New guy checking in.

[Feudin_Wagon]

Howdy all! Let's see... where to start? My first car was a 1952 Chevy Coupe and I really dig the style of the late 40's - early 50's cars, so I've been looking for a new toy. Something that was in good shape, but not too nice to drive all over. Wasn't concerned too much with brand, as long as it had that look. Well, all of my drunken craigslist perusing paid off in the form of a 1949 Dodge Meadowbrook! I don't know much about these cars, so these forums have been very enlightening. 

 

 

By my estimation, this car hasn't run in well over 30 years, so I figured I might be in for an ordeal, but I got the old girl running after about an hour with a new distributor cap, rotor, and condenser by pouring gas down the carb. I checked the gas tank with a bore-scope and was amazed to see it was absolutely pristine inside, so I replaced the hose, added a filter, and dumped 5 gallons in and took her for a spin around the block. Didn't want to go much further because it has no brakes, other than the handbrake. I've honestly never seen an Iowa car with this little rust. Even the brake line fittings were still free at the master cylinder.

 

Plans are to fix the leaky carburetor (it's out right now awaiting a kit), replace the fuel pump that was filling up the crankcase with fuel, service, fix some leaks and the brakes and just drive it.

 

I removed the oil pan today and cleaned about 1/2" of sludge out of the sump. It took longer to chip all the dried up grease and dirt off the oil pan than to actually replace the gaskets and clean the gunk out of the inside. Inside of the oil filter housing was the same story, about 1/2" of nasty sludge settled in the bottom. Suppose I'll just see how it goes and cut the first oil change interval down to a couple hundred miles.

 

Looking forward to getting to know this old car, and this old car forum better!

 

[windsor8]

Hello and welcome. The old girl looks pretty good. I got my 48 Dodge in Iowa. Have fun.

[greg g]

Sounds like a plan.  Most carb leaks are caused by incorrect float setting and or stuck or dirty needle and seat valve.  If you want to yu can true the top bit of the carb to get a good gasket seal by putting a piece of sand paper on a piece of flat glass and giving a few stroke to get bright metal all the way around the mating surface.  When you take the carb apart mind the check valve balls in the accelerator pump inlet and outlet.  they have a habit of trying to escape.

 

Your plan of getting it mechanically sound, running, driving and stopping is a sound one. One other thing on your list should be to check any and all grounds you can find and make them clean and tight, And its is a good idea to run a ground cable from the body to the frame or the engine.  Also please remember it should be Positive ground if its still 6V, and the primary cables from the battery to the solenoid, and the solenoid to the starter should be a minimum of 1 gauge cable, 0 or 00 are better still.  Many cars over the years have had these cables replaced by 12 V stuff which just will not carry the current 6V requires.

 

You will find your Plymouth to be over engineered in most areas, simple to work on (with the exception of the rear brake drums) and reliable to run.   Another common problem is rust in the tank and fuel lines. a blast of air back from the fuel pump inlet toward the tanks will clear the pick up area, and extra inline clear fuel filter can give you an idea of what you are working with.

 

Welcome and good luck.

[Young Ed]

You will find your Plymouth to be over engineered in most areas, simple to work on (with the exception of the rear brake drums) and reliable to run.   Another common problem is rust in the tank and fuel lines. a blast of air back from the fuel pump inlet toward the tanks will clear the pick up area, and extra inline clear fuel filter can give you an idea of what you are working with.

 

Welcome and good luck.

 

That applies to your Dodge too

[Bingster]

Where are typical grounding points?

[greg g]

where ever a circuit passes through a load and then returns via the sheet metal.

 

Sorry I missed the deal about it being a Dodge.  My father had a 49 Meadowbrook 2 door.  It was the first car I have a memory of, might have been the same color.

 

I will add a note to your list.  Make sure you have a functioning emergency brake (or a suitable wheel chock)  if it has fluid drive, there is no compression breaking with engine off.  Don't let your Dodge visit a neighbor of its own accord.

[ptwothree]

You should also check the floor pans, rockers and body mounts for rust. Everything else can be dealt with but rusted thru parts can be a big pain.

[DonaldSmith]

It sure looks like a 1950 Dodge, from the rear fenders.  The '49 Mopars have the tail lights on the fender seams. and the trunk seems to stick out.  The '50s and later have the fenders extended back past the trunk, and the lights are on the ends of the fenders.  (My dad had a '50 DeSoto.)   I didn't check front grilles. 

 

Other threads have discussed the practices of various states on the registrations.  Cars manufactured in 1949 would be registered as 1949, even if they were the new '50 models.  Feuden Wagon, be sure to check your serial numbers when ordering parts.  You may have a '50.  (Serial numbers are another topic, engine vs door post.)

