William Davey

Try Juliano's for seat belts, lots of colors, and different styles. Not too pricey.

Very sharp car, but what is the "scoop" below the front bumper?

Water dilemma in California? Then why am I buying bottled water in New York that came from California? I guess we don't have enough water in NY (Lake Ontario, the Finger Lakes, St. Lawrence, Hudson, and Mohawk Rivers - just to name a few). I'm not making this up.

I haven't driven one of these in a long time, but I think you're taking off in low range (1st and 2nd) and then moving the shift lever to high range. It sounds to me like you're in 4th gear after the shift to high. Have you tried taking off from a standstill in high range (3rd gear) and getting the shift into 4th? If my memory isn't completely wrong, the 3-4 shift would feel comfortable between 25 & 30 MPH. Other's with current experience please correct my faded memory as needed.

It might be easier to rent a tow dolly from U-haul. Then you don't have to fight rusted bumper bolts, worry about the front wheels turning correctly, only need 2 good tires, etc. Still have to disconnect the drive shaft.

PP the busses here in central NY have no green light on the back (probably not legal), but they do have yellow lights that come on when the bus is slowing and red when the brakes are on. I agree that a high center mounted brake LED and LED tail/brake lights is probably the best solution. If you're dead set on making the yellow/green lights work you'd need a switch that senses when the throttle is closed and another to sense when the brake pedal is depressed - mechanical switches are available on ebay. Wire the yellow light to come on when the throttle is closed and the brake is NOT depressed. Use the regular brake light circuit to energize the red light (straight from the brake switch, not through the signal light switch.

Dan - this won't help with the parking lights, but maybe will save you some money. On Ebay an advertiser has new complete signal light housings. Trouble is they look almost perfect, but they fit a Jeep. Can't remember the name of the vendor.

One simple test with the air cleaner removed, hold your hand over the mouth of the carb while someone cranks the engine over. It should suck your palm down with substantial force.

Search in the Resources tab at the top of the page. Also a good idea to get a factory service manual (available on line).

My second car was a '50 DeSoto with the tip-toe (klunk-O-matic). The trans had serious gear/bearing issues so I replaced it with a 3 speed from a junk yard. IMO, the car drove a lot better with the 3 speed. Of course, I'm talking about a very tired engine in a car on its last legs. My grandfather and uncle both had '50 DeSotos with with the same trans in much better cars, but they were very sluggish when starting from a stop in 3rd gear.

Fargo - in one of your earlier posts you mentioned checking the speedometer with a GPS. Since you also mention 3:23 rear axle ratio in your truck, have you checked your speedometer against a GPS? Are you really driving 60-65 or maybe significantly faster?

Tim, I once "raced" a new 58 Impala 348- 3 duces - 4 speed with my fathers 58 Plymouth (ex NY State police vehicle). The Plymouth had a bazillion hard miles on it, and my father had retarded the timing so it would run on regular gas. The 361/Torqueflite in the Plymouth absolutely smoked that Impala. I think the 409 had a reputation as a fairly good truck motor.

Is anybody else having a hard time believing that a 409 Chevy is the fastest 0-60 mph production car? In that same era there were Fuelly Corvettes, 413 Dodges, and a lot of other really fast cars. Since that time we now live in the age of 600 Horsepower Cadilacs for crying out loud.

My '55 has a screechy brake pedal. In my case I think it's because one of the PO's took the body off the frame and did not install the correct double thickness body-frame mount at the driver side front corner. Further evidence is the large fender to driver's door gap that gets wider near the bottom. Obviously not a small job, but not impossible. While I gather the ambition to fix this correctly, I took a rat tail file to the hole in the floor and gave the brake pedal some more room.

US Navy, 66-73 Nuclear Submarine Service. Never "in country", but served during the conflict.

On your shovelhead, are you sure vibration is not the root cause of the problem? I had a 77 SH stroked to 86", high compression pistons, Branch flowed heads, etc. etc. It did vibrate, but never to the point that anything actually loosened up or fell off. Maybe the crank pin has allowed the bottom end to shift out of true?

A few years ago I needed two 8 foot 2X12's for some stairs at my camp. Wanted pressure treated as the steps were on an outside deck. Lowes only had a 16 footer and would not cut it for me! They did offer to let me borrow a hand saw so I could cut it in half out in the parking lot. Obviously, I declined their generous offer!

Instead of calling the DMV, I suggest going to a small town office and speaking to them in person. If you don't get the answer you're after, try another office. The smaller offices tend to be more "liberal" and understanding - at least they do here in central NY.

I don't think you'll find an aftermarket floor shifter for a selector type transmission. As you probably know, one lever operates the toggle (selector) inside the trans that determines whether the other lever operates 1st and reverse or 2nd and 3rd. The toggle lever only moves (a very small motion) when you pull up on the column shift lever. Much different from the more typical trans where one lever operates 1st and reverse and the other lever operates 2nd and 3rd. It might be easier to find a steering column out of a later car and adapt the three-on -the-tree pieces to your column.

I like that the truck was designed to be maintained - grease fitting on the clutch pedal; grease fitting for the rear wheel bearings (just a little please). The P/U box is long and low to the ground so it's much easier to load then my new '14 Ram. I also like the little 259 V-8 that sounds neat and has really good power. And I also like the color green.

In the '70's I got caught in a snow storm in South Carolina. They got 13" and closed everything so I had to stay in a hotel overnight. The next day I took secondary roads and actually saw a DPW guy shoveling the road into the back of a dump truck! The snow in the truck was melting as fast as he shoveled it in. I rolled the window down and asked the guy why he didn't just push the snow over to the shoulder - he said "gee, that's a good idea".

If you want to repair it, I recommend Northwest Transmission in Winchester Ohio. They repaired mine.

Here's my 2014 Ram 1500 Laramie Ecodiesel. It's so smooth and quiet it's like driving a luxury car with a big trunk. Best mpg so far was 28.1 for a 550 mile trip around the Adirondacks. Tows a 6,500lb. camper with ease in the summer and is a great traveling vehicle for our snowbird trips to SW Florida.

I'm also using the stock (new from NAPA) master cylinder with the Rustyhope kit on my '55 C-3-B8. Works great with no residual valves or proportioning valves. It helps that the truck has 4.10 gears and slows really quickly just by letting off the gas.

Could a machine shop drill the hub/drums to match the 5 bolt pattern?