Sharps40

Dad was down and visited the shop. Got a chance to talk with the boss and the painter before moving forward. Mighta been a bit of confusion on the painters part. Very meticulous fellow, quite a painter. Hadn't moved forward because the car weren't ready. Boss explaned and Dad confirmed....we plan to drive it. Concours restorations are false representations of the vehicle in its original form as none ever came out of Detroit with bodies as straight or gaps measured to the thousands of an inch, paint polished to snot smooth and ultratittium booby gloss shine.....etc. So, as Dad said, don't skim coat the battery box and don't perfectly straighten the car floor along the drive tunnel or smooth the frame or even take the door gaps beyond what would be expected on a new car or better a driver car. He explaned we plan to haul dead deer in the trunk with muddy boots stepping on the running boards and sweaty stinky bloody gloves tossed in the back seat while driving down the dirt roads coming out of the woods.....i.e. we plan to use the car..... I think the painter is getting ready now for the final prime so we can do suspension/motor and then final paint. Dad seems satisfied that he clearly understands we'll be using Bessy, not looking at her under a $2000 fancy tarp in a climate controlled car bedroom!

Email to Dad, 21 July 2016 (PS Three years to full retirement, less if the economy tanks and we get early outs in 2017! Yep, I'm counting down!) Dad, Picked up a spare center grill for the dodge, cheep. Which ever one is better gets installed. As needed, I'll take the lesser of the two and shorten it up/convert it into the crank hole cover for the lower center of the grill. Rich.

Lexicon birdies aside, everybody here knew what ya was talking about.

Dodge used them on the straight axle car front suspensions in the late 30s as well. As I recall from years of driving my 37 D5.....the factory sway bar ain't what yer used to on a more modern car.....still plenty of body roll in the turns on Ol Bessy!

Get a timing light. Even a 12v run on a separate battery. Check. By ear usually gets you too far advanced. Remember the inverse relationship between dwell and timing. Set the dwell (points gap) first as dwell changes alter timing but timing changes do NOT alter dwell.

Yep. Get a good motors manual on ebay from the mid to late 50s for 20 bucks. Good trouble shooting section. Your rebuilt carb may still be a turd (or even a bad fuel pump) but backfiring through the exhaust is most often fuel/rich related. Spitting/Coughing through the carb (as you describe) is most often ignition or valves. It can be as simple as dizzy static or total timing too far advance....i.e. a sliped dizy due to a loose hold down bolt. But, get it running and go through it one item at a time. When an item passes muster, move to the next item.

Not likely fuel unless its hog rich at speed and fuel is collecting in the intake. The spark is igniting fuel/air in the intake manifold. That is due to either or both of spark and valves doing what they do at the wrong time. Check dizzy cap for cracks, check rotor, condenser and coil for function, check points, check engine ground, check dizy ground, check small flex wire inside dizy, check dizy plate for free movement by vacuum advance (if dizy is the kind with a vacuum advance), check plugs, check spark plug wires wires for leakage (at night, look for blue corona running along the wires) and cross firing, check static timing, and observe timing from idle up to total timing at 3200 rpm, check vacuum advance diaphragm for function, check vacuum hoses from carb/manifold to vacuum advance....if all that's good, then perhaps consider stuck valves, loose timing chain (unless motor internals are otherwise known good/new, etc.), and fuel system last.

Simple enough to bend them up from piano wire. Piano wire is strong, inexpensive and you can bend it cold.....makes great springs for guns for years and years....would work just fine for holding the sleeve to the forks. Just measure the diameter and google a supplier or order from Brownells or another gunsmith parts house. Nothing magical about the clips and no need to search high and low for originals when you can make it up in a couple minutes.

Are you not interested or perhaps not confident in checking out the obvious first possibility already stated here? A loose/out of balance flywheel/clutch assembly? Can't tell from the thread if you're sitting there wringing hands searching the web for issues or not. If you want to drive it ya have to go start with the obvious stuff first. It may actually be a loose rod but it may not. Nobody here or on the web can tell you that. I ain't trying to be mean but maybe you need to pick a direction for your project and take it to a professional to do much of the heavy lifting. In the long run it may prevent you from having a partly disassembled car in the garage that you are frustrated with and wind up selling for parts and/or at a significant loss. Nothing to be ashamed of in using a pro either. I got my 37 back after 23 years gone missing and its at a pro for most of the work because I have a job and a family and other commitments that would only allow me to be laying under the car 10 minutes a month for 200 years to get it done.

Heat studs with a torch. Quench with bees wax. When cool turn them out with the stud puller. Reinstall with stainless hardware and sealer/antiseeze if ya think it needs sauce on the threads

Moparearl, I see you live in Saint Thomas, PA. I used to live down the street in the 90s on a farm in Greencastle, a mile or three from S.T. On the down hill curve of Valley Camp Road just past the old junk yard on the corner.. My 37 Dodge was hit by the drunk in 91 in downtown chambersburg and stored temporarily on the the west end of Cburg (Across street from the old Chrysler dealer) on Route 30 as your heading toward St Thomas. Hell, we mighta passed each other a buncha times! Is the little diner still open at the top of Rt 30 on the west end of Cburg just before you leave town? Always had the best bisquets and gravy for breakfast!

