1930 Kram66

Some more progress..... Rear guards/fenders. Mounted both rears on my mobile body work bench, next was sanding the white epoxy mostly off, followed by a little hammer and dolly work then lastly applying a skim coat of filler to the exposed metal. After hours of sanding filler, plus a coat of black epoxy primer they were ready to temporarily bolt back on the car to do the first round of block sanding on. After that was done I removed them from the car and sprayed black epoxy on the underside of both guards, headlight tie bar and two small filler pieces. With some luck the weather will be good tomorrow so I hope to get some black epoxy on the top side's of each guard to seal them back up. Cheer's Mark

Lucky me .. caught a break with the weather...got 2 coats of epoxy primer on some parts this morning. 😊 Cheer's Mark

Still raining here..... no good for spraying primer, the right guard/fender/wing is ready for that, so I had some free time yesterday, Instead I wrapped the exhaust pipe with heat insulating tape..... Sad isn't it.😐 It definitely helps with heat radiated on the bowl of the fuel pump. Cheer's Mark.

Thank you for the heads up on the air cleaner. I was just being lazy .... I do not have the correct style air cleaner, also there is not much room between the throat of the carby and the steering box. So fitting anything in there is a problem. That boy racer air cleaner is only 3inches round and I had to push one side in to get it to fit. It was always going to be a temporary arrangement while I am test running the engine, and yes it was running rich with that cleaner on. One day I hope to find a correct style air cleaner, in the mean time I going to go with a different set up using a remote air cleaner/ spark arrestor that is more period correct. ( sort of) I made a mounting bracket and a sleeve to allow me to use the same size air tube from the carby to the remote air cleaner I mounted it in two holes that were already drilled in the fire wall ( bonus) Just waiting for a flexible air tube to air to connect the carby to the air cleaner. Cheer's Mark

Ron, I suppose we all have done lots of miles tracking down parts for our projects, sometimes you get what you need, other times not so much. Like the time I rang a gentleman who lived in the very small town of Winton, near Deniliquin ( Western NSW) from a advert in Restored Cars Magazine, I asked about the parts he was selling, he said all the right answers- he seemed to understand , he said he even owned a Chrysler 66 - what could possibly go wrong. Long story short - drove 8hrs to get there only to find out what he was selling was not what the ad said. His wife came over and said that her husband has a few memory problems and that she was very sorry that I drove all that way for nothing, So what do you do ? She offered me a cuppa and a very nice homemade coconut slice - I spent the hour or so listening and looking at old photo's of some of their adventures in their Chrysler 66 Sedan - turns out they drove it pretty much around Australia back in the early 70's . It was a long trip home empty handed but somehow it wasn't that bad after all. Cheer's Mark

Yes Ron it only took a 8 hour drive to find a good set of cat walks, who doesn't like a road trip.😊 Cheer's Mark

Had a few days of decent weather so back on body work. Got most of the filler work on the drivers side front guard done, also worked on the front chassis covers and front apron as well. Using black epoxy primer I sprayed 2 coats on the underside of all pieces. Cheer's Mark

Still very wet here- so no body work....Damn. However I found some other jobs that needed to be done...... always other job's isn't there. First job that I had a crack at was putting oil in the gearbox ( I use Penrite semi fluid grease). I removed the top of the gearbox as I had to make a gasket for it as well, also it made it easy to get the lube in. That went so well I finalised the hand brake adjustments and made up and fitted a new inner speedo cable (NOS repair part) to the original outer while I was in this area. Next was fitting the foot throttle rod and hand throttle rod from the steering box linkage to the carburettor. Lastly I fitted the bonnet hold downs so I could close the bonnet properly, next was adjusting how the bonnet fitted by moving the radiator about and adjusting the cross rods that go between the top of the radiator and the firewall, I some how managed to get a decent fit around the cowl and radiator surround. The most exciting thing this week was finally picking up my paint colour sample's from the paint laboratory nearby. After much deliberation I decided to go with Arabian Mocha stone for the main body colour and maroon for the belt line and of course black for the guards and splash aprons. Originally my car was English Gray ( a mid Green colour ???). I am sorry but I couldn't bring my self to paint this car green ( my previous Chrysler was green by coincidence ), besides out of the original colours available in 1930 for my model this is the one that I dislike the least. Last picture shows the colour's including a sample of the top material (stupidly placed underneath the main body colour) for reference. Cheer's Mark.

