Jump to content

Normspeed

Members
  • Posts

    5,659
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Normspeed

  1. Looks like a nice straight original car. Might have bullseye headlights.
  2. Joe you could also email Neil Riddle, Seaplym on ebay. He may have the bolts you need.
  3. I once had a 55 Plymouth flathead six with a lot of miles on it, and it used to lose oil pressure going up a long grade, then the pressure would come back up on the downhill side. Turned out to be main bearings. Even with that much wear, the car got me from Florida to California, running a blend of bulk oil and STP.
  4. You're lucky Bill, I wanted baby moons for my P24 but they don't make them to fit our old clip type rims. If you do get the baby moons, be real careful when installing and press them on with your fingers at the outer edges. They are made of thin stuff and one good push on the center will cave them right in. Been there...
  5. I'll miss the longboard look of the porta bote, it looked pretty good on the P24. But I'm really looking forward to the new boat. This will be my 11th boat, and I've enjoyed them all. I still have an 18 footer and the vintage 17 foot Glaspar, still trying to get the paperwork sorted out on that one. My 18 footer has seen some great times at Lake Mead. When the wind kicks up at Mead, it is not for the faint of heart:D
  6. Joe, what an ordeal! If it's a cork gasket and if you used #2 non-hardening permatex, I'd guess that you could re-use it after such a short time assembled. If you have a full set of new replacement bolts it would be a good idea to replace 'em all. Hate to see another one go bad after the pan is back on. Good luck.
  7. They have great heaters:D
  8. After 6 great years of fishing and camping with my folding boat, tomorrow I deliver her to a new owner in Arizona. I hope he and his family enjoy the rig as much as I have. After that little Florida vacation earlier this year, I decided to go back to something that will ride on my roof without having to carry all the extras in the car. The old P24 gets a mite cluttered. I already have my new boat picked out, a nice welded 10 foot Jon boat. I expect to bring it home within a couple days. Gotta keep the economy rolling!
  9. If your car had extreme rust-out where the body mounts are, might be a candidate for the frame off. But in my mind, these old rigs were built for one thing, transportation, and getting them too pretty underneath might discourage you from getting out there and driving her. In six years or so I've concentrated my time (and money) on brakes, engine, wiring, and transmission. She still has the original paint, covered by an Earl Scheib repaint, and even has brush strokes on the hood and a few rust spots. With all that, the car never fails to draw admirers at every fuel stop or stoplight. Enjoy your car, everyone loves seeing an old one still on the road.
  10. I'm lucky, no serious structural rust problems, and the body mounts and inner rockers are rock solid. I would hate to tie up all those possible driving hours, doing a frame-off. But a nice frame-off is a beautiful thing to see.
  11. Today I ordered the kingpin kit and a new inner tie rod end from RockAuto. When the parts come in I'll spend some time staring at the kingpin area until it reveals its secrets to me. With only one loose tie rod end, I can notice the tendency to bump steer and to swerve in a good crosswind. I also have an occasional thump or knock somewhere up front, usually when turning a corner at low speed. Hoping it's just the tie rod end. When I used to live in Joisey, and they had vehicle inspections, seems like the inspection guy would raise the front up, and pry against the bottom of the tires with a large pry bar. I presume he was looking for loose ball joints or king pins. Is that the test? What would I be looking for, a vertical movement at the tire?
  12. Make sure you get those flywheel bolts in the right way, remember what happened to Joe Flanagan.
  13. Beautiful Dodge, with the P15 body. But I agree, that interior...what were they thinking? Maybe just a trick of the camera?
  14. NAPA sells pretty good quality stuff. My local NAPAs have always been kind of unpredictable and arbitrary on discounting. Depending on the clerk you might get a jobber's discount or you might get charged list. RockAuto has two levels on some parts. Service grade and professional grade. Quite a price difference. I just ordered an inner tie rod end, professional grade, from them. I've had great results from RockAuto. Keep an eye on the shipping amount though. If you order multiple items, they might ship from different warehouses and the shipping goes way up. On the other hand, I ordered the tie rod end, and added a kingpin kit, and the shipping only increased by a couple dollars. Same manufacturer and same warehouse I guess.
  15. I found a large thick O-ring at a hardware store for the distributor. The plumbing repair area is a good place to look. That distributor is a good place to use some anti-seize. I've come across two of them that were firmly frozen in the block and were tough to get loosened up to set the timing.
  16. Great info. After reading the replies I took a better look in my service manual, and now I see where the thrust bearings will go. My old suspension is so crusted with old grease, I mean rust preventer, that I could not see where the bearing fits.
  17. THe illustration for the kingpin kit that's supposed to fit my 53 looks like it has bushings and possibly a bearing for each side. You guys who have worked on these, does that look like a bearing in the photo?
  18. Mine are not real sloppy, but there's a little up and down play on one side that should be shimmed. I'm thinking if I take them apart to shim, may as well put in new pins and bushings. I've never done kingpins. The manual talks about special tools to install bushings, then reaming the bushings, etc. Is this a job best left to a shop, or is it simpler than the manual suggests?
  19. I have the 1946-54 Plymouth service manual, you can get a nice reprint on ebay for around $20.00. There's a 13 page section on the Hy-drive, including cross-section drawings, operating principles, data, specs, diagnosis, service. The majority of the service info is about the torque converter. If you have Dodgeb4ya in your corner, you have half the battle won. Bob sure helped me over some rough spots when I rebuilt my overdrive 3 speed.
  20. In my 1946-54 service manual, it says "Caution, do not use knock-out type pullers or strike end of axle shaft to loosen hub. This may damage the rear wheel bearings, thrust block and opposite brake support plate" Now, I've used a slide hammer to remove my rear axles, and I've also been guilty of hitting the hub puller center shaft to pop loose a drum. So far, no apparent damage to the other parts though. Maybe I was just lucky? Edit: Easiest rear drums I ever pulled were on a buddy's P15. The castle nuts had been tightened in the manner you would tighten a front wheel bearing...snug it up, back off to the next available cotter key space. Those drums came off by hand! As a tribute to the great materials Plymouth used, there was no visible wear to the axle, drum, or key, and the car had been driven a lot, and on the freeways frequently. After some brake work, we tightened them to about 140 ft lbs with a torque wrench.
  21. For a million dollars, that thing should float.
  22. This is the site: http://www.certifiedautoelectric.com/index.cfm
  23. My search engine didn't turn up a clue.
  24. Looks like it was a good one. Modern magazines really have specialized for sure. It's fun to read through the old ones. In its own way, Hot Rod magazine has been trying hard to include a wide variety of cars, rods and customs from low buck, to high buck, plus barn finds, new accessories, and brand new factory stuff, like the Hurst series Challenger. No restoration cars though.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.

Terms of Use