Rusty_OToole

I had a 52 New Yorker with drum brakes and the same remote booster. Evidently they were available in 49. You have the same clearance bump in the floor boards which suggests it is a factory planned installation (not aftermarket). Some luxury cars had power brakes in the late 20s or early 30s. I don't know when Chrysler adopted them but I would not be surprised if they had them years before your 49 was built.

If you have a sealed bypass filter you can tell if it is working or full by the temperature. When it is plugged full oil will stop circulating and it will not get hot. The ones I am familiar with were supposed to be replaced every 5000 miles. But as they are so hard to come by, I would not throw one away until its usefulness was exhausted. On today's paved roads, under favorable conditions it might go 10000 or more.

There are a lot of reasons for a car not starting easily. I would fix what was wrong, not add accessories that probably won't help.

If you fill the engraving with paint and then wipe it off, leaving streaks, there is a way to deal with this. Let the paint dry and carefully polish the excess off with Brasso. Fine rubbing compound will work but Brasso or chrome polish is finer. Sign painters' 1 Shot can be thinned quite a bit, to flow into the engraving, and still cover completely. Ordinary paint is not so opaque when thinned down.

The etching was one of the fads of the 80s. Sort of a frosted effect as if done with acid or a sandblasting machine.

Nobody's laughing. Chrysler made some of the most technically up to date cars of the twenties and yours is one of the best. Their names reflected their top speed, the 75 model would do 75MPH, very fast for the twenties. Second only to the Imperial 80, Chrysler's top model. Incidentally in 1928 Chrysler advertised the Imperial 80 as America's most powerful car at 112HP. The more powerful Duesenberg and V16 Cadillac did not debut until 1929. Your roadster would have been one of the hotter performing cars of the time.

I'm often amazed at the rare and unusual cars that turn up in Australia. One English expert suggested the car companies shipped all their odd, unsaleable and one - off models down under so they could dodge embarrassing requests for spare parts!

They made a change in manifolds in the late 30s, not sure exactly when. The newer model has the exhaust outlet farther forward. This became the standard exhaust pipe location for the rest of the time they were made, up until 1959.

2 thin coats of paint, sprayed on, not too wet. No primer. Fill the lettering with white paint and carefully wipe away the excess. Then clear.

It may be worse than you thought. RHD headlights dip in the opposite direction to the more common LHD models. If you can't find them in Australia I don't know where you might find them.

The ones I am familiar with have a square end. The universal inners have a steel part that clamps onto the flexible cable with a set screw. You cut the cable to length and clamp on the square end.

There should be some good rebuilders in your area. There usually are, there is a good one in my town (pop 17000) and a better one in the next town (pop 8000). Their rebuilts are about 5 times as good as the chain store jobs, for half the price. There are about 4 grades of parts you can buy, at different prices. A good rebuilder uses the better parts, chain store rebuilds scrape the bottom of the barrel. Don't overlook the voltage regulator. Try tapping with a screwdriver handle, sometimes the points stick. It may just need to be cleaned and adjusted. Look in the yellow pages for auto electric shops or ask a good mechanic, or your old car buddies, who is best on old cars in your area.

I've got one of those keys. Bought many years ago (some time in the sixties) at a local hardware store. I think it was part of the key cutting display. In other words an accessory made by a key company. Quite rare and a desirable accessory for the DeSoto owner.

The condenser is inside the distributor. If you have one on the coil it is probably for radio interference suppression. It won't affect the running of the car but the radio may pick up static from the engine if you don't have it.

Not sure but if you mean what I think you mean, the answer is welting or wind lace. Welting is a round bead along the edge of a piece of material. Made by wrapping a strip of upholstery material over a 1/8" diameter cord. No doubt you have seen it on chairs, upholstery, between fenders and bodies. Upholstery shops sell a special plastic cord, and you can use strips of leftover material to make it. Wind lace is similar but fatter, it used to be used along the edge of doors to finish the edge and keep out drafts, before rubber weather stripping came in. Vintage auto supply places sell it.

Travel trailers were one of the hottest trends of the late 30s. If Pierce could have gotten in on this market it could have saved the company. Trailers at that time were built with wood framed bodies covered in aluminum or masonite, similar to the way coach built bodies were made. They could have been made in the Pierce body shops with very little investment in new tooling. Sales of 5000 or 10000 units a year would have kept them in business. They only had to hang on for another 2 or 3 years and wartime contracts would have eliminated the red ink from their books. I don't know why the trailers did not catch on. Maybe they did but too little too late to save the company.

At the end of WW2 the Russians uprooted a whole Opel factory and shipped it back to the USSR as war booty.

It is usually best to take it to a local auto electric shop or starter and alternator rebuilder. They are located all over the country, there should be several near you. Call around and ask if they can rebuild a 1949 starter, most can. If you live in Iowa farming country they routinely rebuild starters and generators for old tractors and equipment. We used to fix them up at home but you need the right tools to do a proper job. Incidentally my local rebuilder does twice as good a job as the typical parts store rebuilt, and charges half or less what they do. Should be around $100. You can ask for an estimate. This is if you take the starter off and deliver it to their shop. Time to do the rebuild, a couple of hours (including waiting for the paint to dry) but it may take several days before they get to it. Especially if they are good and don't charge too much. You could ask your local mechanic or old car friends where they send their starters alternators and generators.

There are certain settings that need to be right. You can't go by the instruction sheet that comes with the carb kits. They are incomplete and filled with errors. It is best to get the original factory instructions, either the repair manual from the car maker or the maker of the carburetor, in your case Carter. You need the directions for the exact model of car and motor you are working on.

I've seen an old picture of a 1907 car that got stuck on a rocky trail. The rear wheels were jammed between 2 big rocks about 2 feet in diameter. The bottom of the wheels were forced inward and the upper parts bent outwards. The top of the tires were a foot farther apart than the bottom. I could not believe the wheels could bend so far and not break, but they got the car out with jacks and pry bars, the wheels sprang back and were good as new.

The story says the wheel broke while pulling onto the road from the verge, at very low speed. There must have been something wrong with the wheel to have broken so easily. They were made to be tough and flexible, they could hit a rock at an angle, the wheel would bend away and spring back. See some old films of Model Ts and similar cars driving through rocky terrain, mud, ruts, sand etc that would stop any modern car short of a 4 wheel drive. Were the wheels original 100 year old wood? Or replacements made of something other than hickory?

Re the 31 Buick. I'm not clear on what the problem is. Sounds like the clutch is working correctly. What is the problem? Engine stalls? Transmission jammed in high gear?

Radial or bias ply tires? 24 PSI was recommended for the soft ride. This is too low. Try 32PSI. If the ride seems too hard you could go to 28PSI. Your car might need a front end alignment. Caster and camber need to be checked as well as toe in. How old are the shock absorbers? They may look OK (not leaking oil) but if they have over 20,000 to 25,000 miles they should be replaced for best ride and handling.

As you have eliminated the driveshaft it must be something else. I would look for a sheet metal panel of some kind that was loose or possibly the exhaust is hitting the frame. Could be a loose shock absorber, Oh lots of things. One of us is going to have to crawl under the car and look around. You are closer than we are.

Does the starter turn slowly when hot? Could be a sign it is due for a rebuild.