Los_Control

I'm a little confused on the number as I'm used to the 3 digit code. 25 years ago but every Monday get to work sit down with a cup of coffee and stamp out 150 new aluminum tags for the week. .... One at a time with a manual hand stamp .... insert correct dies in stamp for date that week .... the tag also included our specific shop number & date. Anyone could look at the shop number and chase it back to Fred in Spokane, he's the one that retreaded this tire! It was required, but I hated it ..... Every Monday morning set the date, insert blank stamp pull the lever and put stamp in box ..... repeat 150 times. Funny story. Had a partner we worked together for some time, he left & with another guy they opened a shop of their own. They were hungry and trying to get sales. Among others swift was one of our accounts. They ran a particular Michelin tire we could retread twice .... they had over 500K miles on them at this time ..... even though they looked perfect, they were old and never survive a 3rd retread. So we send them back as junk. Well the clown trying to create business would go through the junk pile, find those tires and retread them & get paid for it. He knew they would not last so he did not put his tag on them .... then the failed tire had my tag on them as the last person to retread it. He got away with it almost a year, took a few months for the tires to get into circulation, & then to fail ..... all of a sudden we start getting a bunch of failures that does not seem right .... our failure rate was .001 almost impossible to gauge. So Bandag stepped in and started investigating. They were at Swift when the new shop was delivering a load of tires .... they did not have their DOT tag on them. They only had our old tag on them from the last time we retreaded them. All the equipment is owned by Bandag, is leased and not sold. Bandag shut them down that very day ... then there was the court cases and lawyers ... I know the two both mortgaged their homes to open the shop ... were talking a million dollars financed to get started. They lost everything, I'm sure they have mug shots on file. The DOT tags are important .... Gawd I hated that job every Monday morning ...... stamp ... stamp .... stamp ....

Thanks I will bookmark it. I see now why I was really interested in it, I had a B1C 3/4 ton with 11" brakes and my drums were not usable. It may be possible for @jdrader2to do something similar with his 12" x 2.5" brake drums. Certainly is a more user friendly number when searching for a drum. Sad part is, it sounds like the work is being done at a shop which is fine .... Seems it would get costly paying the mechanics time experimenting & learning. They want parts that work and they have 6 other jobs waiting ..... they really do not have time to mess with this. I keep thinking of @Lorenthey may have a good solution for the bigger brakes, I remember reading about her converting one of her cars to the bigger brakes. I also feel this thread is about a 1950 B1B in the truck section of forum sounds right ..... seems they have a Desoto? rear end with the 12" brakes. Maybe some big Chryslers also had them? ..... I just feel the question with a photo to make a positive identification would get better response on the car side not here in the truck section.

Kinda sounds like the rear end has been swapped then. The B1B would have 10" drums all around, the 3/4 B1C had 11" drums. You could be right thinking it is a Desoto ..... Might be helpful to post a photo of it so others may identify it. Maybe someone who knows the cars would have a suggestion. https://www.ebay.com/itm/256080459255 But you need to know exactly what you have first. I'm kinda curious what they did with the U-joints. The trucks have the Cleveland u-joints which are a bit scarce but available .... a few years ago they were about $85 each + shipping. A lot of the cars had a ball & trunion type ... just thinking they must have done something to change the u-joint in order for it to work .... what is the question. My truck has good drums on it so not interested at this time in a rear end swap. A Ford explorer or Jeep Cherokee rear end fits these trucks really nice ..... the spring perches need to be relocated, about the only welding. I have heard some people say the Cherokee worked fine without moving the perches ...... I've never seen one in person. The older ones had drum brakes, stay with drums and would not need to mess with the rest of the brake system. Then the drive line needs modern u-joint installed to fit the rear end.`Did they already install a modern u-joint when they swapped your rear end? So that is my plan when the time comes .... A used rear end with 3:73 gears, modern self adjusting rear brakes .... can get parts at any parts store .... no special tools needed to remove the drums .... good by old tapered axles & leaky seals. Modern u-joints, a real emergency brake ..... cheaper then buying drums and better. car part.com I see them starting out at $150, the drive line shop to weld on a new yoke for the u-joint, shocks, flexible brake line .... whatever it takes to install it talk to your mechanic. your original wheels will work. Doing the work myself I figure to have $300-$400 into the swap drive line being the biggest expense .... paying someone will be more. You still have to pay them to work on your old Lockheed brakes. In my mind, adding a new rear end increases the value .... 100% original show truck? Yes keep original rear end. You have something you want to drive, the modern rear end is the way to go. In my opinion ...... pay a little more upfront, easy maintenance repairs the rest of your life .... many who own these trucks want to do the swap and never get around to it .... If I'm looking at $800 for 2 brake drums, I'm getting around to it.

