Paint colors for 1933 Plymouth PD Convertible Coupe

Chris

Hello

Have them blueprint and for sure balance the engine. Will perform better and run cooler. If you want to get real good performance, use the Micro blue coating of all moving parts.

Here is the link-I do this on all my moving parts.

http://www.microblueracing.com/

Video of the engine running.

Dave the video is awesome!!

A AACA club member has asked me if the 1933 Plymouth engine used a water distribution tube. This would aid in moving water to the rear of the block. It would be made of sheet metal. I have borrowed a picture of one for a later Plymouth Dodge car or truck as sold by Roberts Auto Parts.

I do not know if 1933 used one. Can anyone shed light on this?

Thanks, Chris

Dave the video is awesome!!

A AACA club member has asked me if the 1933 Plymouth engine used a water distribution tube. This would aid in moving water to the rear of the block. It would be made of sheet metal. I have borrowed a picture of one for a later Plymouth Dodge car or truck as sold by Roberts Auto Parts.

I do not know if 1933 used one. Can anyone shed light on this?

Thanks, Chris

No water tube with blocks that the cylinders are exposed.

No water tube with blocks that the cylinders are exposed.

Yep. First year for the water distribution tube was 1935 on Plymouth and I strongly suspect also for the Dodge passenger cars.

Some progress being made. The guy's at Old Parts Cellar (Then and Now Automotive) did a great job on the parts that needed rubber vulcanized to them. Their service was excellent. I gave them a week before checking to see if they had received the parts and when I phoned they had the parts ready to go and were waiting on me to give them a credit card to charge. Can anyone tell me which direction is front on the rear axle bumpers? Even the motor mounts are marked with which direction is front.

Thanks, Chris

Hi Chris, hope your well, Looking at having bumper blocks restored for the PE Truck, the people you used for yours do they require the original mounting plates and also do they work on part#. Being the other side of the pond and not having done this before a little guidance goes a long way.

Regards Tom

Hi Tom,

For the parts on the 33 PD they needed the old ones for metal cores. That may not be the case for your PE truck and I would call or e mail them. How different are your PE bumper blocks from the PE PF series cars? The catalog sheet from them show the pictures and the Plymouth part numbers. Could we locate cores here, say from Dave at Dodge City, and have the new rubber vulcanized to them and than ship them to the UK?

Hope this helps.

Engine is still being refurbished and the latest promises are that it should be ready in a few weeks. I wanted to install the engine and transmission before aligning doors and doing a test fit of the sheet metal before applying the finish coat of Durode Gray to minimize chipping and scratching.

Chris, when you refer to cores do you mean the steel parts, I have those. The frame and body work to the cowl is PE car on 114" wheelbase so the bumpers will be standard. I will check again on their website for the catalogue data sheet.

Sounds like you are making progress be it slow but there's no hurry.

Thanks again.

After a hiatus of sorts, dealing mostly with the estate of my Mother, I have finally gotten the time to work with the little Plymouth again.

The engine rebuild took a few "months" longer than scheduled as well. Anyone else experience this? I am pleased with the result.

Let me post these two photos to be sure the links are right.

Looks like they worked great. Here are some more shots of it.

I have restored, painted and attached the spark plug wire holder and oil filter bracket to the unpainted assembled engine given that both brackets are held to engine under cylinder head bolts. You can see the spark plug wire bracket through the clear plastic cover on one of the above shots.

Here they are after sandblasting.

Oops

The attached JPEG shows door assembly details for the 1933 Plymouth PD Convertible Coupe.

I know that Rembrandt is not in my family tree but you get the idea of where screws and pieces of hardware go for window channels and the center door reinforcement bracket.

That center reinforcement bracket attaches at the top with two 12-24x3/8 Round Head Screws into nuts that are welded onto the brackets. My question is: what holds the bottom? Was there a piece of wood, metal brackets, etc?

I am thinking 33 and 34 Plymouth and Dodge owners might be able to shed light on this. Thanks in advance.

Chris

Chris--Maybe this will help.  These pictures are from the inside passenger door of a 33 Plymouth convertible coupe, the one that provided the window frames I sent you.  The top is connected with two round-head screws as shown in your diagram.  Although the inside door panel has been cut away, you can see the remnants of what looks like two rivets, one on each of the outside ribs of the supporting piece, that look like they were installed about 1/2" above where the cut is, at the door panel bead.  Looking for the inside door panel but can't seem to find it.  SMB

Thanks Scott, You are a life saver. Indeed the place where these attach to the inside door skin on the bottom is blocked by the door skin and as such you can not see the lower portion of the reinforcement bracket. When I felt behind it I could detect two dimples that may have been spot welds? No holes are in my door skin nor brackets but when you look at the bottom of the brackets you can detect very very slight surface distortion which could have been light spot welds. I think I could just position these and drill small holes for pan head sheet metal screws, or bolts and nuts. The fact that these mount to the inside of the inside door skin is a major break through for me at least.

