hchris
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Posts posted by hchris
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I should add that around the same time the Holden Motor Body company ( similar origins to T J Richards ) were also assembling Chrysler products at another Adelaide plant in the suburb of Woodville. Later this company was absorbed by General Motors and in 1948 produced there own home grown version of a GM product simply known as the Holden, they are still producing and exporting GM based cars today.
But back to the 1930`s the Holden company assembled many Dodges, Plymouths and Desotos as well as other independent makes ( these cars all had a distinctive Holden badge fitted to the body usually on the lower cowl area ); they were also very big in Military production for all services during WW2.
As far as I am aware Chrysler production reverted to T J Richards post war until their takeover by Chrysler Australia.
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As previously stated the T.J.Richards family assembled Chrysler / Dodge / Plymouth / Desoto vehicles here in South Australia up until the post war years. This practice was established by Government regulations to conform with vehicle import requirements prior to the beginnings of home grown vehicle manufacturing plants.
Chrysler Australia commenced operations in the old T.J.Richards plant at Keswick ( inner Adelaide suburb - capital city of South Australia ) around 1950; the T.J.Richards family had by then diversified into other industries and had no further input in auto manufacturing.
Chrysler Australia went on to establish a bigger plant at the Adelaide suburb of Tonsley Park and continued making vehicles until Mitsubishi took them over in the early 80`s.
The Richards family descendants still live in Adelaide but have had no involvement with automobiles since the 50`s; unfortunately there is little or no history of their vehicle production records and as most of that generation have passed on it would seem there is little or no hope of finding them.
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Thanks Keiser but the Chrysler 50 / 58 and Plymouth U were derived from the Maxwell and share many similar mechanical components as well as running gear.
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The steel rim as Bill has pointed out can be cleaned by abrasive blasting or similar, even rust holes / cracks can be weld repaired. The real problem is the condition of the wood spokes, are they cracked / split or loose in the rim. If any of these conditions exist then they need to be replaced; finding someone with these skills is increasingly difficult.
For what it`s worth many of the Chrysler/Plymouth/Desoto cars of this era share the same wheel, but of course if they are old then will be suffering the same problems.
Maxwell did use solid steel wheels as an option for your model and if you look around ebay etc. they are still available.
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If I can jump in; yes you have the mark but No. 1 and 6 cylinders will always be at top dead centre together ( one on compression and the other on exhaust stroke ). What you need to determine for timing is when No. 1 is on compression stroke and perhaps the simplest way is to remove the spark plug, put your thumb over the hole and feel the compression as the No. 1 piston comes to the top - p.s. you need an assistant or long arms!!
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Well the first thought is the intake valve guide is leaking, in other words the low air pressure around the intake valve is drawing up oil through the guide as the engine is running.
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For what it`s worth the Chrysler 6 cylinders and V8`s all have exhaust studs which go into the water jackets. It would follow that the straight 8`s would be the same, so I have found that a good quality gasket sealant applied to the stud threads is all that is needed to stop them leaking.
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This may not help much, but it's not '36 Dodge.
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As I explained, the heat riser is not very efficient at applying heat to the carb throat / venturi area which is where the ice is forming. So until the manifold is heat saturated there is always the possibility of throttle ice.
I have 3 different vehicles with perfectly serviceable heat riser valves and if the atmospheric conditions are right, they all suffer from carb ice until the engine reaches correct operating temperature.
However I do agree that a stuck heat riser is not going to help on a cold engine.
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The technical reason for ice to form in the carb is a low pressure area exists in the venturi and moisture ( humidity ) in the air condenses to ice around the throttle plate.
The problem with most manifold heat valves is that they dont immediately heat up the area around the throttle plate / venturi area when your engine first fires up, and in fact, you may observe that it could take up to five minutes for that area to warm up on a cool day.
My way of dealing with it is to have a piece of heater duct pipe feed hot air off the manifold straight down the air filter inlet ( of course you need a suitable filter housing to do this with ).
No doubt those Aircraft Engineers viewing this will recognise that this is common practice for airrcraft piston engines.
The downside is that once the engine operates in a warm to hot environment it is not good practice to be feeding hot air into the carb, so it has to be removable or adapted to enable hot air or cool air as desired.
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Well you will need a 12V generator and regulator, these are readily available for mid 50`s and on Mopars. But the big question is why would you want to do this ? A well maintained 6V system will do all you want for everyday running. If you are convinced you are going down this road there are many articles on this forum relating to the procedures.