You have a memory like a elephant I think about many years ago was a guy that bought jeep drums that were 10" in diameter then 2.5" wide ..... Then used a brake drum lathe to cut them down to 2" wide. .... Just saying it is possible ..... I think you need to own the lathe then choose to abuse it ..... not sure others would be happy to help you. Same time there was no brake drums available at any price ....other then used. So they did what they could & it worked for them. I know there is a thread on it somewhere in this forum .... I think I looked for it 4 or 5 years ago ..... It was so old then I could not go back far enough to find it. Totally possible is something newer & I just missed it .... I'm only suggesting there is nothing newer and more feasible that I know of ..... that does not mean it does not exist.

Yes sir ladies and gents ,,,, for just the low summly price of $450 you to can be the proud owner a a single Dodge brake drum .... But guess what!!!! For just $900 + shipping you can own a pair..... Are we not excited? ..... Do we think they will mate & produce offspring for future resale? .... Time will tell. https://www.ebay.com/itm/175579858056?chn=ps&mkevt=1&mkcid=28&srsltid=AfmBOoojCRWOkvLwH4-Z9Lvw45PpYMW46O0If29LRbWwwwFGzRGAbczhqi4 Yes they are available ..... it is such a stupid price it only makes sense if you are restoring a 100 point show car. For the price of a brake drum, you could do a modern rear end installation. ..... Dodges just do not have a good supply chain of aftermarket parts ... not like Ford or Chevrolet. So if you have a Dodge & need brake drums, either pay the price for reproduction drums .... Find some good used ones .... or swap out the rear end for better brakes.

There is no question the 56 looks awesome ..... really depends how the under side looks. Back when it was for sale???? Does this mean it is no longer for sale? The car was either pampered it's whole life in a garage before being sent to a field .... or it has had some sort of older restoration done. I'm guessing it has been repainted at least once, because of the core plugs there is a good chance the motor has been rebuilt at some point. Looks like it has a 12 volt battery .... I wonder if the original wire harness has been patched up? Or possibly a complete rewiring already done? I wonder what transmission it has in it, Is it in working condition? There are a lot of questions about the things the photos do not show. It would take a visit in person to determine if the floors are rusted out, frame rusted in 1/2. Motor locked up .... Under $3k ..... does that mean you could offer them $2500 and walk away with it? .... I paid $2k for my beat up truck and it needs everything. If the rest of the car checks out as nice as the photos .... I think a person would be foolish not to pick it up for the price asked ..... even if it was just to clean it up and driving then sell it to double your money. ..... I'm a truck & van guy not really interested in driving cars .... I would pick up that car so my wife could drive it.

Since I had DCM website open already, I just used their prices ..... sure I would shop around first though if I needed them. I was only guessing about the price of a good tap, I would not be surprised if it exceeded $160 I guess we do what we have to do, if the part was not readily available then we need to source a used one or make one ..... since it is available, it is a no brainer what to do.

The way Chad described the fiberglass on the seams .... it is a good deal to have it. The reason he gave for not sanding it down before mud is it takes time .... is a extra step. You become a faster builder if you simply eliminate that step ..... ? ..... Holy crap, at least knock the high peaks off of it! His welding fabrication is about the same .... instead of butt welding sheet metal, will just overlay it with metal and weld it in ..... makes him a faster builder. Since he is going to flood the whole vehicle with bondo anyways it just does not matter. I might watch once in awhile, just to see what he will do next ..... I really am trying to learn some of this myself and I do not want to learn from him. Same time he does get the job done ..... To each their own.

I agree 100% with @Merle Coggins I would actually be surprised if you could build one for that price. A 6' piece of DOM online is $51 then the tie rod ends are $42.50 each .... Right there is $136. + shipping. The tie rods ends are marked right & left because one needs left handed threads to adjust properly. I do not know what size threads they are but you will need both a right hand & left hand threaded tap to create threads on the DOM. If you do not already own the left handed tap, the price of that item could easily put you over $160 for parts ..... Cheaper to just buy a new one.

Ok class, lets learn the proper way to apply body filler today He builds some wild stuff, I swear he must be using drugs to even imagine what he builds. Some people really like watching him .... I can only take so much of it myself.

