Rusty_OToole

There was another mod used in the twenties to increase compression that is now long forgotten. That is to "dead end" the combustion chamber. The idea was to partly fill the combustion chamber with clay, and use the clay as a mold to cast a brass or bronze "chip". This chip could then be fastened to the head with screws.

The C39 came in 3 forms, C39K = Saratoga, C39N = New Yorker and C39 Town and Country with wooden body. The C39 was made for 3 years, 1946 1947 and 1948. Starting serial numbers for C39N, 1946 = 7025001, 1947 = 7037249, 1948 = 7062598. So your car 7082693 must have been made in the later part of 1948.

The New Yorker was Chrysler's luxury offering. It came with a straight eight engine and Fluid Drive and semi automatic transmission. Their competition at the time was the Buick Roadmaster, Packard 8, Lincoln V12 and Cadillac. For the ultimate in luxury only the Imperial 8 stood higher in the Chrysler heirarchy. Too bad about the engine. Did they change the rear axle too? Chrysler had the hand brake on the end of the transmission so if you change the transmission you pretty well have to put in a different rear axle or you have no hand brake.

The red head was a high compression head. Whether it had a different contour or was just the standard head cut down, I do not know. When working on an engine like that aftermarket parts are out of the equation. You have to go back to the good old days and improvise. There are certain time honored mods that can be done to practically any engine. Here are some of the most popular. Skim the head for extra compression Have the camshaft reground Add an extra carburetor. This is done by welding 2 short pieces of pipe onto the stock intake, and topping each with a flange. There are exhaust pipe flanges that fit the stock carbs, available at muffler shops. Block off the original stub for a twin carb, or use 3 carbs. This may be overkill for your application. You can buy a Holley Weber progressive 2 barrel carb and adapter instead of modifying the intake. This is probably the best and easiest carb for your app but does not have the old time look. Install oversize valves and enlarge the intake and exhaust ports. Go easy here. Probably the best thing to do is gently clean up the ports and do a 3 angle valve job and let it go at that unless you are an expert. Construct an exhaust header with the 3 front pipes going into 1 exhaust pipe and the back 3 into another. Or, split the manifold for dual exhausts (the classic solution). Lighten the flywheel. Again, for your app you might want to go easy here as a heavy flywheel might be what you want for trialling. Use the lightest pistons you can find and have the engine balanced.Deck clearance .040 to .060 Convert the distributor to electronic ignition and recurve as necessary. Shim the spring on the oil pump relief valve to give 10 PSI per 1000 RPM Do this properly and you should have the fastest Chrysler 65 on the track until the rod comes through the block. Actually the Chrysler might be one of the best 1920s "cooking" engines to hop up. It was the first high compression engine and had a high specific output for the day, and it also has 7 main bearings and pressure oiling. They had considerable vogue in England and Europe, and won races in their day. They even finished in the money at LeMans, behind Bentley and Stutz.

In 1946 a Chrysler was not a cheap car. Even the lowest priced model was better equipped and better built than most cars on the road. The Royal was selling against cars like the Buick Special, Oldsmobile, Packard 6, Studebaker Land Cruiser and the new Kaiser. Fluid Drive was standard equipment. It was the only car at that time that came with automatic or semi automatic at no extra cost. Upholstery, accessories and fittings were nicer and more lavish than lesser cars. It may not look like a luxury car by today's standards but in 1946 it was a pretty snazzy deal.

In those days radios were a dealer installed accessory. The antenna went on the right front fender. Putting the antenna on the rear fender was popular in the late fifties, possibly yours was added then.

It's a little surprising most of these cars are Chrysler products. In the US Ford and General Motors cars were more popular. Did Chrysler have a really good dealer in Romania or did the Chrysler products survive where the others were scrapped?

There were body suppliers like Briggs Hayes and Budd who could have made all steel bodies for Pierce. Their engines and power trains were second to none. A new IFS chassis in 1935 or 36 would have helped. They could have done without the V12 engine. The question is could they have sold enough cars to make a profit through the thirties? Surprisingly, 1929 was their best sales year ever and sales did not taper off till after 1932. Then they declined steadily even though the economy was recovering. So it seems Pierce Arrow customers retained their wealth well into the depression. But during the recovery somehow demand got lost. This suggests that the problem was changing fashions or the competition from cheaper more modern designs from Packard Chrysler Buick and Cadillac. If that was the case they may have stood a chance if they had pursued different policies. It's hard to see what they could have done without cheapening the Pierce name though.

