Ulu

How's the cooling system? Maybe the coolant distribution tube is getting clogged.

Thanks. I don't have any parts manual at hand, so I don't have a clue what parts interchange, so I really appreciate all the help. Somehow I was under the impression that the postwar Desoto engines were all the big block 6 while Plymouths and Dodges were the small block 6 & Chryslers were all big block 6 or straight 8. But I don't have any evidence to back that up. I need to study the manuals again.

Well, the hub with a flange, on the crank snout.

Yes, hillclimbing on the Wasatch range in my '67 scout. I think I was low on gas & it got so steep the pickup in the tank started coming uncovered. Or maybe the fuel pump was weak, because the engine pinged a few times and died. (BTW, short wheelbase vehicles do not steer well in reverse at speed, even with reverse engine braking, Also, Scout brakes are not self energizing in reverse. It was a wild ride down.) As for your friend's car, does it have vacuum advance or just mechanical? I might go drive it around with a temporary vacuum gauge on the wiper hose & watch what the needle does on a hill.

Oh crap. It's been nearly 20 years since I used a stick welderlast. I forget which way it goes. Frankly, I don't think I once bothered to touch the polarity switch on any welder I've ever used. Clue me in Jeff!

Thanks to you all. I'll have to dig out the rest of this stuff when I have more access to it. Right now it's buried. But I take it the Desoto flange doesn't fit a 230 crank which means I bought a Desoto damper & pulley on a Dodge flange. I'll check their numbers tonight. I might just end up selling this engine and trans anyhow, but I want it to be complete and running one way or the other.

So this could have come from a 265 & been "fitted" to the 230? When I bought the 230, it had just been pulled out of a 46 DeSoto sedan, but the trans and engine were clearly Dodge..

OK, I haven't found the 218 damper yet, but this is the damper & pulley from the 230 Dodge. You can see the holes have all been chewed out. Looks like somebody modified it at some point, though I couldn't imagine a good reason why. The 218 model is slightly smaller and lighter with no flats. Also it's riveted to the pulley as I recall, while this one had bolts tapped into the crank flange. You can see a hole drilled for balance, which is why I originally thought these might be not just dampers, but external balancing devices as well. But the hole is so small that I sincerely doubt this is the case at all.

I do not believe it has anything to do with the actual voltage that can be obtained, but with the speed at which those electrons can be delivered. If you charge the whole car, and spit electrons into it from a wire, it happens faster than charging a wire and expecting it to spit electrons out into a whole car. But I'm working from an increasingly faulty memory, so I'm going to go back and refresh my memory about all this. Every manufacturer eventually changed over to negative ground, so there was a very good reason. Might even have to do with electrolysis of the body under wet conditions.

Thanks for the post, DeSoto. Actually my regulators are all OK. I need a couple knobs and trim rings, but the windows worked well--even the vent wings. This car had under 90k on it in '84, which was clear by the good condition of many original items. Edith d' Plymouth had accidents and had been repaired, but had never been a rattletrap. But from what I see under the paint, this is the second time she's been abandoned to rust. BTW, the glass was mounted in rubber from old inner tubes with rubber cement.The cement crumbled with age. I was indeed going to use silicone to mount the glass, and for many other important things. Back in the 80's I was designing high rise curtain walls with silicone glazing systems, for buildings up and down the west coast. I'm a big fan of silicone when used properly. I am building a resto-rod, so it'll look like a mild custom. Custom paint & upholstery, non-original wheels, tires, & suspension parts. AACA is not for me. Oh, the guys I've met at shows were all the nicest people, but I'm building a car I'll drive, and showing it isn't a consideration.

I did that in my '64 MG Midget, with a 12v cassette player. That was 12v pos ground car & I just wired it backwards and used insulators to mount it so the chassis wouldn't touch the car chassis. Well one day I shorted it clumsily and PFFFFT!!!! Fortunately it only fried a choke coil right on the + in wire, which was a radio noise suppression device or maybe voltage regulation. The burned coil evidently acted like a fuse, and when it performed that ultimate regulation, it protected the rest of the electronics. I jumped past that coil and my chrome plated tape deck worked again. But when I cooked it, the burnt lacquer from that one small cooked coil smelled like the entire dash was on fire. LOL

Don't know about the windshields, yet I'm sure they're laminated, Clearly, the laminated door glass & vent wings were poor quality replacements. The poor edge polishing and imperfect shapes tell all. Oh, yeah...looking at that glass run channel, I'm not sure silicone would do the job. It's made from kinda corrugated/articulated metal (like a flex exhaust pipe) and it's got a sort of rubbery coating. Might not be chemically compatible. I got all the window fuzz and all the glass run channel out, the headliner is half down, and am looking in vain for the bolts to my steering wheel puller.

According to my 1957 Motor's manual, negative ground is now used because it generally gives a hotter spark. The accumulation of electrons charging the entire car negatively gives current easier into a mere wire than charging that mere wire negative and expecting it to go the other way. Remember that electrons come out the negative pole. If the whole car is hooked to the negative pole, you only have the same 6 volt potential, but available current given into any wire goes up.

I'm stripping the glass from my '47 Plymouth and I had to remove the glass run channel from the front door. My manual (which is for 46-54 models) does not really show the P-15 very well, but states to remove the clips from the door reveal by compressing them & pull out the channel. Mine didn't have clips. It looks like an aftermarket/universal product, and was installed with six #6 flathead wood screws into the inner door. It was friction-fit to the vertical guide rail and fit well without clips there. I'll buy new stuff, but this is actually good enough to touch up the flocking and re-use if I can't get what I want. The thing is that I don't see how clips would work on my car. There's no actual reveal at the door head, but just the outside half of one. Unless they consider the garnish to be the other half of the reveal. ??? I don't see how that would work, as the manual says to remove the garnish first. Anyhow, is the original style commonly available? or is everyone buying universal stuff?? or re-flocking??? I am not gonna use wood screws, but little rivets might be OK. I could also fab wire staples, which I'll certainly do for the fuzz that was originally stapled on. (Mine has more #6 wood screws!) But if I re-use this run, I'll re-flock it & probably glue it on the door head continuously with RTV silicone. Also, both my quarter windows were original tempered glass & good condition,as is the rear window, but the rest is all repop lam-glass. It's all cracked or de-lamming & needs replacing too. Is tempered glass ever available for the front side windows and vent wings? Are there different qualities of laminated glass for cars? I'm not sure where to go with this.

Trust a guy named Shel to direct a turtle autopsy.

Well you threw a damper on my spirit! I remember when I was young I was working in the drafting room at a big manufacturing company. We called ourselves "The Draftoids". I always just considered this a diminutive suffix of the slang sort. If that makes any sense. I was never a perfect student of grammar. Also not familiar with the Monroe Mystique Trivia.

The pin in his trunk lock is stripped/missing, It's the lock on the turtledeck (trunk lid of a bulbous car.)

Are we bored this PM fellas?