Edith d' Plymouth

[Ulu]

I started this build thread on the H.A.M.B. last Summer, but haven't posted much about it on P15-D24, so I though I'd start a thread here as well. Also, depending on what I end up doing with this car, it may get evicted from the H.A.M.B. as being OT. I really doubt that could happen here.

 

Anyhow, this is Edith d' Plymouth, as I bought her in the mid 80's for the sum of $3500. A 1947 P15 Special Deluxe Club Coupe.

 

It had won a couple minor trophies in Tulare and Visalia, but it also had some mechanical bugs. It was drivable, but the steering needed work, as did the brakes, trans, differential, and wiring. It had VW tires and lowering blocks (already removed when these photos were taken.) and the whole lowrider treatment with lime green crushed velour and olive naugahyde interior.

 

 

 

Fortunately the engine had been rebuilt, and ran very well, so basically I drove this car daily for 5 years, rebuilding everything else as I went along.

 

Unfortunately, when I bought this car it had bad engine numbers. Somebody had defaced them purposely, probably to conceal a theft. I was unconcerned at the time, as I had this Skylark engine and trans I planned to use. I didn't expect the flathead engine to last long, based on the overall mechanical condition of the car. It sure fooled me, and the Skylark transplant never happened.

 

After some 65,000 miles and over 5 years I put Edith aside with a wrist pin clatter. It was time for an overhaul, but I was not going to use that block with butchered numbers, so I found a running 230 Dodge engine with trans etc, for $400. Unfortunately, before I got it installed, a series of various family events delayed the restoration of Edith. Other events  and other car purchases delayed it further, and then we bought another house, moved, blah, blah, blah.

 

20 years later, Edith remains on my side driveway, un-running, and un-restored, and basically starting to rust away, when I finally found myself in the mood to work on her again.

 

 

 

That was last Summer...

Edited December 29, 2014 by Ulu

[Ulu]

The previous owner's wife was named Edith Flores. When my kids saw the glove box they immediately named the car Edith.

 

 

All the pinstriping was by Rubin of local fame.

These are all photos from last Summer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ulu]

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ulu]

I'm not able to work on this in my garage yet, so I'm under a tarp on my side driveway. Fortunately I had enough concrete poured to park 6 cars and more.

 

The first job was to move the boat, the Scout, Edith, and a collection of heavy old car parts and other junk. Once that was all juggled around, and Edith was under a roof of sorts (plastic tarp over a frame of cyclone fence parts) the actual work could start.

 

 

The first part is triage: II need to strip off all the old paint and bondo and find out what's damaged. It turned out to be more than I'd suspected.

 

There was nearly 1/2" of filler at below the license plate, on the turtledeck.

 

 

It all gets stripped to bare metal.

 

 

 

More to come...

 

I knew there was a bit of rust here below the tail light. I'm amazed that it wasn't more. 

 

 

 

 

[Ulu]

Over the course of a few weeks, I stripped the interior & exterior of the car to a bare shell, with just the rear fenders, deck lid, fuel tank and frame remaining, and two door hinges I have not got loose yet. A few of the bolts were difficult, but except for some trim clips almost everything came off easily.

 

 

 

 

I used ZipStrip and Jasco stripper to remove most of the paint. Bondo and rust were removed with wire wheels and HD Scotchbrite stripping disks. The entire car had a skim coat of bondo & there are lots of  tiny dings on all the fenders, and the fascia.

 

 

 

Edited December 29, 2014 by Ulu

[Ulu]

The disassembly and stripping proceeds:

 

 

 

 

 

Removing the carpet revealed the typical floor board rust. It's the same on the passenger side, but the rest of the floor is very solid.

 

 

Edited December 29, 2014 by Ulu

[Ulu]

More stripping. Everything bare is temporarily shot with clear paint or greased to prevent rust

 

 

 

Can you see the crack in the metal at the crease?

 

 

Here I've enhanced the photo to show the crack.

 

 

Someone had cut a door into the passenger rocker to straighten previous t-bone type damage, but never bothered to weld it closed.

 

 

The rest of the repair was flaky too. This quarter is not nearly straight at the bottom, and removing the rocker trim, paint & bondo made the damage much more evident.

 

 

There was a lot of lead here, under the bondo (bondo here shown removed) and it wasn't done too well. I'll eventually melt all this off & repair the metal correctly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 29, 2014 by Ulu

[Mark Haymond]

I'll watch your build thread! I have a 47 Plymouth Club Coupe in Fresno. Looks like you will be doing a proper job for Edith. Yeah!

[Ulu]

More stripping pics...

