RNR1957NYer

Depends if you rubbed out the paint or not.....

I love the car!!! I looked for years to find a two door sedan. As for the paint, try "color sanding" the paint with very fine wet sandpaper: 1000 - 1500 - 2000 etc then use a polishing compound. It might seem to be a lot of sanding, but your arms will likely be less fatigued that if you went straight at it with rubbing compound, and if you use super fine paper, you won't burn through the paint like you might with a polisher if not experienced with one (I'm not). This is what I'm doing with my '41, and I am so happy it's black - I can spot in and blend any paint repairs to the older lacquer repaint. I know it's old school tech, but I am using premixed quarts of Duplicolor Black lacquer and clear through a $10 Harbor Freight HVLP gun for full panels (like when I had my hood louvered), or a Preval spray kit for small spot repairs. The nice thing about lacquer is that it's pretty forgiving under "barn job" conditions - if something lands in it when it's wet, sand and polish it out. Enjoy! It looks like you've got a lot of help to give rides too!

Very, very nice, Don!! "Phenolic saturated paper" is the description of "plastic laminate" (or Formica) - Didn't realize there was an automotive application that far back. As for woodgraining metal, Casper50's thread "Started the Teardown..." recently featured information on modern "hydrographic" woodgraining, including a YouTube link and photos of his bold and successful DYI efforts using it.

I like your idea of the pass-thru from the trunk - it worked for the '48 Chrysler Travelers! Those sheet metal hat section cross braces are doing something, but could be replaced with a more rigid open frame of scrap square tubing or 1 1/2 angle welded to the same points. Back seat.pdf

I think it was mentioned in similar strings on springs, but EATON Detroit Spring will make you front coil springs that drops the front two inches (I called them - that's as low as they will go) . The price is around $200 for the pair. I intend to go that route with my '41, with lowering blocks on the rear - the rest of the drop will be because of the big 'n little wheel/tire combo I have on the car now: 15 and 14 inchers (cuz I had them and a can of IH red paint laying around).

Back during the heyday of commercial slot car tracks, I remember the older kids using STP as a traction enhancer on the foam tires of their ready-to-run cars. Wasn't pleasing to the track owner - could make a gloppy mess of the track.

Very "period", but not necessarily low - buck; that's probably $100 worth of the cheapest pulls from Home Depot!

Another techniques from car modeling is to fill the letters, let it dry, then sand/polish the excess paint using successively fine sandpaper (600 to 3000 grit) or a paint polishing kit from Micro Mark - been taking my molding supplies out to the garage quite frequently lately.

You know, it doesn't have to be that complicated a project if you can just put the Suburban quarters on a bed with a standard tailgate, ala '57 Sweptside. Keep it in "patina" and blow people's minds over a phantom factory job!

Absolutely gorgeous!!! It's Street Rodder magazine material!

I ordered my EDGY head last summer, and it came quicker than what Earl told me to expect - even then, good things come to those who wait! An actual vintage head would have been nice, but i never came across one "in the flesh", and I never felt comfortable shelling out considerable dough base on a few photos on ebay. I haven't installed it yet (got to get together enough working capital to rebuild a 230 core I picked up for my P12), but the EDGY head sure is pretty to look at! (pardon my messy bench).

Looks good - I like your approach to the whole grille renewal! If you wanted to build up the thin metal on the crank hole cover a bit, a few coats of POR 15 should do the trick.

Very nice! That takes a good eye, patience and finesse. Are you planning on knocking off the edges when you give it a sanding? When polishing factory aluminum trim (there is a lot of it on my '66 Satellite) I found it buffed up super shiny, but eventually tarnished again. I'm about to do some again, but this time I'm going to top coat it with Eastwood's Diamond Clear - it's supposed non-yellowing and a hard finish. Another option is clear powder coat; in fact, I am considering the trying the "chrome " power coat on smaller pot metal trim pieces.

Love your narrative and photo's! You don't just have an old Dodge - that's performance art!

Hi Steve, Very, very nice looking car! Welcome - I too fairly recently came over to the "flathead side" after many years of "modern" MoPars. I second the Andy Bernbaum recommendation - they have seldom not had what I've needed, and you can talk to them. Many also speak highly of Gary Roberts, too. Fortunately, living not far from both, I don't face your shipping issues.... Good luck and enjoy!

I agree with Dan - get the "intermediate grade" glove ( 7 mil?) from HF and they are even reusable. I've used the same pair for multiple Bondo sessions, and even wiped them down with lacquer thinner before taking them off after using POR 15, and used them again. (Not that I'm cheap, I look at it as minimizing my carbon footprint!)

My personal experiences with Andy are probably moot since he sold the business. That being said, I started buying parts from him when I got my '57 New Yorker in 1978. Then I lived not far from Andy (like the next town over drive to his house to pick the stuff up close), bought mostly nos from him the first several years, and never, ever, had a bad experience or found him less than extreamly helpful. I don't have the same personal connection with the new owner, but he too has been very accommodating in the few dealings I have had (including arranging to have a faulty NOS Trico wiper motor rebuilt on his dime). I know someone else who also had good cooperation just a couple weeks ago. We MoPar guys don't have all that many places to turn, and Bernbaum's has a ton of stuff in their building - give them a call.

Thanks for the input - because the '39 unit is in the next town from me, I wanted to think it would be a good fit. I guess the search goes on....

I'm going to do a mild "period" rod of my '41 Plymouth 2 door sedan. I've picked up a good 230 from a '52 Dodge, have an Offy intake and split exhaust for it, with an Edgy head to be purchased in the near future.I have started to consider adding a Borg Warner overdrive to the swap. There is an overdrive out of a '39 Chrysler (which is tagged "bolt patten changed for '34 Plymouth") available near me. Anyone have any thoughts on how (or if) I could get this random assortment of driveline components to work?