LOL ... do so at your own risk He just has some really strange habits, while he may use templates sometimes .... Not sure he knows how to read a tape measure. Well I need a piece of metal about this long and then cuts it out ....oops not right .... I'll just add some more to it. He never works on a work bench or a work table .... everything he does is on the garage floor. He has built some custom cars that he has won a trophy for at major shows ..... you would swear he had to be taking LSD to dream up such a creation. I'm pretty sure in a interview he did admit to having a drug problem at a early age, but he has been clean now for many years, has a beautiful wife & successful now. But everything he does walk, talk, work .... he does it at least twice as fast as he should. While he has a decent paint booth and uses quality paint materials for a final paint job .... I would suspect some areas of his cars have over 1" thick of bondo in them .... to him that is a custom car. He can be entertaining to watch ..... many people do ..... I'm just afraid some of his work might rub off on me so I had to swear off watching anymore.

OMG please disregard that link ..... there is much confusion there. Just make sure when you put the distributor cap back on that the rotor is lined up with the spark plug wire that goes to cylinder #1. Then you know you have it right. NO NO NO! If you read the manual it is sometimes very vague .... but done properly when installing the oil pump .... #1 ends up at the 7 0'clock position on the distributor. #6 is at the 1 O'clock position. If a mechanic does not follow directions when installing the oil pump, it can be one tooth or several tooth's off. .... So we can not always rely on #7, #1 ..... My #1 is at 6 O'clock position and runs fine ..... when the mechanic installed my oil pump they were a tooth off. The photo is correct in showing you the location of the timing plug ..... the rest of the thread is fud unless you can decipher the idiots from it.

Well I never read the article, I was just doing a quick image search on google to show the plug .... You might actually enjoy reading the article. https://forums.aaca.org/topic/284782-finding-tdc-on-a-flathead-six/

Here is a photo of its location with a wire inserted.

Not sure if this will help you at all. First of all I have 1949 B1B that identifies as a 1950. .... I'm guessing the 1950 - 1953 would be close to the same. I do not know this for sure. I can not measure accurately from the center of the tie rod bolt .... I have rubber boots etc .... in the way. ... So I measured from the side of the knuckle on the steering box arm the tie rod is attached to. At the point where the bend begins that you can actually see daylight is 20.5" from the knuckle on the steering arm. At the rise to the bottom of the arm is 2.5" ..... while these numbers are not precise, it should give you a good start. The tie rod ends do screw in & out to adjust length .... I think. Just hoping this helps, if you need more information ask ..... I'm not going to remove it for better measurements .... will do what I can to assist though.

I looked at the roller tires on my 49 Dodge. They are a modern radial tire but all dry rotted and cracked and need to be replaced. .... They hold air & roll. I installed them in 2018. ...... I can not read the date code on them either, just to light ..... maybe if I spit on them and rubbed them I might be able to read them. The tire that is way older possibly might be a tire that could tell you the date .... the other 3 would not hold air but the 4th could so they kept it. In the early days they only put the date code on 1 side .... now it is both ... so it may be on the back side of the tire. Still I would not get to distracted and lost down the rabbit hole on dates ..... I would be more concerned with how the engine got water in it.

I got a 1991 chebby I would trade you straight across .... you will get more horse power. Beautiful solid car, I'm all for swapping in a big block chebby with a blower and 6 carburetors ..... That car is frigging beautiful. I'm betting it would not take too much to get it running & driving as is. Fix any rust issues you might have on the floor or other places and drive it a little bit. Then decide what has to be changed. You can do drive train swaps including rear ends & upgrading to disk brakes using the factory frame. I do not know about your specific car. I will use a 1957 chebby convertible as a example. Removing the top removes a lot of body structure and strength. So the convertibles have a totally different frame with a heavy X cross member to strengthen the car up. I only assume your car has a heavily beefed up frame because it is a convertible. ..... I could be wrong .... that does limit your frame choices though. You could drop in a 318/360 engine, 727 transmission .... Ford explorer rear end. Update the front brakes to disk .... We are talking a lot of work & $$. When if you got it running and driving as is, you might enjoy it. There are several speed parts available for these engines .... Your car your choice.

