Pete in PA

I got the front mount, a Mopar NOS part, from forum member Jim (36 D2 coupe) who lives in Canada. He had a spare one and also a spare coolant distribution tube. Shipping took forever but the parts were well worth the wait. I have seen front mounts for sale on ebay but can't remember the details anymore. IIRC a lot of later mounts are incorrectly listed as being 36 mounts so you have to watch out for that.

Oh, here's the new front mount installed:

The weather here in SE PA has been spectacular for the past few days. Sunny in the high 70s/mid 80s during the day and drops down to the high 50s/mid 60s at night for good sleeping without A/C. Low humidity too. Time for some quality D2 time! My son and i went to the garage on Friday and got right to work replacing all 3 engine mounts. I thought it would be easy and boy was I wrong! Those back mounts are a SERIOUS PITA to remove/install. Removing the lower fasteners is easy but the top ones... Ugh! And then when you have all the fasteners removed you can't jack the engine high enough to slide out the mount. Plus add 80+ years of leaking oil combined with the grit stuck in it. Some of the mounting nuts had to excavated using a screwdriver before you could get a wrench on them. I was reminded that a lot of roads weren't paved when this car was new and tarring/chipping them was commonplace. And it seems like this car was driven over its fair share of sand as well.. Nooks an crannies of the frame were packed with sand and dirt so any movement produced a rain of crap into your face and hair. LOL We did get the mounts replaced but it took a lot longer and required a lot more effort than I had anticipated. Next up we'll be getting the whole cooling system together so we can run the engine as long as we want to. I did eventually spring for a cooling system deruster made by Evaporust. This stuff comes in quart containers and you simply add it to a water-filled system that is in operation. Testimonialls rave about it and I'm looking forward to seeing what it loosens up.

Interesting. Thanks.

After weeks of unusually cold spring weather we've had a few very nice days here in SE PA. I hear things will cool down again soon and stay that way for awhile so my son and I decided that we had better act quick and we headed to the Dodge Garage. First order of business was to drain the block of the cleaning vinegar that has been in there for a few weeks. Actually 2 batches of the stuff over the past few weeks. The first batch went into the block clear and was drained as very gritty black coffee-colored stuff. The block was then immediately refilled with fresh cleaning vinegar. So yesterday we moved all the crap blocking the garage opening and we rolled out the D2. We drained that second batch of yuck and it was pretty bad but not nearly as gritty as the first. Then followed some flushing with clean water from a drain blasting slender tube and that pushed out a bunch of grit. Then we broke the drain blaster and had to switch to a regular hose nozzle shot down the coolant distribution tube opening. Then a long bottle brush down the same hole. Soon we'll haul the pressure washer to the garage and use that to see what it dislodges. At that point I'll have to decide whether more aggressive measures are needed. I know there black powdery deposits from the vinegar and they must be rubbed to remove them. No way to do that without pulling the cylinder head and I'm not going there. Not right now anyway. Then we moved to the interior because I wanted to remove the front seat to evaluate the floor. The capscrews holding the seat tracks to the floor will clearly need some serious persuasion before they move. In fact the heads may have to be ground off. With that obstacle I looked over the situation and saw the nuts and washers holding the seat pan to the tracks. "I wonder what happens if I loosen them?" Well that was clearly a good move on my part because removing those 6 nuts/lock washers/flat washers allow me and junior to lift the seat off the tracks and remove it from the cabin, probably for the first time in 84 years. My seat tracks aren't in as bad condition as I feared. Some vacuuming and oiling revealed that they slide effortlessly fore/aft. The rust at the bottom mounting surface isn't pretty but I don't think it's bad enough to seriously weaken them. I think I'll hold off on replacing them and direct those funds toward headlamp parts. The floor rot is bad. Very bad. But not as bad as I feared. And, I hesitate to even say it, but the rockers look fantastic. No sign of rot at all, at least from the outside. The front floor is worse and, as jpage says, the driver's side is the worst. I could probably get by replacing only the front portion of the floor on both sides but I'll see 1) how good the panels from the Plymouth Doctor are and 2) whether it's easier to replace whole sides vs. patching. With the sun setting and the wind picking up we put the seat back inside the car, rolled it back inside, and packed all the tools and parts in front of it again. Here's a pic of the driver's side floor.

