Ulu

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.

I read today that our Army is discouraging the use of "Christmas" to describe what our servicemen are celebrating today. How sad that is. I'm sorry to be wordy, but it prompted me to write this in response: As modern man is steadily relieved of almost all common labor and involved mental activity by machines and computers, it leaves him with lots of time to improve himself by intellectual and social pursuits. Unfortunately, he often spends that time instead self-aggrandizing and causing trouble for his neighbors. When people don't work regularly, they generally don't have a healthy outlook on this life. They find themselves feeling too special, and end up indulging their own prejudice, willfulness, and spite. Regardless of our individual religious beliefs, Christmas Spirit has always been a force to, at least for a day, put that aside and lend us consideration for the lives of others. That idiots would contradict this effect based on their personal predilections toward worship shows that they not only don't understand what Christmas is in the non-religious sense, they don't understand the basic needs of society for cohabitation on this Earth. And so, from a guy who hasn't been into a church in decades, and who believes about 90% of the Bible to be just fable and parable, I say the world needs Christmas and Christmas Spirit, regardless of what people may choose to call it nor what symbols they may adorn it with. Instead of defaming Christmas, those folks who distain Christmas would be well off to hold their own celebration of fellowship and good cheer. I wish there was some way to make them "get it", but they'd have to be happy first. They'd have to me merry, and optimistic. Somehow people fight this notion as capitulation. They are personally distressed by the notion. Well, IMO, for all that man has given to religion, Christmas is the best thing religion has ever given to man; and if you can't believe in Christmas yourself, you can still hold important the joy of your fellow man, at this time, as a wonderful thing. So to you all, and especially to those who would debase this season of joy and love on the basis of their "principals" or beliefs, I say Merry Christmas, and A Very Merry Christmas to all. No belief is required to benefit, beyond the belief that we need every possible reason to make each other happy on this particular spinning rock.

Wow! Nothing quite so exciting to report, but there was one thing. First, I bought my car more or less built. It had won trophies, but mechanically it had bugs. The steering box had one bad bearing (upper worm) & the car would only turn right under power. If you coasted and steered gently it would go left. The thing is that on the test drive I somehow never made a real left turn and didn't discover this fact until, on the way home, I'd run it up to 55 on the freeway, then tried to take a fast ramp with a dogleg. The wheel turned 1/8 turn left and stuck there like it was welded. (The box had crushed bearing rollers smashed sideways.) Fortunately I had lots of traction, because I chopped the throttle hard to make the car go left. On a wet road I woulda spun for sure. Then the trans had very bad needles at the pilot which resides within the 2nd/3rd syncro. This aligns input and output shafts, and having a good one makes the syncros a LOT smoother. I stripped the trans and dressed the shafts, then installed an oilite bushing & reamed by hand to size. Worked great but I knew it wasn't going to last forever. As it turned out, every day I drove past the shop of a briefly famous motorcycle customizer named Galen Olsen whose work I'd seen in several 70's chopper magazines; only I didn't know it was him. One day I stopped there because I was looking for some old bike part & I found he had an OD trans. It was in great shape & I still have it (since rebuilt) & it's the best $150 I ever spent on the car. It wasn't until later that I realized that this fellow had been the same one I'd read about in the mags, 15 years earlier. Finally, I had a tire blow out on the freeway at about 60 MPH. The car had 15" VW radials on it when purchased & one went bad. It had a bald spare which got me to a derilict tire shop on the outskirts of Visalia, Calif. There I bought a nice used tire that matched quite well. Unfortunately, the guy who put my wheel back on never torqued the lugs properly. The next day, on the same road where I'd had the blowout, I lost the left rear wheel at speed. The tire knocked off the left skirt and bent the fender a bit, plus I'd lost all of the lugs! Using two jacks, I got the car up and replaced the wheel using a lug from each other RH wheel, plus the one from the spare mount. (The car has 2 RH rear hubs.) I made it to work late, and with a spot of mud on my Farrah's, but with a story to tell. BTW, in both the blowout and the lost wheel, Edith d' Plymouth behaved like a dream. A very tractible and stable car IMO, and I've always loved that about her. Have a Merry Christmas Folks!

Merry Christmas folks! We had the whole clan over today, and tomorrow we go see my mom at the rest home. I told my kids that, as I'm turning 60 soon, this is the last year I'll be cooking Christmas dinner for the whole family. It's time for the younger generation to pick up the baton.