Rusty_OToole

I guess Iaccoca is a titan compared to the business executives of today. If he had been around in the days of Henry Leland, Walter Chrysler, William Durant, Joseph Frazer or George Mason he would have made a good office boy. This is not just cracking wise. I read his autobiography and other books of his and agree he was a good manager, but not in the same league with the early giants.

Maybe I am dumb but I don't see what con rods have to do with main bearing thrust faces. Why not machine the rods to take an insert bearing? No doubt you will have to grind the crank pins down anyway. Friend of mine replaced the poured babbitt rod bearings in his Indian Four with home made inserts made of aluminum tube. He cut them to size then hand scraped for clearance. Worked great for 30 years or more.

Next time someone asks what is my car worth without giving any details I intend to tell them somewhere between $200 and $50000 depending on model and condition, and let them work it out.

I don't know why they can't spend $6.95 on a magazine like I do. However, for the cheap skates I don't mind answering too much and have answered this question dozens of times. At least it is an easy question to answer as long as the give pics or details.

Agreed. Never saw a coil blow up but have seen them get hot and stop working after a 1/2 hour. This should not stop you from starting the car for a few minutes to move it around. If you want to drive more than 10 or 15 minutes, pick up a resistor wire for a couple of $$$ bucks at any parts store (look in the Help section). Connect it in place of the resistor and you are good to go. When the correct resistor arrives you can put it in. But in the meantime there is no risk of burning points or overheating the coil.

Power to -, distributor to + Either way will work but you get a better spark if wired the right way round.

You might consider electrolytic rust removal or molasses. These methods are less destructive of fragile parts than media blasting and do kill the rust. There are recent threads on both methods.

Kicking back indicates spark too far advanced. Check you actually have it retarded as Mochetvelo indicates. It is unlikely the spark got out of adjustment by sitting around but you might have to check that too.

By the way did you look up Vintage Power Wagons? Browse around their site for a while and I don't think you will be worried about a shortage of parts. Vintage Power Wagons-- Your Source for Dodge Power Wagon Parts and Trucks! -- civilian military m 37, m-37 wc Dodge Power Wagon Note what it says on the first page. Over 100 TONS of parts recently arrived, 7 containers 40 feet long. 50 tons of New parts, the rest used. This is ON TOP OF what they already have in stock. I don't think they will run out any time soon. PS your truck weighs a little over a ton, imagine 100 of them all dismantled and stored in 7 shipping containers.

Your rat rod friends are idiots. Chrysler products had the best brakes in the industry. 60 years on that may not be saying much but they were state of the art when new. The old manuals are far superior to todays manuals. They are larger, more complete, go into more detail, and the illustrations are better. Even the paper is better quality. The writing is better too. I have converted old cars to 12 volts. After doing several cars and tractors I concluded I was wasting a lot of time and money. It was quicker and easier to fix what was wrong with the old system. I always ended up fixing what was wrong anyway, even after blowing my money on a new alternator etc. First thing about a 6 volt system, the wires have to be twice as big as for 12 volts. The old starter cables should be as big as your thumb. If someone has put on skinny modern cables, there is your problem right there. The other thing is the connections have to be clean. If they get corroded or loose over the years the starter will not work right. Don't overlook the ground cable, check the wires and clean the connections. If the starter still won't work look in the yellow pages for a rebuilder. Call and ask if they will work on your starter. Chances are they can rebuild it good as new for the same cost or less, as a modern starter. In most cases you can still buy original equipment quality parts made by Wagner (brakes) Gates (belts and hoses) AC or Champion (spark plugs) and other old line American companies. In a lot of cases you can find new old stock parts at auto flea markets that are far superior in quality to anything from aftermarket (Chinese) suppliers. Such parts can often be bought for pennies on the dollar. However you do have to educate yourself and go prepared, you have to recognise the right parts and have a list of part numbers because often the seller does not know which part fits what car. There are other regulars on this board who own Dodge, Plymouth and Chrysler cars built in the forties. They drive them all the time, 6 volt electrics, old fashioned brakes, and all. If your truck is in top shape you do not have to be afraid to drive it provided you respect its age and do not try to do things it was never designed to do.

An erratic fault like you describe points to a bad wire, shorting out or not making a connection at all depending if you hit a bump or not or maybe how it feels that day. I would look for a loose or frayed wire, broken wire, crumbling insulation etc.

There is no law against using a famous name provided you are not trying to trick or deceive anyone. Years ago the Ford company sued a chewing gum manufacturer for selling Ford chewing gum. It seems the company owners name was Ford. The court decided there was no conflict or intent to defraud as the public could tell the difference between a Ford car and Ford chewing gum. In a similar case New York showman Billy Rose tried to stop a Billy Rose's Pet Shop from using his name, until the owner showed him a birth certificate with William Rose on it. So he bought a canary instead.

Please save old posts. Every few weeks someone asks about Fluid Drive transmissions. Back around 2008 we did a few long threads that covered the subject exhaustively. I still refer questioners back to them. I would hate to have to type all that over again.

