Mark Haymond

http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/22193746_fWznm6#!i=1772379467&k=h6vxcK9 I have been doing daily trips around town for a couple of weeks in my 47 Plymouth. I have a Mopar 318 with a 904 Torqueflight automatic in it, my first V8 conversion project. I thought I was doing well until it overheated in the drive through at Starbucks. Grumble. The Hayden electric fan controller did not turn on the radiator fan, resulting in overheat, overpressure (seven pound radiator cap) and it ruptured the heater core inside the car. I felt lucky to a certain extent. I had shirt sleeve weather to work in, I was 100 yards from a gas station, and a quarter mile from an electronic supply business. I jumpered around the fancy shmancy controller with a short length of wire to give power to my electric fan. And I re plumbed my longest heater hose in a short loop back to the engine to take the leaking heater core out of the coolent circuit. I was able to get back home without AAA service. Of course if my old flat head was still in the car with the four blade metal fan I would not have had a fan failure. The upgrade seems to come with a reliability price. Sigh.

And remember to retorque the head after the engine is warmed up.

On an old clunker "This is NOT an abandoned car."

I have also seen corroded fuse clips like those in your car cause heat which melted the fuse rather than blowing it. Someone was smart to check the normal looking fuse with a meter. And if you check with a meter from one end of the fuse to the other, don't lay the fuse on a conductive metal surface with the end caps touching the metal. I have done that and the bad fuse checked "good."

I'm following your posts and knocking on wood for you. Have fun, guys.

At the hardware store I found a long length of high pressure water hose covered by a woven steel sleeve. It duplicated the weaving pattern of the cloth very closely. I removed the sleeve and slipped it over my 50 Plymouth emergency cable from the pull handle to the emergency band under the car and clamped it with spiral ring water hose clamps at each end. Several coats of black spray paint gave it the look of the old cloth covering.

Ah, yes, enjoy the magic.

I am working on the same issue. But my P-15 temp bulb will reach the thermostat housing. I plan to put a thick one inch spacer under the thermostat housing and thread the gland nut into it. Another solution is to bring the water closer to the temp bulb. Use some water hoses and run a shunt for the return water that the bulb can screw into.

To keep my engine conversion work flow going smoothly I made a list of things I had TO DO to get the 47 Plymouth running again. It was a beautiful plan. I would hang the four page list on the garage wall and as I finished each step I could cross it off. My list would grow shorter and inspire me as the last project approached completion. Alas, I was an innocent in new territory. No one told me about the FOLLOW UP LIST and the dreaded RE DO list. Some of the stuff did not have to be done to just get it back on the road. Things like floor carpet, relocated shock mounts, and new windshield wipers could be taken care of at my convenience after I got to enjoy driving my ride again. These went on my new FOLLOW UP LIST. Frustration jobs on my (unwritten) RE DO list are to re do the thermostat housing gasket and hose fitting. Due to pitted metal surfaces on the engine side and the thermostat housing, choice of the wrong gasket material, and other misadventures, it took me four tries to get it to seal and not leak antifreeze. Final solution - used blue RTV and no gasket material. It is holding up well so far. Currently on the RE DO list is to put a seal kit on the Saginaw power steering pump, the one I got from the salvage yard six years ago. Gee, who could have guessed that it was not a perfectly good pump? It is leaking steering fluid onto the belt pulley and throwing it in a circle all over the engine. Despite all this I can see that by next month it should be on the road again. I will then be able to take care of the FOLLOW UP items. Eventually I will just flat run out of setbacks. And I can ride and smile.

So someone's ride has big tires, 400 horse power, a big stereo, and in dash GPS. Big deal. Do the have a hood ornament that lights up? Noooooo! I love my little light and its little glow. I have mine wired to the P-15 toggle switch under the dash so it comes on when the dash lights are on.

That's a nice looking unit. I used a Four Seasons 161 74677 Heat Control Valve in the engine compartment to control the amount of hot water flow to my Mopar 36 heater. This valve has a control crank that can be pushed on and off with a dash mounted push pull knob. It was easy to splice it in line with one of the heater hoses. http://www.amazon.com/Four-Seasons-74677-Heater-Valve/dp/B000C2Q8J8

I also had my upholstery guy make a trap door in the 50 Plymouth carpet fabric. So I can raise a small flap of carpet to get to the master cylinder area.

It is running now but I need to make a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles and get its registration renewed before I venture onto public streets.

OK, today I learned if you add the proper amount of transmission fluid your transmission will start working normally. Now I can cruise down to the curb, back it up into the garage, and go out for another run, straight pipes and whitewall tires showing the style, YEAH, CUZ THAT'S HOW I ROLL! I'm just not allowed to leave the drive way.

I solved yesterday's electrical problem by using a five dollar relay to isolate my ignition circuit from the starting circuit. Now my P15 push button starter switch operates independently from my ignition switch with the car key, just like it did in 1947. So today I took a deep breath, turned the ignition key, and then pushed the starter switch with my left thumb. To my delight the engine started with a snort after barely a revolution. Wow, love that lovely straight pipes sound! The power steering pump was noisy, it needed more fluid and so I added fluid. No leaks anywhere so far. And the stock oil pressure gauge is working fine. With the front jacked up the power steering seemed to be working OK too. I nervously set the transmission into drive to move it a few feet down the driveway. NOTHING. No drive, no reverse, nothing. I checked the automatic fluid level with the engine running in neutral. It was barely coloring the bottom of the dip stick. I added a quart. The level came up a little but I still had no movement mojo. OK, I'll solve that problem later. It's late and I have had enough garage hours today. Just drive it away. Yeah, right.