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I`m thinking you may have more than one problem here, so lets look at the overheating first. Remove the radiator bottom hose then blank off the lower outlet and fill, leave the cap off and release the water out of the lower outlet, it should flow out with a rush; if it hiccups or goes glug glug glug then you have an internal blockage.
As to your mixture, I would start by removing the spark plugs and observing the color of the tips, if you are running lean they will be light grey to white ( normally you could expect them to be a light brown )
So there are a couple of starting points lets know what you find.
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Willie you are of course correct, if it was set up to run lean at high altitude then it will run leaner at sea level.
I would question however the ability to run so lean that it overheats without noticing other symptoms eg. coughing/spluttering etc.
Also if it overheats at idle this probably has nothing to do with lean metering rods.
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If you can turn it over by hand then first remove the plugs and turn it through a full cycle by hand, in other words make sure that all of the cylinders have gone though all four strokes; this way you should be able to detect any tight spots or binding.
Having done this then spin it over with the starter ( plugs still removed ) until you observe oil pressure on the guage or warning light.
As mentioned above you are likely to encounter stuck rings or valves after all this time so upper cylinder lube and a gentle hand are required.
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If the carb has been adjusted to run at altitude it would mean that the mixture would have been set lean, so if you are now at sea level with the same adjustments it would now be running rich.
As a general rule rich mixtures run cool and lean mixtures run hot; so if you had a mixture fault you should be observing the opposite symptons to those you have described.
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Have you checked the trans fluid level ? do it with the engine hot and running and make sure the level is correct
If this is OK, has someone been messing with the carb or trans linkages ? it doesnt take much to get these out of wack to upset the shift pattern
Finally if all the above checks out OK you are left with an internal trans problem, is the fluid clean or does it have a brownish tinge and burnt smell ??
Perhaps drain the fluid and drop the pan to inspect the filter, if you find any contamination then its going to cost money !!
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I feel sure you will need to start again with the brake shoe adjustments; find a copy of the correct procedure and follow it to the letter. Unless you get this right you will find yourself chasing your tail forever and a day, all the bleeding in the world will not rectify the situation.
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I am sure the dirty idle ports are a giveaway, sounds like you need to pursue the mixture problem. I`m not familiar with this carb but how about moving to the Buick forum and posting this query,someone there should be able to help.
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OK I`m thinking float level setting ? choke sticking on the rich side ? incorrect gasket blocking a vacuum port ? just to begin with.
Are you able to beg / borrow a similar carb to fit and see if the problem still exists ?
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Black soot ? Have you considered there may be a mixture problem ?
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Can you define your particular fouling, are the plugs sooted up, are they wet, in other words can you be a little more precise in what you are experiencing, what colour are the plug tips when removed ?
Depending on what symptoms you have, there is a chance that the problem is not with the plugs at all.
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You missed a couple of cylinders.....
OK so fill in the gaps for him
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Still confused ?
Try this, hand turn the engine and establish number one cylinder at top of compression stroke - either by the timing marks on the front pullies, or finger over the spark plug hole feeling the pressure as piston comes to the top.
Whilst turning the engine ( with distributor cap removed )
note the direction in which the rotor button turns.
Having established number one cylinder in the correct position, fit number one spark lead to the distributor cap in line with the rotor button, now fit the remaining leads in a 1,5,3,6,2,4 sequence based on the rotor direction of travel
Good Luck
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A good way to check for radiator internal blockage is to remove the bottom hose then put a cap of some sort over the lower outlet again and fill the radiator. Once filled remove the cap from the lower outlet and observe how the escaping water flows, if it glug,glug,glugs then this would indicate an internal blockage, if it flows freely with a rush then the radiator is clear.
Australian Dodges (history)
in Dodge & Dodge Brothers
Posted
To my knowledge there has never been a concise documented history of the T J Richards operation, all we have to rely on are the remaining vehicles on our roads today.
Factors which affected the importation of complete or disassembled vehicles, were as mentioned, world wars and Government regulations / tariffs aimed at protecting the local industries.
Here in Adelaide we have full steel bodied as well as wood framed vehicles from different eras bulit by T J Richards. Most of the body styles up to the 50`s were similar to US vehicles, however we have some odd balls such as wood framed 1935 Plymouth touring bodies.
I myself have a 1934 all steel Chrysler which was obviously fully imported, many dealers worked independently of the Richards operation and imported fully assembled vehicles usually from Canadian plants because of the right hand drive requirement.
When I put my all steel bodied 34 next to a Richards wood framed 34 there are considerable differences both inside and out, in fact the only common denominator is the chassis and drive train.