chrysleritis

You don't need much of a tight seal on the fill cap on the master cylinder. The caps all have a small air vent hole in them, strategically placed so as not to let dirt in. So the gasket under the cap can really be any old thing as long as it does the job of keeping out crud. DIY cork or fiber should be fine, and I've had some janky-looking homemade gaskets on there over the years. Probably you're the only one who sees it! I prefer fiber, since it won't flake apart like a cork one might, which would land you back in the same place as with your piece of o-ring...

Hey, while I was crawling around under the car, it needs some new bushings on the front and back sway bars. Rock-hard, cracked rubber, not really doing anything. In the photo above, AndyD, you look like you have some fancy blue polyurethane bushings there, perhaps a MOOG product. If it is MOOG, can you tell me the product number on that and maybe save me some trial and error? There are some reproduction sway bar bushings available for these cars, but they look to be made of pretty undistinguished stuff. I have the snazzy urethane bushings on another car, and it really made for nice handling, so I'm interested in an "updo" on these. Thanks, if you can.

New motor mounts in! The previous owner or garage had installed the bolts in from the bottom, with the nuts on the top. Pro tip: it's very hard to install new mounts this way. It's much easier if you just bite the bullet and remove the floor pan so as to have access to the top of the clutch housing so you can get everything back into alignment. Old upper mounts were oil-soaked and gooshy, and one of the spacers was broken at the weld joint. Next up: replace speedometer cable with a NOS one I found in the pile of parts. I apparently bought it in 2005 for $40 and it is in great shape compared to the old one coming off. Replace parking brake cable -- old one has a broken strand that not only catches when you set and release the brake, but also catches me in the scalp whenever I shimmy under the car. Replaced pinion seal on the differential, and the transmission output seal. Parts are going back on the car. Fluid drive received back from rebuild. Now need to actually buy the magic fluid. And I think I need copper sealing washers for the fill plugs.

Fluid drive unit was shipped out in June. It's in the rebuild queue, should have it back in a couple more weeks. I think I have finished the stage of the project where you clean everything. No small task. Very messy and time-consuming for the home mechanic, but I feel like I'm better, faster, and tidier at this than I used to be some years ago. I'm annoying my wife less with the greasy filth, for sure. While everything is pulled off the drive line, I'm gonna address several of the leaks. (Today I passed by a cruise meet-up of Pontiac GTO's and those guys were all comparing notes on how many drip pans they have on the garage floor.) I have a pile of new parts to put in, including the rear crankshaft seal, rear output seal for the transmission, pinion input seal for the rear end, new gaskets for the oil pump, new universal joints, new grease seal for the propeller shaft. The propeller shaft was a real mess, so that got blasted and repainted. Clean and re-grease the clutch torque shaft and all the linkages and cranks. Fresh clutch disk to replace the fully-greased one. Clean up the transmission case. See if I can fix whatever is funky with the shift rail and fork that makes reverse gear not want to stay there. Propeller shaft before: Prop shaft yoke getting unstuck, which was bad: Prop shaft after: Transmission very dirty: And cleaned and painted. It's the little-known R7B-1 overdrive. Feels like I'm making good progress

Oh sure, you can just grab a length of steel stuff from the local auto parts joint. But if you have leftover nickel-copper stuff from the brake job, that's nice.

I think the short answer is no, nobody is remaking them. I've done both silicone molding from originals and 3-d printing and have had some success with both. The 3-d printing worked very well for simple forms on rear door and rear vent window trim panels. I made bunch of measurements and tracings, turned them into a CAD drawing of the pieces, and electronically sent the job to a 3D print shop. There are lots of colors available for the plastic material, or you can paint what you get to be the color you want. You'll want to spray some clear coat on them anyway, probably, for a little more UV protection, although the modern 3D print materials can be pretty good in that regard. The 3D printed pieces I got back did require a little hand-sanding to smooth the machining lines out, but that worked very well. I did have to invent a method of attaching them to the door/window molding pieces, but the the 3D plastic printed material drills and taps easily, so that worked well. For the more complex pieces, I tried some silicone molding, using an original piece. For that, I had to doctor up the originals to fill cracks and holes and stuff with a little body filler. And making good molds that pick up all the detail is tricky. I wound up making several different molds and several plastic castings before getting something satisfactory, which then got a little paint to look the way they should. So: 3D print simple stuff, try casting more complex things. Silicone-molded steering wheel insert here on 1941 Chrysler. 3-D printed garnish molding pieces as received from printer: And installed on re-painted moldings:

Often you see various conversion fittings on those things that have accumulated over the years. For what it's worth, my Chrysler parts book shows that in 1938, there was a standard nipple coupling that converted the double-flare tube fitting to the female input to the distributor vacuum chamber and also on the other end to the manifold. The manifold likely has the 1/8-27 pipe thread. They wanted you to use double-flare tubing for the oil gauge line, the distributor vacuum line, and a couple of places in the brake system. I think 3/16" tubing is right, and the flare nuts are 3/8-24. And yeah, leave extra length and use the flexy nickel-copper tubing.

