1935EB

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!!!

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Scott others, I went to best gasket website search and could not find the gasket/seal you are referring to. do you have a best gasket part number? Thanks, Chris

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

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.

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

Here are the dimensions. Since several types appear to be used these would apply to the type that is on my 1933 PD Convertible Coupe. My handle style is like the first photo in Scott's post above. The overall length of the wood is not as important as the location and direction of the holes. The holes are perpendicular to the bottom of the support. The holes are 3/8 inch and provide for some variation in alignment. measure your bracket or holes in floor board to get proper spacing before drilling.

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

Contact Dave Dave@dodgecityvintage.com His handle is Countrytraveler on this forum. His company has a lot of early Dodge and Plymouth original and reproduction parts. This transmission was used on 33, 34, maybe 35 Plymouth and Dodge cars? They are good folks to do business with. Send him a photo of the cover and ask if he has one. Chris

Here are some photos of mine. Most handles that are the lever type are broken like mine. I will be repairing mine by laminating a piece of flat stock to both halves. You don't really see this part anyway. There is a metal rod that joins both levers side to side enabling you to unlock and move the seat. If you go to my thread "Paint Colors for 1933 Plymouth PD Convertible Coupe" you will see pictures of several types of seat rails used on these cars that other forum members have posted. Plymouth used several types. Maybe these were different at each assembly plant or changed during the model year. I have seen a type that has a handle that has a circular loop on it as well. Let us know if you find a supplier of these. Chris

This sounds like a master cylinder rebuild or a new one is in your future. Especially given that repeated pumping gives you a firmer pedal. Does this Plymouth have the type of master cylinder that is divided into front and rear? In other words you can lose the front brakes but still have rear brakes? This is a safety feature. When it locks up in the rear does it still brake evenly? This might indicate the front master cylinder hydraulics are leaking and you only have rear brakes. You may be failing the rears as well since you have to pump the brakes to get the pedal pressure firm. I would look at the master cylinder and if you do not know who repaired it or when it was repaired than rebuild it or get a new one. Chris

The long rectangular piece of rubber is vulcanized to a sheet metal piece that bolts onto the frame cross member as discussed. Hope this helps, Chris

As a side note. There is also a frame under this cross member that holds a rubber bumper to support bottom of transmission. This assembly controls the vertical movement of transmission to a very small range. I will try to find my photo of the transmission rubber bumper. Chris

Here are a few photos that may be helpful. I love your Convertible coupe. Have you posted any other pictures of it? These show the top of transmission housing which goes under the frame cross member. The shifter mechanism of course goes into the top of the cross member. Water can splash up into transmission opening without the gasket. I would like to see a picture of one. Todd's idea of using a section of radiator hose sounds good. Hope this is helpful, Chris

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

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.

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.

Hi Bob, Back in the 1990's I had a set of top irons made for my 1933 and 1934 Chevrolet Convertible Coupes. Between my friend and I we had pieces and parts. Oak Bows in Chambersburg PA made complete sets for us from these and their own patterns. It is worth giving them a call. I do not know their number but you might google them. These irons were chrome plated and included the steam bent bows that went with them. As Plymouth is a popular car and a lot of these body parts were on Dodge, Desoto and Chrysler they may have experience with the 1932 PB. Hope this helps, Chris

These fit the 1933 Plymouth PD. It was introduced mid year. Chris