Hi Narve N The damper I used on my car was originally used on 60-70s VW Beetles. It's stroke travel matches the Chrysler's tie rod's travel perfectly and they are easily found and wont break the bank. As far as bump steer is concerned - to be honest I cant say for sure whether it was wheel shimmy or bump steer or both that I actually experienced, what I do know that it wasn't fun and fitting the damper got rid of the problem. If it helps I got the idea of fitting a damper from a couple of other early Chrysler driver's who had similar experience's while driving their cars. Thank you for your interest in my project. Cheer's Mark

Sorry to hear about your situation Ben- Hope everything works out for you and your family. Cheer's Mark

GMH ( General Motors Holden) plant in Sydney, Australia in 1977 as part of a technical college excursion, we followed the line building the then new Holden HX LE Monaro ( I think it was sent to the US as a Pontiac GTO)

Wait there's more.... The eagle eyed out there may notice a steering damper lurking in the back ground.... so here is the guff. In my vintage car driving experience's over the last 20year's I had a couple of butt clenching moment's with wheel shimmy 😐 ....... which I don't wish to relive any time soon- hence the steering damper. I fitted one to my last Chrysler after a clenching episode ( despite new every thing between the steering box and the front wheel's). They are not original- but fitting it certainly made a huge difference to the steering quality and feel and I didn't have any more shimmy episode's in over 4500km of driving. By the way- I am not expecting any problems with this car as I have gone over the steering completely, but I don't want to worry about potential clenching- so in my humble opinion this modification is worth doing for just that reason alone😀 Cheer's Mark By the way it's still raining.

Just because it's raining a lot doesn't mean I have been idle.... As both front guard's are off the car at present I thought it's a good time to cut out the hole's in the fender welting. I made the welting myself last year. I used magnets to position the welt in place, next using chalk I marked the hole positions, once marked i used a couple of different sized wad punches to make the holes required. Cheer's Mark

As mentioned in my last post I removed the other guard/fender/wing to start the filler work on it...... only got to put a skim coat on and sand/shape with 40grit- then it started to rain again. 😐 The only place I have to do this type of work is not very big (10ft by 10ft) and open on one side, so the weather has to be kind to me to allow this type of work to happen. It's pretty much rained most day's for the last two week's here so...... no body work for me 😀. Cheer's Mark

I didn't want to use heat shrink to insulate my terminations either. I used self amalgamating tape. It's likely not correct either, but to my eye it has an old style look .

Had some luck over the weekend with the weather (it wasn't raining for once) and was able to spray 2 coats of epoxy primer on the guard/fender/wing. Also removed the other side guard and started filler work on it. Cheer's Mark

Hi Viv, Thank you for your interest also.😊 By the way, a 66 Coupe is my dream car , hardly see any here in Oz.😐 Cheer's Mark

Hi Gunsmoke, I saw you post this morning just as I was leaving for work, sorry for my delayed reply. Here are some pictures of the main pressed steel bracket that is spot welded to the guard/fender/wing. First photo is of the bracket on the left side guard that I'm working on and the others are how it mount's to the chassis. ( right side shown). As always, thank you for your interest in my project. Cheer's Mark

Thanks keiser31 for your interest in my project. The single hole is for a brace that mounts from the edge of the fender to the chassis. Cheer's Mark

And now for something completely different.....Bodywork 😐 the seemingly never ending part of any project. I can't put of starting this any longer...... so I removed the front left guard/fender/wing to commence to filling and sanding. 😊 I started with this one, because it was the most damaged of all and required a lot of metal work just to make it decent. So while my enthusiasm was up I thought tackling the hardest one made sense. Speaking of the metal work this was done about 18 months ago and after all the metal parts where repaired I coated them in white epoxy primer. I have about 23hours of filling and sanding so far, spaced over the last two weeks, done after work and weekends. I hope to spray a couple of coats of black epoxy primer towards the end of the week. Cheer's Mark

Hi Vintageben, Excellent new project..... I'm jealous, who doesn't like a basket case challenge 😊. Here are a couple of pictures from the Fisher Body Service Manual.... it's worth tracking a copy down if you can. Looking forward to seeing your progress on this one. Cheer's Mark

The boss let me spend some time on the sewing machine over the holidays..... I finished the side curtains finally. Cheer's Mark

Worked back a few hours yesterday to finish up the rest of the inserts for the side curtains before knocking off work for 3 weeks. ( yippee !!!) Merry Christmas to all. Cheers Mark

Since my last post I have made the side curtain frames for all 4 doors, I had one original to copy from- they are made from 3/8 inch round bar bent into a rectangular shape ( I made a simple jig using the original for reference to make them the same size and shape ) the ends are welded together. Two small spigots are welded on the lower rail of each frame to allow the curtain to plug into the inserts on each door. Also, I am in the process of turning up some curtain inserts for the top's of the door's, from 1inch diameter aluminium round bar on the lathe at work, have made 4 at this time. I have finished both the rear most curtains and have just finished the drivers side rear door curtain to-day. I have been giving the side curtain window 's some thought - hence the blue tape - not sure which way to go, small like original style or larger for better visibility. Either way they will be not the best to see out of, but I probably wont be driving it in the rain anyway, right? Cheer's Mark

Some more progress ...... Basically all the panels for the roof are now made and tacked in position. Next job is applying the edge binding. and fitting the rear window frame. But .... Having trouble getting the edge binding that I want to use, apparently I wont see it until next year now. So I will move on to the side curtains while I am waiting for the binding to show up. That will certainly keep me busy, as I need to make the metal frame's for each door as well. Cheer's Mark