Very, very nice! Looks like some scary close garage clearance though. Maybe it's the camera angle.

I talked to Mike Sisco about it and, while he's an expert on D2 pricing, doesn't know much about P1/P2 prices. The P1 part definitely isn't as large or heavy as it's D2 counterpart. Also the P1/P2 part is just formed sheetmetal and was painted to match the body color (as was the whole center section of the grille). No plating or other brightwork on the Plymouth part. Here's a shot of the black P2 coupe I saw at Hershey a couple of years ago. The guy who wants to buy my P1 parts pointed out the grill indentation just above the bumper line. Interesting. I had not noticed it before and might assume it was grille damage from a light impact, the same kind of damage that we see with D2s. But apparently not. It's a styling feature of the Plymouth. In retrospect I guess I should have know that because I wouldn't be seeing damage on an AACA award winning car.

Oh I found a buyer. I just need to know what it's worth. So I can buy more D2 parts!

I found a buyer for some of the P1 parts that came with my D2 Dodge. I have no idea how to price the P1 crank hole cover. How scarce are they. What's the price range for a decent driver quality part? Here's a pic or two.

Just for fun here's a pic my dad sent to me today. I'm standing in the car and my grandmother is holding my brother. The car is a 56 Dodge Coronet. Best guess on year? 1965

Yeah that occurred to me. But with this COVI-19D thing raging my hours have been cut way, way back and my wife got laid off. This been the first time in either of our lives that we've been un/underemployed. I usually adhere to the "It's easier to get forgiveness than it is to get permission" philosophy but I really think I'd be pushing my luck doing that right now. LOL

Yes, I'll definitely wait until, at the very least, I have removed the seats and floor covering. Then I'll have a much better idea of what I'm up against. I should probably order both sides from Wayne sooner than later so I'll have them on hand when I need them. I seriously doubt that will be this year though. By the time I get the whole front of the car back together correctly, have functioning fuel and cooling systems, and maybe even have the brakes working the summer will be over. I'd like to at least go for a few drives the car before pulling the body for floor repair.

Taking another look at pics of jpage's parts car gives this hint of what I'll be dealing with. Looks daunting to me.

The whole floor pan (both left and right sides) on my car is a mess. Either from a leaking windshield seal, cowl vent seal, or roof insert gasket. That last possibility didn't occur to me until fairly recently but something up there doesn't look quite right. Maybe the headliner staining is from condensation alone. Time will tell as this project progresses. I told Wayne that I needed both sides of the floor pan but that the driveshaft tunnel seemed to be okay. I later received his price sheet via email and see that he lists "main cabin floor, right or left side" so I guess that's what I'll get. I don't know how the floor pan attaches to the body at the outer edges (under the doors). Jim Page, you should have a very good understanding of this area, right? I know it'll be a big job to repair that floor but I guess it could be big or really BIG. Like is the body mounted to the frame via bolts through the floor pan. Ugh, I hope not. I need to take another look at the pics I shot of your car body, Jim, and see if they shed some light on the issue. What I really need to do is remove the front seat and the floor covering to see what I'm dealing with. That'll be interesting in itself because the lower part of the seat tracks and the mounting bolts to the floor are severely rusted. No way can I put a wrench on those bolts and even if I could they wouldn't turn. Weather here is nice today so I'm hoping to get a few hours of D2 time.

Okay. I'm going to PM my address to you. You ship those hub caps to me and I'll paint them for you and send them back. I promise.

As I look down the road to what comes next the rusty floor of my old Dodge looms large. I heard about the Plymouth Doctor years ago but reports about poor communication and long, long delays in obtaining parts concerned me. Today I felt like picking up the phone and calling so I did exactly that. Wayne picked up the phone on the 3rd ring and we had a very nice conversation about D2 floor pan pieces. I was quite shocked when I asked about lead times for producing the parts and he said 2 weeks. What? Did i hear correctly? I was expecting to hear that I'd wait for an estimated 6 months and then wait even longer before I saw anything. Any opinions on this revelation? I am greatly cheered by Wayne's estimate but wondering whether it would be realized.

