Rusty_OToole

Interesting point about the Golden Submarine. The windows are black wire mesh, no glass. But Barney reported the air was so calm inside he could smoke his cigar at 100 MPH. Not sure if this is due to the streamlined shape directing the air around rather than thru the body. Or just because the windows were so small.

Is that the flathead 6? Did they offer different flathead 6's? Heard they used the 265 cu in Chrysler Windsor engine until 62 and also the 230 cu in Dodge. 127HP sounds more like the big 6.

Don't know but there can't have been many. I would think maybe a couple hundred. The fluid drive is a rugged, simple unit but requires a different driving technique from either a standard or automatic. It has characteristics of both. Look in the Dodge and Chrysler sections, there have been some good discussions on fluid drive lately.

Are they chrome rings? They should be, in an industrial engine. If they are ordinary iron they will only last 30,000 or 40,000 miles. The chrome rings will go at least twice as long.

If you change the oil regularly that engine should go 80,000 to 100,000 miles with no trouble.

If the bushings in the shift linkage are worn out you will see it easy. They will be loose at the joints. If the linkage is adjusted correctly, and the clutch is not dragging about the only thing left is an internal transmission problem. You should see any worn out joints, bent linkage etc by a visual inspection and shaking the rods with your hand. Have also seen where an arm worked loose on the transmission. It had a square shaped hole which wore out allowing the arm to work back and forth without shifting the transmission. This was on a Ford. The cure was to braze up the hole and file it square so it fit the transmission shaft tight. The transmission should be real easy to shift but slow. Since it does not drag or shift hard in low second or reverse that rules out the clutch. So it must be in the shift linkage or inside the transmission. By the way the transmission on your Dodge is supposed to be filled with 80 gear oil.The semi auto takes 10 motor oil. Don't know what all that business is with the floorboards and wrenches. You don' need to make things more complicated and harder than they are.

The 3d brush regulates output. The cutout regulates voltage. You can reduce the output of the generator which is what you need, by adjusting the 3d brush. This is a simple adjustment done on the car. Take the cover band off the generator and peek inside. You should see one brush is moveable. I'll bet it is rammed as far as it can go one way. That's why it is charging so hard. No doubt it was set that way because the last owner puttered around town at 20 MPH and never went more than 2 miles at a time. So the mechanic set it high because his battery was always going dead. There are ways of adjusting it that should be in your manual but if not try backing it off and see what happens. If your battery doesn't charge, push it up. If it boils dry push it down. I suppose your cutout could be stuck too but in that case I think you would know it.

Before you do anything rash read this guy's experience with a DeSoto Suburban 8 passenger sedan, it's a great story and may give you some ideas. http://www.allpar.com/cars/desoto/suburban-1951.html

Try to get the stainless steel. They never need rechroming. Buff them up and they are as good as new.

Compression is supposed to be 125 - 135 PSI on your engine. So you have some badly worn rings and valves. How is the oil pressure? Any raps or knocks hot or cold? How many miles? You might get away with a ring and valve job or overhaul but most likely your engine is ready for a rebuild. This is not a real big deal on a flathead six but it's not cheap either. You can buy all the parts as a package deal from Kanter or Bernbaum for under $1000 and probably another $1000 for the machine shop. That is if you take it out of the car.

You should be able to use the bearings no problem if they are not worn out. If you suspect they are badly worn you could check them with Plasigage but from what you say they should be like new. There is no problem with reinstalling them. Put them back in the same place they came out and torque the nuts to spec. If money is an issue the rings should be OK too. Try using penetrating oil and working the end loose with a small screwdriver. Keep wiggling and they should come loose. If they have not lost their tension they will be fine. You could put in new rings just because today's rings are better but you don't have to.

In the 3 brush generator the 3d brush regulates the voltage. You can adjust it lower for long hiway trips, higher for in town driving. Evidently yours was adjusted way up so the battery wouldn't go dead with lots of short low speed in town trips. You don't have a regulator just a cutout to diconnect the generator from the circuit when it isn't charging. This is to stop the battery from dichaging thru the generator. If you peek inside the generator you should see the 3d brush. It is probably all the way to the end if its adjustment. You might try adjusting it, experiment around until it charges right for your use. Or maybe you can find an old time mechanic who knows how to adjust it for you.