And now that it's been cleaned up in preparation for re-build, should the fluid drive unit be painted? It looks like there's some remnants of black paint on there, and if I mask off the important bits, should I spray it?

Thanks, that was the technique. I got out "the good crowbar", and applying the principle that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time, you have to just persuade the crowbar to be where the other thing currently is. The fluid drive weighs 51 lbs, although it might still have a bit of oil left in it. Once it broke loose, I slipped the transmission jack under it to get it down and out without trying to heft the thing on my chest. This step concludes the teardown process and represents the point of maximum number of parts all over the floor, so it's all gravy from here. Now have to concoct a shipping crate arrangement to send it out to be re-sealed. The rear crankshaft seal is fortunately not the dreaded rope type, and is available as Best Gasket kit #3774, replacing Mopar #695786.

Need a little info from Fluid Drive Whisperers -- anyone who has pulled one of these units out before. All the prep work is done. Large pile of parts neatly on the floor in the garage, fasteners sorted and labelled. I've pulled out the propeller shaft, transmission, clutch, clutch fork and throwout bearing, lower clutch pan, removed the oil pan, and I got those booger nuts off the studs that hold the fluid drive unit onto the crankshaft flange. Best tool: 5/8" flare nut wrench and a short cheater pipe. The manual says, "Remove drive flange stud nuts and pull fluid drive unit back free from crankshaft flange. ... After removing nuts, fluid drive and clutch driving plate may be withdrawn from clutch housing." The fluid drive unit will not budge and seems to be good and stuck on the crankshaft flange. Can I safely pry on anything, like between the studs and the engine block? Is there some trick to this? I don't think I wanna whack or pry on the fluid drive unit body with anything very hard. Any advice appreciated.

That's really a find and looks to be in good restorable condition. Running? Good luck and have fun with that!

I am now well and truly into this job. It's most definitely the fluid drive leaking. Have pulled out the propeller shaft, and now the transmission. The prop shaft needs attention -- needs new U-joints for sure (cross-type U-joints for an 8 cylinder car are hard to find and $$$), and the slip yoke is pretty stuck, although it has moved a bit. I think I can get that loose and cleaned up and regreased with the help of a ratchet strap and a sturdy anchor point. The transmission slid out without too much difficulty. Now it is a large pile of parts on the floor, and I still have to remove clutch before getting to the fluid drive. When I ship out the fluid drive for repair, that will be some down time, so I will also replace at least the rear motor mounts while I have everything out, and there is a brake line which is now completely accessible, and heck, the brake master cylinder is now 20 years old, and it probably needs at least a rebuild kit. There's so much room under here with all this stuff pulled out. How do you know where to stop on repairing stuff? Transmission out. Thanks, cheap transmission jack. Third time I've used you. Not the best tool, but good enough. There's really a LOT of oil in all the things. Transmission, overdrive, engine oil, and fluid drive (6 3/4 quarts for the 8 cylinder unit). There is a trip to the household haz waste drop-off facility in my near future. I've got some electronic junk to go, too. There's a big hole where the transmission used to go. One bummer is the carpet nails sticking through the floor pan. I think I will be re-cutting this gasket myself, as I can't find a store-boughten one available anywhere.

Yeah, just did this job. I used a box-end wrench from below, and didn't have a lot of swing room, but it came loose just fine. No kind of socket would fit up there, and I'm putting off pulling the floor panels till later. I find that prep work under the car up on jack stands saves a lot of time and effort. Get the car up as high as safely possible, get plenty of light under there, bring plenty of tools with you under the car, use a good creeper, etc. And of course, the admonition to remove the pain in the ass fastener first so that the last one, which may be holding up the heavy part, is an easy one to do.

