1954 Plymouth build modern drivetrain build

[rocknroad]

So Its been awhile since I've been on this forum.  Four years ago I got the '54 running and driving...then the wiring started on fire.  So we pulled out all the wiring and it then sat in the garage.  I got real busy with work(yeah!).  Then the apocalypse happened and my entire industry shut down.  So with all of that I pulled the car from SoCal to my brothers shop in Minnesota.  He owns a tow truck building company with quite the fabrication shop and builds hot rods on the side.

 

So I'm going to keep posting updates as I have time right now to do a lot of measuring and research.  There are many swaps going on and I wanted to let you guys know what I found works and what doesn't.  Also I want to thank my brother and nephew for putting so much time in with this build...It's been a rough year but this is definitely a bright spot.

 

Day one:

We pulled the front clip, pulled the motor and trans.  Took some measurements and figured out he had a 2001 non abs 2wd coil spring ford ranger frame that was just 5/8" wider total than stock!  After looking at rock auto to see what parts are available(everything! and tons of performance upgrades available too) we decided that would be our subframe.  I don't know of anyone using this sub frame but it comes stock with big disks with dual piston calipers and rack and pinion power steering mounted on the front of the crossmember and the stock wheels fit!  All of this would be upgrades on a mustang 2 sub and I don't think the cross member would be nearly as strong.  The cross member leaves a lot of room for whatever V8 we end up with.  Also I really dislike the way too wide subframes look on old cars since the classic look like chrome reverse wheels or something stockish tend to rub or hit the wheel wells.

 

Spent the next 2 days cutting the 2001 ranger clip and cleaning off old brake lines, efi lines and motor mounts.  Those motor mounts are Tough!!!  The cutting torch quit working so sawzall and cutoff wheel and hours with the hammer and prybar where the way to go.  If I had to do it again I'd get a spring compressor and take it apart, the bolts for the motor mounts are up inside behind the coil springs.

 

Ordered new calipers pads and bracket assembly (on sale!) as well has hoses.  Update soon.

[Young Ed]

Welcome to the forum and MN!

[pflaming]

Business coupe, nice! 

[Andydodge]

Welcome aboard................I'm a hotrodder so I don't mind modifications but I'll preface that by saying I've seen a few frame swaps admittedly, online via pics and most don't look overly neat due to problems with the wheelbase, firewall, floor and radiator clearances.............how does the overall comparision of the Frod frame to the Plymouth frame work out? will you be able to keep the front & rear Plymouth bumpers, grille etc as they give the car its known features?..............what engine/trans  is planned to install?...........regards from Oz.......Andy Douglas    

[rocknroad]

Hey Andydodge!  I've been looking at those aussie '54 diplomat Desoto's and would love to get one of those grills to bolt into the plymouth just to mess with people.

 

But yeah frame swaps can be weird looking in my opinion.  So one of the goals with this project is to maintain the old styling on the outside...ie interior, stock looking wheels etc.  I would like it to pass as fairly stock to the average person.

 

That being said this car was a little bit of a basket case but had really good bones.  The fire wall and tranny tunnel were already hacked up, I think from the engine rebuild.  The floors are also rustier than I originally thought considering its a SoCal car.  It looks like they put layers of goop(tar like substance? and RTV?) to fix it some time ago, put outdoor carpeting on top of that and then the original rubber floor mats on top of that.  So I do know it had a broken mostly missing windshield and passenger side front window.  so that being said the firewall, trans tunnel and front floor pan will need to be fabricated regardless.  The original rubber floor mat is in really good shape so I will be reusing that for sure!

 

I'll be adding some pics in the next few days but to your point Andydodge we are grafting the front suspension of the ranger to maintain the stock wheel base.  I've seen plenty of frame swaps where the front wheels are too far forward.  Thats a hard nope for me on this.  The other goal was to be able to run stock wheels without clearance issues.  We test fitted the stock wheels while the ranger frame was in the yard still.  One of my goals to is to have the ability to put stock wheels because I live in Los Angeles and there is a certain market for old looking cars in TV and Film...so maybe with this build it will get it a job before I do.  So just doing a disk brake upgrade makes the front too wide and some kits don't allow for stock wheels.

 

So we've spent the last 3 days marking out the floor of the shop, checking measurements against what the stock "advertised" wheel base and getting it all square.  There is nothing that bugs me more than frame swaps where the track width is too wide or the wheels aren't centered in the wheel wells.  We spent a lot of time measuring track widths on a bunch of donors, volare's are rare now, s-10 is ugly and wrong bolt pattern, dakota I think was too wide.  When you cast a wide net, use your tape measure and the internet and look at whats available...there are some interesting candidates.

 

The 2001 ranger is 5/8" wider.....a little over a 1/4" per side.  The car I know was hit in the front(judging from the bent front bumper) so in doing our measurements the wheel base is different left to right by an inch.  We put the front clip on and off a few times to figure out what looked best and what the "factory" spec was.  The front is swayed to the drivers side an inch too.  This car was repaired way before we had frame racks to pull everything back square.  But we are basically cutting off the bent part and installing a subframe where it should be, it should handle and ride like a new car.  Id rather do the sub frame and a rear swap and have it look right.

 

I look forward to everybody following along.  Made a bunch of plates and patterns to graft everything, we tacked it into place.  We are wrecked..wil check measurements in the morning

 

With cars this old the tolerances were a lot wider that what we are used to.  I have a side business of repairing vintage (50's, 60's and 70's) tube amps...the highest quality components were + or - 20% soooooooo(military spec)...hey give me a dollar ....you could give me 80 cents or up to $1.20...now a days the  tolerances for the cheap stuff is +- 1%.   Give me a dollar is now just 99 cents, a dollar or $1.01....very different world.

 

 

 

 

[kencombs]

I'm not clear on exactly what path you are taking.  Is this going to be a full frame swap, just the front section (sub-frame or front clip).  

 

The Ranger is a good choice IMO.  Solid design, parts availability, great service history, should be troublefree.

[Andydodge]

Rockn...........lol.........10 yrs ago you might have found a DeSoto grille cheap.....20 yrs ago they'd have paid you to take the whole car.......now?..........seems like people here have found out that mopars are worth doing up........as I've been playing with 40 Dodges since 1969 you'd think I would have worked all this out but I'm a slow learner so there you go.........lol.............tell you waht tho' two sedan doors from 53/54 Plymouths would be a good seller over here as we only had 4dr Sedans and Utes, both used the same short door, even the same basic body shell up to 1962 in the Oz Chrysler Royals from 1957 to 62.....for yrs you couldn't give an Oz Chrysler Royal away now they are bringing serios money, I got the running gear, 313 poly, Torqueflite & diff from a 1962 Royal and scrapped the rest, this was in 1973 , the 11 yr old car was worth nothing then...........lol ,,,,,,,,,,the attached pics show the 3 series Oz Chrysler Royals each using the 53/54 Plymouth body shell, tailights for the 57-60 1st two series were similar to the 55/56 US Plymouth then the last series , 1961/62 used a tailight setup similar to the 59(?) DeSoto........I'll look for a 53/54 DeSoto grille and trade for 2dr sedan doors...........lol.......regards, andyd