If your clutch is coming apart inside it won't release properly and you won't be able to shift gears without grinding if the engine is running. This is very rare but let's face it on a 60 year old car things wear out that never wore out before. I have only seen one other Chrysler clutch disintegrate it was on a 52 New Yorker fluid drive. Of course it used to happen on race cars and dragsters but I mean ordinary cars. There is another problem I hate to mention. Have also seen a clutch jammed up with a mouse nest as big as a pillow. Sometimes when a car is out of commission for a long time the clutch gets stuck together and won't release. This is not too hard to fix, but in your case it seems to be releasing sometimes but not other times?? These are all very unusual cases but who knows these days.

OK I stand corrected. If it is a 3 speed manual it sounds like the trouble is the clutch is not releasing. Either that or the shift linkage is bollixed up. Check for worn out bushings in the linkage. Also check your clutch adjustment. My MoToR repair book says there are 2 adjustments to the clutch. One adjustment is the stop screw, it should be adjusted so the clutch pedal is in its highest position without touching the floor. The other adjustment is clutch pedal free play, you should have 1" of free play, you adjust this at the cluch release fork adjusting nut. You could also check the clutch pedal is working freely and not binding. Here is the instructions for adjusting the gearshift. To adjust the control rod, loosen the lock bolt at the upper lever on the lower end of the steering column. Set the transmission gears in neutral and the hand control lever in the horizontal position and tighten the lock bolt. To adjust the shift control rod, set the transmission gears in neutral and loosen the lock nut on the selector rod at the transmission end. Tighten the nut until all play is eliminated and back off 1/2 turn for clearance and tighten. That is from the MoToR manual too. Let us know how you make out. Hope your clutch is not coming apart inside.

1) The output should be below 6 volts at idle rising to 7.2 by the time you hit 20 to 30 MPH and remain at that level, stabilised by the voltage regulator. 2) If you connect the field directly to power and rev up the engine the generator should charge like crazy. Do not do this for more than a few seconds. This will tell you if it is the generator or regulator. There isn't much to go wrong. You could check if the brushes are worn. If they are Bernbaum sells new ones for $9.50 and you can replace them in 10 minutes without taking the generator off the car. The other thing that wears out is bushings. This is a more serious repair. After that if you burn out a coil or an armature you might as well buy a rebuilt generator. Most likely to be brushes, or the regulator or maybe the wiring. It isn't hard to diagnose if you know what you are doing. You could probably do it yourself if you had a multimeter and a repair manual. Not sure what the 36 Dodge had. It might be the 3 brush generator with a cutout. This is a very simple setup not hard to check or fix. 3) If you are not familiar with generators and regulators you need a good auto electrician or auto electric shop. In a rural or small town area there is usually an old shop with an old gray haired or bald headed mechanic who fixes the generators on all the farm tractors, stationary engines, farm machinery, etc.

Andy Bernbaum has them new, a little pricey but cheaper than buying old ones and having them rechromed. By the way my 51 DeSoto has one stainless and one white metal. The stainless ones you can buff up like new. Only the white metal ones get corroded. http://www.oldmoparts.com/k.htm Look under chrome headlight doors.

See if you can get it on a grease rack. If it has what looks like a standard transmission but with 3 gizmos on the right side that look like electric devices with wires on them, it's the M6 semi automatic. The semi auto model also has a little box on the air filter brace that is about the size of a matchbox with 4 wires on it. Also the carburetor has 2 electric switches on it, one in front and one in back. If your car has any of these things even if they are disconnected, it is the semi auto. So far as I know they did not make a fluid drive with a standard transmission. It has to be either a manual trans and clutch, or a fluid drive with semi automatic M6 transmission.

All engines produce water while running so a certain amount of white smoke is normal on cool damp days. Does your radiator level go down? If you look in the rad with the engine running do you see bubbles? This could indicate a blown head gasket. Does the smoke clear up after the engine warms up? Garages have a device that allows you to pressurise the rad, this is used to find coolant leaks, gasket leaks, cracked blocks etc. A sleeve valve engine when new and in good condition is very quiet running. You could have a worn bearing. The white smoke may or may not be something to worry about. I don't know where you would find a mechanic experienced with sleeve valve engines but there must be someone someplace.

Spotlights for cars go back to 1920 or earlier. In those days only the biggest towns and cities had good street lights and outside of there, the roads and hiways were poorly marked with signs. An early method of road signs or indicating which direction to take, were bands of different colored paint on telegraph poles at road junctions. A spotlight was a handy gadget for travellers to find their way at night, for looking for street signs and house numbers. Police cars still have spotlights in many areas. Spotlight were made illegal in the 50s. I believe California was the first to ban them about 1951. Since then dummy spots were used as a style accessory.