From the year 2000 on, the date code has been 4 digits, the first two are the week of manufacture and the second two digits are the year of manufacture. For instance 2407 would signify the 24th week of 2007. However, before the year 2000, the date code was only 3 digits, so the first two would be the week of manufacture, and the last would be the year, so without any listing of decade, a 247 date code could either be the 24th week of 1997, 1987, or 1977 (Date stamps went back at least to the 1970s). I just learned this, 25-30 years ago I retreaded semi truck tires and we only had the 3 digit codes at that time ..... so I was thinking your tires might not be 2019. Seems obvious with the new 4 digit date codes 2019 is correct for your tires. But that is only 3 of them ... the 4th one also has a date code but may be on the inside .... probably installed to move the car around though. I vaguely remember the thread about it locked up .... For whatever reason I was surprised it was rust and where the rust was located. I'm thinking it had a carburetor & air cleaner on it? .... thats a usual spot to allow water in. If it was full of water then froze & cracked the block, then thawed .... the water could get in interesting places depending where the crack is. Just as a hypothetical guess ... yeah it could rust up in 4 years .... all guesses .... have you tried filling the block with water? Knowing how the water got where it was will help you decide what to do. One deciding factor for age on how long it has been sitting for me, Was the wheel cylinders. When I opened them up the rubber was all deteriorated and flaking white corrosion while they were completely frozen. .... I was told less then 10 years from the seller who bought the truck from a estate sale ... I'm guessing at lest 20 years for that much corrosion. You really need to become a detective here to find the problem but also what caused the problem in the first place. Rust was caused by water entering the engine .... now you need to know how the rust got into the engine .... if you are confident you have that problem solved, then move forward. That includes filling the engine block up with coolant to see if it leaks. ..... Convince your brother he needs to change the antifreeze in his daily driver .... then put his used in the flathead ?

I use to watch him .... I'm not sure why though .... Maybe just to see what he would do next? I kinda did like the car he was building for his wife .... it looked good 50 feet away. I'm sure I would feel different seeing it in person. I guess I was just fascinated at how everything he did was the perfect example of what you do not do ..... somehow in the end it works out for him though. I get a kick out of other serious youtubers. Dennis Taylor racing, he built some kind of tricycle over a weekend with some crazy V8 engine in it .... just for fun. He builds serious race cars .... on the interview about the tricycle ..... Weeeel .... I really pulled a bad chad on this build... I hear it all the time from others .... A emergency roadside repair? ..... Going to have to pull a bad chad here to get this home .... It is just becoming a common phrase over the internet.

The reason to use the pipe plug on #6, doing this particular task is exactly why it was installed on the head .... I have no idea why they did not install it on #1 cylinder though? 1, Our flatheads the spark plugs are over the valves and not the piston. So you can not insert a wire to watch when the piston is at TDC. 2, The pipe plug is smaller then the spark plug hole .... If the engine is low on compression, going through the smaller hole will concentrate the air increasing the pressure making it more noticeable. 3, The TDC timing marks on the pulley should be correct, for several reasons and 70+ years time passing, they are not always correct .... So mechanically setting it on TDC, now would be a good time to check the pointer on the pulley. If it is correct fine now you know. If not correct then fix it or mark it so next time it is correct. One problem I ran into with my timing plug. When I tried to insert the wire it was filled with carbon. I just took a nail and pushed the carbon plug out. Easy peasy. When I started the engine it sounded like a ball bearing bouncing around, then it got stuck under the exhaust valve and it ran rough as heck while the valve was pounding it into the seat for about 30 seconds before it got sucked out ....... I would not do that again! What I would do is use a small drill bit and drill a small pilot hole in it, then step up to bigger bits turning the carbon into a powder so it would get sucked out the exhaust without causing damage.

I would try a few things, first you need to clean the points. They sell a points file, or you could get by using sandpaper folded in 1/2 so it is abrasive on both sides and cleans the points top & bottom at same time. Corrosion will build up and give you a weak spark .... when done filing the points, then you need to check or set the point gap. When you are satisfied all is good the rotae engine so points are closed. Insert a piece of white paper in between the points and pull it through to clean the dirt off the surface .... a white business card is perfect for this. I only choose white because it is easy to see the dirt that you get off them and when it comes out clean you are done. You will have to find TDC in order to set the plug wires correctly. The proper way is to remove the pipe plug over #6 cylinder. ..... I use a tiny square of toilet paper over the hole .... it is light & fluffy Now when you rotate the engine by hand, coming up on compression stroke the compression will move the paper. It might blow it off the hole, or just wiggle it .... either way it is compression that made it move. Now you want a long stiff wire to insert into the hole .... at least 8" long, you do not want to lose it in the hole. Now rotate the engine slowly by hand until you get the wire at the very top of stroke ... when it starts to go down reverse rotation til it is back at the top. Now you are on TDC compression stroke on #6 .... This means #1 is TDC on exhaust stroke. .... one more complete rotation and #6 will be on exhaust & #1 will be TDC on compression. For what you are doing, just get #6 TDC on compression then remove the distributor cap and the rotor should be pointing about 1 O'clock or in that neighborhood. If it is pointing near 7 O'clock then your distributor is installed 180 out. Anyways, with #6 TDC on compression stroke, remove the cap & where the rotor is pointing that is where the #6 plug wire goes .... Then follow the firing order to install the rest of the plug wires ... just start from #6 instead of #1.

