Dartgame

Good idea to take the distributor apart. You may find the vacuum advance has failed or something else is stuck like the advance weights etc. Regarding the coolant question - you don't have to have a cracked block for a leak, could be a head gasket or a head bolt. But I doubt it's the reason for steam (gray/white "smoke") & water dripping from exhaust. 34F is cold enough to show normal steam from the exhaust, and the water is probably normal as well before the pipes etc get hot enough and dried out. It sounded like it was running pretty evenly so I doubt there's much wrong with it other than ignition or something simple like that causing it to stall out. I don't recall what the spark plug gap is supposed to be. It's been a while since I gapped mine. Specs should be someplace on this website.

Congrats on getting her running !!! Answering your question about the exhaust. With an engine that's been sitting along time, and old exhaust pipes and muffler etc; I'd not be a bit surprised at a lot of moisture being expelled from the engine and so on, it should dissipate as it gets heated up and dries out. Gray smoke ? White smoke is usually an antifreeze leak, blue is usually oil burning, black is an overly rich idle mixture or flooding from a float level that's too high. When I got mine running I was worried the fire department was going to show up, there was such an immense cloud of smoke for an extended period of time (20 minutes). But afterwards she ran and continues to run clean as a whistle. Did you replace the points and condensor ? I had a new condensor fail in short order, poor quality new parts....Your plug wires are fine.

Check with AAJ brakes. Roger owns the company and makes parts not listed on his website. I bought a MC bracket from him to adapt to a tandem system for my 52. aajbrakes.com

The original rear axles resemble 8 3/4 units. These had drop out center sections too...good luck with the project.

The ford filter Jersey Harold talks about was used on almost all fords (V-8s included) of that era and they work beautifully - they thread right into the side of our mechanical pumps as he noted. I am using one.

I investigated repairing my brass oem radiator when I was getting it running. Local radiator shop wanted a small fortune to recore it. They claimed it could not be repaired without a recore. I found an Aluminum radiator on ebay for dirt cheap and went that way. I could not see spending the money on the oe rad, and still be using a 70 year old part. Paint the tanks black if you dont like the bare AL appearance....my .02

Really Nice Car ! I'll bet that paint cleans up better than you think it might. Nice color combo too. It's gonna be a fun project - guaranteed !

For 833 4 speeds, there were close ratio boxes used in B body applications, perfect spacing - RPM change of 1500 on each gear. I'm not sure if you can adapt that gearing to an overdrive 833. Maybe just the 1-2 gears. If I recall correctly mopar flipped the shifter lever on the 3 -4 gears and made what was 3rd gear (now 4th) into the .7 ratio overdrive, and 3rd gear what was 4th is 1:1. A body/aspen 833's used a steep 1st gear of around 3.09 and b bodies used 2.66 as I recall.

I'd contact the piston manufacturer and ask them what the paint marks are there for - just in case - but it probably makes no difference.

Just an FYI - it appears your pistons skirts might have been knurled, knurling was used in the old days to take up clearance between piston and the cylinder. Its an old procedure that was done to cut costs when rebuilding a motor. It allowed one to reuse their old pistons, hone the cylinder, and use new rings to save money. I've seen this once before in a buddies '65 383 we tore down. So I would say for certain your motor has been apart before. You might consider - if there is a next time - to find a partner/buddy/car guy or someone on this site to walk you through a motor tear down. You can learn a heck of a lot about your engine by doing a careful disassembly - measuring using plastigauge - each rod journal and each main bearing as you go would give you the clearance measurements without using calipers or other tools. Plastigauge is cheap (5-10$) and available at any decent autoparts store. It sounds like you've got your path set with a good machine shop. Be sure to inquire about the bearing and other clearances they end up with etc. when you get it back from them. Compare their figures with the specs for your year engine. If not in spec ask them about it. Good luck with your project !

Might be a plug wire position issue as well. Try moving the plug wires (keeping the firing order) one position on the dist cap and see if that gets you the adjustment needed.

Very nice Car !!! I'll Add my 2 cents. Pull the distributor and disassemble it down the advance weights, clean and check for play in the dist shaft. If reasonable, proceed to lube and rebuild with new jumper wires, points, and condenser. I've had a brand new condenser go bad in less than 40 minutes of run time. Very irritating because it may still show spark, but not enough to start.

