Rusty_OToole

If it does not leak don't worry about it. You could take an air hose and blow out the dirt and bugs from behind, this is a good idea on any car after years of use. The aluminum rads with crimped on ends usually fail slowly. The seal between the tank and rad fails, you get a slow leak and gradually it gets worse. So keep an eye on it if you are nervous. There is no cleaning or servicing required on that type of rad. Just blow the dirt out like I said above. Or if you do not have air you can take a shop vac to the front of it.

They are great. The filter filters the fuel. The bowl allows water and sediment to settle out. You can see when it has dirt or water in it also when it is empty (fuel pump failure) allows you to diagnose problems. Can be removed and cleaned out or emptied out, even on the road, to get you going. Will last forever if cleaned from time to time. They are also period correct for your car. The only reason they stopped using them was, the modern one piece type are cheaper. If you have an old one you can cut a new gasket out of cork. New gasket sets with cork gaskets often have cutout pieces of material that are good for this. In other words the leftover waste pieces.

I never heard of a rear axle without a drain plug. Look for a plug on the differential. If there is none maybe the lowest bolt on the diff acts as a drain plug. See if one of them has a washer under it or just remove the lowest bolt and see what happens.

This is another myth. All the oil does get cleaned, just not all at once. It all goes through the filter in the course of an hour's drive and it gets filtered more effectively than in a full flow filter. There was some discussion of this point on another board. One person asked about cleaning the dirt and sludge out of the filter housing when changing the filter. If the filter was not effective, how did it get full of dirt and sludge? All the dirt in the filter was dirt that would otherwise have been in the engine and in the bearings.

That may be true. The Buick Century was also supposed to do 100 MPH. But Cadillac 16,Auburn, Cord and Buick Century were all out of production in 1948. That year the fastest production sedan would not do 100 and any car that could break 90 was very fast. 5 or 6 years later 100 MPH was routine but in 1948 the Tucker performance put it way ahead of any production car.

A Mylar condenser mounted to the coil should last the life of the car.

I have always thought of the X frame car as a type of unibody with subframe design. Many cars have used unit construction plus a sub frame for isolation of noise and vibration. In other words the frame was never supposed to be the strength. The strength was in the body which supported the frame more than the frame supported the body. It is true that the X frame GM cars were weak. Watch this comparison test of 1958 GM, Ford and Chrysler cars. Buick Lincoln and Cadillac suffer suspension failure and the Cadillac flexes so much the doors and trunk fly open. The Chrysler products soar serenely over the bumps. I put this down more to inadequate strength of the body than the frame. The frame was only there to isolate the running gear from the body.

There is a local architectural salvage company (old building junkyard) that has a 1937 International 1 ton truck parked at their entrance. It has been slowly deteriorating for the 10 or 15 years they have been in business.

I would try lacquer thinner and a soft rag. You may need to soak a rag in thinner and wrap it around the chrome piece and leave it to soak for 10 or 15 minutes. Then wipe off the softened lacquer. Once you strip the old lacquer you should get the parts chrome plated before they start to pit. If this is not possible paint them with some modern type of clear lacquer such as used on base clear paint jobs. Even with the original protective lacquer they will get dull, corroded and pitted in a year or less. I had the same experience with NOS chrome parts on a 1952 Chrysler New Yorker. I found the new parts in perfect condition for my father's Chrysler. He just stuck them on the car even though I warned him not to. In a year they were corroded and pitted and of course, much harder to rechrome than if he had them done in the beginning.

Your Plymouth did not come with a ballast resistor or any type of resistor in the ignition. The coil got full power all the time. The Bosch coil should be fine. The condenser, or capacitor, is supposed to be .25 mfd. A modern mylar capacitor is far better and more durable than the old tinfoil and wax paper jobs. If you get one from the electronics supply, connect the - side to the points and ground the + side. If it will not fit inside the distributor, connect it at the coil, to the same wire that goes to the points. Electrically it will function the same no matter which end of the wire it is attached to.

You did a good job of restoring your filter. One small suggestion. Wonder if you could get some of the foam filter material used by off road motorcycles and hot rods and put a layer inside the copper wool? Better filtration and invisible unless you take the filter apart.

