately, it's a tough time to sell a car, with everything "going around". I wish you well Don.

They don't have to be exactly precise. You won't be able to tell if one is off 1/4" from the other, and you should be able to get them closer than that by eyeball. But I don't like the eccentric forces imposed by this shock design. Putting the shock inside the coilspring is a much MUCH better way. Virtually every modern car does so. My P15 is like yours, but with short KYB High pressure gas shocks and cut coils. This worked OK, but the eccentric forces cause premature suspension wear, and the extra load caused my lower shock pin to snap off the upright. I used short shocks so they couldn't bottom out and break things, but I did just the same.

Now that I am retired I am more motivated. I need to get my shed together soon & I still haven't bought a mig welder. My plans have got more complicated. See my P15 roadster thread.

I'm a very rare drinker. It never improves my work.

Can't quite cover the taxes and fees this month, but I still could afford this if I could get the price down just a notch! But it's just a daydream today. I'm not leaving the house for the duration.

Forgive me, Paul, for you are a scholar and a gentleman, but I have seen your truck. I don't want to work that hard. I had made about $30k in the market I wasn't expecting to have & I was looking at Hollywood showroom ads for rare ducks and polished gems. Anyhow, just numbers on paper that mean nothing, since I didn't sell in time. If this depresses the collector market enough, I may still buy something nice. Market crashes work both ways . . .

I've been avoiding this thread, but I've finally recovered my gnads enough to post here. I'm just fighting the covid anxiety a bit. Haven't seen my grandkids in months. Color me Mr. Cheerful huh . . . I'm sorry to hear about the cancelation of BBQ 13, though I never have attended. I don't own a Dodge truck, and still Paul Flaming has been asking me for years to go to the BBQ. But I would feel too strange showing up in my Mayan Death Calendar truck. So this year I decided I'd find a turn key Dodge or Fargo and drive up from Clovis. See, before the crash I'd made a bit of money in the market and I'd been shopping for months. Then Pffft! So forget anything I said about Fargos . . .;( Or probably turn-keys. I had a couple nice prospects here in the valley, when the panic hit, and then that was that. I know some of us geezers are gonna meet the Main Mechanic this year. I'm 65 an I don't want to cough up a lung. I'll just smoke something at home en memorium.

When you buy gasoline from the pump that has some moisture in it locked up with the alcohol. I think this alcohol going to the fuel systems of modern cars purges them of most moisture. As for the idea "the big reason for keeping the tank at least 1/4 full was so the electric fuel pump was properly cooled to prolong its life. " I agree 100% as I have seen so many Camaros and Pontiacs have fuel pump failures after their owners drove them hard on a very hot day, with a low gas level.

Here you tune First: The battery is the first KEY to a good running car. The #1 starting point for service. No Pun Intended. I was about 6 when I started reading all my dad's big books, for whatever I could glean from them. Lots of them had great illustrations in those days, and Dad's 1957 Motor's manual was one of the finest in that regard. After mastering Quickdraw McGraw and Huckleberry Hound, I was ready! The first section is about basic things, and a part is devoted to the Tune Up. I can almost quote the first line after 60 years: The first step in any automotive tune up is the battery service. Even in the age of maintenance free batteries, this is still 100% true, and 90% ignored. Though, it has gained a little attention, since these computerized cars usually won't even run the main computer under 11.5 volts. The car might still crank fast enough, but to prevent current spikes the computer turns itself off. Keep those terminals clean. Lord knows, I have soldered batteries right into devices to get the max reliability (at min convenience...) It is the first potential weak link in any car, lightbulb, or electric razor. The battery terminal.

To isolate starter issues from coil and switch issues, you can use a second battery on the garage floor, and a small one will do. Use the Same voltage as your car, and observe the same polarity. Unhook the coil powering wire (the primary circuit, for which "automotive Primary Wire" is named), leaving only the high voltage coil-to-distributor wire, and the coil-to-points wire attached. Power the coil from the small battery with some small wire. Any old lamp cord will do for this. Crank the car from the normal battery, the normal way. This will give max power to the sparkplugs when starting, even if the starter is drawing a lot. If you have fuel, and the engine spins over, even slowly, it should start. BUT it still might not (anecdotal evidence follows...) I had a 6v 1953 Pontiac that refused to start. It once had a short in the primary circuit, and the damaged wire was replaced. The wire shorted right on the block while the car was idling. It burned up the condenser immediately of course. This usually happens if the primary circuit shorts. Points, condenser, cap, rotor, plugs, wires, and battery were replaced, but it never ran. UNTIL, I replaced the wire, and its little insulator that goes thru the body of the distributor, to the points. Nothing looked bad with that wire and it tested zero ohms. But it was fried at the most insulated part: inside the insulator! The insulator kept that bit the hottest, and it burned most of the strands apart. The remaining 1.5 strands of wire acted as a BIG resistor on the primary circuit, at all but the smallest of current (what an ohm meter uses. a very tiny current.) That wire is a ground wire by function. When the points, close they ground the coil for a nanosecond, and it fires. While they were open, that condensor charged up, and it fires too, boosting the spark.