Look for some 1970s/80s year range mopar police rims. 15 x 7's. 225/70/15 fits perfect on my 52 with those rims. Speedo is 100% accurate.

George Asche was the person that recommended I use the best gasket seal.

Pete - all things being equal what sort of power increase would one expect by changing the stock head for one of your aluminum heads ? Just in case. Maybe its not that simple to compare, but lets say you have a 2 carb intake and a split exhaust manifold, with a mild perf cam on a US 230?

Correct, #3675 no modifications made to anything except the rear main cap. In my case, the rear main cap had some rather large ~ 1/2" diameter holes in it. These were some part of the normal casting process for my engine (218 US production) and if left unplugged would cause a huge oil leak. They might be for an oil drain back from the external rubber seal area, not sure. Your engine may not have these, but if so they are easily identified. What I meant when I said I left them out were the small bolts used for the original external seal. The best gasket people advised to install the seal halves dry where they butt up and meet, and no additional sealant anywhere else. I used permatex #2 because I did this while the engine was in the car and my crank was in the block. I needed something sort of slick to help slide in the upper half of the seal. The new seal fits in where the rope seal was originally as I recall. In addition the groove for the seal was not perfectly smooth, it was sort of rough, but the seal still fit and works great.

I installed a best seal neoprene lip style used in the later cars in my 52. Works great. Does away with the rope seal and the external rubber seal. You will need to plug the rough casting holes in the main cap. I used JB weld after a careful cleaning job. The threaded holes for the external rubber seal were blind (close ended) in my case, probably yours too, I left them out. Back off the other main caps to get some clearance for the upper half of the rear main seal to slide in, I used a little permatex #2 in the groove for lubricity when sliding in the seal. No leaks. There was no need to machine anything in my case.

This was a major pain for me. I ended up using some universal type rubber seal. Roughly looks like two D's with a flat rubber piece in between. For my car the original design for that part of the door used one piece of rubber which sealed the fender to the body and also sealed the door to body. NOBODY makes a suitable replacement.

Wonder what kind of adhesive sealant was holding the thing on that tightly. Any idea ? I've never had an oil pan stick the way you described.

Hey Dave - your video was quite interesting to watch. Great you got the motor running. You may want to take a look at this you tube - this is a professional rebuild of a mopar flathead 230 ci 6.

What is the condition of your fuel tank ? New ? Original ? If original I'd suspect a clogged - in tank filter. Supposedly the original tanks have some sort of porous filter element inside the bottom of the tank. If I recall correctly - maybe sintered metal type. If you have rust or other crap in the gas tank - that filter is probably plugged and won't allow fuel to flow. Try the following before assuming the pump is bad. Remove the rubber line to the supply side of the pump. Rig up a rubber hose long enough to dip into a small gas can - such as that used for lawn mowers. Connect the rubber hose to the inlet side of the pump. Drop the open end of the hose into the gas can and crank the motor over and see if the pump draws fuel and pumps into the carb. If it does, then your tank is bad, and needs to be cleaned or replaced. Fuel tanks are available for 51's. I put one in my 52...

This sounds like a heat issue. Not knowing where your horns are located on a 39, is it possible they are inside the engine bay above the engine or other source of heat ? If so, then perhaps they get too hot after the engine runs a while and then once cooled off, the horns start working again. My 52 has trumpet horns mounted in front of the radiator core support, and work fine on 12 v., loud as he__ but no problem with them otherwise.

Wow, not the way I would do this. Strip the block bare first, etc. I wonder why he is adhering the gaskets well in advance of installing. I'd think this would lead to leakage. Interesting to watch. He does use some good techniques on making your own gaskets. I was terrified by the manifold removal..

I'll Give the plunger another try some day. Too darn cold here to fool with it. Block is sitting in the unheated part of the garage...

I bought a stripped down standard bore 218 block that had been hot tanked and then shelved. Unfortunately the pressure relief valve was not removed and rusted into the block. I tried like He** to get that thing out and gave up. It now sits in the garage.