The hobby of collecting old stock certificates is called Scripophily. A search may turn up some sites that can give an idea of value. It is possible some of the shares have value as stock. Companies have a way of merging and being bought out, changing their names over the years. If these certificates represent some old timer's portfolio, and the stocks are still in his or her name, the heirs may be in for a pleasant surprise.

I have Tom McCahill's Tucker road test in front of me. He states he accelerated to 105 MPH when a truck loomed up ahead and he had to kill speed. The car was still accelerating. Earlier he said "Leaving the plant grounds, I went up to Cicero Boulevard on the south side of Chicago, and I soon knew I was in one of the greatest performing passenger automobiles ever built on this side of the Atlantic". So the speed test was done on Cicero Boulevard or thereabouts. To put this in perspective no other American stock car would go 100 MPH at that time. In 1951, three years after this test, McCahill set a record of 100.13 MPH at the Daytona speed trials, driving a new Chrysler New Yorker sedan with the hemi head V8. This was the fastest production car on the beach that year and the first stock car to break 100 at Daytona since the supercharged Cord in the late 30s.

alsancle you may not find the Tucker attractive but park it next to other 1948 cars and you will see why it caused such a sensation. There are other cars that were knockouts on introduction day but have not aged well. I think the Tucker stands the test of time. It may not be the prettiest car ever made but it was outstanding compared to other 1948 cars.

Yes if you have a Canadian made Dodge and DeSoto with flathead 6 the engines are alike and interchangeable. Here is how they made the different engines. They used the same block casting bored to 3 3/8 for the smaller engines, 3 7/16 for the larger. They also used different stroke crankshafts, 4 1/16 4 1/8 4 1/4 4 1/2 4 3/4. Each crankshaft had its own rods, the longer the stroke the shorter the rods. This means you can use the same piston with any crankshaft as long as it fits the bore of the block. By mixing and matching different bore and stroke they got 218, 228, 237, 251 and 265 cu in engines out of one basic engine. Plymouth and Dodge got the 218 and 228 along with Dodge trucks. DeSoto and Chrysler got the 228, 237, 251, and 265 depending on year (the newer the larger). The 251 and 265 were optional on certain Dodge trucks, 251 were used in military Power Wagon 4 wheel drive 3/4 ton trucks, and the 251 and 265 were optional on 1 1/2 ton and larger Dodge trucks up to 1962. There were other differences such as, different oil filters. DeSoto and Chrysler got full flow filters in the late 40s. The first ones were remote filters with fatter oil lines. 50 up had an aluminum tower casting bolted to the block. The cheaper Plymouth and Dodge kept the bypass filter or no filter at all, up into the fifties. The smaller engines got smaller combustion chamber heads and the newer the engine the higher the compression. So a head off a 56-59 Plymouth or Dodge 228 will fit a 251 or 265, and give higher compression.

The picture above is an early concept drawing done well before Alex Tremulis joined the company. In fact I believe seeing this picture in a magazine article is what inspired him to seek a job with Tucker. Some more thoughts on the Tucker design. This is my own idea put together from what I read over the years about the Tucker and how it came about. I believe the original inspiration came from the invention of the torque converter some time in the forties. There were automatic transmissions on the market that featured fluid couplings (Hydramatic, Fluid Drive) in the late 30s but the first torque converter transmissions did not hit the market until 1949 and 1950 (Ultramatic, Dynaflow, Powerglide). We know Tucker was close to Harry Miller and gave Miller credit for the Tucker concept. What if Miller saw the data on the first experimental torque converters, and realized he could eliminate the transmission? The torque converter will multiply torque up to 2.6 times, like a set of gears of 2.6:1. Miller knew the fluid coupling could replace the clutch. Now the torque converter could replace the transmission. In fact the early torque converter transmissions did just that. They all started off in high gear with a low that could be manually selected for emergencies. Now if you can eliminate the clutch and transmission why not do away with the driveshaft, differential and rear axle while you are at it? You could do this by turning the engine sideways and putting a torque converter at each end of the driveshaft, one for each rear wheel. Their slippage would give you a differential effect automatically and limited slip at that. This would only work if you had a very short, very slow revving engine. No gearing down in the trans or rear diff. So, he designed an opposed six, 598 cu in engine that peaked at 1000 RPM. This would be the ultimate in simple compact drive train packaging but would require a rear mounted engine. Now how to get a reverse with no gears? The solution was to make the deflector blades inside the torque converters movable and reversible. This would give a reverse gear and also allow greater flexibility in forward driving. This problem was not impossible, but very difficult to solve, making the internal parts of the torque converter adjustable by some kind of external control without leaks. GM eventually came out with a Switch Pitch torque converter in the sixties but Tucker simply did not have time to perfect the torque converter drive and 589 motor. This is why they went to the Franklin motor and Cord transmission as a stop gap. They just did not have the time and money. But they did keep the rear engine drive, dictated by the original design. To me this is entirely logical and explains the original design concept, why they used such a large slow turning engine, the rumors about not being able to back up, and so forth. The fact that they could not make such a radical concept work, explains the design changes that led to the Tucker we all know and love. Does this make sense to you?

