Dartgame

For the stuck motor - I'd pull the head off while in the car. Examine the cylinders and see how bad it is. Clean up the cylinders best you can using steel wool and maybe 600 grit paper. Soak pistons with penetrating oil. Drop the pan. Drive out/remove pistons that are in position to do so. Try prying against the block and a crank throw carefully, to loosen the remaining pistons. Good luck.

Very sad to hear this, especially during the Holidays. I never met Don in person, but did correspond with him, and was always impressed with his knowledge, posts and advice. The P15 D24 community has lost a great one. Our sincere condolences...RIP.

70's -80's dodge/plymouth police rims - 7 "X 15" fit perfect on my car with 215 70's.

Suggestion - find out if there is a heavy truck clutch rebuilder near you. I did and they rebuilt my pressure plate, and disc., and properly resurfaced the flywheel.

Condensor does not care what voltage you use...for the wiper motor, I built a voltage reducer based on a plan from a VW bug site, uses a heat sink and a few discreet electronic items, like a resistor and so on. Old VWs use 6 volt electronics and conversion to 12 volt is apparently a common thing. Everything else you've listed sounds right. My guess is the fuel gauge has a loose wire connection somewhere. Did you change the overdrive solenoid over to a 12volt unit ?

The small bolt is actually a grease inlet for the bearing. The bearing is greased and is not lubricated by gear oil. Pretty standard R&R procedure, pull brake drum off tapered axle shaft, remove woodruff key, remove backing plate, pull axle with bearing cup, note shims (put them back in when reassembling assuming you dont change bearing), yank out inner seal. Reverse procedure for installation.

8 3/4 is a good option assuming you can find the right width, best candidate is a 1970 B body axle, nearly the same width as the 52. The center section castings used in these axles can be one of three types #741, 742 and 489 case (last three casting digits). Each has a different pinion gear shaft size or shape. 741 is small, 742 large and 489 tapered. All are overkill for a flat head powered car (nothing wrong with that)...each can be put in place of one another, and carriers interchange, but the gear sets do not and are specific to the case number. Hope this helps a little when seeking parts.

I looked at an explorer rear axle, but reconsidered after looking at the pinion companion flange (uses a 6 or 8 bolt flat disk arrangement). Decided to buy a late model jeep cherokee (not a grand cherokee) from a 2001 model which uses a spicer type companion flange (standard old style u joint). Almost all of them are 3.55:1 and are slightly (1 inch or so) narrower than the stock axle, its an 8 1/4" ring gear chrysler axle. These cherokees were all the same for a lot of years 90's to 2000's using that axle. The later models use a higher axle spline count (stronger) than the earlier ones something like 2000 and down. Measure from wheel mounting to wheel mounting to get accurate measurement for comparison. I have not installed it yet. You will need to buy spring perches and weld them on, because the jeep perches are on top of the axle vs below which our cars use. Look at early 50's chevys for the correct width perches.

Hi Oil Soup - thanks for the link. Looks like a good outfit. Will have to investigate -

Thats a nice set up on the filter. I may go that way - thanks for posting the write up.

probably a wheel bearing front or rear...

Been searching around for a firewall sound deadening pad for the 52 - Outfit called california Pontiac restoration appears to be reselling or making them, ebay lists them, pricey. Anybody use one of their products ?

I used rogers master cyl. brake adapter bracket which sits under the floor - manual brakes. I used a remote tandem master cyl from master power brakes. Works fine. I'm using the trans mounted parking brake. No machining needed, just some butchering with a cut off wheel for the outer axle bearing retainer.

To avoid installing a new or reconditioned fuel tank, my cars PO used an antifreeze bottle strapped in front of the radiator with a rubber hose stuffed thru the cap of the bottle. ugh. No big deal to fix, but not real safe.. and not much range !

I did the AAJ rear discs on my 52. Pretty straight forward install, they work fine. Unfortunately my axle is tweaked and I will be installing a late model to replace the original. Eventually I will sell my set up from the 52 if you are interested. The only thing that would be different is the DOM spacer length for your application. adapter plate rotors, calipers hoses etc are the same.