Most parts can be bought from your local NAPA store or other old school parts store. The parts are available if the parts man can find a good number to order them. You need an old gray haired or bald headed guy. See if you can find out where the local farmers shop. Another great source of parts and info is Vintage Power Wagons. They have all kinds of parts for Dodge Power Wagons back to WW2 vintage, a lot of the same parts fit your truck. Do not be too hasty about 12 volts, or disc brakes. The original design is perfectly fine, you are better off to fix the old stuff than tear everything apart and start over. You must face the fact that you have a 60 year old truck with a top speed around 60 MPH that is happiest at speeds under 50. The tires, suspension, brakes, gearing etc is meant for farm fields not the interstate. Old manuals are fairly common. When your truck was new every dealer had one, and there are still a lot of them around. They turn up on Ebay and at antique car flea markets. Price $20 to $50 depending on condition and whether it is original or reproduction. The old trucks were good work horses but required a lot more upkeep than todays vehicles. Fortunately they were easy to work on and parts are reasonable. If you get a manual and put everything in good condition you can have a lot of fun on the back roads and quiet streets. Just keep away from the interstate.

They make heat proof sleeves for mechanics now. I am thinking about working around a hot exhaust manifold if you dont have asbestos arms lol.

It will work OK but will cause the coil to heat up after a while. The resistor cuts the juice when the engine is running, allows a full volt jolt for hotter spark when starting. I wouldn't worry about driving for 10 or 15 minutes at a time. In fact, you may be able to eliminate the resistor and get away with it for years. Newer GM cars and trucks use a resistor wire. You can get one at any parts store for a couple of $$ bucks and connect it in place of the resistor.

Couple of points. If the water distribution tube is bad the coolant will stream right up the front of the engine and never reach the back. The front of the head will be cool while the back is overheating, this can be checked with an electronic thermometer or even your hand. Easy way to diagnose without tearing your engine apart. I had a hard to find overheating problem caused by a mouse nest in the to rad tank. I only caught it after seeing bits of shredded paper towel floating in the rad. Cleaned out all I could reach, did not help much, finally took the rad out, turned it upside down and flushed it with the garden hose, eventually got out a pile of shredded paper the size of a football. Can only surmise the previous owner drained the rad for the winter and left the cap off as a reminder and the critters moved in.

A mechanic should be able to fix the hinge in a few minutes. But it is hard to tell without seeing it. If the hinge has to come off of course it will take longer. You might show it to a mechanic and see what he thinks or give us a photo. Worst case, you might need a new hinge but likely the old one can be fixed easily. Someone who reads this board may have one. Right now I am trying to buy a 49 Windsor parts car myself.

So far as I know the last engine requiring valve adjustment when hot is the Dodge slant 6. This is not a problem as solid lifter engines do not throw oil around like a hydraulic lifter and the engine will idle down to where it is barely moving. If you loosen the jam nuts and retighten barely tight you can adjust the valves easily while running and will not hammer the feeler gauge unless the adjustment is way loose. After doing the adjustment tighten the jam nuts. They do not need to be real tight just snug. Do the adjustment correctly and the valve train will be dead quiet red hot or stone cold and stay that way for thousands of miles. The only problem I had was with an engine that had been neglected to the point where the valve gear was loose and hammering. Once the rocker arms and valves get pounded and peened over adjusting will not get them dead quiet again, you will always have a slight rustling sound if you listen close. Other than that solid lifters are better than hydraulics in every way except of course you have to adjust them once in a while.

Chev V8 too common, more like a Kaiser Jeep Tornado OHC six. Yes Jeep made their own OHC six, from 1962 to 65.

Incidentally a guy named Don Coatney adapted a manual 5 speed transmission to his flathead powered 48 Plymouth sedan. It cruises easily at 7O Mphand he drives it all over the US. Detailed pics of the conversion are on the web if you do a search.Try Don Coatney Plymouth transmission or similar. An Australian Chrysler from the early sixties with the big fins, a hopped up flathead and a 5 speed would be a great car and turn a lot of heads.

When not in use cover the container. I didnt and kept finding drowned rodents.

The same block was bored to 3 and 7 sixteenths for the DeSoto and Chrysler. The same engine for industrial and marine use was bored even farther then sleeved to 3 7 sixteenths with hardened sleeves. And engines in those days could be rebuilt several times, with a maximum overbore of one eighth or more. Some Olds V8s could be overbored one quarter inch. Today sonic testing will tell you exactly how thick the cylinders are, but the old flathead Dodge engine has very thick walls by todays standards. 3 and 9 sixteenths should be safe for your engine maybe 3 and 5 eighths if it does not have core shift or corrosion problems. A 265 bored one eighth over will give you 283 cu in. With a few common hop up tricks it should be good for 15O to 2OO Hp. For the largest dislacement flathead Chrysler look for a 265 cu in Chrysler, Dodge truck or industrial or marine engine. This is the biggest they made and has the longest stroke, 4 and three quarters inches. This crank will fit any Chrysler DeSoto block and uses the same pistons as the smaller displacement engines, but you must also use the accompanying connecting rods that match the crankshaft.

The Fluid Drive and semi automatic transmission are usually reliable and long lived. They need certain maintenance and a certain driving technique. All has been covered before. If you do a search for Fluid Drive on the Chrysler board you will find many old threads. In 2OO8 there were some that covered the subject in great detail. They could save you a lot of time and make owning and driving your Chrysler more enjoyable.

If a car is out of service for a long time the clutch can get a coat of rust. This causes the clutch to drag. When the car is used for a few days the clutch gets polished smooth. See if the problem corrects itself, if not you may need to renew the clutch.