Now wait just a minute... I never claimed that my front mount was in terrible condition! I only said that I noticed it was deteriorated and replacing it while the radiator and water pump were removed seemed to make sense. There is no doubt that should there be a "Worst Motor Mount" contest you would be a contender and I wouldn't even be in the running. LOL In other D2 news I managed to get tot eh garage for a little while yesterday. I installed a drain plug in the new gas tank but I'm not happy with it. It's a 1/8" pipe plug from Home Depot and does the job but it doesn't thread nearly far enough into the tank bung. If you look at the distance the flared bung fitting protrudes from the tank and then add the length of the pipe plug I bet there's half an inch sticking out (down). That's a prime candidate for damage from grounding out on something. I'll have to look for another plug but this will work short term. Also drained the cleaning vinegar from the cooling system. Wow. You should have seen teh color of the stuff that came out of the block drain port. The vinegar went in almost clear and came out almost black. When I drew off the liquid in the drain pan I bet there was a full cup of grityt rust particles. Kind of like brown and black sand. There was a LOT of it. I then flushed the block 3 or 4 times with clean water getting more of the grit out of the block. There was less and less each time and by the time I decided to snap a pic output was pretty low but this still gives you an idea of what was in there. (And I'm sure there's plenty left.) I decided to make another run to the grocery store for another 2 gallons of cleaning vinegar because I didn't want to leave 1) the system empty or 2) fill it with water until this weekend when I do a proper flush with pressurized water and refill with coolant. I'll decide whether more drastic cleaning measure are necessary after seeing what the pressure flush gets out.

Well that sure is different than my D2 transmission! But did all the Chrysler and DeSoto cars *have* the OD transmission or was it optional on those cars?

Really? Same year Chrysler product and the Dodge had the parking brake on the transmission and the DeSoto had them on the rear shoes/drums? That surprises me. Anyone know for sure? DeSoto owners care to weigh in? I don't have a DeSoto parts book to check numbers. Not that I've had any luck verifying numbers in my Dodge parts book... I need to find a vintage Hollander catalog.

Rust pitting looks pretty serious. I'm sure that was a factor. If all 4 wheels were in the same rusted condition I think that failures #3 and #4 are coming.

Item 2 is a front engine mount. NOS Mopar no less! Installing it will be a project for this coming weekend. I figured that now is the right time for replacing it and you can see why. BTW the old coolant pump temporarily installed over strips of duct tape to allow filling the engine coolant passages to the brim with vinegar.

Yesterday I received a long-awaited parcel from Jim (36 D2 coupe) in Canada. It contained a couple of key parts that I need to advance my D2 project. Jim had extras that he didn't need and offered them to me for a good price so we completed some international commerce. Item 1 is a coolant distribution tube. Can you tell which one is my original and which one I got from Jim?

My wife is away taking car of her elderly mother and I'm keeping our two teenagers in line so not much D2 time is available. I did, however, visit briefly this past weekend and fiddles a bit. The block passages are now filled with vinegar which I've used extensively to clean metal like plumbing valves. We'll see how it does on rusty cast iron. I can always use harsher methods of necessary. I compared the coolant pumps I have on hand. I have the brand new part I got from mobileparts last week, I have the leaking 1980ish pump that I removed from my engine a few weeks ago, I have one loose pump that came with the car and that's probably from the P1 that the PO stripped. Also, there's the pump that the PO removed from my car's engine 1980ish. This pump is most interesting to me because I believe that it's teh pump that was originally installed on my car's engine. An 85 year old pump! It has the 6 digit part number cast into it as well as the CPPD logo stamped into the bolt heads on the back. Neat!

That's good to know, Jim. The rear in my car may be fine but the amount of dried up lube sprayed around the underside has me worried. Time will tell.

I need to do some research and learn whether this is the same as the rear end in my 36 D2. I haven't gotten my car on the road yet but there's so much old lube sprayed around the pinion seal I'm afraid the rear was run with insufficient lube and will need bearings or even a ring & pinion.