1941 Chrysler New Yorker, C30, inline 8. The drip, drip onto the garage floor has become too serious to ignore any longer. The last time I started up to check to make sure I no longer had an intake vacuum leak (I didn't), I ran the engine for 5 or 10 minutes, all seemed good, and shut down, but then on the way out of the garage, noticed a shiny new puddle of about pint of oil on the drip pan. It's from the clutch/fluid drive housing pan, or at the very least the rear of the engine, except it's clean oil. Pulled the pan off and it's the dreaded fluid drive unit leak, and it seems to be from the middle of the unit, at the back end, toward the clutch, and not from either of the fill plugs. Drat. Wish me luck, it's all gotta come off and then ship off the fluid drive unit to a guru to install a new seal. I envision many weeks of a lot of parts on the floor. But hey, it's an opportunity to repaint the propeller shaft and replace mushy motor mounts. Questions: Can I replace the fluid drive seal myself, or is it best left to someone who has done a few of them? Is Andy Bernbaum still rebuilding these things with fresh seal kits? There was some other shop mentioned, in upper midwest, I think, who refurbished fluid drives? Does anyone in northern California have the remainder of a recently purchased bucket of the magic Mobil 104743 DTE Oil, Light Circulating? How about a clutch alignment tool? Is that a truly necessary tool for getting the transmission and clutch all lined up and bolted up, or can I just struggle it together?

Me too with the no vote on the Mi-T-Vac. Just worthless for vacuum brake bleeding. And brake fluid seeps into the hand pump and necessitates taking it apart and cleaning it out. I use it for other things around the shop, though. I've had good results with the Speed Bleeders -- the bleeder screws with the ball check valves in them. That turns it into a one person job that takes very little time and you just rig up a catch can with an old plastic peanut butter jar and some silicone tubing. I've also had good results with a garden sprayer-type pressure bleeder, but I find I really have to carefully clean ALL the DOT 3 brake fluid out of it, or else the whole thing is a mess when I come back to use it the next year.

Often on these things, the starter will spin no matter what position the switch is in, but the ignition switch switches on the ignition. So unless the ignition switch is in the "ignition" or "run" position (clockwise, right), there's no current flowing through the ignition coil to make spark, so it will not fire up. Little toggle switch under the dashboard there should control the brightness of the instrument panel lights when the headlights are on. It's usually 3 positions: off, dim, and dimmer. Assuming the instrument panel bulbs and the wiring are still good...

Andy Bernbaum has started carrying reproduction, original style rubber floor mats which aren't original looking for the trunk, but they do have the right era look, in my opinion, and you might be happy. Not cheap for a trunk mat, but your other choices are pretty clear. Lots of places to get ridged rubber matting by the yard that are close to the 1941 pattern. https://www.oldmoparts.com/parts/c-interior-rubber/reproduction-floor-mat/ Restoration Specialties has a pattern which is pretty similar-looking and not too expensive https://www.restorationspecialties.com/MAT017-WS-Sold-By-The-Foot_p_36898.html

Just giving a heads-up that someone is selling a lot of seven door rotor repair kits over on the ebay. They do give new life to old door latches. https://www.ebay.com/itm/204584409457

Yeah, I've read through your reaming and bushing schemes! It does sound like you might have to back up a bit and re-think. There was some failing paint and surface rust on the back side of the hinge frames, so I cleaned and re-shot, since I hope to not have to get back in there for a while.

Ditto for Restoration Specialties. They have them. They have lots of weird fasteners.