I will weld the doors all the way around with fillers as required and a continuous angle of 16 gauge inside the wall of the body. I will only cut off enough of the existing door and the existing body to make the small new door. Of course this means that my new door will contain a good piece of the B post. Plus I'm losing the continuity of the top and the upper B post body structure which is considerable. That's why I needed all the vertical reinforcing in my full body sketch.

The idea of cutting the new door in, at the bottom of the front hinge pocket 3.5" up, was proposed on the basis of actually moving stock doorposts, door jambs and hinges around. That would be total nonsense. The shape of the body would never allow this without an enormous amount of diddling around. It lofts in three dimensions and you simply cannot start moving bulkheads from Station to Station.

Looking at the rear deck, this board approximates the rear seat back line (though it will not go this tall.) You can see that I may have to fill as much as a foot of the deck at the widest point. If I can make it look okay without doing any finished metal work to the top of the deck I will be extremely pleased. This car will not have an adjustable seat. I'm going to build it to fit me. It appears that I have about 3.5" to cut off the door bottom, but only where the new door will occur. By filling in the cut panels I will be able to create a 7in tall rocker in the door area. Since I am reducing the length of the door considerably, as it will not have to accommodate rear-seat passengers entering, this should help make the right side of the body stiff enough without a roof.

I did consider this, but since I will raise the door sill it won't be required. I will just weld up the stock doors, and carve a new one from stratch.

Thanks a bunch. Clearly I had no idea what that rear door Corner looked like & in my mind it was not sculpted that way. This is the first really clear photo I have seen.

It appears that I have one good hinge and one Frozen hinge on each side. Maybe I can swap some parts around and make this work so I have two good passenger side hinges. I don't know how expensive hinges are for these cars so I don't know whether I should bother refitting mine. One thing is certain and that is that I won't be fighting the huge wide door sill as I open the door. The door will taper down at the bottom like a 50s car and the hinges should be ok. Well the rain has dried, but Edith d' Plymouth still hides under a tent cluttered with all of my boat junk, spare aquarium plumbing & used fish tanks, until I can get the boatyard organized and roll her outside. Once all the really filthy messy work is done I will be able to put her inside my garage. But I have a finished garage and I don't want to do any major body work in there. I stripped the entire body outdoors, on my concrete pad, under a tent made from waxed canvas and cyclone fence poles. There's still lots of dirt and rust to deal with. I'm preparing to put up a steel welding shed so I can avoid dragging all my tools in and out of the garage all the time. I already have a nice shed but it's all built from wood and I don't want to burn the thing down.

Did you photo the drivers?

Yes, since the sill is so wide, and the hinge location is thin, I believe this was the case. Otherwise the door bottom could be sculpted back like the front of the front door, but that would make a sort of trip hazard getting out. I think they wanted the door corner square, and thus were stuck with a long hinge, sticking thru the skin.

Don't stress. This is no emergency. I have the rest of my life to finish this build.

Check out the alignment. If I center the 6 or a V8 over the existing crossmember The existing cowl vent becomes the hood scoop vent. With an appropriate custom scoop, I won't have to fill it. I have to deal with this mangled body mount too. The car was t-boned in the past and the mount under the front seat is just mangled.

I would be interested in any photos of the structure. Do you know if the 4-dr has a different body mount scheme?

Is gasohol damage to the accelerator pump diaphragm possible?

Thru that tiny door? Won't fit. I'll need one of those sedanbulance Chryslers with no centerpost on the right side. And a robot chauffeur, who can also work a grease gun and change oil. White paint and some ghostbuster lights on top in case of traffic.

For 4 door owners: Why is the rear bottom hinge exposed? Was the hinge bucket going to stick thru the wheel arch, the cavity available being very small?? Does the whole body shell simply get too thin right there? Or is it all about door geometry of the thick sill, needing the pins to move out? (I see the sculpted bottom of the front door, and it seems the rears just look plumb & straight.) All of the above? I'm considering suicide doors for my P15 roadster project, but the exposed hinge is sure unwelcome. It's been 30 years since I stepped into a P15 with 4 doors. I forget what's what.

I was going to heat those screws and try again with a driver to remove them, but since I am abandoning that post as a door post I had no need to preserve the rusty captive nuts. With 3 portable drills this was just a matter of minutes. I am considering buying some 4dr suicide rears, but looking at the 4dr car I see the ugly exposed hinge they used. I won't want that . . .