Those plugs kinda sorta look normal .... The head on these old flatheads have a dish where the plugs are installed ..... then the hoods generally leak in the rain and water gets on the engine and collects around the plugs ..... so they rust. Ive seen them get so bad that they break when trying to remove them .... while the rust on the plugs looks bad, just kinda normal for a car that has been sitting a few years. Seems several years ago AC plugs got a bad reputation for being cheap china junk ... so I do not have any around to compare the logo to.

I think the way I wrote I'm not really clear. I do live in a small town population 4300. It is just not big enough to have a walmart. But we have everything here in town thats needed. I live 10 blocks from downtown, so driving 10 blocks I will pass the library, city hall, DOL, courthouse, police sheriff & jail, post office. Grocery store, 4 gas stations a liquor store, hardware, DMV .... Everything I need is here in town. The hospital & my DR is 2 minuets away, Interstate 20 on ramp is 2 minuets away. Still walmart, tractor supply, The bigger stores are important when shopping on a budget. I feed my dogs chicken. Walmart sell nice fresh chicken at $4.72 for 10 pounds. I buy 40 pounds a month for the dogs. Also dog biscuits, they sell the large 15 pound box .... grocery store in town sells a very small box. I also buy the large tubs of ice cream, They are $3 cheaper at walmart then the local store .... I feed the dogs a scoop of vanilla ice cream for desert 4 or 5 nights a week. Just to feed the dogs it is worth the trip. So while I live in town, have all the conveniences of town, it really is not the living style for everyone. We all wave at each other as we pass on the road, people are very polite at the stores. The school district has a very nice sports arena where many after school activities are held ... I can sit on my back porch Friday night and listen to the ball game being played or the school dance .... it is a very boring life and not for everyone. My house was very decent 3bdrm 1 bath and move in ready condition, The property tax value is set at $32.5k ..... If it was located in a bigger city it would easily reach $55k-$60k .... I pay $400 per year for property tax. It sat on the market for 2 years with no sale. Price was lowered from $32k to $28k .... Wife wanted it, I liked it, I offered $25k cash to the real estate agent. I got a answer back in less then 20 minuets. They were paying the water, electricity, gas, property taxes for 2 years while the house sat empty .... These are the advantages of living in a small town .... You can buy a house a lot cheaper .... It would suck if I had a long commute to work each day. I just took a quick look at the local real estate market, saw a few houses for under $30k, saw one house in town for $850K .... Every price in between. That same $800K house if it was located in CA or Houston parts of Florida .... It would probably sell quickly around 3 million $$$ ..... not in a small town. My $25k house with fresh paint, roof, dual pane windows & storm doors is in a nice quiet neighborhood .... not some crack infested slum in the city.

It is also possible to check the DOT number on the tires for the date code. Still just a guess but by looking at how much tread left on them it can give you feel for how old they were when last driven. I figure it is safe to double the years that the seller says it sat ..... I was told by the seller they remember seeing the truck driven around town 10 years ago .... I know it sat at least 20 years in a field.

Always different complications going with a motor swap. .... The magnum V6 is a awesome choice .... you will need to build a wiring harness to work with the computer. Not to mention all the mounts & drive line. Same time you could get a old sbc 283 with a automatic trans and the old school horseshoe engine mount & adjustable trans mount ... run a carburetor Much easier installation .... would it be done in 90 days? Problem is, if you set a 90 day time limit ..... then you have no clue what engine to start with .... then you ask on a forum what engine to use ..... It's not going to happen. You have a 90 day time limit, you are confident and posting to tell us exactly what you are doing .... not asking for guidance. Just saying, be realistic in your abilities ..... I'm confident you can do it .... just not in 90 days. So what changes in 90 days? Take your time, have fun and get er done!