I'm now trying to get rid of some horrible vision of you trying to time your engine with a timing light while measuring TDC with a wire down the #6 cylinder with the engine running. Once again, that is not it at all. Those engines can have the timing set with the engine stopped and no timing light. Here is how. First find TDC with the wire method. Now turn the distributor until the points just open. There are at least 3 methods of determining this exactly. One is to use a 6 volt bulb connected from the "live" point to ground. When the light goes on the points are open. Another is to put a piece of cigarette paper between the points and tug on it gently as you turn the distributor, when it comes free the points are open. The third is to tune a transistor radio between stations and turn the ignition on, as you turn the distributor you will hear a "pop" as the points open. That will time your engine to TDC and get it running so you can check it with the timing light. If you don't have the timing light, and want to set the timing somewhere else than TDC you can still do it. You have to figure out how far below TDC = the number of degrees you want and set the piston there.

I'm not saying anything of the kind. Of course one cylinder will be at the start of the power stroke, while the other is at the end of the exhaust stroke when both are at TDC. What difference does it make? The timing marks will be the same in either case. The only difference will be where the distributor rotor is pointing and what difference does that make? You could turn the engine to TDC using the wire method, set the timing, NOT EVEN KNOWING which cylinder was on the firing stroke and it would work just as well. By the way if you set the timing for 4 degrees BTDC all six cylinders are supposed to fire at 4 degrees BTDC. So in theory it would not matter which one you used to set the timing. As a matter of convenience we usually use #1 but as you can see, we could use #6 and it will work just as well.

That is a popular accessory heater from the late 30s. In those days cars did not come with built in heaters. If you wanted one you bought it as an accessory and had it installed after you bought the car. Some bought them from the car dealer, but most were bought from garages. I have some old MoToR magazines, the American garage trade magazine, from the 30s. In 1937 and 38 it seems like half the ads were for heaters. Then in the 40s more and more cars offered built in heating defrosting and ventilation systems built in at the factory. Nash's Weather Eye was the first. So, that heater might have been installed in any car of the late 30s or early 40s that did not come with a heater.

Wouldn't it be simpler to buy a newer car? I can't imagine why anyone would want to do this. But if you tell me what you want to use it for I can tell you how to hop it up.

In Chrysler's model system your car would be a C38S. That year they made the C38S Royal 6 cylinder, C38W Windsor 6, C38 Town and Country 6, C39K Saratoga 8, C39N New Yorker 8, C39 Town and Country 8, and C40 Crown Imperial 8 in rising order of costliness. The C38S model was built in 1946, 1947 and 1948 without significant changes. Starting serial numbers were 70011001 for 1946, 70023023 for 1947 and 70029674 for 1948. Therefore your car is a 1947 and probably the 1844th made out of 6641 . The firewall plate contains codes for body style, color, upholstery etc. but unfortunately I do not have the codes. I'm sure some other kind soul will come up with this information.

English Ford Consul 4 and Zephyr 6 used a similar exhaust starting in 1952. The engine looked similar to the Nash having the valve cover bolted down from the top. Sorry I couldn't find a good picture on the net.

Early engines were made to be rebored as part of the rebuild process. This might be necessary as many as 3 or 4 times during the working life of an engine. They were made with extra thick cylinders so the engine could be rebuilt several times. It was common practice to bore out cylinders for extra displacement as part of the hop up. So your cylinders could be 1/8 oversize or even larger. I'm surprised no one has identified it by the engine number you gave.

The crankshaft turn over twice while the camshaft turns once. Therefore, either the #1 or #6 piston could be on its firing stroke. As long as you have them at TDC it makes no difference. So, just find TDC and set the timing it will be fine. Both #1 and #6 are at TDC at the same time.

Set the piston to TDC and set the ignition timing. #1 and #6 piston are at TDC at the same time.

Try washing it first. Smear on some waterless hand cleaner. The creamy white or green kind, not the orange gritty stuff. Let it soak for 1/2 hour and wash off with a rag and hot water. It may take more than one application to get completely clean. If this does not work the surface may be deteriorating. In that case a coat of paint will help.

If you really want to get the maximum possible return I suggest you lock it in a climate controlled garage for 100 years.