I thought I'd share the experience with my front driver's side door alignment issue on my 1941 Chrysler New Yorker (C30). It had been one of those doors where it hadn't closed right in years, you had to slam it just so, and it would latch only every once in a while. It was to the point where to save trouble, I usually climbed in the passenger side and slid across. Not a good look. So for this winter's rainy season project (but then it didn't rain for the last couple months anyway, but that's a different issue...), I thought I'd tear into it. I last had it apart a couple years ago while putting in new door panels and windlace and window channel, and I improved things a bit by adjusting the door position at the hinge straps and the striker plate on the B pillar, but it didn't really last. I figured it was either: worn latch mechanism (most likely, very common), "frame sag" at the pillar (not likely on a 4 door with minimal rust issues) or something else. I did not suspect the hinges, because the door, when opened, did not wobble or rock on the hinge pins -- it seemed snug, but the door would just not swing closed into the B pillar. You really had to push on it or slam hard and it wanted to spring back open. I figured I would just tear down the whole thing and start from the frame. The car has the pocket hinges with the pins recessed into the pillar, shown in the Master Technician booklet at https://www.web.imperialclub.info/Repair/Lit/Master/025/page15.htm Very helpful booklet. I also read through all the posts I could find on the forums about doors and latches and hinges. Also helpful. I lurked on eBay to find Roto Lokit kits or latch mechanisms. Remove garnish molding, window crank, handle, armrest, door panel, lower window channel, window glass. Remove door check by drilling out 1/4" rivet at door pillar, then remove check from inside door. Remove door by removing hinge plates from door. Set aside door. Remove hinges from pillar -- these required phillips head impact driver and penetrating oil. The floating nut plates in the pillar were all stuck in place -- no adjustment had been possible, but those worked loose with penetrating oil. These adjusters had not been moved in many decades. The hinges moved freely out of the car, but I thought they bore investigation. I had a tough time trying to drive the hinge pins out and finally had success with an impact wrench turning the screw on a hinge pin removal tool and mangling through a couple of dowel pins to drive out the hinge pins. Both upper and lower hinge pins were really bent, but not particularly rusty, which explains why the door just did not want to swing fully closed. It's tough to see how they still functioned, and I'm not sure how they got that way unless someone really swung on the door or wrenched it badly. Clean and repaint hinge parts. I had trouble finding suitable replacement pins. They are nominally 11/32" diameter and 2 1/4" long. They measured 0.341" actual diameter (on a straight section). There are lots of pins out there in Dorman land which are nominally 11/32", but most of those come in at 0.337", which was too loose. A couple of old Mopar places have things which claim to be 0.340". I ordered three different Dorman hinge and bushing kits at $4 a pop, and one of them had good steel pins that were 0.3425", which was what was needed after driving out the old pins and reaming the hinges. I had to cut the pins to length and grind a bevel on the ends. They pressed in just fine. Plenty grease. The latch mechanism, which I suspected was trouble from the beginning, just needed a little cleaning and fresh grease. I used a dremel tool to smooth off the worst of the ridges on the star wheel. The door is now amazing and swings perfectly closed and will latch with the slightest push after adjusting the striker plate, and finally is aligned in the opening and with the rear door and the belt line molding pieces. The takeaway here is that it was the hinge pins which were badly abused, and not the latch mechanism, which is still fine, but which is often the center of attention on these old doors. The other moral of the story is that the pins were terrible to drive out, but they did yield and the other hinge parts came through just fine. Other moral is that you may wind up hand-selecting pins of correct diameter or else re-drilling and reaming to a new diameter. Now just have to put the rest back together.

I've played with LED bulbs a lot for fun. I'm stock, 6 V positive ground, generator with the old-style voltage regulator. In general, the products are good for 12 V applications, not so much for 6 V. They would work much better if you are running an alternator as opposed to a stock generator. With a generator and old-fashioned voltage regulator, they flicker annoyingly. It's true what they say about turn signal flasher bulbs. You'll never get the LED's to work with the old mechanical (bimetallic) flasher. They don't draw enough current. Your problem with the bulbs sort of working depending on how they are installed in the socket may also be related to how the wiring is in your car at this point. Lots of times, people get the two-filament bulb sockets wired up wrong in re-wiring work. I do have LED bulbs in the dashboard and indicator lights, where they work very well and really brighten up the dash after dark and save a couple of amps of current. Stuff like the high beam indicator, turn signal tell-tale bulbs, radio, they're great and colorful. The third brake light add-ons are good. But the main exterior lights on the car -- not so much. Not enough of a market for 6 volt, positive ground LED bulbs for the products to really be good.

I just replaced the 6 volt coil in my 1941 8 cylinder Chrysler. It took me a stupidly long time to diagnose the bad coil, because in my mind it was a relatively new replacement coil -- I put it in in fall 2019, and have only driven it maybe 1000 miles since then. Anyone have an opinion as to why a relatively low-miles coil would fail? It was a new 6 volt coil from the local auto parts store, not old stock. Junky part? Bad condenser overtaxing the coil? I replaced the condenser while I was at it, and disassembled, checked, and cleaned the distributor -- the breaker plate was really sticky on its bearing anyway. But I'm curious as to why the coil failed so soon.

The fluid drive temp should be no problem. The radiator and cooling system, if in good condition, should also be no problem. I have had problems with fuel flow/vapor lock/heat soak in stop and go, parade type traffic. Many of our cars are now missing the heat shields that kept the fuel pump, filter, and carb base cool, and over the years, owners may have gotten a little sloppy with fuel line routing in the engine compartment. Depending on your setup, you might consider worrying about this issue. Of course, the real problem in heavy traffic is that someone will dent your big fenders. Driving would be a lot more fun without all these other knuckleheads on the road.

Check your ignition coil. I'm glad I did. It's cheap and easy to replace. Mine performed about like your problem sounds. Started with effort, idle a little rough-ish, but the main problem was stumble coming off idle once it was warm.