Ulu

I believe P15 clocks are cheaper because thay made 4 times as many as any other model. From mid-45 to mid-49 they built P15's That's an epic production run. Manufacturing engineers dream of such a run. Every part should be more available and cheaper for a P15.

When you have to shovel snow first, driving the car becomes a more engaging experience. It's so much easier to drive somewhere here, than most places I've lived. It's not such an adventure. The car becomes an appliance. Everybody has one. Ho Hum... In Duluth, winter driving was for the brave! Baudette Mn was easier, but lonely driving out on the Muskeg. The Wassatch Front was insane. I'm no longer into insanity. I live in the free-parking capitol of California. Gas is high, but it's still heaven.

My grandkids were all born into a world with broadband internet and appliances built by robots. They won't bother doing what we do, for the most part. Some things they simply won't be allowed to do. Add in the EPA, and the future picture becomes quite a different world from ours.

We have 2 big dogs & 10 grandkids. Nothing I own stays clean.

No! It don't rain here anyhow. I drove this car over 60k with a flathead 6, when my intention was to swap in a V8 from the beginning. Also I didn't buy this car because I liked lowriders. It was drivable, it was cheap enough and it could be hopped up, and didn't need smog inspections. The truth is I don't know what mods I'll do to this car. I love the torch, & if I get started with it there's no telling where it might end. Because the floor needs a little work, i was going to channel it over the frame "just because". It won't have bags or hydraulics though. The car will be light (within reason) without too many geegaws. And without the roses. (Sorry Rubin, wherever you are...everybody here loved the roses except me.) But it may have a visor & flush skirts, and they may be built from old computer cases which are 19 ga mild steel. And they may not. At one point I was just going to turn the shell into a roadster body & mount it on a full roll cage frame. Big tires, new suspension, big engine, big expense. Instead I put the $ into a new motorcycle, repainted my boat, did home improvements, and let the Plymouth rust. At this point I'm putting cash into my computer network, my house, padding my retirement account, and the Plymouth is back on, but it's a budget project, not a billet project. All these project photos so far are from 1 to 6 months ago, and not all in the right order or contiguous. When i recover from Christmas I'll get back on it in earnest.

I suspected that ownership had changed more than once over the years from seeing the ads. My paper Bernbaum catalog is from '86. I always called them to get the latest info on parts as the catalog is just sorta general info (though still very helpful for interchange & reference purposes, which is why I have kept it.) I was still happily buying a few bits there up until I put my P15 aside, about 2003 I believe. Cups and boots, clinder kits for the brake...that kind of thing. I still have those unused, in boxes & it's all US quality stuff. One thing i know fore sure, customer service is king, and every good business knows and practices that. They're not all equally successful, but please do give them a chance. Remember that not too many outfits are servicing this hobby as in the old days. We don't want to run them all off if we can help it.

Oh, she's a beauty!

The work on Edith has been on hold for the holidays. I've got 5 stuck screws on the passenger door hinges, and I've been bathing them in penetrating oil for some weeks now. I trashed my old impact driver trying to take them out, so I did get a new impact driver yesterday & will try again today. I suspect that I'll just have to heat them with a torch to crumble the rust loose, but I'll try it cold one more time first. The only progress has been to reorganize the parts I've stripped off a bit, and I've been trying to decide on a new shape for the skirts. I will most likely keep the visor and skirts, but at one point I was going to turn this car into a roadster, so I may change my mind. There's still lots of basic body work to do before I need to decide.

Thanks Mark. Have we met before? Did you work for Vendo? As far as a "proper job" I'll do my best, but I don't have the luxuries of a real shop. Just an ordinary suburban garage and patios.

The worst rust of course was under the battery. More to come...

More stripping pics... The car was initially put on a wood cart with iron casters so I can move it around. I built it from old 2x6 & 6x12 lumber. Once it was up I started removing the suspension. I built a cart for the hood, the doors, and the front clip too. This will make storage and movement easier and prevent damage.

More stripping. Everything bare is temporarily shot with clear paint or greased to prevent rust Can you see the crack in the metal at the crease? Here I've enhanced the photo to show the crack. Someone had cut a door into the passenger rocker to straighten previous t-bone type damage, but never bothered to weld it closed. The rest of the repair was flaky too. This quarter is not nearly straight at the bottom, and removing the rocker trim, paint & bondo made the damage much more evident. There was a lot of lead here, under the bondo (bondo here shown removed) and it wasn't done too well. I'll eventually melt all this off & repair the metal correctly.

The disassembly and stripping proceeds: Removing the carpet revealed the typical floor board rust. It's the same on the passenger side, but the rest of the floor is very solid.

Over the course of a few weeks, I stripped the interior & exterior of the car to a bare shell, with just the rear fenders, deck lid, fuel tank and frame remaining, and two door hinges I have not got loose yet. A few of the bolts were difficult, but except for some trim clips almost everything came off easily. I used ZipStrip and Jasco stripper to remove most of the paint. Bondo and rust were removed with wire wheels and HD Scotchbrite stripping disks. The entire car had a skim coat of bondo & there are lots of tiny dings on all the fenders, and the fascia.