To P15-D24, I am installing a 1970 Dodge 318 LA engine with a 904 automatic because my wife wants to be able to drive it. It has a stock two barrel economy carb and there are no performance parts on the engine. That is so we can enjoy the legendary reliability of this small block when we go on trips.

Grumble, grumble. After carefully restoring my 1950 Plymouth it started right up. I have had no such luck with my latest 1947 Plymouth project with its "new" 1970 Chrysler engine. My structured check list is slowing me down because all my checks are uncovering problems. 1. Pour two gallons of gas in tank and watch for leaks. Sure enough the drain plug was leaking on my refurbished gas tank. A search of the P-15 D-24 forum led me to use a 1/2 inch drive to loosen the plug. It worked fine. Thank you. I fashioned a thin cork gasket for the plug and coated both sides with silicone gasket sealer. After sitting overnight with gas in the tank there was no more leaking. Yeaah, we'll start it up next! 2. Turn the starter and check for oil pressure and other fuel leaks. Well the oil pressure gauge did not budge from zero and there were two leaks on either side of my steel fuel filter, which is between the fuel pump and the carb. Oh, and the threaded fitting going into the carb was leaking too. So I tightened the carb fitting, and replaced the light spring clamps that came with the new fuel filter with the kind of hose clamps that tighten with a screw. Grumble. Now about the lack of oil pressure. It had been years since I drove the car and I could not remember if the oil pressure gauge was working or not. By good fortune I was able to use a bicycle pump hooked to the oil line to introduce forty pounds of pressure and the gauge read correctly! Hooray, I can use the original gauge and won't have to mount a non stock aftermarket gauge under the dash! Hooray the gauge is telling the truth and I really don't have any oil pressure! The symptoms suggested my oil pump had lost its prime and I needed to prime the pump. After removing the distributor I had more problems pulling the oil pump drive gear shaft out of its hole but after some time I managed it. (Imagine a prank in a garage with a hidden camera where a mechanic is trying to pull a gear through a hole that is deliberately too small.) Then a run to the hardware store to get a length of 3/8 inch steel rod to use as a drill extension. I tediously filed a hex shape into the end so it would catch in the oil pump gear. Then with my cordless electric drill I spun the oil pump for thirty seconds or so and then the pressure came up. Then reassemble everything and get all the alignment marks to line up right. Now on my third day I have an electrical problem. My ignition switch is just supposed to give power to the coil and my starter button is just supposed to turn over the engine. But alas, when I turned the key my starter turned over. Voltage had been going through the ballast resistor back to my starter relay by a round about route through my clever new wiring. And that's where I am today, on the third day of "starting it up." I swear, if I were more intelligent I would be quite frustrated by now. But no, the vision of driving this old beauty around my home town is too close and too wonderful to give up. Other projects may go smoothly, but I see that getting my P-15 started is more of a process than an event. When I get it started you will all hear me holler, you won't need the internet.

I want to finish my mild P-15 street rod by Valentine's Day. My wife and I started dating in it many years ago and she wants it back on the road so she can drive it.

Ouch, my friends reminded me that the spark plug really does sit over a valve, not a piston. I'll think twice before I type out quick advice. Sorry.

Bummer, I rented a U haul truck and trailer to bring my baby home from 90 miles away. Paid $600 for the car. After three months I realized it was too far gone for me to be able to restore it, so I sold it to someone else. I kept looking, wiser from the experience. About a year later I found the ideal car to start with. Paid $1600 because it was 100% complete, original, minimal rust and all that. Four years of part time restoration, ten years on the road now. The good cars are out there but some times it takes a while to find the right one. Good hunting!

It is normal for there to be a little front to rear movement on the drive shaft on these cars. When you installed the lowering blocks did you unbolt the drive shaft? Is it bolted back on right, got the circular end plate nested into the rear end pinyon right?

I can't figure it out exactly but I can give you some clues. The old (and new) can shaped flasher relays work by heating up a wire inside (like a toaster wire), which makes warps a metal plate. The plate warping makes the click, click, click. And they need bulb current to do their job. If all your bulbs failed there would not be any current to make the relay click. If only one of the bulbs had failed that means less current to heat the wire and the clicking slows down. So maybe the left turn indicator bulb in your dash has burned out. That might kill or lessen the "left turn" current for front and rear. Another thing to remember is that LED lights probably use less current that the old fashioned incandescent bulbs, and may not pull as much heating current to make the relay work normally. If I were you I would check my left hand dash indicator bulb and my left front turn signal bulb. Here is a link to "How stuff works" that my help. http://auto.howstuffworks.com/turn-signal2.htm

Forty years ago the only guys who wore the hats backward were the ones who rode motorcycles. It kept the hat from blowing away. I can handle that. Everyone else looks like an idiot.

Neil, you are commenting about scrap metal in my complicated technical automotive thread! OK, I get it. From now on I will go with all aluminum billet over the counter solutions. When nothing works and my car still does not run, I will be able to take all the aluminum to the recycle place and save face with my wife. Thanks, you guys, for a good morning laugh.

I remember a TV video of Soviet freight trucks with double pane windshields. I seem to remember they were even circulating hot air in between the layers for their arctic road trips. They were prepared for blizzard conditions. I wonder how snow cats and other extreme vehicles handle the problem?