MercMontMars

So today while tinkering with the car I tried the brake pedal and it actually has a little resistance now. I checked the cylinder reservoir and it was dry, suggesting the fluid went somewhere. This happened after the car sat for a couple days. What might’ve happened here? When the pedal is pressed it doesn’t feel like I’m applying the brakes, it just has a bit of resistance now as opposed to before where it’d just go straight to the floor. When I pushed the car in for the night I had a harder time pushing it so the brakes must be doing something. I don’t know why they’d be applied with no one pushing the pedal. I plan on overhauling the braking system once the car is good and I can drive it on the road, but if I can get the brakes to work just enough for testing in my lot that’d be perfect.

I’ve put in a new gasket and filled up the cylinder, I wanted to check what could be inside it before filling it up. It’s all put together now, but I’m still not getting anything. Straight to the floor. I’m guessing it’s either totally shot or the piston could be stuck. Either way it’s not the worst thing ever, I plan on overhauling the system once the car can drive and until then the emergency brake works.

Carburetor is partially assembled and settling with some gasket maker for now until I get my rebuild kit in the mail. I want the carb good enough to test with for now. Using 3 O-Ring seals I was able to get the accelerator pump to pump nicely. When I took the carburetor off I noticed the linkage was set up for winter weather. Interesting and makes me wonder even more about the car’s past. I also worked a bit on the cooling system today and found a horrific stew of rust and crud. Pretty bad, I cleaned it all up and flushed the coolant passages till it ran clear. I’m just thankful someone used coolant and not hose water, it would’ve been far worse. There seemed to be a lot of stop leak material around the thermostat housing, it always baffles me that someone would rather try that instead of just fixing the leak, especially on a system this simple.

Tinkered around today with the motor, everything is coming together nicely. I wired up a temporary way to get spark from the coil and cleaned up the distributor/points. Threw in some fresh wires and I’m getting hot spark at the plugs now. Set up my firing order 1-5-3-6-2-4 clockwise. Tried to get her to fire with a little starting fluid/gas and she sort of wanted to but just wouldn’t. I traced down my problem to the carburetor, there was basically a hole in the lower gaskets and fuel was just getting right through them. I knew it was gonna need attention eventually. I’ve taken it off and disassembled it, all of its gaskets were shot. I’ve ordered a rebuild kit for it and will be getting that done soon. All around good news though, carburetor should be the final step then I can hear her run.

@Bloo Thank you Bloo, I appreciate your diligent advice. I think that’s what I was experiencing, it was a sound I’ve never heard before and I saw backfire from the intake/carb. I definitely won’t be forgetting it any time soon.. Condenser is in place, it’s just hidden behind the rotor in the photo. I will be using all your advice tomorrow as I work on her, hopefully ending the day with a running straight-8.

So I’ve got good fuel and spark now, and she was making combustion but I can’t get her to turn over. Fuel bowl squirts well, I had the carb rebuilt a while back. She rolls about 4-5 times then let’s out a big backfire. I have a feeling it’s timing now, or my order could still be off.(by distributor positioning.) I felt the first cylinder for TDC and lined it up with one of the balancer lashes. My distributor rotor pointed to 1 and I made this 1 on my distributor. Went counter-clockwise 1-6-2–5-8-3-7-4. Gonna continue tinkering with it, might adjust my points too. Tested all my cylinders’ compression and each one tested around 60-65psi and went up to 120 when oiled, not exactly great.

Compression on cylinder No. 1 so far.. I am supposed to have a 7.7:1 compression rate I believe. Gonna check them all but I’m probably in store for some new rings.

No actually, there are three notches on the balancer that are very close together. I was on the one in the center. I’ll get a photo of it next time I’m by the car, which one should I be on?

@Bloo Yup, I did the order counter-clockwise. I put the motor to TDC according to the marks on the balancer and installed the distributor, and it seemingly points to 1 which would be correct. I don’t fully trust this though, I’ll have to physically feel where the motor is to be 100% accurate. Once that’s all sorted and I still don’t get anything it’s gotta either be my compression or wires, as they aren’t the best and are what came with the car when I bought it. Still have to go grab a compression test kit to test that too.

Hi everybody, I’m back at my Pontiac trying to get her running. I’ve been juggling my time and projects and finally found the time to rebuild my starter and work out the kinks in my ignition system. Everything is officially “working” as in my carburetor is good, fuel pump is good, distributor is good, plugs are good and coil is.. possibly good. I can never really tell with these things, I’ve had a lot of bad luck with modern coils. So the point I’m at right now is getting her to fire. I can use 6v again to turn the motor now that my starter is fresh and I’m getting blue spark at the plugs and points. Everything is looking great, but I just can’t get her to fire. I’m not certain about my firing order, and my manual isn’t very helpful about telling me much. Only things I’m questioning is compression and fuel. When I last broke down it felt like a fuel problem, the acceleration got finicky and the motor died out. I probably flooded it trying to get going again and she hasn’t run since, but it’s had a while to evaporate so I’m not sure if this is the issue. My other suspicion is compression, I haven’t done a test with that yet and need to go get a test kit but I’m not sure if it’s the issue. I don’t think a motor would suddenly die from that on the road but who knows. All I know is I haven’t run the motor since I broke down, I’m getting spark and possibly fuel but air could be the problem OR my firing order is wrong.. if I’m lucky it’s that. Anyone else been in my shoes with their Straight-8? Any advice and firing order diagrams would be very helpful. Thanks for any help!

