1949 Wraith

Did you check to see if all the wheels spun freely when they were off the ground? Still could be dragging brake or parking brake

likaleica, I don't think you will have a problem welding the plate so exhaust has free flow. Car ran great today in the upper 20's, with riser frozen in the open position. Doesn't run any different than when it is in the upper 90's

My heat riser was frozen closed when I got my 1949. I didn't realize that it was, until the exhaust manifold cracked at number 1 cylinder. I forced the heat riser into the full open position and have been driving it like that ever since. I have been driving the car in below freezing temperatures when the roads are dry and I have not had any issues with freezing gas(might be because of all the ethanol used in gas these days). Spark plugs are a nice light brown so no issues with rich mixtures. I do have a new manifold and heat riser assembly and I will install both when I get around to doing the job. My 1937 Hudson has a heat riser that you would adjust and fix in place with a nut according to the season. Not much different than I have now with my Dodge. Seems like lots of people loose the heat riser, without problems, when they do multiple carb set-ups or dual exhaust.

Flooding?

I had my '49 Dodge out the other day. It had not been started for over three weeks as we had a foot of snow and real cold temps. But a mild spell and rain had cleared the roads so we decided to go for a ride, about 28 degrees. I was kind of shocked, three pumps on the accelerator before turning the key, turned the key and she fired right up. She did idle a bit rough, but keeping a bit accelerator on she was running pretty decent. After a short warm up and a little hesitation on the first couple of shifts she ran like a charm. My heat riser is frozen and placed in the open position, as Plymouthy says having an operational hear riser should make cold running a lot smoother. Your automatic choke might need adjustment possibly. I do have the replacement exhaust manifold and heat riser for my Dodge that I was to change in the fall, never got around to it rather take it out for a ride (maybe in the spring ya right). If a car starts easy and runs fine when warm, what's 30 seconds of feathering the pedal when cold, I say the Carburetor Gods are with us and we should go for a ride.

If all your gears grind a bit you might need to adjust your clutch clearance. But it sounds like you might already have more than enough because of the slipping problem with your clutch maybe warping? Worn shifting linkage could be an issue, does it feel smooth and tight? I personally never have an issue with grinding in 1st (as long as I am not moving) but shifting up to 2nd can cause a slight grind if I am not careful. I can get around that by dropping the shift lever a little bit towards 3rd before shifting up to 2nd. I also find that the transmission does not like to be down shifted into 2nd at higher speeds. As Knuckleharley say I also highly recommend the Motors book, covers everything on the road in NA from 1935 to early 50's. Since you have a Canadian car, model specific Canadian shop manuals are best. Be careful when ordering parts especially for the drive train. Dodge of that era in the US had the 230 and Plymouth in the US had the 218, but it is still different that the Canadian 218 engine. I have problems some times even ordering parts with Canadian suppliers. I have a 1949 Dodge Special Deluxe (model in US, 1949 Wayfarer), they tell me they have no reference for my car. Then I tell them to look up the 1949 Plymouth Special Deluxe, they can find that model.

Fuel level still too high. I thought you had swapped floats before and had the same issue. The new float might have a leak as well, taking 5 minutes to absorb fuel and start sinking. Your heat riser working properly? Still with the weather this time of year probably peculation caused by the fuel level too high. Might be time to try a brand new float and float pin lock.

You could have a contaminated or worn clutch as well.

My 1941 US Chrysler with the semi automatic came standard with a 3.54 rear end. My Canadian 1949 3 speed Dodge I believe has a 3.90 rear end. Your rear end could have be swapped out with a Chrysler to get the better highway rpms. My '49 has 215/75-15 radials and the speedo is pretty well spot on with gps speed reading, so they are a good match for the original tire size. Are you sure you are starting out in first? First gear in these manuals are stump pullers it should be a breeze starting on a hill even if the rear end had been changed and tires are too tall. My '41 does have more horse power, but it is designed to start out in 3rd (under-drive of 4th) on level ground and it will shift into 4th at 13 mph and that is with the 3.54 rear end. Since your car is Canadian it should not have Fluid Drive, my '49 transmission will be the same as yours and you can start from a stop, on level ground, in 2nd easily. Have you checked to make sure none of your brakes are dragging or that the park brake is fully releasing? If your car has been sitting for extended periods your brake wheel cylinders could be sticking, causing extra drag. I would suspect something like this might be causing your car hill starting to struggle. These engines are torque monsters and should handle starting on hills in 1st even with rear end change or tall tires. Beautiful car by the way. Congratulations on the find.