I'm not able to work on this in my garage yet, so I'm under a tarp on my side driveway. Fortunately I had enough concrete poured to park 6 cars and more. The first job was to move the boat, the Scout, Edith, and a collection of heavy old car parts and other junk. Once that was all juggled around, and Edith was under a roof of sorts (plastic tarp over a frame of cyclone fence parts) the actual work could start. The first part is triage: II need to strip off all the old paint and bondo and find out what's damaged. It turned out to be more than I'd suspected. There was nearly 1/2" of filler at below the license plate, on the turtledeck. It all gets stripped to bare metal. More to come... I knew there was a bit of rust here below the tail light. I'm amazed that it wasn't more.

The previous owner's wife was named Edith Flores. When my kids saw the glove box they immediately named the car Edith. All the pinstriping was by Rubin of local fame. These are all photos from last Summer.

I started this build thread on the H.A.M.B. last Summer, but haven't posted much about it on P15-D24, so I though I'd start a thread here as well. Also, depending on what I end up doing with this car, it may get evicted from the H.A.M.B. as being OT. I really doubt that could happen here. Anyhow, this is Edith d' Plymouth, as I bought her in the mid 80's for the sum of $3500. A 1947 P15 Special Deluxe Club Coupe. It had won a couple minor trophies in Tulare and Visalia, but it also had some mechanical bugs. It was drivable, but the steering needed work, as did the brakes, trans, differential, and wiring. It had VW tires and lowering blocks (already removed when these photos were taken.) and the whole lowrider treatment with lime green crushed velour and olive naugahyde interior. Fortunately the engine had been rebuilt, and ran very well, so basically I drove this car daily for 5 years, rebuilding everything else as I went along. Unfortunately, when I bought this car it had bad engine numbers. Somebody had defaced them purposely, probably to conceal a theft. I was unconcerned at the time, as I had this Skylark engine and trans I planned to use. I didn't expect the flathead engine to last long, based on the overall mechanical condition of the car. It sure fooled me, and the Skylark transplant never happened. After some 65,000 miles and over 5 years I put Edith aside with a wrist pin clatter. It was time for an overhaul, but I was not going to use that block with butchered numbers, so I found a running 230 Dodge engine with trans etc, for $400. Unfortunately, before I got it installed, a series of various family events delayed the restoration of Edith. Other events and other car purchases delayed it further, and then we bought another house, moved, blah, blah, blah. 20 years later, Edith remains on my side driveway, un-running, and un-restored, and basically starting to rust away, when I finally found myself in the mood to work on her again. That was last Summer...

Well, not a tool as such, but something I've wanted and could not find in the local stores at all: a shop apron. My wife finally found me a leather one for Christmas. Here I am all lit up with Christmas cheer, modeling my new gift (after a couple mods.) Unfortunately it came with this criss-cross strap arrangement that was nor only impossible to get in and out of without a valet, it was made from some highly flammable fuzzy fabric. WTH is this stuff doing on a leather apron? As a test, I singed it in 2 sec with a BIC lighter and in 10 sec it was aflame. Not what you want for welding, and if you look closely at the first photo, I have replaced the straps with some old leather belts, using pop rivets and leather reinforcements. Now it's easy to don, and comfortable as possible, which is a big deal with safety gear. If it's a pain to use, we won't bother. This will keep the wire wheel wires out of my levis and ward off stray welding sparks.

I don't recall that outfit ever being known for good window or interior rubber stuff, but I ordered lots of other parts from them in the 80's and was very satisfied. Including shackles, bushings, and engine mounts, BTW. There is a local hardware company here that is famous because their originators invented something called the Fresno Scraper or box scraper in the 1980's. 1890's (!) It has always been the go-to place for all specialty hardware and good quality tools. In the past few years it's become little better than Harbor freight. Time marches on... <edit....sorry, I meant the 1890's>

We had the family over (17 adults & kids) & I cooked a prime rib for them. It wasn't nearly as civilized as the video you saw above.

Since you don't know if the new engine was ever shaved to increase compression, you don't know what the compression should read exactly (regardless of what the wear might be.) Having all 6 cyls within 10 lbs of each other is a very good indicator that there are no serious problems with rings and valves, and the head gasket is still good. That tells you little about the bearings of course, but it's very encouraging..

Unless, like mine, someone had previously put right handed drums on all 4 wheels...

I worked for an equipment rental outfit that rented out those clamp-on tow bars and clamp-on hitches, and they work fine if you drive moderately, set them up correctly, and if you stop & tighten the bolts now and then. Typically, you stop after the first mile or two, and tighten them to take up the slack developed as everything aligns under pressure. Then you stop & check them every couple hours while traveling, but they usually stay tight after that first shake-down. This procedure is the same no matter what you're towing with. You stop & check the load and your connections as per above.

I take it you guys aren't using POR-15 in the gas tanks? It's pretty popular in old motorcycles.