Funny things happen around the factory sometimes. Maybe it was one of those cars made on Monday morning LOL. I have a 1951 DeSoto that is supposed to be equipped with a 251 engine (D15 model). Instead it has the 236 ( 1950 D14 model). I suppose they were using up last year's engines for a while. Funny thing is, the owner's manual says the engine is a D14 236 and it is the right owner's manual. So maybe the engine spec change came after the first of the year.

There is a certain technique required to drive a Fluid Drive correctly. If you try to drive it like a standard it won't work. Then again, it doesn't drive like an automatic either. It is a unique transmission all its own. I have a technique for driving a fluid drive that works very well and makes it practically the same as driving a modern automatic. Right off the bat you need to know that the gearshift is not like a standard. It only has 3 positions. Reverse is toward you and up, low range is straight up, high range is straight down. You should do most of your driving in high range. Low range is for starting on steep hills, pulling thru deep snow, sand or mud or for starting off towing a trailer, etc. Start the engine with the transmission in neutral, the hand brake applied and your foot off the clutch pedal. Let the engine warm up until it will idle at its slowest speed. Depress the clutch pedal shift into gear and release the clutch, all with the handbrake still on. Release the handbrake and drive away like any automatic. When you get up to 15 MPH lift off the gas and wait for the "click-clunk" and step on it again. If you elect to use low range it is the same except you can shift into hi gear (of low range) at 6 MPH. If you then wish to go from low range to high range step on the clutch pedal and move the shift lever down into high range. This is very easy, it is based on the owner's manual recommended technique. You have to drive it more like an automatic, if you drive it like a standard you will hate it. It is not a standard, it is a primitive automatic with a few quirks of its own but with a little understanding your fluid drive or fluid torque drive will work great for you. Give this a try, if it doesn't work come back and ask again. Chances are there is nothing wrong with your transmission but if there is, it is usually easy to fix. The transmission itself is very rugged and trouble free. Most problems are to do with the wiring and controls, which are external, easy to get at and easy to fix.

The C52 number is definitely a 1951 or 1952 Chrysler New Yorker V8 number. The Windsor 6 is supposed to be a C51. The 1951 Windsor C51 engine is a 251 cu in 116HP engine with 3 7/16"bore and 4 1/2" stroke. The 1952 C51 had a longer stroke, 4 3/4" crankshaft. It had the same bore of 3 7/16 but the longer stroke gave it 265 cu in and 119HP. This was the largest displacement version of that engine and as I said before, the same engine was also used in trucks, industrial and marine powerplants. So, your 1952 model should have the big six. All 1952, 53 and 54 Windsors used this engine as well as the Canadian made 1952, 1953 and 54 DeSoto six, and the truck industrial and marine powerplants mentioned earlier.

Maybe I can answer part of your question by telling you that I have a 1951 DeSoto Custom with the 236 cu in 116HP six and Fluid Drive and I would trade it for a standard 3 speed any day. And I like the Fluid Drive, and know how to keep it in repair. But there is no doubt I would take a standard over a Fluid Drive. I went back and reread the DeSoto Suburban article, he has 4:11 gears in that car, it weighs 4800 pounds, when he tows the trailer with a full load of passengers and baggage his GVW is over 8000 pounds. Yet he cruises at up to 3600 RPM which is 70 to 75 MPH. The only difference is I think the big limo models came with 8.20X15 tires like the New Yorker and Imperial. Yours would have had 7.60 15s. This would have a slight effect on gearing.

You should read this article. http://www.allpar.com/cars/desoto/suburban-1951.html It is about an 8 passenger DeSoto suburban with the flathead 6. At one point the owner rebuilt the engine with a long stroke 4 3/4" crankshaft to increase displacement from 251 to 265 cu in. I don't know what kind of gearing is in this whale but I guarantee it is lower than anything you have, and the engine has a longer stroke, yet he thinks nothing of driving it at 70 thru the California desert, into Death Valley, over the mountains to Yellowstone Park, towing a trailer no less. So I don't think you have much to worry about. The only note of caution is, ANY engine if it is in poor shape is more likely to fail at hi speed than if you baby it. If your engine is in good shape you have nothing to worry about but if the bearings are shot, you have no oil pressure, the pistons are slapping and the valves are burnt I take no responsibility if it blows sky high.

Check out Ebay, there is a 1942 DeSoto coupe on there that has your name on it. I realise it's not exactly a Chrysler but it is one of the coolest looking Chrysler products ever, with the hideaway headlights like a Cord. Very rare, low production due to WW2 stopping production in early 42. Opening bid is $750 which is too high if you ask me. But you may be able to get the seller to talk turkey if he doesn't get a bid.