Canadian Dodge's have the Canadian Plymouth 218 engine in them. Which is even different than the US Plymouth 218.

It still seems like the fuel level is too high in the fuel bowl, fuel should not be so high that it is leaking past the gasket. From your posts I gather that you have tried 2 different floats presently with one known good one from the last carb with the same results? Leaving the needle and seat, I did not see a reply on whether you were using an electric fuel pump or not. If it is an electric pump you could have too high a fuel pressure causing flooding. If it is the stock fuel pump I would check the seating of the needle, maybe even swapping out to the old one as well. When you have it apart again you can place and blow lightly through a rubber hose on the carb fuel intake to test needle operation. Showing that the float does open and close the needle in the proper range, especially stopping the flow.

You stated that you had rebuilt the carb. Did it leak before the rebuild? After the leaking issues, when you had it apart again, did you check to see if the fuel needle is actually cutting off the fuel supply when the float is at the correct level?

If it is for the fluid drive coupling. Posted by Dodgeb4ya It's slipping upon acceleration because of low Fluid Drive coupling oil or a oil soaked clutch. The FD coupling access hole and 2 plugs are located on the rt side of the floor on the side of the floor hump. Onr on the floor pan hump the other one on the bell housing . Then you can remove the 3/4" FD coupling plug after using the key to turn the engine over slowly to see the 3/4" hex plug line up with the access hole. DO NOT DROP the 3/4" hex plug down into the bell housing!!!!!! You fill the FD coupling up to the bottom of the threaded plug hole with universal tractor fluid. The literature I have seen from Chrysler does not recommend ever changing the Fluid Drive oil, just topping it up annually. Maybe this is why they never mention how much oil it takes. A lot of us use TDH tractor oil, ISO 22 or ISO 32 grade. TDH stands for Transmission, Differential and Hydraulic oil. It is supposed to be good for the transmission as well as the Fluid Drive. The trans will upshift with out the wiring hooked up but will not down shift normally..... very slow to shift down. Hold the clutch in and wait a couple seconds at a complete stop.

90-80 weight gear oil if it is a 3 speed manual. 10 weight motor oil if the transmission is a semi automatic.

You should check to make sure the idle is low enough for the up shift to occur.

I agree, I suspect they weigh at least 600 lbs. Never swapped out a Chrysler flat head 6, but I have done a couple of 1950's era Chevy 235's and they were real heavy. They don't make them like they used to.

Here is a picture of my 1949 Canadian Dodge Special Deluxe D32 grill. Very close mine seems to have a split piece on the ends above the bumper other than that the same. Looking for an "O" in Dodge if anyone knows of one. Thanks

Here are a couple of sites; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_flathead_engine http://www.allpar.com/mopar/flat.html Just google search for Fluid-drive, semi-automatic with Chrysler and you will find lots of information about the transmissions.

Beautiful car and a very nice restore. Congratulations.

My 41 came with with the buzzer. The sound is so annoying that it has me trained to disengage the parking brake before I turn on the ignition. Seems to work as intended.

Thanks again for the tip. The wipers on my 41 don't use any of the metal and I just had to trim the top section of rubber that held the metal on the blade and the new refill slid right in.

Great that you got things figures out was it hard finding the correct relay? Why would anyone wire an electric fuel pump to anything involved in the operation of the transmission?

When I first got my 1949 Dodge the shifting was stiff. There was quite a build up of crud on the linkage from grease oil and dirt. I spent some time with solvent and brushes and rags cleaning off all the moving parts of the linkage and giving them a good lube and she is smooth as silk now. When you are cleaning it move the shifter to work out the trapped gunk.

On my 41 Chrysler my horn relay also uses a HRE 4001 relay. You might want to see if your horn has that relay and swap it out to test your shifting. But you would think that the relay is used in the shifting in the low range, where you say shifting functions properly.

Does your clutch work smoothly? Can you get the car to start out smoothly if you feather the clutch differently than you used to? I had a friend try out my Dodge and he was not used to the sweet spot on the clutch and he popped the clutch and the car bucked like crazy. I figure the universal joint has some play in it, but if you let out the clutch smoothly the transfer of power to the differential works fine. Has your Plymouth been sitting for awhile? Has the universal been lubed and inspected for excessive play?