Rusty_OToole

Should have warned you, Chrysler products before 1970s have left hand threads on the left side. This has stymied a lot of people. The idea was, left hand threads would not work loose by the rotation of the wheel. It turns out, this only applies to the center hub nut not the wheel nuts. So they changed to all the same, left hand thread wheel nuts. PS you don't have to take the wheel off to take off the brake drum. It is easier to remove the wheel and hub as an assembly.

Somewhere between $200 and $25000. Give us some pictures and we can narrow it down.

What is new is that such cars are not being restored. In former years you would not have seen them in public until they got new paint and upholstery, and then they would be just another car.

There are a lot of cars in similar condition from when wood framed bodies were popular. The wooden body did not stand up as well as the chassis. For many the answer is to build a "woody" station wagon. At one time you could even buy a kit of precut wooden parts and fittings. These may still be available. Try a web search for woody wagon kits or similar. Later - I did a search and came up with this list, maybe it will help. http://www.oldwoodies.com/resource-woodies-vendors.htm

I thought there were 2 SSJs, one built for Clark Gable the other for Gary Cooper? Did Cooper order the first one after losing to Zeppo Marx, in a race between his Duesy and Marx's SSK Mercedes?

Look on the General board I already answered there.

I think it's flooded.

May have been for extra food for a nursing mother, or perhaps for emergencies as evidently he never used them.

From the factory repair manual for your car: Step 1, Remove lock and light assembly by removing nuts holding assembly under compartment lid. Step 2, Remove screw holding plate above lock cylinder. Step 3, Insert key in lock cylinder and turn it clockwise until plunger may be depressed. The lock cylinder may then be removed. There is an illustration showing the back of the latch assembly and a pair of hands depressing the plunger with a small screwdriver. The plunger is on the top of the lock offset to one side. When you take off the handle assembly and look at the back, it should be obvious where the plunger or catch is, that holds the lock in place. Incidentally this is a generic set of instructions applicable to Plymouth Dodge DeSoto and Chrysler. Evidently they all used the same style of lock.

The ruby red material is probably vitreous enamel made of melted glass. Try some Brasso to polish up the brass. It was likely plated when new. It is possible to have the emblems replated and re enameled but for your purpose just cleaning and polishing should be all that is needed.

My impression from the movie WKTEC is that the law was passed after GM introduced the EV-1. If you know anything about new model development you know they had to have begun development of that car at least 5 years before it was introduced. The passage of that law must have set back the introduction of zero emissions vehicles by 10 years. Think about it. At that time there was exactly one car company that had a suitable vehicle, General Motors. And they did not consider it ready for prime time. No wonder the industry panicked and put on a campaign to kill the law and hope everyone would forget about it. If that is the result of trying to develop a zero emissions vehicle you would have to be crazy to try it. Incidentally I hear the new Volt has the same problem of overheating batteries in a few cases. So they have not solved the problem yet. When you charge a battery too fast that is apt to happen. But how can you charge the battery slow when the public demands the fastest recharge time?

It would be a lot better, easier and cheaper to keep the original engine and trans. They are also better than anything Chev ever made, that is why Buick cost more than Chev. What is wrong with the car now?

There are lots of them, should be some in your area. Look in the Yellow Pages or do a web search.

The question of what Detroit can and cannot produce reminds me of a story about the creation of the Mustang. The design team showed the top brass a 4 cylinder, mid engine, 2 seater roadster prototype. When Lee Iacocca saw it he said "we can sell these by the thousands. What we need is a car we can sell by the millions". Instead they commissioned a restyled Falcon which did indeed sell in the millions.

"It is probable that GM management never wanted it to be a success of any kind, but the design team, at least, seems to have taken the effort to produce a zero-emission vehicle seriously and it is truly an automotive milestone." You are too paranoid. If top management did not want it to be a success it would never have seen the light of day. I keep coming back to the production capacity of 4 per day. This is a typical Detroit prototype or test program. No major car manufacturer would tool up for only 4 cars per day unless it was a test program that was never meant to make a profit. Let me repeat that, a test program that was never meant to make a profit. But was meant to to generate valuable data that could be gotten no other way, as part of a long term program leading to a perfected electric car that could be sold in large numbers. That is the Volt. It may not be what they had in mind at the start, and it may have taken a lot longer to come to market than they planned. But that is how things work out in the real world, when you set out to make something really new. When you start the research process you don't know where it will lead. If you knew all the answers at the start it would not be research. It is possible to bring about technological change through government regulation but it is a horrendously expensive and inefficient way to do it. A thorough analysis of government regulation of the auto industry since the sixties, would reveal that it did bring about change but nearly destroyed the auto industry and along with it, the American economy. An experienced automotive journalist and long time critic of Detroit, Tom McCahill, said in 1967 that Congress's efforts to regulate the auto industry reminded him of a convention of drunken plumbers laying down rules and procedures for brain surgeons to follow. What we have seen since, has confirmed this analysis again and again.