Thanks again, Chris

If it was me, I would slide a wood block between the brace and the inner door panel, drill 2 quarter inch holes in the inner door panel, take the wood block out and clamp it up and plug weld the two of them together with my MIG.  Probably the closest to a spot weld and won't give you another bump in the door panel to transmit through the upholstery.

I am restoring a 1933 4dr PD. I saw this post and wondered?......
I am looking for front tub upper/lower seat springs.
Does anyone have any or know of any?
I also need the following:
1. drivers interior window molding
2. panel above windshield, covers wiper motor
3. tail light stand with/without license plate mount
4. interior window cranks
5. interior door handle

Thanks

Panel above windshield is the same for two door and four door sedans (coupes are different). I made the on in my car from a piece of sheet metal from the local hardware store. I'm no tinsmith but it wasn't too hard to form the bottom edge.

Roberts Motor Parts and/or N/C Industries may have reproduction tail light stands.

Interior handles and cranks changed nearly every year but I think '33 and '34 are the same for door handles. 34 PE window cranks are different but maybe the 34 PF are the same. Escutcheon plates for the door handles and window risers have been reproduced in the past, check with N/C Industries.

Engine paint turned out well I think. It is a semi gloss black and silver.

Cylinder head was attached with the oil filter bracket and spark plug wire holders because the cylinder head bolts hold both the brackets and the head and I did not want to loosen these bolts to attach brackets. The engine was masked and relevant parts painted silver and others black.

What does the small brass threaded plug near the rear of head do? It is slotted.

The plug is over the #6 cylinder to aid in finding top dead center.

That response was quick. Thanks John,

I was thinking that, but I did not remove it before it went to the rebuilder. Of course it came back installed and I did not want to loosen or remove it.

Another question is, what is torque applied to nuts holding the flywheel to the flywheel flange? These are probably grade 8. is there a lock washer and/or flat washer under the nuts?

I wish the rebuilder had not thrown this hardware away.

Thanks for the help on this project, Chris

Your motor looks great! What type of paint did you use?

Thanks Taylormade, coming from you that is appreciated. Your restoration on your 1932 Dodge has been the inspiration to get mine started and completed. You are many months ahead of me and I use your thread as my guide. I am following the AMPCO 1750 Brake Adjusting Tool part as I also have this tool although it is missing one part that I hope I can fabricate. If my little Plymouth ends up looking as good as Daphne than I will be happy.

I checked with my paint and body man Steve. He said that the paint is Duplicolor from O Reily Auto Parts. This surprised me because he normally wants to shoot all paint through his paint guns. This paint is only available in a rattle cans.

Both the Silver (aluminum) and Black are in their "engine enamel with ceramic" product line. Good to 500 degrees F and resistant to oil and other fluids.

One can of Silver (aluminum) and three cans of Black. He also painted the transmission, clutch housing, and clutch housing dust pan with the Black.

Are the 1932 Dodge car engines painted all silver?

Hope this helps, Chris

Chris,

The 32 Dodges have a medium gray paint on the engine, front engine cradle, bellhousing, transmission and rear trans mount. It appears to have a slight green tint to it, but some think this is due to years of engine heat. I found a very good sample on the bellhousing that stayed out of the sun and some of the engine heat. My local paint shop mixed some up for me after getting a color match. I'm going with epoxy primer and Imron. Duplicolor has a gray, but it's a Ford gray and too light. I used Por-15 on my 48 Plymouth (all silver) and was very happy with the result, but they don't offer a gray in their engine color line. Probably painting next week, so I'll post some pics.

I know I have asked before but in Florida there isn't much for selection of '33 parts.

If any one might know where I can find the following, I much appreciate it.

I am looking for:
1. front upper/lower seat springs.
2. drivers interior door window molding
3. panel above windshield, covers wiper motor
4. tail light stand with/without license plate mount
5. drivers door window channel for the regular

I included photos of my removing the body so I can cleanup the frame and see what body work need done.

Things are going slow on it but I am still trying to gather known missing parts. I got the '33 in Connecticut as a project gone bad. It has a lot of pieces missing but I will get the '33 looking as good as it did in its day.

I appreciate this thread because there is a lot of good info.

Finally, time in the schedule to get this project moving again. The Clutch housing has been painted as well the transmission. The transmission worked smoothly and quietly 30 years ago so I just cleaned it with kerosene and I am hoping for the best.