 

Oh, and welcome to the forum.  Lots of good info here, and some laughs from time to time.    

[knuckleharley]

"Howdy all! Let's see... where to start? My first car was a 1952 Chevy Coupe and I really dig the style of the late 40's - early 50's cars, so I've been looking for a new toy. Something that was in good shape, but not too nice to drive all over. Wasn't concerned too much with brand, as long as it had that look. Well, all of my drunken craigslist perusing paid off in the form of a 1949 Dodge Meadowbrook! I don't know much about these cars, so these forums have been very enlightening.

 

By my estimation, this car hasn't run in well over 30 years, so I figured I might be in for an ordeal, but I got the old girl running after about an hour with a new distributor cap, rotor, and condenser by pouring gas down the carb. I checked the gas tank with a bore-scope and was amazed to see it was absolutely pristine inside, so I replaced the hose, added a filter, and dumped 5 gallons in and took her for a spin around the block. Didn't want to go much further because it has no brakes, other than the handbrake. I've honestly never seen an Iowa car with this little rust. Even the brake line fittings were still free at the master cylinder.

 

Plans are to fix the leaky carburetor (it's out right now awaiting a kit), replace the fuel pump that was filling up the crankcase with fuel, service, fix some leaks and the brakes and just drive it.

 

I removed the oil pan today and cleaned about 1/2" of sludge out of the sump. It took longer to chip all the dried up grease and dirt off the oil pan than to actually replace the gaskets and clean the gunk out of the inside. Inside of the oil filter housing was the same story, about 1/2" of nasty sludge settled in the bottom. Suppose I'll just see how it goes and cut the first oil change interval down to a couple hundred miles.

 

Looking forward to getting to know this old car, and this old car forum better!"

 

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

 

WOW! You really know how to start out running! Seems like most of my cars came home in boxes with no engine or trans in them. Wish I were as smart as you.

Edited February 7, 2016 by knuckleharley

[Phil Martin]

I agree it's a 1950 like mine. is it gyromatic or 3 speed behind fluid drive?

[soth122003]

Welcome to the forum. Since you cleaned out the oil pan and filter housing, you might want to add about 1/2 a quart of Seafoam engine cleaner to the oil and run it for about a hundred miles before your first oil change. This will clean out the rest of the oil ports and journels you can't get to short of a rebuild.

 

Joe

[Feudin_Wagon]

Thanks for the warm welcome and good advice all. Good eyes too! Looking up the serial number, it turns out this is definitely a 1950 model. Title and all paperwork say 1949, but the serial number on the car matches the paperwork, so that's the important part. I'm not gonna mention it to the DOT though, god knows what that would entail, so as far as they know it's a 1949, haha.
 
Sorry if I ramble in these posts, but I'm kinda writing this stuff here as a way to keep track and chronicle what I'm doing to the car, for better and for worse. It's also something I enjoy, and I value the advice and feedback. So here goes.
 
Remember a few sentences ago when I said "for better or for worse"? Let the butchery begin.
 
Didn't get much done today as all of my cleaning yesterday came back to bite me. Last thing I did last night was fill the oil canister with oil since I was done working on that part of the car. Or so I thought. I didn't fill the oil pan since I've still got some work to do and didn't want to contaminate the new oil. Walked into the shop today and saw a nice puddle of fresh oil roughly under the starter. Great. Traced it back up to the oil filter canister and a little tiny pinhole in the bottom of it. I noticed last night there was some pitting there, but didn't think it was that bad. So I pulled it off the car and cleaned it up with a wire wheel and started poking around with a pick. Uh oh.

That's the inside of the oil filter canister held up to a light. Now I'm not really well versed in the constellations, but I'm seeing Big Dipper, or maybe upside down Leo? Either way, not cool to see a bunch of pinholes in something that is supposed to hold oil. This isn't something the local Napa stocks, cool beehive ones are like $200, and I can't braze worth beans, so out came the mig. Yeah, I turned it down to low and welded all those little holes up. I filled it up with solvent to check my welds and set it in the vice overnight. Will report back later on if it held. Looking at it though, I think it might be fun to try to make my own beehive style housing myself. So hopefully my hacked together welded assembly will hold 'til I get time to try it out. 

 

Of course, this led me to taking a better look at the oil pan. Crap. Crap crap crap.

