Rusty_OToole

Slide them on with a big screwdriver. There is a knack to it.

Possibly not as much as you might think. Considering they shared the B body with Olds and the C body with Cadillac, and Buick was a perennial best seller to boot. It does puzzle some people that a Buick Special's body parts will not interchange with a Buick Roadmaster of the same year. This may be one of the reasons they wanted to go to one body for all full size cars after 1959.

By the way the 55 chev was all new, the 56 and 57 represented major face lifts of the 55 body. The 53 and 54 Chev also shared the same body with each other. 54 representing a minor face lift. The difference between a major and minor is one has only trim differences while the other has new sheet metal such as fenders and hood.

58 Chev was a totally different body from 1955-57 and 1959-60. This was part of GM's long range plan to change from a 3 year styling cycle to a 2 year. In 1959 they wanted to make every car from Chev to Cadillac use the same body shell, suitably modified. This would allow them to amortize the tooling in 2 years and have an all new car every 2 years, with a major face lift in between. To bring the A body (Chev and Pontiac) into line with the B and C body models, they had to either stretch the old body out for one more year or make a one year only 1958 A body. Ironically the new plan only lasted one year. In 1959, indeed, every GM car was built using a version of the same body. But in 1960 they brought out the Corvair meaning they now had 2 bodies. Within a few years they had a whole variety of bodies in various sizes, some of them used for more than one make of car, others exclusive to Chev.

Not sure what you mean. If the wheels are true and the hubcaps installed properly there should be little or no wobble. If it is that obvious the hubcaps must be defective.

So far as I can tell the station sedan roof was a special stamping for that one model. It must have been the most expensive part to tool up for, of the special body. Other than that the tooling cost was low although there was a lot of expensive hand work in building the body, but this was typical of the woody wagons of the time.

Here in Canada we have been calling them Robertson screws all my life. According to all the info I can find on the web it is Robertson. Robertson Screws

Copper scrubbing pads and Pledge are excellent for cleaning rusty chrome, and they don't scratch. Finish with Simichrome or Flitz.

There are online dealers in old MoPar parts such as Roberts Motor Parts and Vintage Power Wagons but most of what you need, you can get at the local auto parts store. If there is a dusty old store where the farmers shop, with old bald headed or gray haired parts men, that is the one you want. NAPA is usually good. A good web site specialising in cars like yours, is P15D24. Here is a link www.P15-D24.com - Powered by vBulletin You should do a search on this board, on the Chrysler and Dodge boards, for Fluid Drive. About 2 years ago there were some threads laying out everything you need to know about the maintenance and operation of these transmissions. There are also some good guides at the Chrysler Imperial web site, reprints of original factory literature. No doubt there are others if you look around but these should get you started. O ya here is my favorite, a DeSoto that is like your Dodge but bigger. Written by the original owner, describing his experiences driving and servicing his car over 24 years. I always get a kick out of his description of how the motor smooths out like a turbine at 70, in the mountains. In a 6000 pound limousine with 4:11 gears. Pulling a trailer. 1951 DeSoto Suburban cars - long term report / car review with trailer towing

That is where I got the idea. A lot of hot rodders today are keeping the old flathead sixes, rebuilding and hopping them up. This comes from the so called rat rod movement which may not be what you think. One old time hot rodder put it this way. " I built a beautiful 32 Ford roadster with fibreglass body and big block motor, and it just wore me slick with expenses. So I bought a 51 Chevy coupe, rebuilt the stock six and added twin carbs and Holly wood mufflers, lowered it, painted it flat black with Mexican blanket seat covers, and now I can drive it all I want and never worry about getting it scratched or dirty, and I have more fun than I had with any other car".

An old timer who worked in garages in the twenties told me those "white" tires started out light gray when they were new and gradually got whiter. The explanation above makes sense. Red tires were fairly common on horse drawn buggies in the 1890s and early 1900s. These were made of solid rubber, not pumped up. Around 1915 Goodyear made red streak and blue streak tires with red and blue sidewalls respectively. In the late sixties they revived the red stripe tire.

The engine your car came with is fine for all practical purposes. When it was new your car had a top speed of 85 or 90 MPH and was capable of cruising at speeds of 60 to 70 all day long. If you get it running right, you should lose all desire for a newer engine. Usually it is not too hard to put one of those old sixes back in commission. Even if it needs to be completely rebuilt, it is one of the simplest engines to rebuild and all parts are available at reasonable cost. In other words, it would be easier and cheaper to rebuild the engine than to replace it. Unless the rod is sticking through the block. There are a number of posters on this board who own Plymouth Dodge DeSoto and Chrysler cars of similar age, with similar flathead six and straight eight engines. They can testify to the good performance and reliable service those old engines provide. Now if you insist on an engine swap for reasons of your own, I can only advise you to buy a newer car. The 1950 was made for a six cylinder engine only and nothing else will fit without major hassles. The steering and gear shifting mechanism are in the road for a start. The engine compartment is quite short making it hard to find room for a radiator as well as a bigger engine. You pretty well have to replace transmission and all BUT if you do, you have to replace the rear axle as well because the handbrake is on the transmission and you will have no hand brake. All in all it is much better, easier and cheaper to keep the original engine. Or, sell it and buy a 1955 or newer model that came with a V8 or at least, was made with enough room under the hood for one. This may not be what you want to hear but I hope it will save you a lot of grief.