The frame has been cleaned up and the paint touched up. Engine install will be next.

Chris

All looking good Chris, will watch with interest, I may have taken on too much, 3 on the go now.

take care Tom

Don't know if it makes any difference, but I did not notice signs of paint on the surfaces of the transmission and bell housing that mate together when I did mine and I left them unpainted. I figured that even a thin coating of paint was probably a couple thousandths of an inch thick and probably not perfectly evenly applied. Not sure of the required tolerances on that fit, but thought if the factory did not paint them then I probably shouldn't either.

All those 3 speed CPDD transmissions had a common wear problem. The input and output shafts are supported by a ball bearing race that got sloppy over the years. They are very easy to replace and are the same. However they are SKF metric. Nothing else fits. The part number escapes me right now. Both have to have their inside surfaces "open". That is if the bearing you buy has a cover over both surfaces,one has to be removed and that side faces inward. This is so the transmission oil can get to the bearing. Removing the cover does not hurt the race. Every tranny of this era I have worked on required those bearings.

Don't know if it makes any difference, but I did not notice signs of paint on the surfaces of the transmission and bell housing that mate together when I did mine and I left them unpainted. I figured that even a thin coating of paint was probably a couple thousandths of an inch thick and probably not perfectly evenly applied. Not sure of the required tolerances on that fit, but thought if the factory did not paint them then I probably shouldn't either.

Your right Tod, an engineering practice is to leave machined faces unpainted, gasket fit etc. also depending where the paint is it could act as an electrical insulator especially with positive grounding.

Thanks for input. We sanded the mating surfaces to minimize any clutch housing misalignment, hopefully. I have attached two drings I made that shows the hardware etc and a few notes on installation. I did the same on the motor mounts and will post these later today.

Now the fun part.

For those that have not done this before. Attaching the flywheel and the clutch housing is not as easy as it would appear. If you attach one before the other you create an interference fit. If the clutch housing goes on first you can not get the flywheel into position. And the reverse is true as well. We finally accomplished this by loosely fitting both flywheel and clutch housing together. If you leave the top two bolts to the housing just loosely holding the clutch housing you can get both on. As to orientation of the flywheel. When my engine was disassembled by the engine rebuilder they did not place any marks on the flywheel or flywheel flange for reassembly in the proper position. As we rotated the flywheel we had an interference fit with the bolts on the flywheel flange until we reached one position where the flywheel all but fell into place on the flange. To me the bolt spacing on the flywheel flange look uniform but only one position was correct. Is this the experience others have had with these flywheels???? If this is not the case you only have a 25% chance of getting the placement correct. That is, at TDC of number one cylinder you should begin to see the timing mark in the window of the clutch housing. We checked the timing method in the Plymouth Handbook I think we have it right. The handbook essentially says on page 55 that when both number six and number one are at TDC  the pointer and the DC mark on flywheel should aligned.

It is important to note that this would only be true if the crankshaft and camshaft were properly aligned when the timing chain was installed as this is what determines the correct timing of the valves.

We will perform a test run on this engine in the frame before attaching body and see if we have it right.

Of course this is not an issue if the flywheel only mounts in one position on the crankshaft flange. What is the experience of others who have attached these??

Thanks for input on this.

Chris

I have removed and reinstalled the flywheel on my '33 PD without removing or loosening the bell housing. Not fun, especially when you don't have access to a lift, but definitely possible. (I hope I never have to service the rear main seal again.)

I don't recall the flywheel bolt holes being asymmetrical. I marked the position of my flywheel and reinstalled it in the same orientation as it came off.

At least on a 1932 Dodge six, the flywheel bolt spacing is asymmetrical and it will only fit on one way.  I just dealt with this recently and it was a real pain figuring out the correct position, especially working in the tight spacing inside the bellhousing.  I agree with ply33, you can remove and install the flywheel with the bellhousing on, in fact, as I remember, you have to.  If you install the flywheel first, the bellhousing won't go on as the locating studs stick out too far to allow it to slip into place.  It looks like your method of slipping the two together also worked.

I installed mine off the frame.

I didn't take any pictures as it took both me and my wife to get it all together.  From your diagrams, it looks like our cars are mechanically similar.  I have the same cover to expose the flywheel marks.

It's always a relief to get everything in place.

Thanks guy's. Taylormade, did your crankshaft flange have 4 bolts and did they look symmetrical? I could not get the flywheel on except in one position and than it literally slipped on.

I tried putting the flywheel on first, than the clutch housing and had the interference fit with the alignment studs the same as you did. I thought I tried attaching the clutch housing first and think I still had an interference fit. I could be wrong. We attached these exactly as you did with the engine on the hoist. What a job.