Believe that is called a platform spring and was common on expensive cars in the early days. 4 cylinder Cadillacs and some others.

If the engine has low compression but decent oil pressure, a few hundred miles of running will usually bring it back to life. If there is no compression you will probably have to overhaul the engine. This is not very hard or expensive on a flathead Dodge and parts are not too expensive or hard to get.

They were MEANT to be scrapped from the day they were made. It was an experimental program to put electric cars in the hands of the public, for a limited time, for data gathering purposes. They were never meant to be sold, they were all leased. 2 more reasons to take them off the road and scrap them: if they sold them, they would be obliged by law to furnish parts and service for 10 years. And, if any faults EVER cropped up you can bet your boots GM would be sued for millions of $$$$$ bux. They were the prototype. One stage in the design process that led to the Volt.

They did produce a hybrid electric car, the Volt. You can buy one right now if you want to. The EV-1 was purely an experimental program. The tipoff for me, was in the movie Who Killed The Electric Car? when they said the production line would turn out 4 cars per day. That is only 1000 cars per year. General Motors can't make money on any car unless they make at least 100,000 per year maybe more. So it was obvious that GM's reason for making the EV-1 was to find out, first, how would the car work out in the real world? Second, how would it go over with the public? There is an old saying, one mile on the road is worth 10 on the proving ground. In this respect the EV-1 was a success. Other than some battery troubles, which the cured with a new design of battery, it worked out fine. Incidentally this is why they leased the cars and did not sell them. They wanted to be able to get them back when the test was over, or if necessary recall them if there was a serious problem. They never had any intention of selling the cars, it was purely an experimental program. The other question was, would the public accept an electric car? Could they be sold in numbers that would make the venture worth while? The answer here seemed to be that most of the users loved them, however most of them were enthusiasts who were willing to overlook or work around the drawbacks. Plus, all the cars were leased in California, which has a climate favorable to electric cars. The same cars in Maine in winter with no heaters and batteries working at 40% efficiency might not have seemed like such a good idea. So, GM took the lessons they learned and developed the Volt hybrid. This seems to be the trend in the industry. Most electrics on the market are hybrids.

Normal is if the ammeter goes to slight - when you turn on the key. More - when the starter is turning. Then + when the engine is running especially if you rev it up a little. You might have to polarize the generator if it has been hooked up backwards or out of use for many years. A volt meter will tell you if the gen is charging or not. Connect it to the battery or to any live wire. It should show a certain voltage when stopped, not necessarily 6 volts but close. When you turn the starter it should dip. When the engine starts it should go higher than where it started from, especially if you rev the motor a little.

OK just make sure your rims are wide enough for the wider tires. Should be OK but you could ask your tire dealer what width rims the tire manufacturer recommends.

Another is the legendary 1931 Pierce Arrow converted to electric power by Westinghouse for Nicola Tesla. Supposedly he added his own power supply, a kind of radio that drew power from the air, and road tested the car for several days in 1931. The story was told by his nephew who supposedly assisted him. I keep saying supposedly because I don't believe the story. But what if it is true? Would love to have the car, and the power supply.

I am trying to think of historically significant cars that disappeared. The first that comes to mind is the 1907 Chadwick Greater Six, the first car to come with a supercharger. There are photographs but none of the cars survive. One of those might be worth going after.

One thing that held them back was the available steel. The steel mills did not start making sheet metal wide enough for a whole roof until 1934. Until then the body had to be made of smaller pieces welded together. For example, the 1936 Cord sedan had a roof made of seven pieces, welded together and the seams filled with lead body solder then filed and sanded smooth by hand. This was a very expensive car. Some custom body Packards made before 1934 had a solid roof made in a similar way. For cheaper cars the roof was made of smaller pieces welded together leaving a hole in the middle. This meant only a few inches of seams to be filled. The center of the roof was filled with a waterproof material or heavy oilcloth over a padded wooden frame. This question has been answered before, I recall one thread on the Dodge board. Basically it was a matter of working with the available sheet steel in the best most economical manner. Even after the wide steel became available it took a while before all manufacturers invested in new giant presses big enough to stamp out a whole roof in one piece. Cheaper Plymouths had a fabric roof insert as late as 1937. More expensive Plymouths had the same hole but filled with a steel insert.

You may be right. There was no teflon tape in 1915.