 

 

 

The car was initially put on a wood cart with iron casters so I can move it around. I built it from old 2x6 & 6x12 lumber. Once it was up I started removing the suspension.

 

 

 

I built a cart for the hood, the doors, and the front clip too. This will make storage and movement easier and prevent damage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ulu]

The worst rust of course was under the battery.

 

 

 

 

More to come...

[Ulu]

I'll watch your build thread! I have a 47 Plymouth Club Coupe in Fresno. Looks like you will be doing a proper job for Edith. Yeah!

 

Thanks Mark. Have we met before? Did you work for Vendo?

 

As far as a "proper job" I'll do my best, but I don't have the luxuries of a real shop. Just an ordinary suburban garage and patios.

[Ulu]

The work on Edith has been on hold for the holidays.  I've got 5 stuck screws on the passenger door hinges, and I've been bathing them in penetrating oil for some weeks now. I trashed my old impact driver trying to take them out, so I did get a new impact driver yesterday & will try again today. I suspect that I'll just have to heat them with a torch to crumble the rust loose, but I'll try it cold one more time first.

 

The only progress has been to reorganize the parts I've stripped off a bit, and I've been trying to decide on a new shape for the skirts.

 

 

 

 

I will most likely keep the visor and skirts, but at one point I was going to turn this car into a roadster, so I may change my mind.

 

There's still lots of basic body work to do before I need to decide.

 

 

 

 

 

[pflaming]

What?fender skirts, gonna put on mud flaps too? Lol

[Ulu]

No!    It don't rain here anyhow.

 

I drove this car over 60k with a flathead 6, when my intention was to swap in a V8 from the beginning.

 

Also I didn't buy this car because I liked lowriders. It was drivable, it was cheap enough and it could be hopped up, and didn't need smog inspections.

 

The truth is I don't know what mods I'll do to this car. I love the torch, & if I get started with it there's no telling where it might end.

 

Because the floor needs a little work, i was going to channel it over the frame "just because". It won't have bags or hydraulics though. The car will be light (within reason) without too many geegaws. And without the roses. (Sorry Rubin, wherever you are...everybody here loved the roses except me.)

 

But it may have a visor & flush skirts, and they may be built from old computer cases which are 19 ga mild steel.

 

And they may not. At one point I was just going to turn the shell into a roadster body & mount it on a full roll cage frame. Big tires, new suspension, big engine, big expense. Instead I put the $ into a new motorcycle, repainted my boat, did home improvements, and let the Plymouth rust.

 

At this point I'm putting cash into my computer network, my house, padding my retirement account, and the Plymouth is back on, but it's a budget project, not a billet project.

 

All these project photos so far are from 1 to 6 months ago, and not all in the right order or contiguous. When i recover from Christmas I'll get back on it in earnest.

Edited December 29, 2014 by Ulu

[Ulu]

OK, I lied. Here, it's mid-March and the Plymouth has been virtually untouched. I did pick up a few new trim bits from eBay and some new tail light lenses.

 

Mainly I've been trying to get my garage fixed up so it's clean enough for assembly work. I'm going to hang sheetrock on the ceiling Saturday, and I've spent my spare time for the last weeks getting it all ready.

 

All the old florescent lights are gone and 6 new flush LED can lights are in the ceiling. I spent a lot of time cleaning up the old wiring and added two more junction boxes to relieve some serious wiring congestion.

 

There are now LED lights on my ceiling fans too now, and I installed a 90 cfm exhaust fan in the ceiling that exhausts thru little louvers in the roof gable.

 

Judy came home just in time to see me roto-zip a 4" circle thru the wood siding LOL

 

I did go out with a pick and go over Edith's floor. I was able to punch through pretty much everywhere I expected to, but the damage seems very localized, so I'll probably just get by with several small patches rather than replacing big floor panels.

 

The weather is warming up a lot here. It'll be in the high 80's by Sunday.

Paint will bake well in Clovis this summer.

[BobT-47P15]

Glad to hear progress is being made.   The exterior of the car looked pretty good in early photos.   

Too bad it went downhill over the years.    Ah well..........now you have a project to keep you busy.

 

Keep us posted on your progress and plans.

[hansen]

Looks good Ulu,you have done a really great job.

[pflaming]

Ulu (Greg) and I met for lunch on Thursday, then spent a couple hours at his home. I saw how to make a derusting tank with a battery charger, how to strip paint from an old car body and more. I now better understand the value of removing all old paint to get a great finish. Greg is an individualist, and I like such people. One more reason I like this hobby.

Bob below: yes, you are right on all counts. To see and touch as opposed, to read about, really makes a statement. To see how the pieces of metal on the positive rods were rust free while the pieces of metal on the negative rods were eaten away is a very interesting science lesson.