I am assuming you are using 6 volt coils on a 6 volt car. If you have 12 volts in there you could be overheating the coils but not if you are on 6 volts. It is possible for a coil to wear out and fail when it gets hot. But to get 2, 3 or more bad ones in a row would be very unlikely. Not impossible but very unlikely.

Coils always get hot especially Bosch coils. They use internal resistance to regulate temp. When they are cold resistance is low and you get a hotter spark. As they warm up resistance increases until they reach a certain point then get no hotter. This is why Bosch coils don't need an external resistor. Your original coil was probably fine. Don't worry about the coil heat. Are you getting a good spark out of it? That is the main thing. If your engine has spark, gas, and compression all happening at the right time it will start and run. It can't help itself. Now all you need to do is figure out if you have spark, gas, and compression and if they are happening at the right time. You can check spark by disconnecting a wire off one spark plug and holding it next to the engine. If you get a good spark, great. If not you can pull the coil wire out of the distributor and do the same test. If the coil fires and the spark plug doesn't that tells you the distributor is at fault. Otherwise there are other places to look. To find out if you are getting gas look down the carb and work the throttle. You should see gas squirt into the carb. Your problem can be diagnosed easily if you break it down and check one thing at a time in a logical manner. Replacing random parts, or guessing over the internet from 1000 miles away is an inefficient way to track down the problem. Find out if you have spark and gas and get back to use.

OIl for what? If you mean the engine do not use 30 non detergent. Use a good multiweight detergent oil. Rotella 15W40 is a favorite, or any good brand 10W30. Detergent oils were introduced in 1947, multigrade in 1951. They were the default choice at all garages and dealerships from the fifties on. I worked in a garage in the sixties, nobody used non detergent single weight oil except cheapskates driving worn out oil burning clunkers. Don't listen to the bullshit put out by self styled experts.

Full of cement?? I once rescued some Model A bumpers and axles that had been used as rebar in a 1940s garage foundation.

One more tip. Before you take the plug out of the Fluid Drive unit, stuff a rag around the hole. This makes it impossible to drop the plug down into the bellhousing. Hate to tell you how I figured this out Ha ha.

If you have the car and the piece of glass one look should tell you which it is??

Dandy Dave is right. What have you got to lose? I know I have a cheap 2 HP compressor I have been using for everything, including painting 1 or 2 whole cars, and sandblasting, for over 10 years. It is still going strong. I don't use it every day, sometimes not for weeks. I always figured I would get a bigger compressor when it proved too small to do what I want but somehow it always gets the job done. I also figured if I needed more compressor I would just get another 2 or 3 HP job and run them together.

I believe Hans Ledwinka designed a similar frame in the twenties for the Czech Tatra car.

I agree that if I were running a garage or body shop I would want a bigger compressor. But for home use it is fine. Paint wheels and small parts OK. Even paint a whole car (not recommended) if you have to. Bofus I suggest you forget about getting an extra tank at this time in fact forget all the fancy stuff. Just get the compressor working and use it. You can get a small pressure regulator that goes on the air line or on your spray gun. You can also buy a larger regulator that mounts on the wall with a dryer to remove excess moisture. You really don't need a dryer unless you are painting. You don't need a regulator either if all you are doing is blowing up tires and blowing dirt off things. But it is handy for some air tools such as sanders. So, get it working and try it out. Use it for whatever you want. If you ever want to paint anything now you know what you will need to get. I am not going to drive downtown and price regulators and dryers for you. At some point you will have to get off your ass and use your common sense.