Starter motor brush has seen better days…

Worked a bit more on the car’s wiring today, tried to get my ignition system to show some life but had little luck. I peeled away some old electrical tape someone used to protect the wires, but it looks like it might’ve just trapped moisture over time and now I’m left with a crumbly corroded mess. I was able to trace my wires a little bit and figure out where they go, but most of them have lost their colouring. Not really enough left of the original wiring harness that I can fix just enough to work. I am able to jump the solenoid directly like Bloo said, and luckily my starter turns strongly with all plugs in and torqued. My plan now is to find a safe way to directly run the coil for spark and be able to turn the motor. Once the motor runs and I get gears I’ll install new wiring but it needs to prove it’s worth first.

So now I’ve got a brand new 6v solenoid installed, and I wired it all up just as it was when I found the car. I also installed an ignition cylinder that I have the key to, wired it as it was to some nondescript black wires.. no idea where they go as of now. The underside of the dash is very.. tinkered with. I got the lights to come on which is exciting, and I found my amp meter gauge to be working. Only thing I can’t get to go is the starter button. I’m not sure if it’s just too corroded to actually do anything or if something is wired wrong somewhere. Amp meter doesn’t move at all when the button is pressed so I’m assuming there is no circuit being created by it. I have a wiring diagram, but someone changed the setup to a different solenoid and later starter which confuses things a little bit. I’m sure I’ll work it out with some tinkering, but if I can’t figure it out as is, is there a way to safely bypass the ignition system so I can run the motor? Sounds like a dumb question, but I haven’t really dealt with a situation like this before and I don’t want to burn anything up so I’m just playing it safe. I’m still suspicious of the second floor button, it’s very odd. I plan on getting a fresh wiring harness for this car eventually cause it’s gonna need it, but I want it to prove itself first by running and moving.

Slowly coming to life.. Can’t get the starter button to work, I set up the wiring just as it was when I bought the car but I’m not sure what’s right or wrong as the car has the wrong solenoid setup and a later starter. Unsure of how to wire in the ignition, I also wired that in as it was when found but with an ignition cylinder I have the key to. Could be the original one.. still has a Yale key. Plenty of electrical gremlins to work out with this car. The amp meter actually works which is neat, wasn’t expecting any gauges to work.

Looks like my master cylinder might be up in there, I’m not really sure how to access it.

@mobileparts I’d love to, and eventually will need to. Please message me on what your price is for the full kit.

@Bloo Thank you for all this great info! I will be utilizing all of it once I get to fixing up my brake system. I haven’t bled it yet. I absolutely plan on doing a full overhaul eventually, probably after the car proves to be a worthy runner and I need them to make her road safe.

@maok Not sure, when I pull the handbrake it moves but doesn’t stay clicked. Might be able to free it enough to use it, haven’t rolled the car enough to really test it. Car rolls freely so I don’t think the brake is stuck thankfully.

THERE IS LIFE! Cleaned my connections and discovered that my starter is reasonably healthy. Turns well and sounds good, oil pump is pumping too. Not many steps left until I can make her run.. just waiting on my solenoid and some other parts. Seems I can’t post videos here at the moment, I’ll figure out a way to do that soon.

Hi there, I’m posting in hopes of learning a bit more about my Chrysler’s braking system. There is no pressure on the brake pedal unsurprisingly, and it’s a system I’m not very used to. Before I go taking anything apart, what am I working with here? Haven’t been able to roll the car into my shop yet and look at all my lines or the system. Wondering if there’s a way to just fix it for now so I have brakes when rolling the car or testing it for very short distances. Don’t hear any hissing or pressure being made when the pedal is pushed so I’m assuming the cylinder or however this system makes pressure is shot. Will get photos and inspect more once I can get under the car more. Thanks for any help!

@Joe Cocuzza Wow, I gotta find a reproduction of that. Mine is only a piece of metal after so many years!

Took the voltage regulator and a relay off for cleaning and inspection. Everything looks pretty alright to me, I’m no professional but good for 80 years old if they’re original. According to my research the relay is for the electric overdrive, not sure if that’s correct. Hopefully the shop manual will be here soon so I can check out the wiring diagrams and see what’s what. Found a weird plate that was on the firewall, took it off to see if it said anything or was blocking a hole in the firewall but it’s just kind of there. Distributor looks pretty clean.

@The 55er Hmm, I’ll have to check that out once the manual arrives. Pretty surprising if it’s not the right starter motor or solenoid, means someone must’ve had a later dodge/Chrysler and my 39 and just started swapping parts back and forth. Hopefully nothing was messed up too badly by them doing this.

I’m kind of wondering if my system just isn’t direct enough, the jumper cables are pretty long and I haven’t replaced my positive ground cable yet so it’s still sort of nasty. Guess we’ll find out once I put the new cables in and the solenoid.

@Bloo I tried that, no dice. Thought that would help too.