Your frame and engine are beautiful!!!!!

Here are photos of the 1933 PD Plymouth six in frame.

Here is better photo of rear.

I'm getting old but I did not think I was that shakey.

We tilted the motor mount cross member upward to facilitate attaching the motor mounts. I think you could install engine without doing this but it ended up very easy doing it that way.

Chris

Yes, four bolts, just like yours.  They did look symmetrical, but they weren't!  It only goes on one way and I'm sure this is to align the timing marks correctly.  Although your frame looks similar, the transmission mounting set up for the floating power is very different.  Notice the way mine is mounted.  It's a real pain to get the transmission out with this design.  The front motor mount looks close.

The grille is being prepared for chrome plating. It has a few missing teeth. The grille that came with the car was welded to the grille shell and as such is not useable. I was able to cut a few teeth from it and will silver solder them to the frame. The piece of cardboard is a pattern for the ring that is soldered or welded to the grille teeth. There is another sheet metal stamping that fits over the ring. I will use two screws to hold this to the ring. The stainless steel cover with the number six clips onto the stamping.

This grill is painted black like a PC and has not been chrome plated. Looking at the master parts book for PD it was available Chrome Plated, Black, or Primer.

On another note I am looking for input on door alignment.

The driver door fits perfectly and lines up with everything nicely.

The passenger door is another story. it sags in the front. I am using new hinge pins and they are reasonably tight. The door swings without a bind.

On early 30's Chevrolets that I have you correct this by loosening body mounting bolts and adding and subtracting shims until you lift or drop the door fronts or door rears. For example an extra shim under the hinge pillar body bolt will lift the front edge of the door. Remember these are suicide doors on the 33 PD. The door dovetail is about 3/8 inch below the door dove tail receiver. On Chevy's this is not a big deal to correct but they are wood framed bodies with a sheet metal overlay and pretty flexible.

Any ideas that have worked for others would be appreciated before I start changing shims.

Thanks, Chris

Believe it or not the manufacturers just put a block of wood in the open door and close it to "spring" the door in the right direction to make it fit. There are actual books out there that show you where to put the piece of wood. It's usually put in the opposite end of the door to the part that won't close "tight". The window is rolled at least half way down and the door "closed". It of course won't close but this bends the "close" part of the door away from the car opening and when the door is closed now,voila, it fits like a glove. I have seen this done on the line at GM Canada. This is how they used to get trunk lids and hoods to close perfectly. I would assume some variation on this might fix your door. My best guess is to open the door about half way and place a piece of wood,with perhaps a piece of cloth wrapped around it, on top of a jack and with the window rolled about half way down, jack the door up SLOWLY. Do not over do it as springing the door down again would be next to impossible. The Plymouth is all steel including the jamb and door. If then the door dovetail aligns but the door is sprung from the opening at one end or another,the above springing of the door would fix that.        

17 minutes ago, 1935 Dodge Van said:

Believe it or not the manufacturers just put a block of wood in the open door and close it to "spring" the door in the right direction to make it fit. There are actual books out there that show you where to put the piece of wood. It's usually put in the opposite end of the door to the part that won't close "tight". The window is rolled at least half way down and the door "closed". It of course won't close but this bends the "close" part of the door away from the car opening and when the door is closed now,voila, it fits like a glove. I have seen this done on the line at GM Canada. This is how they used to get trunk lids and hoods to close perfectly. I would assume some variation on this might fix your door. My best guess is to open the door about half way and place a piece of wood,with perhaps a piece of cloth wrapped around it, on top of a jack and with the window rolled about half way down, jack the door up SLOWLY. Do not over do it as springing the door down again would be next to impossible. The Plymouth is all steel including the jamb and door. If then the door dovetail aligns but the door is sprung from the opening at one end or another,the above springing of the door would fix that.        

I have seen a photo of that block of wood/door adjustment in many body sections of MoPaR shop manuals.

So, first you would lift the front edge of the door using a jack until the dove tail aligns with receiver. this will probably move the front lower corner a little forwards. The block of wood process could than be used to push this backwards. Maybe a few iterations of this to get it aligned. All this with body bolts securely fastened. Good thing the body color paint has not been sprayed in the pillar and jam areas yet.

I once owned an 87 Suburban. It was a maintenance nightmare. I remember one time talking to a Chevy body man who told me the assembly plant in Tarrytown used pieces of wood in door jams etc to align them. This might just work.

Thanks!!!

I was rereading my post and your reply and I just want to make it clear that you would have the jack at or near the far "open" end of the door. Not up close to the car and it's hinges.