Before

 

After

 

After some poking around with the pick. D:

 

Well, this is where I explain to you all that I am a very lazy man. And as stated earlier, brazing isn't my strong suit, especially upside down, 'cause no freaking way I'm dropping that pan again. Luckily I hadn't filled the pan with oil yet, and I could see with the bore-scope that the pitting inside was minimal, confined to about 1/2" by 1" area. I didn't see this when I had the pan out because the baffle blocks this part. That's my excuse... ahem. Anyway, there was only a tiny bit of solvent left in the pan, so I cleaned it up with a rag and compressed air. Have I mentioned how handy a bore-scope is? Total magical tool brought forth by witches and sorcerers I think. Anyway, with the bore-scope I was able to check inside through the drain plug hole and see how things were going. Once it was dry and I'd ran some air in there for a bit I decided that welding was the way to go. I am glad to report that there were no explosions, fireballs or other shenanigans. All went fairly smoothly I think. Afterward I used the scope to make sure no welding slag got in, and even ran a rag coated with grease in there just to make sure, but it looks good. I added some solvent to this too and will check in the morning to make sure it's leak free. As an aside, if I had filled the oil pan with oil I wouldn't even have attempted to weld it, as that seems to be a recipe for disaster. Removal, re-cleaning and then brazing/welding would be the only way to go. As it is, I think it turned out OK. Not my best work sure, but sometimes working on old heaps mean that you have to improvise. Especially if you are lazy.

 

So yeah, maybe tomorrow I can work on the brakes?

 

 

 

 

[knuckleharley]

"Thanks for the warm welcome and good advice all. Good eyes too! Looking up the serial number, it turns out this is definitely a 1950 model. Title and all paperwork say 1949, but the serial number on the car matches the paperwork, so that's the important part. I'm not gonna mention it to the DOT though, god knows what that would entail, so as far as they know it's a 1949, haha."

 

My advise is to stay silent for the time being,but when you go to re-register the car next year,take the title to the DMV with you,and tell them they must have made a typo when they issued the title to you last year because your car is a 1950,not a 1949. I did this with a all matching number 1939 IHC that had a 1937 title with all the 1939 numbers on it,and had no problem at all. Yeah,a two digit type is a little harder to swallow,but if all the numbers on the title match the 1950 numbers on the car,what can they say?

[Feudin_Wagon]

Forgot to address some earlier questions... Floorboards, rockers, body mounts, etc are in very good condition. Found one small hole in the drivers floorboard forward of the master cylinder access panel (about the size of my thumb), and one rust spot probably about 1.5" wide and 5" long under the right rear tail light on the flat part above the bumper fill panel. It's a fluid drive with the three on the tree.

Edited February 8, 2016 by Feudin_Wagon

[Young Ed]

That happened to me with my 48 too. All the gunk in the bottom had those holes sealed up. Once it was all cleaned out it was leaking.

[Feudin_Wagon]

It holds liquid again! My hack job welding on the oil pan and oil filter canister held!

 

I had a slow day at work Monday so I got a little Dodge time in. Got the new and improved leak free oil canister installed. Cleaned out the interior with a shop vac and found a rat toilet. Seriously, the entire rear seat under the cloth was nothing but rat poo and nests. I filled up a 20 gallon shop-vac with crap. Literally. I had to go home for lunch and take a shower and change clothes, I felt so gross. Yuck. I am seriously considering just lighting the rear seat on fire and grabbing the metal bits afterwards. Nasty! For now, I threw it in the back of my brothers pickup and he's airing and blowing it out on his commute to and from work on the gravel roads, haha.

 

Next project was trying to install the new dual pot master cylinder, that's why I wanted the interior cleaned out. I have read forums and web pages and asked old timers for advice, and my head is spinning with how to do this and it's kind of overwhelming. So... First I called ECI to ask about one of their kits, but they don't have anything for the factory drum brake setup. Then I looked around here and saw that some people were gutting out the stock master cylinder and extending the rod through to a new master cylinder mounted behind it. That's the setup I decide to try out. In the future I plan on probably going four wheel disc, so I wanted to future proof this installation. So I bought a master cylinder for a 1968 Corvette with manual disc brakes and am adding 10psi residual valves in both lines. I'm hoping this will work OK. In the future when I add disc brakes I should be able to just swap out the 10 psi residuals for 2psi. That's the plan anyway, let's hope for the best.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Feudin_Wagon

[Feudin_Wagon]

Also, the car smells much better already

[knuckleharley]

Also, the car smells much better already

I hope you thought to wear at least one of those paper face masks sold at hardware stores while cleaning out the rats nest and cleaning out your vacuum cleaner. The dust from those nests can pass some nasty stuff on to your system.

[Feudin_Wagon]

One step forward and two steps back. Or, Ouch today was expensive.

