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My 1947 Yard Sale Coupe


The Rusted Nut

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I found this decently-preserved 1947 Plymouth Special Deluxe at a yard sale approximately 5 years ago.  While the car wasn't actually part of the sale, I spoke to the owner and we struck up a deal for the car at $3750, which I felt was a good deal as the car had spent the majority of life in a garage and had 36,000 original miles.  I was in the middle of buying a new house and moving, so I didn't get to spend much time on the car for the first two months.  Once I did finally dig into it a little and started it up for the first time, it was running very poorly and had dropped a cylinder.  After pulling a compression test and finding cylinder 3 with 0 psi, I immediately knew I had a stuck valve.  I then proceeded to pull the head and low and behold the exhaust valve was fully stuck open.  I sprayed a little bit of ATV at the stem and tapped it down lightly with a rubber mallet.  After working it up and down a few times, it freed up and has been perfect ever since.  Crisis averted.  Since owning the car I have converted it to 12v with all new wiring and a fuse block, discarded the heavily damaged original seats and installed 10-way power black leather seats from a 2015 Ford Escape, and started patching any holes in the floor.  I've linked some videos below of work I have done to this point, with much more to come.  I have new black carpet to install and a new creme headliner as well.  But the car is truly coming along.

 

 

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4 hours ago, Sniper said:

Interesting.

 

Are you planning of installing power steering?  I ask because that ink steering wheel is going to increase effort.

 

Currently, I'm not planning any changes to the front end.  Steering effort decreased substantially when I went from the old steel wheels to these aluminum Mustang wheels, so steering hasn't been much of a problem unless at a complete standstill.

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Nice job.  I like the updated wheels. 

 

From the small rust streak shown in back below the chrome trim piece, I think I've answered my own question - it is the original finish, buffed out?

 

John

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11 hours ago, jclars said:

Nice job.  I like the updated wheels. 

 

From the small rust streak shown in back below the chrome trim piece, I think I've answered my own question - it is the original finish, buffed out?

 

John

 

Yes, sir.  And what a gratifying job it was to buff out this original paint and see it shine.  Thank you.

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A true survivor!   Lot's of time spent to bring it back to life!  Looking great!

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On 11/15/2024 at 12:31 PM, spongebob said:

great find. put seat belts in and you can take kids in it and they will love this old car. start them young. i love the grilles on these years.   dennis

Thank you!  While my kids are all grown and will likely not ride in the car, seat belts will be going in.  That way if I pass this car down someday, my kids can take their kids in it too.

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