Edited March 14, 2015 by pflaming

[BobT-47P15]

Paul......there should be several archived discussions and descriptions on how to make de-rusting  tanks,

electrolysis tanks and such things.  Also there are building plans on the internet for those tanks.

 

It's pretty amazing the rust and crud those tanks can eat off a piece of metal.  

[Ulu]

I'm bumping this old thread to tell you all how sorry I am that I have let go of this project.

 

It's been 5 1/2 years since I started stripping Edith d' Plymouth and many life altering things have happened in the nonce.

I'd give you a long list but I really don't want to relive it all! Suffice it to say I am retired and fully engaged in empty nest feathering.

 

Lots of improvements were made to the house and property. Nothing was done to the Plymouth, except Jasco phosphate wash, clear paint, and random oiling to preserve the stripped metal. Mostly it worked, though there is a bit new.

 

So there was this other thing. I was just going to strip and repaint this car, and reassemble it with a Dodge flathead 230 and BW overdrive trans, spicer driveshaft, and stock rear end. Stuff I already had. I was going to reupholster the interior myself, having the worn one as a good pattern. (Most of the interior was eventually destroyed by vermin, and I dumped it.) But my plans changed when I got the shell stripped bare. There was thick filler in two major places: decklid and right QP. There was thin filler on 90% of the metal.

 

In ancient times, the right rocker had been butchered to effect a pull of the damaged right QP, and never repaired. Just carpeted over. It wasn't well done, but the rocker trim and rubber covered the sins effectively. The deck lid had taken a hit in the handle, making a huge dent and warping the deck a tad. That was pulled somewhat, and plastered with filler up to 1/2" thick under the Lic plate. It never cracked but eventually would have.

 

There was also rust out in the front floors and a little under the tail lights. The rear valance was always missing. The stock engine was history. One door was not original. There's minor frame damage, etc. Many small parts had been changed over the years too. This car couldn't be restored in any true sense of the word, and certainly not for less than a better original car could be had in California today. That was the sorry economics of the situation.

 

In the end, Edith sat unloved for five years, and started to rust again. Fortunately we've had 39 of 45 years as a nominal drought, so this is not rust as you eastern folks might imagine. But the plans had to change. The only way it would be attractive for me to work on this car was to make it 100% full custom. I can't waste time re-creating what was. I can buy that, but the time is another matter.

 

I think most of the stock trim and dash, handles, bumpers, garnish, lenses, heater, radiator, skirts, visor, etc will eventually be sold off, as they are filling up another vehicle which needs work and would actually be profitable to fix. More about all that later. I'm not sure what I'll need to keep yet. But there will be major surgery. I'm going to build it into a full custom roadster.

 

Aside from that, nothing is set in stone, but I intend to reshape this car in ways unimagined by man. If I botch it, nothing real is lost but my labor. I have under $10K involved, and back when I bought for ~$3500 it was shining and lovely &, I drove it every day for 5 years! That's a bargain only possible because it was in the 80's, everything was cheaper, and I maintained the car myself.

 

So I have ideas for this roadster that I'm not going to share yet. I know this is shocking enough already, to those of you who have built up much worse cars, but I'm really intending to cut this one to bits and re-make it. If that stings, remind yourself that it had been junked at least once, and was built up from parts of various cars, when I got it in '86.

 

In the end you may well chase me off for my abominations if I screw it up.

 

But nevertheless, I will start up a new thread when I have more than a sketch and an idea.

 

 

[RNR1957NYer]

Looking forward to seeing your new vision - given your commitment to Edith and where the road of life has taken you, I for one will not chase you off.  We need MoPar full customs to show the Ford people what can be done, too!!

 

But if I may be so bold, pretty please keep it MoPar powered....

[Ulu]

There are so many interesting engines available nowadays...

Maybe it will have a totally modern engine. Maybe just the 1953 dodge I have already.

 

It may not matter what powers it, because when it's done it'll be too custom to see easily what it was made from.

 

I have a torch, unlimited gas budget, spare 19 ga steel, and no deadlines, so it may turn out to be bizarre in every way. But no ratrod nonsense. It needs to have paint!

 

 

 

 

[RNR1957NYer]

"I have a torch, unlimited gas budget, spare 19 ga steel, and no deadlines....."

 

You left out "beer"....

[scotty t]

Hey Ulu! I've been wondering where you got off too. Life got in the way of my Plymouth too.

[Ulu]

On 2/17/2020 at 11:24 AM, RNR1957NYer said:

"I have a torch, unlimited gas budget, spare 19 ga steel, and no deadlines....."

 

You left out "beer"....

 

I'm a very rare drinker. It never improves my work.