It does look like an American car. For example the wooden wheels were used in the US long after European makers stopped using them. Sorry I can't make a positive ID except it appears to be a medium priced car from the early 20s.

A noted designer from the custom body era noted that very few classics were special orders. Most were bought off the showroom floor, a few were ordered with stock bodies with special paint or upholstery. In his experience not more than 1 or 2 out of 100 was a unique design, full custom body. He was referring to senior cars that came with hand made bodies from well known custom body makers. The car manufacturer ordered the more popular bodies in batches of 50 or 100 then finished and installed them themselves.

We have had some discussion of other makes but Ford seems to be left out. In the thirties Ford got a new body every 2 years with a face lift, including new grille on years in between. They had a peculiar system from 1937 to 1939 by which the Standard Ford got the previous year's Deluxe grille. Lincoln Zephyr debuted in 1936 and went on all by itself until 1948. After the war it was the sole Lincoln offering as the seniors had been dropped. Mercury was added to the line in 1939 and it got its own body, but only for 2 years. Starting in 1941 it got the Ford body on a longer wheelbase frame with different trim and frontal styling. The senior Lincoln was its own design and did not share a body. I believe all their bodies were of the traditional wood frame with metal panels construction and many were custom made. Postwar Ford, Mercury and Lincoln continued their prewar designs until 1949. Then came some interesting revisions. Ford got its own body, Mercury became a junior Lincoln and shared the Lincoln body, and then there was the Lincoln Cosmopolitan with its own unique body. The story is that the Mercury was supposed to be the Ford, the Lincoln was supposed to be the Mercury and the Cosmopolitan was supposed to be the Lincoln but it turned out they were too expensive. So they designed a new Ford and moved the others up a step in the hierarchy. For 52 there was an all new Lincoln, and all new Ford and Mercury. These last 2 shared a body. One thing I am not quite clear on is the 55-56 Ford body. Was it all new or a major revision of the 52-54 model? Lincoln I am pretty sure kept the same body from 1952 to 57 although it was heavily face lifted annually. 57 started a new system again. There was a basic Ford body for the lowest priced Fords, a different body for deluxe Fords, like the new Fairlane. Another body for Mercury. And the Lincoln with the last facelift of its 52 body. Add the Thunderbird and Continental and Ford has now gone from 2 bodies in 1948 to 5 1/2 in less than 10 years. 58 continued the 57 Ford and Mercury bodies but added Edsel. The Edsel had 4 models, Ranger Pacer Corsair and Citation in order of cost. Ranger and Pacer were built on the Ford body and Corsair and Citation used the Mercury. Lincoln got an all new body this year and so did Thunderbird. The Continental was dropped, but the new 4 place Thunderbird effectively took its place. The same continued until 1961 except for the addition of Falcon in 1960. In 61 they slashed the number of bodies considerably. There was now Falcon and Comet which shared a body. Full size Ford and Mercury shared a body and Lincoln got its all new 4 door Continental body. Plus the Thunderbird. That's about enough for now. If anyone is interested I could continue into the sixties with the Mustang, Cougar and Fairlane additions.

The Wagoneer was the first SUV in the modern meaning of the term. It was the first to be designed with car buying public in mind, as opposed to the 4 wheel drive trucks with station wagon bodies that came before. For this reason it deserves the name "classic" or whatever you want to call it. Some recognition of its unique place in automotive history. By the way the Wagoneer still has its staunch fans, and there are a couple of companies dedicated to restoring them.

So far as I know in the US each division had its own assembly plants. New model introduction typically started within a week or so after Labor Day. Actual production would commence a couple of weeks before this time, so cars could be in the showrooms of all dealers on introduction day. None of this was guaranteed. Sometimes there were problems with new models that delayed introduction but GM was pretty regular in the 50s and I doubt they missed any intro date by more than a few days. Each division set their own introduction days too. I vaguely recall Buick brought out their new models a week or 2 later than Chev and Ford.

There are several great threads on the operation and maintenance of the fluid drive transmission. You can find them by searching the Dodge and Chrysler boards for "fluid drive". The ones I mean appeared about 2 years ago. The fluid drive is one of the early efforts at automatic transmission. It is not hard to drive, in fact it is easy, but requires a special technique all its own. This is easy to learn if you look up the threads. Shift pattern, is towards you and down for reverse, away and up for Low range, away and down for High range. Most of your driving will be in High, you start off in High most of the time and shift up with the gas pedal.