You ran afoul of the Curmudgeon Crew. Every board has an auto-attack grump team. Mostly all you can do is ignore list them, otherwise you'll spend lifetimes reading admonitions to search forum/manual or just here....trying to defend a simple question! Good luck with your part!!

Dad, Think about it. The car is 79. The tail light lenses are up to 79 years old too. They got made for the car. They sat on many shelves. One box was lost but the lens never damaged or broken. The other sat in its box safely waiting. They probably moved around a lot. They got shipped to someone on ebay. I bought them and they got shipped to me. The car was built and drove and sold until you bought it in 1957. You gave it to me. I drove it daily for 15 years. A drunk hit the car. I "Sold" it (kinda) to Jim and it sat for 23 years. And now in 2016 we find out that in all them years you wanted blue dot tail light lenses. Never seen these for sale before, ever...not even in all the many summers we went to Hershey looking for parts and supplies..... Well, now you got em! Pristine originals. Rich

Yes. I understand. Both willies dodge/mopar use eccentrics on the lower part of the shoes..... The bolts shown are eccentric. These are Lockheed brakes as used on nearly all the mopars and for all, the lower anchor bolts are cam ground. They move the lower part of the shoes in/out/up/down when rotated. If you look very closely you can see the bolt shank is offset in the brake mounting cam. The difference from photo of the willies part, the cam is part of the bolt, not a separate piece. The upper cams on the backing plates take care of similar movements for the top portions of the shoes.

If I understand, you think the dodge pins have the excentric broken off like the pin in the photo above? I think all the dodge excentric pins are alike, a single piece of metal no excentric to break off. Like the photos of the 37 Dodge backing plates with pins below.

I was thinkin similar bout the oil pressure. Running hot and running near zero oil pressure is one of two things: gauges or power pack. I'd start with known good gauges and senders and confirm or deny the dash mounted units. Heck even if you have to go buy new inexpensive under dash capillary gauges at autozoiks, its very likely to be more accurate than the old ones on the dash. From there, if the dash is even close to being correct, I'd stop driving the engine, pull it, get it apart and see what is wrong. My guess, there is crap moving around in the water jacket now that the engine is rebuilt and the flow is compromised and for oil, some combination of oil pump/pick up problem and/or wide bearing tolerances are involved and the motor will likely need to come back apart.

From Dad.... On Tuesday, June 14 Richard: They are beautiful---I always wanted the blue dots in there, but with the 6 volt system, it didn't matter much what color. I stopped down today---nothing new done. Spoke to one of the guys---said they are 'catching up', and there is a Corvette that is in front of us. I also mentioned to Jim (he commented that the dash panel looks great). I told him this is the second one--we can't find the other one you did. He mentioned that there are still probably parts on the lower level that belong to the Dodge. Next time you are up, we'll have to take a look on the first floor where the Dodge was for so long, and see what we can find. Keep them shining. Brake lights that is.

Good news....LynxEyes are mine!...well, they're Ol Bessy's anyway.

Hoping to see suspension on it in July or Aug! Getting excited.

Woo Hoo! Turn Signals, Green Ones. Camera eye view is brighter but to my eye, its a beautiful bright green with a black directional arrow floating in the middle. But, either way, bright enough that even a forgetful driver won't be going around the world to the left! Left Turn... Right Turn...

I think part of (a bunch of ) the fun of hot rodding a 79 year old car is figuring out what parts from other cars (and for the dash, tractors) will do the job. For example, the old backlit dash bucket, had 3/4" diameter sockets for the lights. In converting them to hi beam lights, 72 to 95 Ford/GM side marker sockets were used....they go in a 1/2 in hole. So, retention. Easy peasy....a couple of modern (and blue, the propa color for Ol Bessy) oil cooler line clips work just fine to secure the more modern 194 sockets in the ancient lamp loops. And.....Ol Bessy got her pasties.....blue covers for the 194 bulbs that will indicate hi beams are on. Blue bulbs are available but, with covers, I can shop local instead of the innerweb if I ever need a new hi beam bulb. So, hi beam indication moved from center of the dash (originally the light switch lit up for hi beam) to the actual gauge cluster. Here, her new underwire supports and pasties in place. Breaking out the old and trusty 6v/12v 2amp/6amp battery charger, its time for a test run. Soft blue on the gauge cluster and I'm happy! And with a bit of a reflector over the high beam indicator bulbs, the stainless bezels turn blue and even the white towel the cluster is sitting on is turned blue. Cool. And if I'm really lucky, these will be mine tonight at 11 PM. Not plastic. Not modern. Original, NOS glass blue dot and glass lens for out back lighting and still in their original packaging! Crossin my fingers and toes that I get these Lynxeyes, I didn't relish grinding holes in the original glass lenses to install blue dots on my own.