My 50th High School reunion is in 2020 and I've pretty much decided that I'll be driving my 57 Plymouth back for it. It's been 11 years since I originally built the old Plaza to drive to Tulsa when they dug up the buried 57 Belvedere.

57 Plymouth by M Patterson, on Flickr

The car runs a 56 354 Hemi with Tri-Power, PAW cam, 56 exhaust manifolds, front disc brakes, iron case overdrive A833 4 speed and a 9 1/4" rear end with 4.10 gears.


57 354 by M Patterson, on Flickr



The paint and interior have both held up well, and it has working AC, cruise control, and a stereo with a reverb (what can I say the 60s were good to me LOL).


57 Int by M Patterson, on Flickr

Right now I’m just doing some general maintenance stuff on it. It needed a set of rear tires and while I had the wheels off I replaced the rear wheel cylinders that has started seeping a little.

The steering gear is has some slop in it so I dug up another one to send out and be rebuilt. I’m not looking forward to that little job. The column and gear have to come out as a unit, which requires taking up the carpet, removing a plate in the floor and bringing out the whole unit thru the interior.

sg by M Patterson, on Flickr
the steering shaft runs all the way from the box to the steering wheel so there is really no way around it. At least it’s not a PS gear which are a good deal larger and heavier.

rs by M Patterson, on Flickr


The clutch in it has always been a bit on the stiff side, so while I have the steering gear out (and out of the way), I’ll probably try to modify the linkage a bit to take care of that issue.


That’s pretty much it for the maintenance, but there are also some changes I’m contemplating.

I’m gathering the pieces I need to build a set of dual quads for it. There’s nothing wrong with the Tri Power, it works great. I’ve just always wondered what kind of performance gain I would see if any with 8 barrels instead of 6.

I’ve also been kicking around changing the 4 speed out to an automatic. I’m getting older and on occasion my left leg gives me a few problems. Of course making some changes to the clutch linkage may buy me a few more years being able to row thru the gears. While I generally really like the OD 4 speed, the gear ratio splits kind of suck for any spirited driving.

My first choice would be to do another 46RH like I have in the 37 Dodge. Now that the Compushift controller is dialed in I really really like that transmission. It also would give me a bit more of an overdrive than the OD A833 does. The two major down sides are cost (by the time I buy the transmission adapter, Compushift controller, shifter, trans cooler and shorten the drive shaft I’d be into it well over $1000, and that does NOT include the cost of the transmission! The other issues are; the size (I’m pretty sure trans tunnel mods are going to be needed) and the trans mount location which would require some major changes to the crossmember.

The second and much easier and cheaper automatic route is to use the small block 727 I have sitting in the back shed. That’s pretty much a bolt in, but would require a rear end gear swap to something more highway friendly than the 4.10s that are currently in it.

The other major change I’m looking at is adding power steering. I purposely built the car with manual steering as I hate the lack of road feel with the stock 57-62. Even if I did decide to go with the factory power steering I’d either have to go with the more restrictive 57-58 392 exhaust manifolds or build a set of custom headers for it. The one option that looks like it might be feasible is to use electric power steering. I’ve been researching the units that go in the column between the steering wheel and steering box and fit under the dash. If I do that route the switch over to an automatic transmission becomes mandatory, as I’ll have to lose the clutch pedal to make room for the unit.

Right now the automatic transmission and PS changes are just in the contemplating stage. I’ll hold up making any final decisions on those until I get the clutch linkage modified and the rebuilt steering gear in it and see how I like it after those changes.

At least I know what my next project is going to be.