ply33

I don't know your car specifically but speaking from one who drives a slightly older car I think I can add a bit about that topic... If your pump is original then it is on borrowed time because the additives in modern gas are not kind to the diaphragm material. You can get rebuild kits with parts compatible with modern gas from the Antique Parts Cellar, also know as Then and Now Automotive. Rebuilding a fuel pump is pretty easy. This summer, for the first time, I have had several bouts with "vapor lock". Always after a long hard run. Once when coming up to an idle the other time after parking the car for about 5 minutes. In both cases a little drinking water poured on the fuel pump got me restarted quickly. I guess I am taking a chance with cracking the fuel pump casting but so far I've been lucky. If your car was equipped with a heat shield between the manifold and pump, make sure it is there. If your car has the fuel pump located in a warm part of the engine compartment your problems will be worse. It seems the problem is two fold: 1) A hot gas pump can get some vaporized gas in it. And pumps don't pump vapor as well as they pump liquid. You can mitigate that by putting an electric pump near the tank. You could even leave the old pump in place. Be sure that the electric won't over pressurize your fuel, it should be limited to what ever your carburetor float valve can handle. Yes, they make 6v fuel pumps still. 2) When parked, the gas in the carburetor float bowl can get hot and expand. When that happens gas can run into to the intake manifold "flooding" the engine. Limit this by assuring that any heat isolation parts are installed between the manifold and the carburetor and, perhaps, by setting the float valve a bit lower than spec. If you don't account for both of those you can end up with a flooded engine that is out of gas at the carburetor which is very hard to start until it sits for a long while. So far I have kept the original (rebuilt) fuel pump but I do think about adding an electric pump from time to time.

I have the same problem when I try to go to the local Plymouth dealer.

That oil is from a direct quote from period instructions. I don't believe that it is available today. At least not under that name. I have used both air conditioner compressor oil and the lubricating oil sold for compressed air tools. As long as the oil is not so heavy that is will congeal and not so light that it will run out easily I suspect that it does not make a huge difference.

If that is the case, if it were me I'd pull that motor and send it off to the Wiperman. I've not actually dealt with him but I've heard lots of good things. WiperMan.COM - Wipers, Wipers, Wipers

Does your Chevrolet have a motor on each blade? If so then this might help: 1933 Plymouth Wiper Motor Tune-up If you have one motor with linkages to run two blades then it will probably be different.

I was wondering the same thing. My stock 1933 has a pretty big piece of frame reinforcing across the whole back that would need to be crushed before the tank was comprised. There would be major visible damage of a type I don't see on the car in the video. The rear fender does not appear to be damaged at all. Maybe it is because of the transverse leaf spring setup in the back of a Ford. Or maybe modifications from stock. Or maybe something else... Still, the video is food for thought. Looks like he was hit from behind and then spun across the intersection to with a 180. That took a lot of force. I'd rather not find out what that would do to my car or me. Extreme defensive driving is always a good idea but how do you really protect oneself from being hit from behind?

The owners manual that came with the car has repair and maintenance information. I know that reproduction owners manuals are available for 1933 and I expect that is also true for the 1931. The most accurate way to adjust the brakes is with a special tool. Miller made the ones that were shown in the later Chrysler product service manuals. Those are hard to find complete with all the bushings and adaptors. Amco also made one (Amco 1750) that usually fetches high prices. Apparently the V8 era Ford brakes need the same tool. You can do a reasonable job by feel if you take your time. The procedure for that can be found at Brake Adjustment

You did not click the link in the initial post in this thread? Cunifer is designed and intended to be used for brake lines. Been used longer on European vehicles than on US built ones... Big advantage is lower corrosion so they last longer in areas with snow and salt than the steel tubing.

If it was built before WW2 then it must be a Ford and all cars from the 1950s are Chevrolets too. It might help if you mentioned the brand of your vehicle.

Never heard of this show but it sounds like a lot of fun. I'll have to mark my calendar for next year's event.

Not sure about your meaning of "top" versus "bottom" but the two threaded fasteners shown on the top of your second photo are for mounting the horn on the vehicle. They are not electrical connections. The electrical connections will probably be screws through some insulated bushings on the back side of the horn. There may also be a set screw with a lock nut on it (might be under the cover depending on manufacturer and model of horn). That will be an adjusting screw. And you probably don't want to play with it. On many horns that is quite sensitive and a 1/8 of a turn will take you in to a non-functional state.

Sounded to me like there was a desire for a pretty high powered sound system. So I don't think that is what the original poster was looking for. If your player requirement are more modest than I believe the poster's, I have noticed that my home iPod player runs off a "wall wart" that provides 5v at a bit less than 2 amps. It might be possible to directly run that off of the car's 6v electrical system. At worse a 5v regulation circuit shouldn't be to hard to make for it. An amazing amount of modern electronic toys run on 5v or less. I was able to make a really cheap and simple device to charge my "smart phone" for my old car. So now I have a "through the windshield" movie camera, GPS and phone all in one easy package: http://www.ply33.com/Repair/cellphone

Like this: 6/12 volt DC/DC converters 180 Watts peak and 250 watts peak, positive ground to negative ground or negative to negative ground, even negative to postive ground. Looks like these are lower power than you'd like: http://www.6to12volt.com/ (no knowledge of quality or applicability, just a Google search...)