 

Got some more done on the '50. Carb is all rebuilt. Fuel pump has been replaced. Serviced the fluid drive torque converter. Installed the new master cylinder and fabbed new brake lines to install residual valves. Almost managed to get the rear brakes bled before brake fluid started pouring out the front wheels. Great. Said "screw it" and ordered up a Rusty Hope kit. 

 

Since the brake fiasco had me stalled out I decided to address the oil pouring out of the timing cover seal. I ordered a complete timing cover gasket set and had it on hand, so I figured I would just replace the timing cover gasket and seal all at once. That's when I discovered the timing chain and sprockets are pretty much worn out. This kinda threw me for a loop. Not knowing these engines all that well, I was expecting timing GEARS. Whoops. I guess you learn something new every day. And holy cow a timing set for one of these is expensive! Anyone have a line on all this stuff for a good price? Looking at around $200 just for the timing parts. Ouch! At least we are back on familiar ground. Pushing the car in and out of the shop while waiting for parts.

 

Also, has anyone converted the rear of one these to disc brakes? I'm sure that'll be the next minor catastrophe.

 

All in all, this is pretty much going as expected. I work on cars for a living, so I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting myself into. I'll get some pics up later showing off the brake master cylinder install and random other stuff later. 

[Feudin_Wagon]

Also wondering if there is a difference between timing components for pickup engines vs the Meadowbrook. I am having better luck finding the parts for a more reasonable price if I search for Dodge truck timing parts. Same year and same 230ci engine, but looking it up by application most places can't say if it will fit the Meadowbrook for sure. 

Thanks!

 

After looking at part numbers they look the same. Nevermind, answered my own question.

Edited February 13, 2016 by Feudin_Wagon

[falconvan]

Great looking car, another more - door saved from the scrap heap!

[casper50]

I converted my 47 to rear to disc.  Used an AAJ kit.  easy and no problems.

[dpollo]

Timing parts are the same.  The only difference I have observed is that from 54 onward the chain is not divided in the middle, it is more conventional.  If you change the sprockets too, this is not a problem.

[Feudin_Wagon]

Progress report!

 

Lots of work done on the old girl. Front brakes installed and working well enough, still need to bleed them better. Good enough for my first real drive! It made it there and back, but let's just say I'm glad there wasn't anybody from the EPA following me. So you know that little round gasket on top of the oil filter canister? It turns out if that is bad the car will leak oil at speed. A lot of oil. Like 2 1/2 quarts in 15 miles. Bright side is that the undercarriage is well lubricated now. I didn't know there was a problem until something started running down the floorboard under my right foot. I thought it blew the oil gauge line, but no, it was that gasket leaking oil and blowing it through the speedometer cable grommet. What a mess. Anyway, the car made it there and back, about 20 miles. 

 

Even before the oil leak fiasco I noticed the car has a knock under load, not unlike a rod or main bearing kinda sound, and oil pressure at hot idle was barely on the gauge. Decided to pull the rod and main bearings to check them out and was surprised to find they really weren't too bad. Not bad enough to cause a knock anyway from what I could tell. Put in a new set of bearings anyway, since it seemed like a good time to do it. Well, the knock is still there, but now the oil pressure holds at about 20psi hot idle, so I guess that's something. 

 

Then of course there's the other engine noise. Sounds like a pretty loud tappet tick. Set the valves with the car running yesterday hoping it was just a maintenance issue, but no such luck. Found a few loose, and a few too tight, but the tick remains. The part that has me stumped is that while setting the valves, the tick would go away when the feeler gauge was inserted in between any of the tappets. I would get it if the tick went away when lash was at zero on a single tappet, but for the noise to go away when the feeler gauge was in any of them has me perplexed. Could the cam bearings be that bad that its actually moving up and down with the added pressure? I got nothin'. 

 

Said screw it. Bottom end seems good, valves are adjusted, great oil pressure, keeps cool, and it runs great. Just gonna drive it noisy for the summer. It'll either work or it won't. Maybe. Invited the wife to go to lunch with me, in a town about 20 miles away, her first time even sitting in the car. Head out of the shop, and go to shift to second gear... Wait, where the hell is second gear? And third? Where did all my gears go? Booooo. The wifes first ride in the car lasted one block. Needless to say, she didn't seem impressed.

 

Anyway, some pictures! 

 

 

daughter says "its old and stinky!" She's right on both counts sadly. Haha.

 

 

Now every time we leave the house they ask if we can drive "the old old car."  

 

 

 

[Feudin_Wagon]

Forgot to mention, got all my gears back. Just had to adjust the linkage a bit.