JerseyHarold

You might have created static electricity on the surface of the screwdriver blade while moving it around in the liquid, which temporarily magnetized the tools.

I wouldn't lose any sleep over what this guy told you. He may be a 'purist' and anything that deviates from completely original is rubbish to him. You've performed a lot of work and created a very nice car. If his comments disturb you a lot, get another appraisal from someone else and see what they say. Harold

Congrats on firing it up. What do you have left to do to make it drivable?

Sorry to hear you're parting ways with the Plymouth. I'd blitz every Craigslist within 150 miles of your home town. Also, we have Cablevision and they allow subscribers one free car ad per year on their 'Optimum Autos' site. You may want to see if something similar exists in your area. Free advertising is better than paid advertising.

These guys always seem to pay a fair price for the stuff they buy. They rarely if ever really rip-off the sellers. In real life, the antique people want to pay nothing for everything.

I saw the commercial for the Plymouth episode last night. I'm planning to watch. When I first heard the title of the show, 'American Pickers', I thought it was about banjo players! It's on Monday nights at 9 PM.

I haven't heard of philly's. I'm in Freehold, which is about 80 miles from AC so I'm not familiar with the local spots down there.

The ignition coil is an electrical transformer and there is no direct connection between the low voltage and high voltage sides, so a reading of infinity (open circuit) is correct. It is filled with oil so that's the sloshing you hear, but I can't remember ever hearing a coil slosh so yours may have an issue.

Rodney, Was the show worthwhile? I ended-up working in the house this weekend.

If you take the cap off the distributor, and have 6 volts going to the coil as discussed previously, you should get spark at the points when you pull the breaker arm away from its contact. I'd use a wooden popsicle stick or similar item so you don't get shocked (although it's only 6 volts on that circuit). If you see a spark, this tells you the primary coil circuit is intact. Next step is crank the engine and see that the points open when the high point on the distributor cam (hex-shaped area of distributor shaft that the rubbing block rides on) passes the rubbing block of the points. If the points open, measure how far they open with a feeler guage when one of the six corners of the dist. cam is holding them open. Should be approx. .017" IIRC. If this is all good, do as Jon suggested and check for spark on the high-voltage wire going into the center of the dist cap. Again, be careful and don't get zapped...high-side voltage is >20,000 V, but very little current. Not fun if it happens. Re: getting gas: Do as Shel suggested and rig up an IV going to the inlet side of the fuel pump. Worry about the tank and line another time. Another thought: You may have a non-vented gas cap and the fuel pump can't pull gas because of it. Remove gas cap and try cranking with it off. I can tell you this from personal experience: Once that engine fires, you will experience a euphoric feeling better than _______________________ (fill in the blank with whatever turns you on). Harold

Sounds right to me. Have you checked to see that the points are opening and closing?One more thing (long shot time)... I'm pretty sure the coil is grounded through the case. Maybe the freshly painted clamp and engine accessories are preventing the case from grounding. If you have a screw-type hose clamp, you can strip an inch or so of insulation from a piece of wire, clamp it to the coil case, and ground the other end of the wire to a good ground. Like I said, pure long shot.

Just run a jumper wire from 'ungrounded' on the battery to the low voltage coil terminal that does NOT go to the distributor. That will power the coil. Disconnect your ignition switch to prevent any shorts from happening there. Make sure the coil is connected properly: the 'positive' low voltage terminal goes to the distributor, and the negative terminal comes from the battery. This assumes you're still 6-volt positive ground.

Another thing to try is to put a test light on the 'output' side of the relay (the cable that goes to the starter) and see if you have voltage when someone turns the key to the start position.

How old is the battery? I've seen them with intermittent internal issues that behave just like you're describing. Do your lights dim significantly when the relay clicks? If so, then it's probably a bad starter more so than the relay. Also, if you whack the starter when it doesn't crank, and it cures it, that's another sign of bad starter.

You could possibly have some air in the tube to the oil gauge that would give you a false low reading.

Use a long neck oil can and squirt some oil onto the cylinder walls through the spark plug holes (you have to aim the oil sideways to get around the valve ledge inside the engine). You don't want to do a lot of cranking with dry cylinder walls!! Leave the spark plugs out so it will crank faster.

Check Craigslist and other local classified papers. You never know when a bargain gun/compressor will show up.

I recently found out how the Ironbound section of Newark got its name. The entire neighborhood is completely surrounded by railroad tracks.

We watch the ads from Staples and similar stores and when they have a 'free (or really cheap) after rebate' sale, that's the one we get.

I'm a technical support engineer for the HVAC division of Haier America near Edison, NJ. Haier is a huge Chinese company that makes window a/c's, home appliances, TV's, and lots of other products. Our products are sold by Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Lowes, and many other retailers. I do some over-the-phone tech support to servicers repairing our units (central air, mini-splits, and furnaces), edit manuals, administer the warranty program, work on parts forecasting, etc. It's interestng work, but can drive you nuts when the weather is hot!

Here's a link to the website: http://www.acclassiccars.com/ Admission is $20. per person.....

According to my 1981 Motor's Parts and Time Guide, book time is 1.8 hours with AC, and 1.6 without. Shouldn't be too bad a job.

I'm thinking about it, but can't make up my mind. Anyone else considering it?

Joe, Did you have the tank cleaned out at some point? If not, I would suggest doing that before putting gas into it. When I tried to start my '52 after it had sat for many years, I poured gas into the tank, which made mud out of the crap in the bottom of it , which then got sucked through the gas line by the nice new fuel pump and jammed the tube. Then, the real fun began. The bottom of the tank was rusted internally and the gas started leaking onto my garage floor. When I pulled the tank off the car, I got 3 coffee cans full of crud out of it, and when I held it up you could see the sky through all the holes.

There is a threaded hole in the body of the switch and a short bolt goes in there to hold it to the dash. Leave the bolt part way out of the switch and slide it into the slot on the back of the dash, then tighten.