I will have to concur with the earlier responses to your query. Your 1939 with stock drivetrain should be able to cruise all day at 65. You won't win drag races and you may be a bit slow pulling mountain grades above 5000 ft, but it will be reliable. The Plymouth L-6 engine is a very reliable beast and was kept in production for industrial uses for years after they stopped putting them in cars. This makes parts availability very good for the drivetrain. For example the oil pan gasket, valve cover gaskets and manifold gaskets are the same for 1933-72. You can get them your local "better auto supply store". Just got back from a trip to Lake Tahoe in my stock 1933 with an earlier, lower power (190 cu.in. 70 BHP versus your 201 cu. in. 82 BHP) version of that same engine and lower geared rear end (4.375:1 versus your 4.11:1). Highest pass was a bit under 9000 ft and there were some steep grades. But we did not hold up traffic too much. We used mostly the non-freeway route because it is more scenic. About 600 miles for the trip, generally running about 60 MPH when the limit was 65 or at the speed limit when posted for lower speeds. The tool kit I took consisted of my cell phone and AAA card. The car is reliable enough that I did not feel I needed more than that. Earlier this summer I went with a group of 10 vehicles, 8 of which were stock pre-WW2 Plymouths from the SF Bay Area to Portland, Oregon. Round trip, with miscellaneous other driving, was about 1800 miles. We had no breakdowns at all in the group and we averaged 50 MPH sightseeing on our way up and 60 MPH back. If you really, really feel that you need more power. And you don't mind taking a points hit if you ever decide to get your car judged by the AACA, the Plymouth Owners Club or equivalent. Then drop in a later Plymouth or Dodge engine, up to 1959 for cars. That could get you maybe 50% more power with nothing but a bolt in swap.

Easy to check: Pull the spark plugs and then try to turn the engine over by hand. Without the plugs in place, with the transmission in neutral and a properly tensioned fan belt, it should be possible to turn the engine over by pulling on the fan blades. However, unless it is a very fresh rebuild it seems unlikely to me. I've heard of valve sticking from prolonged parking. But you say the engine runs okay if push started and that implies that the valves are working.

Did the bench test include a stall test (max torque produced at what current)? Is the vehicle equipped with the correct battery cables? A common issue is use of 12v cables which have too much voltage drop when used with a 6v starting system.

1. You might try Don Sommers for a reproduction radiator cap. American Arrow Corporation 105 Kinross Clawson, MI 48017 Telephone: +1.248.435.6115 Fax: +1.248.435.2916 email: dsommer@greatid.com American Arrow Don Sommer 2. I believe that the winged mermaid (a.k.a. "flying lady") was introduced with the "floating power" ad campaign for the 1931 PA so it would not be correct for a 1930 30-U Plymouth.

The LP1E portion indicates that it is a 1958 model year 6 cylinder car built at the Evansville plant. Serial numbers start at LP1E-1001 and go up, so yours would be the 17261th built. My reference materials do not indicate the ending number. The engine number prefix would be one of LP1-L (Plaza Suburban), LP1-M (Savoy Suburban) or LP1-H (Belvedere Suburban) according to the same 1973 issued "1928-58 Plymouth Serial Number List" from Chrysler. I am more familiar with the 1930s cars so having an engine number with those style prefixes looks odd to me.

The quartz-halogen bulbs I am using are plug in replacements for the #1000 bulbs, no modifications required. Just plug them in. There is enough volume inside the headlight and all that chrome plated brass bucket sits in the air stream as the car moves, so it should be cooled pretty well. Also, the lens is glass and located fairly far from the bulb. So there does not appear to be a problem with the heat. That said, the wiring inside of my headlight buckets was replaced with mil-spec stuff I got in the 1970s but I would think that standard wiring in good shape would be okay too. I would think strongly about heat issues if considering using a quartz-halogen bulb in a tail lamp as there is much less volume and surface area to dissipate heat. And be especially careful if you have plastic lenses on your tail lamps.

If your halogen replacement draws the same current as the stock bulb and the switches, wires and connectors are in good shape a relay is not required. However you will get a bit higher voltage at the bulb (which should mean more light but shorter life) if you run oversized wires to the lights and have those switched by high current relays (one per lamp) than if you run all that current through the stock headlight switch and dimmer switch. Personally I opted for getting quartz-halogen bulbs that draw the same power as a #1000 bulb and am not using a relay.

P3 (business) and P4 (DeLuxe) were the engineering designations for the two cars. Nearly identical mechanically though the P3 would be equipped with a different rear end for economy rather than acceleration, etc. Both the P3 and the P4 were equipped with engines stamped with the P4 series of engine numbers (on the block above the generator). Take a look at the serial number for the car located on the front passenger (right) door hinge post. It will be a a tag labeled "serial number" and will be a numeric sequence. Look up were that number falls in the table located at Plymouth First Decade: Where is the VIN? and you will find out what you have and where the car was assembled.

I'll second this opinion: How good can those antique car headlights be?

I got my last 6v battery at Bob's Auto Supply in Sunnyvale. They carry Interstate batteries. I don't know if they are the best, or even might be rated "good", but they are local to me and have been pretty helpful on parts for my old car. Don't have any idea about that particular size 6v battery, but I'd give them a call.

If you are not a member of the Plymouth Owners Club you might want to consider joining. The national magazine for that club has free classified ads for members and that is probably the best place to find some of the less common parts. That said, they made a lot of PE Plymouths and the artillery wheels were the standard wheel for that, so I would have expected that hub cap to be fairly available.

I use hydraulic jack oil in the Delco-Lovejoy lever arm shocks on my 1933 Plymouth. I have heard of others using motorcycle fork/strut oil. No idea of how much yours needs or how to fill them. On mine there is a small filler screw hole and I use a dedicated hand pump type oil can with a flexible spout to fill them up. Been years since I last checked them... Maybe I ought to do that in the near future.