Go to the local NAPA store and get a brake hardware kit for a 49 GMC. They are cheap, and include all new springs and fasteners.

For those who do not have reamers and machine shop equipment there are plastic bushings available. In fact, for many years plastic bushings were original equipment on Ford trucks. When you bought new pins and bushings the plastic ones were the default choice, if you wanted bronze bushings you had to ask for them.

Standard packing for pump shafts, from plumbing supply house or McMaster Carr.

My 1954 Motor Repair Manual lists Dodge 1940-54 without fluid drive, as well as with fluid drive. Possibly Fluid Drive was an option on the low priced Wayfarer line and standard on the more expensive models? Update. From a search of Allpar on Fluid Drive Depending on year, Chrysler offered the Royal, Windsor and DeSoto DeLuxe with Fluid Drive and the normal 3-speed manual. This was also the only way Fluid Drive was offered by Dodge prior to 1949. So there was a choice of manual trans or self shiftiing trans but supposedly they all came with fluid drive. They could have built manual trans cars to special order simply by relocating the bolt on crossmember and using clutch, bellhousing and trans from the Plymouth car or Dodge pickup truck. Careful inspection may reveal that the frames were drilled for both crossmember locations. Also, there were some options available for taxi and police use that were not recorded in the regular literature. Some companies would even build special models for fleet orders, if the order was large enough. So, it seems to me quite possible that such cars were built.

3 little known factors at work here. One, many New Yorkers had miniature limousines built on small European 4 cylinder chassis for town use. Two, many of these limousine bodies were transferred to cheap American chassis when the original imported one wore out or parts got hard to get. Three, Brewsters sales were mainly in New York and surrounding areas. I have seen pictures of at least 2 expensive, small limousine bodies that were originally built on costly import chassis, that were transferred to Ford chassis. I have also heard of one case where an elderly woman had a limousine built on a Model T chassis because her gardener acted as her chauffeur, and the only car he could drive was a Ford. So, it is possible someone ordered a Brewster body on a Ford Model T chassis or that a body originally built for some other chassis, was transferred to a Ford. I don't believe it could be a factory option. Brewster bodies were too expensive, and Brewster's plant too far from Detroit to make it practical. To answer the man's question the chance of any ready made upholstery fitting the car is zero. The body is completely different from a stock Ford. On the bright side, it must have come with much nicer upholstery than any stock Ford, and period correct fabrics are available. What is more there is nobody to say what is original on that car and what is not since it was built to order in the first place.

I read somewhere that Cadillac was first. It was probably GM. Someone at GM saw the Robertson square recess screws they were using in the Canadian GM plant and thought they were worth adopting. But it turned out they were patented and cost a few cents a ton more than regular screws. So they invented the Philips screw which is almost as good (not). The reason for the change was that slot screws are too hard to use with a power screwdriver in mass production.

Re your remark about not having any English parts. Years ago I had a 1956 Triumph 500 twin, the Canadian army motorcycle. It had a Lucas distributor. When I went to buy points the auto electric shop had to look them up in a big illustrated book. It turned out the same points were used in half a dozen English cars plus Citroen. Probably the same points as in your car. Or, at least the English built version.

There was a photo feature in Collectible Automobile August 2010 page 24. Says it was used as a show car by Dodge when new, then sold to someone in Vermont, then bought by a Dr Roger Leir in Thousand Oaks Calif in the 80s in badly deteriorated condition. Was restored and won a First Junior at the AACA Western Fall Meet at La Quinta Calif in 2009. Hope this helps out.

Or could it be they used up the plates they had in stock as they were already paid for?

Aftermarket heaters came with a control switch that clamped onto the bottom of the instrument panel. They had a built in C clamp with a screw. If you have a 2 speed fan there will be 2 wires coming out of the motor, no ground.

Could it be that the more expensive cars pre 1915 were usually chauffeur driven and that it was more convenient for the chauffeur to sit on the right so he could get out and open the door onto the sidewalk for the passengers? Likewise for delivery trucks so the driver could get out on the sidewalk instead of into traffic? And this is the reason the large cars and trucks were the last to change over?

Some users report a 10% increase in fuel consumption in other words lower mileage. So they could leave the alcohol out, charge more for the gas and it would come to the same thing.

Chrysler had Fluid Drive and I believe they were the first to make automatic trans standard equipment. But you are right, the GM Hydramatic, Buick Dynaflow and Chev Powerglide were seen as superior. Looks had a lot to do with it. Chrysler products weren't bad up to 1948 but the new 49s looked like they were designed for no reason at all, in the words of one critic. GM had the latest styles although some of the independents, notably Studebaker and Kaiser had some advanced styles too. Chrysler Corp was backward in this regard. They did not have anything really competitive until 1955. And their slipping sales showed it.