Good score!

These are a good entry-level old car; you get the old car charm, but they're reliable enough (if in good condition) to use as a daily driver. I ran a '49 Plymouth for several years in the late '90's thru mid-2001.

Brakes: you will have a fairly expensive (~$200) master cylinder, and six wheel cylinders (IIRC it's the front that uses double-leading shoes w/ 'half' cylinders... get 'em apart and you'll see what I mean). The brakes require careful adjustment, but work pretty well.

If you feel you need to have disk brakes, I think scarebird has a kit which will bolt on to your spindles. Once Matt gets a certain Alfa Romeo out of his bay, I'm going to take my pickup ('54 1/2T) over there for him to look at.

Also, the rear hubs use a key and fit on a tapered end on the axle. It requires a fairly deep puller to get it apart (the end of the tapered axle is pretty long).

Your car should probably have a flathead six. These engines are pretty durable, and TONS of 'em were put in boats, forklifts, airport tugs, etc. NAPA will have service parts for tune ups, water pumps, etc.

Robert's, Andy Bernbaum, and rockauto.com will probably have some parts to help keep 'er on the road.

If the suspension is in decent shape, a set of gas shocks and radial tires will make it handle pretty darn well. Good enough I wouldn't bother thinking about a frame clip swap. These used a similar "SLA" geometry to a 4th gen Camaro - tall spindle, short upper arm and long lower control arm.

There's a corner coming off of a freeway off-ramp I used to blast around every morning in my old Plymouth... lots of body roll, but nobody ever hung with me thru that corner.

Don't put big, fat tires up front, as it wears out the kingpin bushings prematurely.

Your car probably has a very short front shock absorber; there's a kit which welds a new bracket on the frame to take a longer shock, but I wouldn't bother with it. There are a million part numbers for shocks and you should be able to find something that just bolts in (I used ones taken off the front of my buddy's '66 Chev 98" wheelbase van on my '49 Plymouth - probably same as for your car). Somebody who's in a parts store or suspension shop should be able to advise you further.

Feel free to PM me or ping the email in my sig if you have any ???'s.

-Bill